Peer review is something I never felt very confident in. I often felt like I wasn’t of the authority to suggest ways of improvement on other’s work, or I didn’t want to offend someone. Giving positive feedback was easy, especially when it is in comparison to another piece of work and you can see improvements. When I had been given feedback from peers (having only ever really experienced it from school) I often felt their feedback wasn’t going to help me improve or keep up my strengths. Before I commented on some of my peer’s posts, I was apprehensive. I still kept the reservations of peer review I had from my time at school. So I gave it a go and here are my thoughts.

Firstly, receiving feedback. In all honesty, the feedback given to may made me feel uplifted and filled me with some confidence. It was nice to see that I had inspired others to think of the topic in a different way or add to their understanding. I feel receiving feedback on this occasion was a positive experience. It helped me to realise that I had an understanding what I had read and, it was illustrated in my writing – I hadn’t just written a load of nonsense as I originally thought. Even the suggestions for improvements didn’t make me less confident. After rereading what I had written with consideration of suggestions, I was able to identify what I could change for future posts. The suggestions were relevant to the piece of work and I wasn’t left wondering what they meant – they had made their suggestions clear. The feedback given didn’t put me down and I’m glad my peers suggested improvements as this will help me in all my future writing. The strengths they provided for me were well detailed and this has allowed me to realise that some skills I didn’t think were that well developed, actually are.

Furthermore, giving feedback. As I stated before I have never felt of the authority to suggest improvements for someone who is at the same level or levels above me. This was my worry when I started giving feedback. I carefully read the posts and found areas of strength within them. I explained their strengths and gave some examples of parts that stood out to me. When it came to suggesting improvements it became harder. Everyone’s post that I reviewed had covered the criteria set out. So I had to reread a few times before I found some things that would help improve the post. I tried so carefully not to sound patronising with my suggestions as I really didn’t want to offend anyone – looking back now I tried a little too hard with the wording and I probably didn’t sound patronising in the first place. The more people’s posts I read and the more comments I left, I felt more confident in giving feedback. I think giving feedback turned into a positive experience and it allowed me to analyse work rather than just read it. I also liked how I was able to see what other people’s understanding of the topic was and could compare to my own understanding.

For the future, giving and receiving feedback has helped me to identify that no piece of work is perfect and improvements can be continued to be made. I also feel for me that it has highlighted the importance of having someone else look over your work as a fresh pair of eyes may be able to find errors or help to make things sound better. I also feel that it has shown me that receiving feedback will help fix things in order to improve your next piece of work. I think that feedback from peers is as beneficial as feedback from teachers, tutors, lecturers, etc. because they are both equally helpful – as long as they are truthful and relevant.

I think when I am teaching I will use peer review. I think it provides an opportunity to read other’s work and can show people a different way of doing things. I think it is important to undertake peer review in a classroom as some pupils may be able to relate more to the feedback given by their peers. As a teacher, this has helped shown me how important it is to give detailed feedback, rather just writing “Good work!” and drawing a smiley face. Providing detailed feedback will help with the pupil’s development and will be able to help them improve their work and learning. One thing that I will remember is to keep the feedback relevant to the task I have given the pupils. I want them to feel confident and uplifted; I don’t want them to feel like they are being put down.

Overall, my opinion of peer review has changed and I no longer feel apprehensive about giving it. I think that as a teacher feedback is extremely important so that the pupils know where to improve for next time and to know that feedback doesn’t have to be a negative thing.