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

Response to Intervention and Instruction

Multidisciplinary Team Meeting

What is RTI?

Early intervention and prevention

Interventions at various levels of intensity

AssessmentCollaborationResearched-based

teachings and interventions

Instructional Tiers of RTI

Tier 1

Designed for all studentsResearched-based instruction and strategies90 minutes or more a day for literacy60 minutes or more a day for mathAssessmentInstruction provided by general ducation

TeacherDelivered in general education classroom

Components of Tier II Instruction

Components of Tier III Instruction

RTI and Assessment

Personalized Learner Assessment

Often given at the beginning of the yearOffers information about:

Student’s family Student’s interest Background knowledge Learning styles Favorite/least favorite subjects

Examples of Personalized Learners Assessments

Student Interest SurveysCoat of ArmsWhat Makes A Great TeacherLearning Styles InventoryParent ChecklistsTeacher Observation Forms

Academic Assessment

ScreeningDiagnostic EvaluationProgress MonitoringOutcome Assessment

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

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

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)

Example of Progress Monitoring

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)

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

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.

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

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.

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).

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.

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.

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)

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

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

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)

Monitoring the Implementation of InterventionsTESOL: 4a1, 4a2, 4c1

CEC: IGC4S12, ICC8S8

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

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.

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)

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.

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

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).

Types of Bias

Language CulturalGenderAbility

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 learnTesting becomes painful and humiliatingThe 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.

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.

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.

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

Culture Bias (cont.)

Low income students

Immigrants studentsInner city studentsRural 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 WhiteboardsSocial Media- Some teachers use twitter

accounts to alert their students of up the minute changes

Online lesson plans, and recorded lecturesAssistive technology like mobile communication

devicesGraphing tools, speech to text, calculators

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.

Using Digital Tools and Curricula to Connect with the World

Skyping with your sister school in another country

Podcasts- www.thisibelieve.orgIowa 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.

Negatives of Digital Tools and Curricula

Rural Community GapEye Strain (Sheehy, 2011)Social Media and Text SlangTechnology is limited to information

gathering and word processingCan be more teacher-centered than student

centered.

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.

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.

Mock RTI Meeting

Going through 2 papers during the meeting RTI Student Referral Form – filled out by gen ed

teacher RTI Collaboration Log – filled out by the recorder (and

anyone in the meeting that wants to take notes)

Mock RTI Meeting (cont.)

Roles:Facilitator:

Referring Teacher:

Recorder:Case Manager:

Special Educator:Principal:

Counselor:Art Teacher:

ELL Teacher:Psychologist:

Played By:Sherri Dallas (keeps meeting running smoothly)

Missy Dharma (brings information about student)

Sarah Coleman (writes down everything said during the meeting)

Marbeth Shiell (makes sure interventions are implemented)

Maggie Orzeske (will support and give advice and ideas)

Sherri Dallas (Public agency representative, represent the school)

Devin Brierly (be there as a support for the child and parents)

Lauren Pulliam (there to give an alternative view)

Marbeth Sheill (there as a language expert and as another teacher)

Jessy Meek (there to give an alternative view and inquire about academic performance)

Introductions (if there are outside representatives there)

Facilitator will state why we are having the meeting

Referring teacher will identify academic strengths and also any strengths he/she sees in the child outside of school

The team will analyze the challenges

The team will establish an academic baseline and learning preferences

The referring teacher will share what interventions he/she has tried

The team will brainstorm teaching strategies and interventions

The team will develop/discuss an intervention plan and an evaluation plan

The team will establish a case manager to follow up on the case and make sure the interventions are carried through.

English Language Learners vs. Special Education Issues

Normal Second Language Acquisition Taking longer to process Omits words or adds words Trouble following directions Avoids writing or reading or is slow Cannot commit multiplication tables or simple

vocabulary to memory Does not hear fine differences in words (pin vs. Pen) Freezes when expected to perform on demand (LOOKS JUST LIKE LD!)

English Language Learners vs. Special Education Issues

What to look for and remember before diagnosing. . . There are no Valid standardized assessments for ELL

Students Need many different data sources Discrepancies Native Language Tendency to choose intrinsic explanations

Are you looking for a flaw in the student or biases in teaching practices?

