Trainers from one of our UK Training Providers share the notes they made, and then shared with their colleagues, while using iReview

I did a series of iReview activities with my cohort when we were working through Unit 10 assignments, including checking an assignment against a plan, self-assessment and peer assessment. I found them all very useful to get the learners to really consider whether a piece of work had met the criteria outlined not only by the brief but also in the Unit PDF. For the first iReview activity, the learners made a plan of the assignment after the input, using the brief and unit PDF for guidance. They then swapped plans, for peer assessment and gave each other feedback. This was useful and highlighted gaps in the learner’s plans, as well as their different approaches. The following week they checked their finished assignment against their original plan to see if there were differences. Once they had done this I asked them to mark their own assignments against the brief and PDF before handing it in and then swap assignments with another learner. A number of the learners asked to make changes to their assignment before handing it in as they recognised they had not met all the criteria. So it was definitely valuable to avoid unnecessary resubmissions. I found the self-assessment a particularly useful learning curve for stronger learners as they were able to recognise they had not met the distinction criteria even though they thought they had. The peer assessment was perhaps more useful to the weaker learners to see the quality and depth of other students work. They all commented on how useful the unit guidance was to improve their assignments. In hindsight, I would perhaps introduce the learners to the iReview activities earlier in the course as I think it was valuable to really get them to assess their own work prior to handing it in and hopefully reduce my workload. 

I used this a couple of weeks ago. I handed them a copy of their assignment that I had marked that week (but without my comments on it). I then got them to look through their assignment with a copy of the criteria in front of them and the advice to assessors from the Pearson unit brief.
Each of them looked through it and made comments. and fed back to the group about whether they thought they had met the brief and what they could improve on. Each of them was able to identify something and it was the same as what I had picked up on when marking. On reflection, I would have then given them time in the lesson (or during the week) to amend and improve on that basis.

Also, they could have looked at each other’s assignments rather than their own, so there is scope to do it differently to avoid it becoming repetitive. Was really worthwhile though.
They are currently working on a really large assignment that has 9 criteria to it so we are taking a few weeks over the teaching for it. I have asked them to bring it with them on Monday and will this time get them to look at each other’s work. I will also prep some guidance notes for them so they know how to critically assess it. The bonus of this is that it is a piece of work that is still in progress so hopefully will help them to improve it before they submit it to me. And may even avoid the issue of re-submissions (less marking for me hopefully!) Sarah