Peer Feedback in Middle School
One of the things I have enjoyed about the middle school teaching experience is the longer class periods and the relationships I have been able to form with each class period since I see them every other day. I knew that for my first project with the middle schoolers, I wanted to try a peer feedback activity that I saw on The Art of Education website. When each class was about halfway through their abstract painting unit, I introduced the activity. We started with a gallery walk while I played some music, then students stopped at a classmate’s artwork and responded to the three prompts on a post-it note next to the artwork.
- T – Tell the artist something you like.
- A – Ask the artist a question.
- G – Give the artist a suggestion.
I wanted the activity to remain as anonymous as possible, so the students who wrote the feedback didn’t leave their names. I reiterated that students didn’t have to feel pressure to take the advice, but to recognize the importance of receiving feedback from peers and to appreciate the feedback. The students appeared eager to go back to their own seats to read the post-it notes for their paintings, and several students kept the post-it note on the back of their artwork for the remainder of the project.
All in all, I think it was a success and I would definitely do it again! Here are some examples of the feedback:
