Response to Intervention and Instruction

1. Response to Intervention and Instruction ED 584 NOVEMBER 29, 2012 BY: SHAWNA ADES, DEVIN BRIERLY, SARAH COLEMAN, SHERRI DALLAS, MISSY DHARMA, JESSY MEEK, MAGGIE ORZESKE, LAUREN PULLIUM, AND MARBETH SHIELL

2. Multidisciplinary Team Meeting

3. What is RTI? • Early intervention and prevention • Interventions at various levels of intensity • Assessment • Collaboration • Researched-based teachings and interventions

4. Instructional Tiers of RTI

5. Tier 1 • Designed for all students • Researched-based instruction and strategies • 90 minutes or more a day for literacy • 60 minutes or more a day for math • Assessment • Instruction provided by general ducation Teacher • Delivered in general education classroom

6. Components of Tier II Instruction

7. Components of Tier III Instruction

8. RTI and Assessment

9. Personalized Learner Assessment • Often given at the beginning of the year • Offers information about: • Student’s family • Student’s interest • Background knowledge • Learning styles • Favorite/least favorite subjects

10. Examples of Personalized Learners Assessments • Student Interest Surveys • Coat of Arms • What Makes A Great Teacher • Learning Styles Inventory • Parent Checklists • Teacher Observation Forms

11. Academic Assessment • Screening • Diagnostic Evaluation • Progress Monitoring • Outcome Assessment

12. Screening • Screening is a quick assessment of student’s understanding and gauges a learner’s knowledge and cruicial abilities, such as reading and math. (Esteves, Whitten & Woodrow, 2009) • Occurs a minimum of three times a year. • Screening is key in the RTI process given it’s emphasis on early intervention. • Screening tools: • DIBELS • Running Record • Star Math • Star Reading

13. Diagnostic Evaluation • Diagnostic evaluation can provide insight into a student’s individual academic challenges and strengths. Knowing this information is vital in identifying appropriate interventions (Esteves, Whitten, & Woodrow, 2009). • Examples of Diagnostic Evaluation • Woodcock-Johnson III • Wechsler Fundamentals: Academic Skills • Process Assessment of the Learner - Math

14. Progress Monitoring • Progress monitoring is regular and frequent assessment to determine if learners are advancing. This form of assessment is important because it alerts educators when changes to the educational program are needed because what is currently being used isn’t working (Esteves, Whitten, & Woodrow, 2009). • Examples of Progress Monitoring: • Curriculum-based Measurements (CBMs) • AIMSweb • Developmental Reading Assessment – Second Edition (DRA-2)

15. Example of Progress Monitoring

16. Outcome Assessment • Outcome assessments can be used to document or gauge overall effectiveness of instruction. This summative form of assessment is given at the end of a unit of instruction to determine if learners have met academic objectives. Outcome assessments demonstrate proficiency and growth over an extended amount of time (Esteves, Whitten, & Woodrow, 2009). • Examples of outcome assessment: • End of the unit exams • Student projects • Classroom presentations • Pre-test and Post-test assessments (CBA)

18. Adaptations of Assessments • It is important to consistently select, adapt, and modify assessments to accommodate the needs and abilities of the students. • Examples- • Conduct an assessment in a students primary language • Give the students extended time • Allow the students to orally report information rather than writing it down • It is important to consistently develop and modify the individualized assessment strategies based on the students characteristics. • Examples- • Present assessment in small groups or individually • Read portions of assessments out loud • Provide alternate means of knowledge representation including posters, skits, or group projects

19. Assessments and Individuals Other than the Normative Population • When using standardized or norm referenced assessments, it is important to note that reliability and validity may be questionable • Examples- • Latino adolescent who appears to be acculturated but is more proficient in Spanish than English may have more difficulty taking a timed test administered in English. • Different experiential background affects interpretation of information on the test.

20. Assessments and Individuals Other than the Normative Population • Criterion referenced assessments (pass/fail or based on mastery of skill) although more appropriate for ELLs also raise the questions of reliability and validity • Example • Language screening test not designed for learners who have different first-language exposure • Criterion referenced assessments help identify specific areas to focus on • The most appropriate and informative way to assess ELL students is multi-stepped including criterion referenced assessment, prior background knowledge, family history, translation and/or adaptation of standardized assessments

21. Interpretation of ELL Students Performance on Assessments • ELL students who perform poorly on assessments due to lack of understanding can be mislabeled or wrongly identified as learning disabled. • This results in the students not receiving the correct services, poor academic performance, retention, low self-esteem, and lack of interest in academics.

