Blog

Guides and resources covering student assessment, peer evaluations, and engagement for remote and in-person learning.

Insights from Two Million Student Peer Evaluations with Kritik

4 years, 140,000 students, 800+ professors, and over two million peer evaluations with Kritik.

Addressing Online Teaching Challenges: Strategies & Solutions

The coronavirus pandemic reshaped the educational landscape, disrupting familiar teaching methods.
6 min

How to Ensure Students Aren't Using AI Content for Assignments

Find out how to detect AI content and create assignments that ensure students utilize their creativity, critical thinking, and understanding of the coursework.
7 minutes

12 Ways Instructors can use OpenAI to Transform Assessments

Discover 12 innovative ways instructors can use OpenAI to transform assessments. Explore strategies to enhance student learning and promote critical thinking.
10 minutes

Designing Effective Rubrics for Peer Assessment Methods

Looking to ensure accuracy in peer assessment? Check out our article on creating rubric criteria to improve the consistency and objectivity of student grading.
10 minutes

What can Kritik add to your LMS to improve student engagement

Discover how Kritik's peer assessment platform goes beyond the limitations of traditional LMS systems to improve student engagement and critical thinking skills.
12 minutes

10 Reasons Why Instructors Should Use Peer Assessment

Transform your students' learning outcomes with peer-to-peer feedback through Kritik. Check out our guide to implementing Kritik as a powerful peer learning tool.
10 minutes

Facilitating an Effective Discussion on Implementing Peer Assessment

Discover expert tips and best practices to facilitate effective discussions on implementing peer assessment in your classroom with resources provided by Kritik.
8 minutes

Why do Students Love the Peer Assessment Method on Kritik

See what students are saying about Kritik in our latest survey that was filled out by 1200+ users. Read about what student enjoy about the peer assessment process.
5 Minutes

14 Ways to Run Constructivist Activities to Enhance Peer Learning

See examples of how to implement Constructivist activities that enhance problem-solving and collaboration in your classroom to enhance learning outcomes.
10 minutes

How Peer Assessment Contribute to a Better Learning Experience

Cultivate a supportive learning environment with peer assessment. Read practical tips and insights to help reduce fear and anxiety in your classroom using Kritik.
10 minutes

How To create a Compelling Asynchronous Learning Experience

Create an engaging asynchronous learning experience with peer assessment. These tips and best practices can help improve learning outcomes in your courses.
15 minutes

How to Prevent Teacher Burnout and Grade Effectively

Discover effective strategies to prevent instructor burnout. Learn how implementing peer assessment can help you balance your workload and focus your time.
8 minutes

8 Ways to Make Peer Feedback Effective in the Classroom

Revamp your classroom with 8 expert tips to make peer-to-peer feedback effective! Read more about how Kritik offers practical solutions to enhance learning outcomes.
12 minutes

A Guide to Implementing Bloom’s Taxonomy in the Classroom

Take your teaching to the next level with Bloom's Taxonomy! Explore how Kritik helps to create effective learning experiences that inspire critical thinking.
15 minutes

5 Activity Types to Increase Student Engagement in Online Classes

Find out how to boost student engagement with these five interactive activities. Discover practical strategies to get better learning outcomes in online courses.
7 minutes

How to Encourage Student Collaboration across Time Zones

Learn how to engage students in asynchronous and hybrid courses. See examples of how to create a virtual classroom that promotes collaboration and inclusivity.
12 Minutes

4 Ways Peer Assessment prepares Students for the Real-World

Learn how peer assessment equips students with practical skills for success in the real world and develops critical skills including communication and collaboration.
12 minutes

5 Steps to Achieving Tenure

17 minutes

Engaging Students with Peer Assessment

Students surveyed wanted their professor to have the final say over their grades with the ability to override any student assessment, and they were seeking a more fulfilling assessment experience prioritizing the learning and opportunity for feedback over the specific grade.
5 minutes

Developing Long-Term Memory in Short-Term Summer Courses

The main concern with these summer courses is that the learning environment primes students to encode most of the knowledge they’ve gained as short-term memory. Given the relatively short timeframe of these courses and the mental stress that comes with it, traditional pedagogies used in full terms are not as effective at developing and enhancing student’s long-term memory (Vogel & Schwabe, 2016). Oftentimes, summer courses are still structured in a manner where students complete cumulative assignments that only use lower-level thinking such as memorization. Although this promotes the improvement of students’ knowledge retrieval, the retention of the information gained greatly decays over time as the mental process of fast-paced learning mostly engages the brain’s hippocampus which is where new memories are formed and retrieved from (Jonides & al., 2008; Schapiro & al., 2017; VanElzakker, 2008). 
9 min

Effective Academic Presentation Tips Your Students Need to Know

Delivering information in a manner that is clear, concise and insightful while providing an audience with great learning opportunities are important components for successful presentations. Today, presentation skills are a basic requirement of every field, and students must practise and aim for mastery in preparation for the workplace.
8 min

How Peer Evaluation Significantly Reduces Grade Disputes

One of the most common misconceptions about peer evaluation is that it opens up opportunities for unqualified students to grade one another which leads to an increased amount of grade disputes. However, in reality, peer evaluation does the opposite and significantly reduces grade disputes as a result of multiple perspective reasoning brought by open peer-to-peer discourse
6 min

