Thursday, January 27, 2011
How the new PbyP website is being used in schools.
Our existing schools have been using the new PbyP website for a few months now and providing us with valuable feedback. We thought it might be interesting to provide a brief snapshot of how the new PbyP website is being used.
We have students peer assessing each others work using PbyP in Australia, America, Ireland and the UK. Students range in age from four to adult in primary, secondary, special and further education settings.
The new PbyP website retains the core principles, functions and features of the first PbyP site but we have improved the look and layout of the website and added a number of new features, particularly for teachers and administrators.
Each student has their own password and username which they use to login to their PbyP account from home and school. Once logged in the student sees their own personal skills profile: this consists of a set of skills ladders their school has chosen for them. Each skill ladder is broken into nine steps of difficulty, all written in language learners working at each level can understand. For numerous examples of skills ladders used in PbyP click here to set up a free guest account on the new website.
How are learners using the new PbyP website?
Each learner has access to the following tasks
- view their profile,
- upload evidence to store in their profile,
- send evidence for peer assessment,
- check if they have any evidence returned from peer assessment and read the comments,
- peer assess any evidence they have been sent to assess,
- add to their learning blog,
- view examples and ideas for each of the skills in their profile,
- check their PbyP inbox to see if they have any messages from their teachers.
This can all be done from home or school, at any time. For an example of a skill profile. : click here
In the five months since September 2010, thousands of pieces of evidence have been submitted to the new PbyP website by learners, each piece sent automatically to a peer assessor who has already passed the target. These have come from an extensive range of curriculum areas: Art, English, Business, Citizenship, Drama, Geography, History, Languages, Maths, Music, P.E., R.E., Science and Technology.
There are now over 40,000 pieces of evidence as examples of how learners have demonstrated their personal and learning skills on the new website. Those which have been rated as Excellent, Outstanding and Really good by the peer assessors who anonymously assessed them are available for all users with a licence to view, sorted for each skill target. (These do not include surnames and all learners can opt for any piece of theirwork to not be made public if they wish, all other pieces can be seen by any user who has signed up to the annual licence.
Learners have also used some of the new features on the website.
- Added notes to their online learning blog.
- Looked at all their pieces of work and decided which ones were their best and put them in an e-portfolio of their “Best work”.
- Rated the examples they have viewed.
- Stored a piece of work they have done to decide whether to send as evidence at a later date.
- Left a message on our Forum for other learners who are working on the same skill targets.
- Sent a question to an expert in one of the skill targets they have set themselves on their profile.
- Gained a certificate for having a piece of work assessed as Outstanding and their teacher agreeing.
- Mentored other users of PbyP in their school. - holding online Mentor meetings available to all users on the PbyP website.
- Personalised display colours and fonts on their personal PbyP display
- Some learners have had a go at writing their own skills ladders ( through the Create your own DIY ladders option on personal profile.),
Overall.
56% of learners given licences to use PbyP by their schools since September are already peer assessors. This is achieved when they have had two pieces of evidence peer assessed as passed themselves and peer assess work sent to them on time and fairly.
Each peer assessor marks an average of 2 pieces a week from other learners.
(They can be sent a maximum of 7 per week.)
Each learner sends an average of 3 pieces a week to PbyP for peer assessment.
Each learner has sent evidence for on average 5 different targets on their skill profile.
How are teachers using the new PbyP website?
When teachers login with their personal password they can access: the profiles of all the students they teach and view the peer mentoring, work, assessments and progress of their key mentees. (Each learner has an allocated key mentor - a teacher from their school.)
Teachers can hold online mentor meetings with each of their key mentees. There is an online structured meeting with all notes recorded – so a history of the meetings is built up over time. This is the same meeting that learners can have with other learners who they have agreed to be a mentor for. This is also the same meeting that Parents can run with their children, if they agree to become a parent mentor.
Teachers have also used some of the new features on the website.
- Sending messages to students in their school who are using PbyP.
- Holding online mentor meetings with their key mentees.
- Printing certificates for those students who have made great progress in their skill development, directly from the PbyP website.
- Printing out reports on the progress of their key mentees directly from the PbyP website.
- Setting up classroom research projects and evaluating their progress by sending questionnaires to students directly from the PbyP website.
- Organising their own teaching groups and storing details on their own area of the PbyP website.
- Adding their own skill ladders for students from their institution to use as well as the Cambridge Education ones.
Parents whose children who have been given licences to use PbyP by their school have been logging into the PbyP website with their parent’s username and password to view their children’s profiles and to hold online mentor meetings with their child/ren . Parental logins are available for all students given a PbyP account.
We are really proud of the new PbyP website and excited about the innovative ways schools have been using it to support skill development, peer assessment and personalisation for their learners. We are also very excited that learners have been exploring the new website and making the most of the licence their school has given them. The range of evidence which has been submitted is outstanding and inspiring, from children of all ages.
For more info, please visit the PbyP website: www.pbyp.co.uk or contact us : tel: 01223 453500