Canvas Peer Review is one of the features in Canvas. This tool allows students to review each other’s work and provide feedback.
With this tool, as a teacher, I can:
- anonymize submitted work and feedback giver(s);
- ask students to provide feedback on other students’ work;
- use an assessment matrix (rubric) or other assessment criteria from Canvas;
- apply peer review easily to group assignments;
- implement a quick and easy set-up of the peer review assignment.
Why should I use this tool?
- By looking critically at others’ work, students learn to reflect on their own work. As a result, students gain a better understanding of the criteria for success.
- Students learn to give constructive feedback and process feedback received.
- Students actively work with the assessment criteria by which their own work is also assessed.
- Peer feedback can save you time as a teacher, provided that the process of giving and processing feedback is sufficiently supervised, especially in the beginning.
What is this tool less suitable for?
- The design of the tool can be perceived as complex. The tool is not suitable for attaching grades to the given peer feedback. If you do want to assess the quality of the peer feedback it is recommended to use FeedbackFruits Peer Review.
- It is not possible to have the tool automatically generate feedback within a section/working group, only for Canvas groups. This requires you to manually create groups corresponding to the workgroups (or sections) as an additional action. In FeedbackFruits Peer Review, however, you can automatically use the workgroup format.
More information?
Want more information about peer feedback and how to set it up in your teaching?
View and follow an e-learning from the TLC on peer feedback through Canvas.
When does this tool work best?
- When asking students to give each other feedback, a safe learning climate is crucial¹. Discuss this climate with students: what do they feel comfortable with? In doing so, take into account the cultural differences of your students. One idea is to anonymize the submissions or feedback providers.
- Giving constructive feedback is a skill that students need to develop². So here students need explicit instruction on this: how do you shape a comment, what do you pay attention to when giving feedback, and on what criteria do you give feedback?
- You can have students use the assessment matrix (rubric) of the assignment to give feedback based on this. In this way the feedback givers and receivers gain more insight into the assessment criteria of the assignment.
¹Winstone, N., & Carless, D. (2019). Designing effective feedback processes in higher education: A learning-focused approach. Routledge.
²Van Popta, E., Kral, M., Camp, G., Martens, R. L., & Simons, P. R. J. (2017). Exploring the value of peer feedback in online learning for the provider. Educational Research Review, 20, 24-34.
