Peer Assessment of Student Presentations: Key Takeaways and Lessons Learned

Background Students' presentations are a teaching-learning tool where students not only study and understand a topic but also teach their peers, thereby learning the art and skill of effective presentation. Aims The study aimed to evaluate peer assessments in students' presentations and find their role and application in improving presentation skills among students through feedback and course correction. Methods A group of students every week from a class of 125 was assigned a topic to present to the rest of their batch students who evaluated their presentation on a rubric shared via a Google Form link. The number of students who gave responses was noted. The responses were also shared with the presenters. The evaluator faculty moderated and discussed the areas for possible improvement and course correction. The students also filled out a feedback form on the entire exercise after presentations from the entire batch. Results The quality of students' presentation skills improved with subsequent students over the period. The students learned about their areas of improvement. Through the feedback form, students shared their reasons not to give a presentation. However, most of them found the exercise beneficial. Conclusions Peer assessment can be a credible mode for improving presentation skills with the active participation of other students and provide a learning method based on others' performances. Peer responses provide for self-evaluation and self-reflection. This type of survey among different institutions will identify students' flaws, help them improve and self-evaluate, and add to the current literature.