Instructional Decision Making in Iowa

IOWA

Iowa’s Experience: How it all started

Began in 1986-1987

Discussions with stakeholders Parents Teachers Administrators Area Education

Agency Personnel Policy Makers

Over 4000 persons contributed

Iowa’s Professional System Prior to Change – Our Early Response to “Problems”

Standard battery of tests for placements

•Academic Status•Behavior Observation•Intellect•Speech Language•Motor Screening•Health History•Vision•Hearing•Educational History

“One size fits all.”

ProfessionalSystem Prior to Change

System structure forced certain professional behaviors Evaluations based on nationally standardized tests Frequently focussed on unalterable variables (e.g., personality, IQ,

presumed traits) Frequent difficulty in linking assessment to school expectations Was summative rather than formative “Have tos” limited “want tos” in assessment Results of referrals were “placements” rather than matching of

student needs to instruction Our system was global - we moved problems - and often we didn’t

solve them

System Prior to Change

Special Education

Sea of Ineligibility

General EducationGraden, 1998

A Series of Questions Were Asked

What is working with the current system?

What components of the system are in need of reconsideration?

What barriers get in the way of trying these changes?

Important - There was no presumption that what we were doing was not being done well.

Foundation Principles – Utilization of Resources

Functional Assessment. Students will benefit by requiring assessments which are functionally oriented and built upon a question oriented assessment plan that tests hypotheses leading to an understanding of factors directly effecting the individual's learning or behavioral difficulty.

Developing Appropriate Instructional and Support Interventions. Students will benefit from a variety of innovative instructional and support interventions which will focus on bringing services to students and not students to the services.

Direct and Frequent Progress Monitoring. Students will benefit by procedures which directly and frequently monitor behaviors that are the focus of interventions. Monitoring procedures permit ongoing decision making and adjustment of interventions when needed and thereby heightening the probability of helping students acquire new skills, knowledge, or ways of functioning.

Outcome Oriented Criterion. Students will benefit by an outcome criterion, focusing on gains in students' skills, when adopted and applied to decisions about programming, placement, and reviews/evaluations.

The Problem Solving Process

• Implement Plan (Treatment Integrity)

Carry out the intervention

• Evaluate(Progress Monitoring Assessment)

Did our plan work?

• Define the Problem(Screening and Diagnostic Assessments)

What is the problem and why is it happening?

• Develop a Plan(Goal Setting and Planning)

What are we going to do?

Data Collection and Charting Intensive Instruction 2

100

90807060

50

4030

20

10

Baseline 1

Goal

VanderburghStudent Improvement is Job #1 Goal Area

Name

Service ProvidersParent Participation

Carlos

Reading

Parent will provide extra oral reading time at home. They would like graph sent home biweekly.

District School Year Teacher

Goal By June, given a DIBELS progress monitoring passage Carlos will read 70 words correct in one minute.

M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M

Nov

Dec

Jan

Feb

Mar

Ap

r

May

Jun

Trendline =.07 WCPM

Trendline =.54 WCPM

Trendline =1.93 WCPM

We RealizedWe were doing case-by case interventions

We found out that in many cases students had similar intervention needs

The key to success with students instructionally has to do with “Match” of instruction to student learning needs

We developed a method for doing group-level diagnostics for early literacy

Called it 4-box strategy

Diagnostic Assessment Questions

“Why is the student not performing at the expected level?”

“What is the student’s instructional need?”

•Phonemic Awareness

•Alphabetic Principle

•Accuracy & Fluency

•Vocabulary

•Comprehension

5 Essential Components of Reading Instruction

The Diagnostic Process

Enabling SkillsEnabling skills are skills that could be

considered prerequisite skills for the demonstration of proficient performances on larger assessments measures

They represent the sub-skills of higher order performance demonstration

Deficiencies in enabling skills will often result in lower performance on assessments

Enabling Skills for Reading Comprehension

Accuracy of connected text (decoding, word recognition)

Fluent reading of connected text (automaticity, smoothness, prosody)

Vocabulary

Prior knowledge

Organizing Fluency Data:Making the Instructional Match

Group 1: Accurate and

Fluent

Group 2:Accurate but

Slow Rate

Group 3:Inaccurate and

Slow Rate

Group 4:Inaccurate but

High Rate

Group 1: Dig Deeper in the areas of vocabulary and specific comprehension strategies.Group 2: Build reading fluency skills. (Repeated Reading, Paired Reading, etc.) Embed comprehension checks/strategies.Group 3: Conduct an error analysis todetermine instructional need. Teach to the instructional need paired with fluency building strategies. Embed comprehension checks/strategies.Group 4: Conduct Table-Tap Method. If student can correct error easily, teach student to self-monitor reading accuracy. If reader cannot self-correct errors, complete an error analysis to determine instructional need. Teach to the instructional need.

What will we do withthem once we’ve grouped them?

Data Collection and Charting Intensive Instruction 2

100

90807060

50

4030

20

10

Baseline 1

Goal

VanderburghStudent Improvement is Job #1 Goal Area

Name

Service ProvidersParent Participation

Carlos

Reading

Parent will provide extra oral reading time at home. They would like graph sent home biweekly.

District School Year Teacher

Goal By June, given a DIBELS progress monitoring passage Carlos will read 70 words correct in one minute.

M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M

Nov

Dec

Jan

Feb

Mar

Ap

r

May

Jun

Trendline =.07 WCPM

Trendline =.54 WCPM

Trendline =1.93 WCPM

Impact on StudentsKnoxville Middle School

Group 1Comprehension Instruction2008-09 36%2009-10 64%

Group 2Fluency instruction2008-09 53% 2009-10 36%

Group 3Decoding instruction

2007-08 18%2008-09 11%2009-10 2%

Results Data: 1 year 1st YEAR of Implementation

Lynnville-Sully Elementary Proficiency Data

Target Assessment Chosen: DIBELS (At Benchmark)

Spring Data- 2005-06 2006-07

1st Grade 79% 83%

2nd Grade 48% 81%

3rd Grade 39% 79%

4th Grade 50% 58%

5th Grade 56% 80%

Keys to Success Gather diagnostic data

when necessary to make the appropriate response

Group students with similar instructional needs

Use researched based materials/strategies

Implement with fidelity

Use formative and progress monitoring data to guide decisions