Learner-Focused Feedback

Book excerpt: New strategies for feedback that supports a culture of learning The skill set required for observing why students are learning and how teachers influence that is a difficult one to master—yet it’s essential when it comes to driving change and growth in your school. This companion to Feedback to Feed Forward provides a curated collection of strategies to improve your ability to identify desired outcomes, recognize learning in action, collect relevant and accurate evidence, and develop smart, supportive, and effective feedback about a teacher’s impact on learners. And it’s not just leaders, coaches, and administrators who can use this highly accessible how-to. This time around, Tepper and Flynn also address the needs of teachers who double as observers, whether they’re mentoring new teachers, supporting each other or analyzing the effectiveness of their own teaching. No matter your role, you’ll benefit from their expert guidance, as well as: · Authentic classroom examples · Observer think-alouds · Stories from the field with "Give-It-a-Try" tools and "Stop and Think" questions · Follow-up steps specific to your role When classroom observation and feedback are both learner-centered (focused on students) and learning-focused (focused on teachers as learners), they lead to a culture of learning throughout the school. Take this book as your guide, and explore just how effective your feedback can be. Learner-Focused Feedback has been recognized for focusing on practices that have high effect sizes and will help you translate the groundbreaking Visible Learning research into practice. When educators use strategies that have high effects (greater than 0.40), they can accelerate student achievement. The power of the Visible Learning research lies in helping educators understand which factors have the highest impact on student achievement so that educators can begin making strategic decisions based on evidence that will utilize their time, energy, and resources to the best extent possible. The Visible Learning research is based on Professor John Hattie’s unmatched meta-analysis of more than 1,600 research reviews comprising 95,000 studies, involving more than 300 million students—the world’s largest evidence base on what works best in schools to improve student learning. From that research, Dr. Hattie identified more than 250 factors that have an impact on student achievement. View a full list of