Responsiveness to Instruction: A Framework for Learning Communities

that Educate the Whole Child

Concurrent SessionNAESP Annual Conference

Saturday, April 10thJulie Benay, M.Ed.

Why RtI?

With so many possible places to focus your energy, why focus on RtI?

What are the results?

• Swanton Elementary School – 600 students PreK-6th grade

• 47% qualify for free or reduced price hot lunch• 20% Native American (Abenaki)• Less than 1% other diversity (ELL or children of

color)• Used Comprehensive School Reform Grant to

begin implementation in 2006

“Wait to Fail” vs. Early Identification and Prevention

Reading Proficiency Sub Groups

Math Proficiency Sub Groups

Response to Intervention: Framework for School Improvement

Community

A Short History Of “RtI”• RtI first came on the radar in 2004 as part of the

reauthorization of the law guiding the education of students with disabilities

• It was based on the “well child” model implemented through the public health system and was designed to be preventative in nature and data driven

• RtI was created in response to the “wait to fail” problem that is clearly evident if schools use a discrepancy model to determine eligibility for special education

Key Components to RtI

• High quality, research based core instruction• Universal screening and benchmark testing• Continuous progress monitoring• Research based interventions• Interventions adjusted based on data,

including: frequency, intensity, fidelity• Collaboration, teaming, shared responsibility

RtI: Procedures

• Universal benchmark screening• Ongoing progress monitoring• Interventions provided with sufficient

frequency, fidelity and intensity• Instructional adjustments made based on data

The Big Ideas of RtI

High quality instructionFrequent AssessmentData Based Decision Making

Going to scale means fundamentally

developing the system at all levels.

Fullan, 1999

What Lies Beneath

When a student is not making expected progress, who is responsible?

Response to Instruction

“How will we respond when a student isn’t learning?” – Mike Schmoker

“Find out what the child is thinking and intervene accordingly” – Dr. Lillian Katz

RtI is more than “response to intervention.” Digging deeper means considering the quality of instruction at all tiers, building in quality assessments, and helping teachers to have meaningful conversations about their practice.

How do we respond to the data?

“Students in the same school who experience difficulty in learning will be subject to very different responses based upon the beliefs and practices of individual teachers.” (DuFour et al)

“In short, a primary difference between the historical and contemporary approaches is the emphasis on proper instruction first, rather than believing there is something wrong within the student.” (John Hoover)

When Teachers Talk

Journal Jot: When teachers have a chance to talk, what is the most common topic of discussion?

From Teacher Talk to Community of Professional Practice

Identifying effective practices and considering adopting those to replace ineffective practices takes data, but more importantly, it takes:

Time Structure Support from trained facilitators or coaches Trust Honesty

Fertile GroundGiven time, support,

structure, and trust, teachers are able to focus on strengthening “tier one” instruction. A relentless focus, not only on the data, but on the story behind the data, encourages conversations about the important things – curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

Quality Assessment = Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum

“There is a simple way to ensure a common, high quality curriculum: Teachers, by school or district, must create maps, by grading period, designating clearly which standards and objectives students will learn, with ample inclusion of higher-order, critical-thinking, reading, and writing standards. Then, for each grading period, common assessments must be built and administered (not bought from a test-prep vendor). Building these maps and assessments is an essential and ongoing professional learning experience. Finally, teacher leaders or administrators must meet with teacher teams to constructively discuss the results of these assessments for continuous improvement purposes.” – Mike Schmoker, “What Money Can’t Buy”

Quality Assessment = Quality Instruction

“Classroom assessment can fundamentally transform the way a teacher teaches.” – James Popham, Transformative Assessment

When those assessments are developed collaboratively, and the results explored together in a climate of support and mutual trust, teaching and learning improve.

RtI: The Really Big IdeasShared Ownership for Learning

How can we work together to design a coherent, cohesive plan of instruction?

How can all teachers share ownership for student success across grade levels and tiers of instruction?

Accountability Among AdultsHow do we create a climate where it is safe to admit what you don’t know?How can we create communities of professional practice that capitalize on

the strengths within our own system?

Response to InstructionHow do we help all teachers become better at “finding out what the child is

thinking and responding accordingly” (Dr. Lillian Katz)How do we move from checklists of symptoms and a focus on eligibility to

identifying and implementing effective teaching strategies?

Ideal RtI

Grade 6 Literacy: January 2009

Taking Ownership for Learning: High Quality Instruction

“Julie, its not that we want someone else to “pick up” our kids that can’t read. Its that we don’t know how to help them!”

- one brave teacher’s response to this data

The Big IdeasHigh quality instruction: Deep curriculum and assessment work,

supported by teacher learning communities where teachers openly and honestly participate in collaborative work; coordinated, coherent instructional plans for striving learners

Frequent assessment: Universal screening and benchmark testing to ensure that no student “falls through the cracks,” reliable progress monitoring data from more than one source, ongoing, quality formative assessments

Data based decision making: Thoughtful decisions focused on coherent plans of instruction rather than eligibility; using the data to change instruction at all tiers rather than spending time admiring or discussing the data itself

Shared ow

nership Shared ow

nership

Adults are accountable Adults are accountable Response to instruction

Response to instruction

Challenges in Creating Cohesive, Responsive Instructional Plans

• Creating learner profile• Matching intervention to profile• Making “tier one” adjustments consistently and reliably• Providing second tier instruction aligned with tier one

instruction and adjustments• Involving families but avoiding blame or lamentations• Choosing length of time before re-examining or adjusting

instructional plan• Avoiding fragmentation and confusion• Creating intervention time that does not interfere with

opportunities to play, enjoy music and art education, and participate in physical education

The Russian Chauffeur

Shared responsibility is difficult. Language matters – if supplemental instruction is considering being “picked up” for “services,” who has dropped the student?

