Peerceptiv Now Available to 500,000 Students as Online Peer Assessment Gains Traction

PITTSBURGH, Oct. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Peerceptiv, a developer of research-backed learning technology, today announced that its peer assessment platform is now available to more than 500,000 students and has been used at more than 125 colleges and universities around the world.  Based on more than a decade of research at the University of Pittsburgh Learning Research and Development Center, Peerceptiv is proven to help students improve their writing and critical thinking skills across the curriculum, while also enabling learning at scale.

According to a 2016 survey by PayScale, an online pay and benefits researcher, 60 percent of all companies said new grads lacked critical thinking skills, while 44 percent found fault with their writing proficiency. This skills gap is a growing concern, especially in light of tight budgets and growth of online learning.  Professors have few resources to assign the writing and other formative feedback tasks that build essential workplace skills.

Peerceptiv's comprehensive peer assessment solution enables faculty to engage students in writing assignments that would otherwise have been impossible due to large class size.  Infinitely scalable, Peerceptiv motivates students to apply themselves in the peer review process, rewarding them for helpful, specific and accurate assessments through its unique grading algorithm. As a result, students receive quality feedback from their peers in a double-blind, bias-free environment. 

Texas A&M, which has an enrollment of more than 65,000 students, is one of the top users of Peerceptiv, offering it in more than 100 of its courses.

"I have used Peerceptiv in my Entomology classes for several semesters," said Dr. Craig Coates, Instructional Associate Professor of Entomology at Texas A&M. "With Peerceptiv, I have been able to give in-depth writing assignments that involve critical thinking and problem solving to hundreds of students in both in-class and online sections without having to intervene in the grading process – something that would have been impossible previously. My students enjoy the peer review process and feel more engaged and better prepared as a result. The analytics I receive from the platform are equally helpful in gauging learning and understanding."

Peerceptiv's design is the result of significant research validating that feedback from multiple peers is more reliable and just as valid as that from a single expert instructor. As important, students benefit from the learning value of critiquing the work of their peers. Many studies have confirmed the learning benefit of participating on the 'giving' side of the feedback loop.

"We are committed to breaking this senseless dependence on multiple choice as the primary assessment tool in education. We can do so much better," said Mark Limbach, CEO of Peerceptiv. "Peerceptiv scales naturally no matter how many students there are or what the subject is, and we are excited that peer assessment is beginning to gain a stronger foothold in colleges and universities."

Peerceptiv is a cloud-based peer assessment platform that can be used directly on its website or seamlessly integrated with popular learning management systems through the LTI interoperability standard. When integrated with an LMS, Peerceptiv auto-populates student names, automatically adds grades to the LMS gradebook, and enables all assignment management from within the LMS. Peerceptiv supports individual and group assignments in the classroom and online. The platform offers a number of grading options that both professors and students feel are legitimate and appropriate, and a Shared Assignment Library that provides access to successful assignments shared by professors from around the world.

To learn more about Peerceptiv, visit peerceptiv.com

About Peerceptiv

Panther Learning Systems, dba Peerceptiv, is a research-based learning technology company. Based on more than a decade of research from the University of Pittsburgh Learning Research and Development Center, its peer assessment platform, Peerceptiv, has been used by more than 125 colleges and universities, as well as dozens of K-12 schools, to support educators in improving students' writing and critical thinking skills, irrespective of class size or type.

SOURCE Peerceptiv

Related Links

http://www.peerceptiv.com