22. Legal and Ethical Considerations • Under IDEA it is the schools responsibility to identify students with a suspected disability in a timely manner • IDEA states: • “In determining whether a child has a specific learning disability, a local educational agency may use a process that determines if the child responds to scientific research-based intervention as a part of the evaluation procedures described in paragraphs (2) and (3).

23. Legal and Ethical Considerations • Fidelity in Implementation: • Student Responsiveness- How engaged and involved are the students in this intervention or activity? • Adherence- How well do you “stick to the plan?” • Exposure- How often does a student receive and intervention? • Quality of Delivery- How well was the intervention delivered? Were good teaching practices used? • Program differentiation- How well do you differentiate one intervention to another? • If the RTI team suspects a disability a referral must be made and parent or guardian consent obtained prior to initiation of a special education evaluation.

24. Legal and Ethical Considerations • Parent’s rights • 1. Immediately request and sign your written consent to a comprehensive psycho-educational evaluation performed by a school psychologist. • 2. Your Written Consent will trigger the special education (“IEP”) process. The school district will have 60 days  to complete the evaluation and complete the RtI process. • 3. At the end of the 60 day period, the school must invite you to a meeting when the team will review both the RtI progress monitoring data and the psycho-ed. evaluation to determine if your child is eligible for special education services. • Parents continue to have the right to request a referral for special education evaluation at any time.

25. Family Partnerships The Law: Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 2004) • IDEA 2004, Congress stressed: “strengthening the role and responsibility of parents and ensuring that families of such children have meaningful opportunities to participate in the education of their children at school and at home.” 20 U.S.C. 1401( c)(5)(B)

26. Family Partnerships • Families & teachers work together right away when student is struggling; all try to understand the problems • Communicates regularly with parents through phone calls, meetings, and/or a communication notebook • Provokes suggestions for making instruction more culturally and personally relevant for students • Cultural and linguistic differences are directly addressed because: • Authentic partnering creates common ground; • Students see their worlds working together; • There is a forum to understand the culture of the family and the culture of the school • Learns about student’s strengths and weaknesses from parents

27. Family Partnerships • RtI family and community partnering fosters information-sharing, early intervention, and home-school learning coordination - so there is more time for student instruction and practice. • Partnering with parents can have a significant impact on: • Students’ grades and test scores • Attendance • Behavior and social skills • Graduation • Pursuit of postsecondary education

28. Family Partnerships30-Year Research Summary: Benefits of Family-School Collaboration • For Students: • Higher achievement, more homework completion, come to school more and stay in school longer, observing more similarities between home and school • For Families: • Becoming more supportive of child and teachers, becoming more confident in how to help child learn, learning more about education programs • For Teachers and Schools: • Improved teacher morale, higher ratings of teachers by parents, parents support schools and bond issues (Christenson& Sheridan, 2001; Epstein et al, 2002)

29. Monitoring the Implementation of InterventionsTESOL: 4a1, 4a2, 4c1CEC: IGC4S12, ICC8S8

30. Assessment • By regularly assessing students teachers can identify : - which students need more help - which are likely to make good progress without extra help - which students need their learning accelerated

31. Main Objectives • To identify students at the beginning of the year who are at-risk or who are experiencing difficulties and who may need extra instruction or intensive interventions. • To monitor students progress during the year to determine whether : - at-risk students are making adequate progress - identify students who are falling behind - identify students who need to be challenged • To inform instructional planning in order to meet the most critical needs of individual students. • To evaluate whether the instruction or intervention provided is powerful enough to help all students achieve grade-level standards by the end of each year.

32. Progress Monitoring • Brief assessments given periodically (every 9 weeks for my kindergarteners) • Assessment focuses in areas that students need to master by the end of the year in order to meet grade level standards. • Results from these help teachers decide students that need to receive interventions • Based on these results teachers can develop intervention plans in response to students needs • After every assessment the teacher goes through and identifies students that need interventions in each area • Briefly explain what that looks like in my classroom(bring in copy of assessment)

33. Teaching to Learner Characteristics • It is very important to base your teaching off of your students’: • English and learning proficiency • Learning styles • Cultural background • Learning challenges • Prior experiences and knowledge • This provides powerful instructional platform for learning.

34. Teaching to Learner Characteristics (cont.) • When children are struggling, giving them intensified instruction directed towards their learning styles, specified towards their learning challenges and enhanced by their prior experiences will allow them to connect to the material in a stronger way. • Student-centered learning • Project-based learning • When planning lessons plan: • Differentiate • Create diverse and interactive lessons that all students can be apart of at their independent level

35. Bias in Assessments • Bias in a standardized assessment is the presence of an item within the test that results in differential performance for two individuals of the same ability but of different gender, ethnicity, or religion. • Reform for biased assessments began in the 1970’s-80’s when testing showed massive gaps between racial groups, social strata and regions of the country. • Results in major overrepresentation of minority groups in special education (Del Rosario Basterra, 1998).

