Using student presentations for learning and assessment: some experiences

This contribution reports on, reflects on and evaluates the author’s experiences, over a number of academic years, of using formal student presentations as a means of learning and assessment in a taught postgraduate programme in engineering at Dublin Institute of Technology. Students were asked to prepare PowerPoint presentations on individual engineering topics; relevant references in books and technical papers were provided as assistance. Peer assessment of the presentations was employed, following a structured guideline agreed with the students. The contribution discusses the peer assessment experience in detail, including formal student feedback on the process. Some analysis work suggests that there is no significant difference in the peer-assessed grades recorded, compared to the grades recorded for the same assignment by the author