Peer-to-peer feedback in the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP)

For the module ADP7218: Curriculum Design, participants are asked to submit sections of their curriculum design projects to a QMplus forum each week. These correspond to the different topics of the course (e.g. aims and learning outcomes, assessment, feedback, evaluation). Participants must also provide feedback to at least one colleague.

Participants are divided into manageable size groups (QMplus groups of approx. 10-15) so that they are viewing and commenting on the same colleagues’ work each week.

• It provides participants with a range of feedback and ideas on their work from colleagues working in different disciplines. This feedback is integrated into their summative assignment for the module and allows participants to demonstrate debate and have discussions with colleagues about their educational practice – which is part of our programme grading criteria. 

• It makes feedback for the tutor more manageable as the individual peer feedback is accompanied by group tutor feedback. 

• The act of reading others’ contributions and giving feedback is also beneficial for participants’ development and facilitates sharing ideas and approaches. 

• The use of the regular peer feedback activity and groupings on QMplus is beneficial for the development of relationships and a sense of community among participants. We hope this can continue after the module as the group continues to develop as a professional community of educators.

• Participation and engagement can be a challenge; participants are very busy with lots of competing priorities. Being flexible with when the submissions are made is important. We also use activity completion on QMplus so that participants can easily track their progress through the feedback forums and so we can identify anyone who falls behind and check in with them.

• For this module there is one summative assignment worth 100% of the grade. It is comprised of a collation of all the forum posts made across the module. Therefore it is really important that participants submit their work and receive feedback on it in order to prepare them for the summative assignment. 

• Some participants may feel they have not received enough individual tutor feedback on their work before the final assignment. In order to mitigate this, we have also introduced a formative presentation which is submitted via the QMplus workshop tool for individual peer and tutor feedback on the key points of the curriculum design project.

QMplus forums, QMplus activity completion, QMplus Workshop tool