Steps for Facilitating Peer Feedback

Creating collaborative feedback opportunities between students is an effective learner-centered educational practice. According to Suzanne Lane, Associate Director of Writing Across the Curriculum at MIT, students can learn as much from evaluating and providing feedback to others than from receiving it.

Based on research (University of Wollongong Learning, Teaching & Curriculum, n.d.) and my teaching experiences, peer feedback is more effective with a clear assignment rubric and efficient time management. Consider the following steps to incorporate peer feedback in the classroom with this example from a Human Resources Management undergraduate course.

Step 1: Review and Select an Assignment 

Example HRM-101 Assignment: HR Onboarding Challenge (Written Analysis)

“Imagine you are developing an introductory training module for new HR assistants. Develop a scenario that describes a common initial HR challenge you have personally experienced or observed with new hires. Clearly articulate at least two possible causes of this challenge, drawing from course concepts such as organizational culture, motivation, communication theory, or role clarity. Then propose at least one concrete, research-based HR approach for proactively addressing this challenge in the future. Please ensure your work is your own.”

Step 2: Review the Assignment Rubric 

Depending on your course modality, your rubric and guiding questions might be on your NYU Brightspace course site, printed on paper for each student, or on a shared Google Doc where students can type feedback into built-in columns.

Step 3: Frame Expectations

According to Dawson et al. (2023), managing affect in the student peer feedback can be as important as the information derived from peer feedback. Before starting the peer feedback process in your class, communicate clear expectations for how individual students should give and receive feedback:

Step 4: Set a Schedule or Deadline

For this assignment, I planned the following timed peer feedback activity (NYU login required):

For synchronous peer feedback activities, timed slides or timer tools (e.g., Timer Tab) keep you and students on task.

For asynchronous peer feedback activities, consider using tools in NYU Brightspace such as Discussion Groups, Google Docs, PeerMark, or Peerceptiv (NYU login required) and setting clear peer feedback deadlines.

Step 5: Model and Facilitate Peer Feedback 

Providing examples of effective peer feedback first can help students understand applied expectations. Consider demonstrating peer feedback with a mock or scripted example using student volunteers in a fishbowl activity (NYU login required). Then facilitate the peer feedback activity.

Step 6: Debrief as a Class

It can be helpful to bring students together as a whole class to discuss what they learned from their classmates’ feedback and share ideas for improving the peer feedback process. 

When effectively implemented, peer feedback can play an important role in supporting student learning and establishing a positive classroom culture around feedback. 

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References

Dawson, P., Yan, Z., Lipnevich, A., Tai, J., Boud, D., & Mahoney, P. (2024). Measuring what learners do in feedback: The feedback literacy behaviour scale. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 49(3), 348–362. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2023.2240983 (mendeley.com)

University of Wollongong, Learning & Teaching Hub. (n.d.). Designing peer feedback and review opportunities. https://ltc.uow.edu.au/hub/article/peer-feedback

Image Credit: Google Veo, 2025