Peer Editing Presentations

Having students Peer Edit their presentations is a must as they are often the best critics when it comes to "you are using too much animation" or "I couldn't understand your presentation because your slides were moving too fast". One of the great things about peer editing/critique of presentations is that the computer lab provides an ideal space to manage and control the activity from a teachers perspective. In the third term I do a presentation project with my grade 5's (topics vary). They spend about a month putting together a presentation that is about 5 to 8 slides long. As we near the end of the month I usually have about a couple of Peer Critiquing Sessions. During this time I have the students run their presentations on a loop and go on a gallery walk around the other computers. They take with them a pencil and stickie notes. As they watch a presentation students are encourage to provide positive and specific feedback by writing on the stickie note and putting on the computer. I usually give them about 20 minutes and have the rule that a maximum of 2 people can be watching a particular presentation at one time. Works pretty well and of course the session creates a fair bit of discussion about visual presentation as well as content.