I completed my first peer review last week for assignment 1b. I am known for being fairly critical when it comes to marking others work. I developed this habit in high school when some of my peers asked me to check their work for them. They were intelligent students and also my friends so they didn't take any of my comments to heart. They insisted that I point out any mistakes or things I thought they could improve on. In year 11 and 12 we had a tight bunch of students, myself included, who supported each other and although we were extremely competitive we always wanted to help one another achieve the highest mark they could. So, when it came time to do a peer review of someone else's website I found it hard not to be too harsh. I found it difficult to mark someone's work based on a marking guide that I wasn't involved in making. As a first year it is hard enough trying to figure out what the university assignments actually want from you, let alone marking someone on their interpretation of the same assignment.
Of course if I was to mark work as a primary school teacher then I would be a lot more encouraging and focus more on the positives, only mentioning one negative at a time. There are a few reasons why I believe I will be able to change my marking style when assessing children's work. One is that primary school students receive constant feedback over the year so you can slowly correct their mistakes, rather than listing all of them at once. Another reason is primary school students tend to need more encouragement (than my peers in high school) and should be regularly commended for new skills they have developed. People often say to me that I should be a high school maths or science teacher instead of a primary school teacher but my harsh marking of high school students is one reason why I don't think I would be suited to teaching secondary students. I would get frustrated with high school students not grasping the basics but with primary school students I understand that they are developing and learning the basic skills that will carry them through the rest of their lives, so I am a lot more patient.