The tricky part of providing additional resources at “tier two” is avoiding the “pick up and dropoff” syndrome. Looking at system data in addition to student data can monitor the change process.

Five Nice Ladies: Instructional Chaos

Another danger point is instructional chaos. With many supports (Tier II intervention, homework club, Supplemental Educational Services required under NCLB, parent support), there is a real danger in providing fragmented, incoherent instructional support to striving learners.

Why Universal Screening and Benchmarks?

• Universal screening in the fall provides a quick measure of gains or losses over the summer months

• Winter benchmark prevents students from “falling through the cracks” while there is still time to intervene

• Spring benchmark provides picture of annual growth; useful information for summer programming; and a starting point for comparison in the fall

Data to Inform Decisions

• Universal screening and benchmark testing• Robust system of progress monitoring• Common formative assessments• Differentiated opportunities to show learning• Systematically collected anecdotal evidence of

generalization

Research on “Curriculum Based Measures”

• 30 years of strong research indicate the reliability and predictive value of CBM (Fuchs and Fuchs)

• More than 200 empirical studies published in peer-review journals – (a) provide evidence of CBM’s reliability and validity

for assessing the development of competence in reading, spelling, and mathematics and

– (b) document CBM’s capacity to help teachers improve student outcomes at the elementary grades.

Mastery Measurement

• With mastery measurement, teachers test for mastery of a single skill and, after mastery is demonstrated, they assess mastery of the next skill in a sequence

• Scores in mastery measurement cannot be compared over the course of a year, making it impossible to quantify rates of progress

• Many tests of mastery are teacher designed and lack validity and reliability

Curriculum Based Measures

• Each CBM test assesses all the different skills covered in the annual curriculum.

• CBM samples the many skills in the annual curriculum in such a way that each weekly test is an alternate form (with different test items, but of equivalent difficulty).

• Therefore, scores earned at different times during the school year can be compared to determine whether a student’s competence is increasing.

The really essential question

Access to another tier of instruction is a potentially life changing decision for a student. How and when do you make that decision?

RtI Decision Making ModelsModel Description Analysis

Standard Treatment •Same treatment for all learners with similar profiles•Decisions based on response to standard treatment

•More rigorous for identifying special needs than the problem solving model•May miss identifying some students

Problem solving •Process oriented•Decisions made by problem solving team that looks at ecological factors

•Less rigorous yet does include most/all students with special needs•Risks over identification

Combined •Elements of both•Problem solving team considers both standard treatment and other related information

•Draws on strengths from both•Time consuming•Requires skilled facilitators

Decision Rules

We need guidance in regard to decision rules. We should NEVER be encouraged to use one source of data, and we need to ask:

• What measures are you using and what information are you getting from that data?

• What source of data did you examine first?• What was the target and who established it?• When you make a decision about who will be with an

intervention teacher, how did you decide? Think about how you considered your boundaries (eg group size) and how you prioritized the needs of the learners.

What Do We Know?School improvement literature and the most recent neuroscience

points us in the direction of what works:1. Professional/teacher learning communities are effective when

implemented with clear focus and support2. Fluency matters and cognitive fluency is impacted by sequential,

systematic instruction implemented with frequency and fidelity3. Instruction at Tier One strongly influences student outcomes, and is

improved through a focus on formative assessment4. Frequent opportunities to write in all areas of the curriculum,

supported by quality instruction in writing, influences cognitive processes and student achievement outcomes across all curricular areas

5. Students learn best when there are consistent and positive approaches to guiding behavior supported by strong social skills and character education programs

What is a leader to do?• Don’t let the schedule be an excuse. Pick it up, shake it out, and

find time for additional instruction and time for teacher learning communities.

• Know the research. If you haven’t read the 90/90/90 Study (Center for Performance Assessment), read it. Read “How People Learn” for the most up to date neuroscience as it relates to learning. Use the National Center on RtI as a resource for evaluating possible screening and progress monitoring products.

• Hold high expectations, and provide support. Use “loose/tight” management – structure the time, provide facilitators, and hold teachers accountable to a series of expectations. Help teachers to learn collaborative teaming skills.

• Do not give in the tyranny of “or.” Practice both/and, not either/or.• Simplify the message and stick to it. Connect all professional

development to the same broad goals – consistency, coherence, and connections.

From Good to GreatRti has tremendous potential for engaging a school in the

process of reform that will result in improved student success for all learners. As with all sustained initiatives, however, it takes a lot of time and a lot of work.

Jim Collins (2001) wrote, “Good to great transformations never happened in one fell swoop. Good to great comes by a cumulative process – step by step, action by action, decision by decision, turn by turn of the flywheel – that adds up to sustained and spectacular results.” Good to Great

Lessons Learned Remember the “rule of six” Prepare the soil – work hard on curriculum, instruction and

assessment Consider multiple data sources, including systems data Question and examine underlying beliefs – know they are

there, but put practices into place. Effective practices will lead to student success, which will change beliefs

Provide adequate time, space, materials, and professional development

Don’t give up. The stakes are high. Every bit of research supports the notion that YOU make the difference. It really IS about YOU!

A few key references

• www.rti4success.org (Gateway site for many RtI resources)

• www.allthingsplc.info (Regarding Professional Learning Communities)

• http://www.leadandlearn.com/ (Regarding data team work and the 90/90/90 study)

• http://www.nap.edu (Regarding National Research Council “How People Learn)

• http://www.ets.org (Regarding “Keeping Learning On Track” professional development program for formative assessments)