Types of Student Assessments and their Purpose and Differences

Assessments are educators’ different methods and tools to measure, evaluate, and track students’ academic preparedness and skill acquisition, learning progress, and educational needs. In this blog post, we will discuss the different types of assessments and their purposes.
8 min

Implementing Non-Disposable Assignments to Improve Student Learning

"What if we changed these ‘disposable assignments’ into activities which actually added value to the world? Then students and faculty might feel different about the time and effort they invested in them" (Wiley, 2013)
7 min

Motivating Students Who Receive Negative Feedback from Peers

"even at one of the most prestigious universities of the world, you cannot take student motivation for granted" (Van de Veen, 2015)
8 min

Using Technology to Encourage Critical Thinking Instead of Cheating

In light of the mass transition to online learning caused by the pandemic, academia has experienced major obstacles and dilemmas regarding instructional strategies and assessment procedures in remote environments.
7 min

Are Your Students Getting Enough Feedback?

Feedback is an integral part of students’ learning process and academic growth. However, faculty resources are limited and a large amount of professors’ time is spent towards grading.
6 min

Gamification in Education - Why it Works

Gamification in education - Why it works
8 min

What is Classroom Community?

Creating curriculum. Creating lectures that are both engaging and informative. Grading papers and exams. Holding office hours.
6 min

What is Peer Assessment?

Peer assessment is a powerful tool instructors can utilize to help students learn, analyze, and engage more deeply in their understanding of course content.
4 min

What is UDL: Universal Design for Learning?

Universal design for learning is a framework. It is meant to help provide guidelines for people in charge of educating students.
5 min

6 Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Strategies to Boost Student Engagement

6 Culturally Responsive Pedagogy strategies to boost student engagement
8 min

7 Ways to Implement Online Peer Assessment

7 ways to implement online peer assessment
5 min

6 Ways Peer Assessment Enhances Student Learning Online

6 ways peer assessment can enhance student learning online
8 min

3 ways that Bloom's Revised Taxonomy benefits educators today

Help your students bloom online
8 minutes

The Empathetic Professor: How to Teach With Empathy

Learn tips on how to teach online with empathy
7 min

How to Implement Flipped Classrooms Online

How the flipped classroom approach benefits students & how to implement it for your in-person or online class.
6 min

How to Implement Active Learning in Your Classroom

What is active learning & how it benefits students.
7 min

How to Make Grading More Equitable for Students

We outline the bias present in grading today & provide tips for instructors to make grading more fair and equitable for their students.
7 min

How to Prepare for the First Day of (Zoom) Class

Here are some tips to help you and your students prepare for online video classes
5 min

How to Reduce Stress Before the Start of the School Year

Tips for educators on reducing start-of-year stress & how Kritik can help
5 min

Equity in Education: Race, Poverty & COVID

COVID impacted students' learning; see how you can foster an equitable learning environment for your students.
13 min

What are Hybrid-Flexible or Hyflex Courses and Their Impact on Student Learning

We break down how educators can prepare for Hyflex courses this fall.
10 min

What is Team Based Learning?

See how Team-Based Learning improves learning outcomes for students all through peer feedback.
8 min

How to Limit Cheating on Online Examinations

Learn tips on how to reduce the prevalence of cheating for your online exams.
5 min

Work-Life Balance When You’re Teaching From Home

How to avoid burnout & better manage your time when you're teaching from home.
5 min

The Soft Skills College Students Need to Develop

These are the soft skills college students need to develop in order to thrive in the workforce.
6 min

Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Learning for Online Classes

Which style of learning is best for students studying online? Find our more.
5 min

Peer-to-Peer Curation Activities Boost Higher-Order Thinking

Learn how to use Curation Activities to help students develop Higher-Order Thinking skills.
9 min.

Measuring Student Engagement for Large Classes

How can you as an instructor measure the effectiveness of your teaching when you have over 300 students? Find out more.
5 min

How to Improve Student Engagement Outside of the Classroom

How to ensure students are engaged and interactive throughout the term, not just in your classroom.
5 min

How to Maximize Your Peer Evaluations Results

Learn what you need to do to maximize the results of your peer evaluations
5 min

Help Students Learn Better: Develop Their Critical Thinking Skills, Problem Solving and Decision Making

Learn how Peer Assessment helps students develop critical thinking skills with Bloom's Taxonomy.
8 min

Value of Peer Feedback Beyond the Classroom

Critical and motivational feedback feedback increases productivity, overall knowledge retention and more quality in students work.
4 minutes

Crafting Analytical Rubrics for Higher Education

Building a rubric from scratch can seem like a very daunting task. Rubric-based assessments are a useful tool for a variety of reasons:
6 minutes

Using Bloom's Taxonomy to Enhance Academic Performance

There is no secret formula that will improve academic achievement for students. If it had been there it would definitely differ by faculty. The purpose of this article is to lay out theories which have actually worked; real studies that are directly achieving results.
8 minutes

Calibrated Peer Review

If you spend 20+ hours grading papers or assignments, then you know how powerful it is to have automated online grading software that works
5 minutes

How to Convert Your Course Content Into Kritik Activities

Cumulative assignments can be transformed into smaller segments of peer evaluation that will ultimately help your students produce a higher quality final assignment.
6 minutes