Research-Based Instruction for ELL Students

Lesson Plan

Adjectives

This packet contains lesson plans, vocabulary cards and a short matching game for 10 basic adjectives.

Created by: Jenny Schell

Monday – Teach the emotions on the vocabulary cards.

Lesson Plans

Tuesday – Read a story featuring one of the emotions such as “Sheila Rae the Brave” by Kevin Henkes.

Have the students orally complete the following sentence frames with a partner.

Student 1: Is _________ _________?(classmates name) (emotion)

Student 2: Yes, ____ is ____ because ____.(he/she) (emotion)

Wednesday – Read a different story featuring one of the emotion.

Have the students orally complete the following sentence frame.

When I _______ I felt ________.(emotion)

What is ELL?

Federal DefinitionA person that has a challenge speaking,

reading, writing, or understanding English, which impacts their learning in a classroom taught in English.

This individual is not born in the US; their first language is not English; is a Native American, Alaska Native, or from other outlying areas; from migrant families.

Thursday – Read a different story featuring one of the emotion.

Have the students complete and write down the following sentence frame.

Since I ______ I felt _________.(emotion)Friday – Students should share the sentence frame they

wrote on Thursday with the rest of the class.

The matching game can be played for reading reinforcement throughout the week.

friendly mean

thoughtful rude

shy kind

mischievoushelpful

bossy nice

friendly

rudethoughtful

mean

shy kind

helpful mischievous

bossy nice

Lesson Plan Revised

Different Output Reduces anxiety and can ease processing

Repetition- “Sight Words” Creates stronger learning paths in the brain because

students are doing the activity over and over

Have students act out emotions Movement increases neural connections in the brain.

Students have more ways to make these learning connections and to retrieve information

Materials This RtI presentation is available on

blackboard as well as hard copies here today.

The resources we used during the mock meeting are available on blackboards as well as some hard copies here today

The video we used was in thanks to Sheri’s school and parent’s permission to share today

ReferencesBrescia, W & Fortune, J.C. (1988). Standardized testing of American

Indian students. Retrieved from www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/recordDetail?accno=296813

Castenell, Jr., L.A. & Castenell, M.E. (1998). Testing the test: Norm-referenced testing and low-income blacks. Retrieved from

www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/recordDetail?accno=EJ390265Del Rosario Basterra, M. (1998)-1999). Using standardized tests to make

high-stake decisions on English-language learners: dilemmas and critical issues. Retrieved from www.maec.org/Old/ereview1.html

Miller, P., Ponterotto, J., & Suzuki, L. (2001). Handbook of Multicultural Assessment: Clinical, Psychological, and Educational Applications. San Fancisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Inc.

McGinley, S. (2002). Standardized testing and cultural bias. Retrieved from http://www.fhsu.edu/~rbscott/news/dec/story15.htm

Rosser, P. (1989). The SAT gender gap; Identifying the causes. Center for Women Policy Studies. Washington, DC.

References

Sheehy, K. (2011). Rural students lost in connectivity gap. USANews. Retrieved from www.usanews.com/education

Sherman, J. (2011). Signing for success: Using American sin language to learn sight vocabulary. SRATE Journal, 20 (2), 31-38

Wake, J., Dysthe, O., Mjelstad, S. (2007). New and changing teacher roles in higher education in a digital age. Educational Technology & Society, 10(1), 40-51.

Whitten, E., Esteves, K., & Woodrow, A. (2009). RTI Success: Proven Tools and Strategies for Schools and Classrooms. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit Publishing.

http://makingschoolwork.org/?p=235 (2009) Florida School Partners, P.L. If RtI Isn’t Working for Your Child: Knowing Your Legal Rights

“Fidelity of Implementation within an RTI Framework” Retrieved from National Center on Response to Intervention Webinar October 20, 2009. The University of Kansas. Daryl Mellard with Christy Khan, Melinda McKnight, and Sara Prewitt

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/ELL-Vocabulary-Adjectives