Creating a Culture of Feedback, Nov/2016

Discover how to shift your classroom focus to prioritize effective feedback over grades, giving students all the information they need to succeed.

Because of the importance placed on high-stakes evaluations, schools have built cultures that greatly emphasize grading. In this book, the authors urge educators to shift their classroom focus, prioritizing effective feedback over grades. Discover how to state learning intentions clearly and provide individualized feedback to give students all the information they need to succeed.

1. Gain instructional strategies for prioritizing feedback over grading in upper elementary, middle, and high school classrooms.
2. Shift classrooms from a culture of grading to a culture of feedback.
3. Discover how important feedback is to developing learners.
4. Determine the characteristics of effective feedback.
5. Learn the benefits of having students engage in peer feedback.
6. Gain guidance on communicating the differences between grading and feedback to parents and students

About The Authors:

William M. Ferriter is a sixth-grade science teacher in a professional learning community near Raleigh, North Carolina. A National Board Certified Teacher, Bill has designed professional development courses for educators nationwide on topics ranging from establishing professional learning communities to integrating meaningful student-involved assessment and feedback opportunities into classroom instruction.

His educational technology trainings center on using digital tools to give students the opportunity to drive meaningful change in the world around them. Bill has also developed schoolwide technology rubrics and surveys that identify student and staff digital proficiency at the building level. He is a founding member and senior fellow of the Collaboratory—a digital home for progressive conversations around the changing nature of teaching and learning—and has served as teacher in residence at the Center for Teaching Quality.

Bill has had articles published in Kappan magazine, Journal for Staff Development, Educational Leadership, and Threshold Magazine. A contributing author to two assessment anthologies, The Teacher as Assessment Leader and The Principal as Assessment Leader, he is also coauthor of Teaching the iGeneration, Communicating and Connecting with Social Media, Building a Professional Learning Community at Work™, and Making Teamwork Meaningful. Bill also maintains a popular blog, “The Tempered Radical,” where he writes regularly about teaching in today’s world.

Bill earned a bachelor of science and master of science in elementary education from the State University of New York at Geneseo. 

Paul Cancellieri is a National Board Certified eighth-grade science teacher at Rolesville Middle School in Rolesville, North Carolina. After spending several years as a science researcher, he began his career as an educator in 2001 and has taught middle school science since then. After 10 years in the classroom, Paul spent a sabbatical leading the Data Literacy Program for the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching before returning to the science classroom in 2014. He has worked at several middle schools in the Greater Raleigh Area, earning Teacher of the Year honors twice. Paul’s focus is on grading and assessment, emphasizing best practices for fair and accurate measurement of student mastery.

Paul is a member of the National Science Teachers Association and the North Carolina Science Teachers Association, and he earned the latter’s Outstanding Science Teacher of the Year award in 2012. He has also been a member of the International Society for Technology in Education and the North Carolina Technology in Education Society. Paul has presented at conferences for all four organizations, on topics ranging from progressive grading practices to practical ways to use tech tools for learning and assessment. He earned a Kenan Fellowship from the Kenan Fellows Program for Curriculum and Leadership Development in 2009 and has worked every year since with the new fellows to improve their understanding of data and assessment.

Paul earned a master’s degree in botany from North Carolina State University and a bachelor’s degree in marine science from Long Island University–Southampton.