Enhancing engagement in the oral communication classroom through cloud-based peer assessment

Abstract

This paper presents a practical framework for integrating student peer evaluation into participation scores for oral presentations using Google Workspace tools. It addresses the common pedagogical challenge of student disengagement in the audience role after their own presentation is complete. Building on classroom experience, this paper demonstrates how common applications (e.g., Google Forms, Google Sheets) can be used to collect and quantify peer feedback, incorporating it into a documented and traceable grading process. The discussion outlines, step-by-step, how to design forms for peer ratings, process data in spreadsheets, and calculate participation scores from a record of student work, a process requiring no advanced technical knowledge. This approach promotes active engagement and reflective learning and utilizes the accessibility of cloud computing, making it particularly timely amid the expansion of online and hybrid education. The outcomes include a practical guide for generating participation scores grounded in evidence of engagement with peers' work and a discussion of best practices for promoting a collaborative classroom. This paper contributes to CALL practice by offering an accessible, scalable method to assess engagement beyond impression-based participation marks, enhancing both pedagogical traceability and student accountability.