Feedback needs to be timely, but how can educators navigate timely feedback when actual time is lacking? One strategy includes peer assessment as feedback.
In Feedback: The Communication of Praise, Criticism, and Advice, Sutton, Hornsey, and Douglas endorse peer feedback, but acknowledge that it is a skill, and it is a skill that needs to be explicitly taught and modelled to be effective.
An effective starting point for peer feedback are structured peer conferences. Teachers provide the guidelines and prompts, and with practice, peers can provide effective feedback on:
What has been done well in relation to the learning objective
What still needs to be done to achieve the learning objective
Navigable steps on how this can be achieved
If students see value in the feedback that their peers provide, it can be an effective feedback strategy that can also be extremely timely and immediately applied.
SpacesEDU provides plenty of opportunities for students to employ peer feedback. The Class Space and the Group Space encourages peer feedback with multiple modes of media based communication in addition to written comments.