36. Types of Bias • Language • Cultural • Gender • Ability

37. Effects of Bias • Overrepresentation of minority groups in special education - perpetuates systematic racism in our schools (Castenell & Castenell, 1998). • Loss of confidence in their ability to learn • Testing becomes painful and humiliating • The state wide reduction of our expectations of test results for minority groups • Florida just adopted race based academic goals for math and reading. African Americans are given the lowest goal to achieve based on their current performance. Imagine what that does to a child’s psyche.

38. Language Bias in Assessments • Language bias is a major concern for the ELL student (if they struggle with English then a simple reading test will inevitably assess their English language skills as opposed to their comprehension skills (Del Rosario Basterra, 1998). • Language bias can also occur when a student speaks a different dialect of English. • Ex. Regional Bias- In Wisconsin water fountain = bubbler.

39. Language Bias (cont.) -Language bias also occurs not only when the student cannot read the questions adequately but when they cannot give the appropriate response because they lack English language skills.

40. Culture Bias in Assessments • Culture bias affects anyone who is not from the dominant culture (McGinley, 2002). • Ex. White privilege- a race theory that focuses on the advantages that white people acrue from their position in society vs. the societal disadvantage that people of color experience. White culture is the “norm” Groups of color are expected to achieve this “norm.” • Ex. Chinese education vs. American education • Children raised in Appalachia vs. Children raised in NYC

41. Low income students Immigrants students Inner city students Rural students To assume that this variety of students share a “common knowledge” or share the same idea of which knowledge is most important is to impose cultural bias. Culture Bias (cont.)

42. Gender Bias in Assessments • This bias is typically seen in standardized tests taken in high school • SAT’s, ACT’s- Phyllis Rosser completed a study regarding the SAT’s and women in the early 90’s. SAT’s are meant to predict student’s success rate in college. Rosser found that women in general score lower on the SAT than men, yet receive higher grades in college (Rosser, 1989). • As a result women are often discriminated against in scholarship competitions based on these biased test scores.

43. Ability Bias in Assessments • Assessments that are not modified, or accommodated to the students disability/ability. • Comparing these students to their regularly developing peers. • Often times these students are not taken into consideration when standardized tests are normed.

44. Digital Tools and Resources in the Classroom • Digital tools are being used more and more everyday to support education • Because students lives are almost completely integrated with technology, schools have had to catch up. • Everything from online forums for student discussion, Promethean boards, Power Point presentations, Ipad programs, Youtube, and entire schools integrated with technology.

45. Digital Tools in Use • Many schools have completely replaced their textbooks with E-books via the Ipad. Most E-books are a fraction of the cost of textbooks, which also increases their resources. • Interactive Whiteboards • Social Media- Some teachers use twitter accounts to alert their students of up the minute changes • Online lesson plans, and recorded lectures • Assistive technology like mobile communication devices • Graphing tools, speech to text, calculators

46. Digital Curricula • Customized, comprehensive, collections of digital resources that teachers can use in the classroom • Ex. CurriculumLoft.com is a web based platform for storing and sharing all digital academic content, aligning them with state/core standards, and connected with your district. Also allows you to create a custom curriculum with the digital materials you use in class everyday.

47. Using Digital Tools and Curricula to Connect with the World • Skyping with your sister school in another country • Podcasts- www.thisibelieve.org • Iowa City-City of Literature has an iPhone app that provides text, audio and visual content about Iowa city authors based on your GPS location. • Creating a blog based on field trip experiences and sharing them with other students.

48. Negatives of Digital Tools and Curricula • Rural Community Gap • Eye Strain (Sheehy, 2011) • Social Media and Text Slang • Technology is limited to information gathering and word processing • Can be more teacher-centered than student centered.

49. Reading and Vocabulary Strategies • In the RTI process, there are many strategies that are involved in reading and vocabulary. • 1. Bleep it: when students are reading out loud or silently and the come across a word that they do not know, they would say BEEP in place of the word. • 2. Frame it: When students try and figure out what the word they do not understand they isolate the word from the rest of the sentence by placing their fingers around the word . • 3. Begin it: Students look at the beginning of the word. • 4. Split it: Next they divide the word into syllables and pronounce each syllable in the word. • 5. Find it: If students are unable to figure out the pronunciation of the word they would look it up in the dictionary.

50. Consider prior experience • When choosing an assessment on a child, there are many things that you need to take into consideration. • You as the special education teacher will need to look into the child’s family life, use of language, their prior education and also the educational experiences they have had. • Also check to see if they have had a prior assessment.