Sunday, July 10, 2011
Saturday, July 9, 2011
RtI and Technology
I can not imagine that RtI is effective without technology. Who doesn't love a good list?
kresa.schoolwires.com/.../lib/.../usingtechnologyarticle.session3.pdf
kresa.schoolwires.com/.../lib/.../usingtechnologyarticle.session3.pdf
Friday, July 8, 2011
How are they doing it?
RTI Network's 'Voices'
Its fun to read about where other people are getting stuck, and how other organizations are solving problems.
Its fun to read about where other people are getting stuck, and how other organizations are solving problems.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Progress Monitoring, Screening, and How to Put the "Response" into RtI
As our district moves towards RtI, I have found myself frustrated with the emphasis that has been placed on screening over (proper) progress monitoring and quality (research based) instruction.
Screening
A number of tools can be used for screening reading, including the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) created by the University of Oregon (https://dibels.uoregon.edu/). A screening test is give just a handful of times a year. These tests should be used to give teachers a sense of which students are at risk, near benchmark or at benchmark. This data can be used to block into intervention groups.
We have been using a complicated Word document to show student's results on grade level screenings. I am excited about moving towards a universal Google doc that has been conditionally formatted to show where students fall on a color coded spreadsheet that can be accessed by a Google form. I feel like the spreadsheet alone may have been intimidating and confusing for any one who was not there when it was created.
Progress Monitoring
Many of the same tools that are used to screening can be used for progress monitoring (PM) DIBELS is a high quality, free resource. The research says that frequency of PM is directly related to the need of the student. A student who is two or three years behind, may need to have her progress monitored on a weekly basis, while a student who is only a few month behind may only need to have their progress monitored one a month (http://www.studentprogress.org).
Our resource room teacher, who I respect very much, and I have different opinions on the frequency of PM. She advocates for less often, while I am more comfortable PMing on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. She believes that time spent assessing is time not spend learning. I believe that I would rather take the time to asses then have six weeks of intervention not work.
What it Means to "Respond" to Intervention
If a student starts the year at 'high risk' it is unrealistic to expect him to end the year in a 'moderate risk' category. Especially if that student is an English language learner (ELL) and grades behind. Research has shown that it can take YEARS of intensive intervention to catch students up on missed learning opportunities. You can not use the results of screening data to qualify students for special education (SpEd). What I want to see growth compared to expected yearly growth.
This year I have been trying to get teachers away from focusing on a end result and focus more on the growth that the student has made. I'll give you an example using fluency data. The fourth grade fluency benchmark (BM) for September is about 100 words correct per minute (wcpm), the BM for June is 114 wcpm. That a growth of 14 wcpm.
Student A: She starts the year at 40 wcpm and ends the year at 85, she has make the astounding growth of 45 wcpm. Which is more than 400 percent of the expected growth. This student, while still in the 'at risk' category on a screening assessment is responding incredibly well to intervention.
Student B: He starts the year at 98 wcmp and ends the year at 109 wcpm. While this student would be placed in a 'some risk' category, he has only made 78 percent of the expected growth for the year. If this growth pattern continues, this student will fall far behind. This student is not responding to an intervention.
Growth is an important part of RtI. I am excited to try and use an excel spreadsheet (with flags!) that will allow us to color coordinate student growth... It also happens to be an inspiring statistic to look at.
There are still a number of questions that we need answered. How much growth do we expect out of a student if we expect them to catch up? 110 percent? 120? 150? I have tried to do the research and its hard to get a definitive answer, so trial and error, here we come!
Screening
A number of tools can be used for screening reading, including the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) created by the University of Oregon (https://dibels.uoregon.edu/). A screening test is give just a handful of times a year. These tests should be used to give teachers a sense of which students are at risk, near benchmark or at benchmark. This data can be used to block into intervention groups.
We have been using a complicated Word document to show student's results on grade level screenings. I am excited about moving towards a universal Google doc that has been conditionally formatted to show where students fall on a color coded spreadsheet that can be accessed by a Google form. I feel like the spreadsheet alone may have been intimidating and confusing for any one who was not there when it was created.
Progress Monitoring
Many of the same tools that are used to screening can be used for progress monitoring (PM) DIBELS is a high quality, free resource. The research says that frequency of PM is directly related to the need of the student. A student who is two or three years behind, may need to have her progress monitored on a weekly basis, while a student who is only a few month behind may only need to have their progress monitored one a month (http://www.studentprogress.org).
Our resource room teacher, who I respect very much, and I have different opinions on the frequency of PM. She advocates for less often, while I am more comfortable PMing on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. She believes that time spent assessing is time not spend learning. I believe that I would rather take the time to asses then have six weeks of intervention not work.
What it Means to "Respond" to Intervention
If a student starts the year at 'high risk' it is unrealistic to expect him to end the year in a 'moderate risk' category. Especially if that student is an English language learner (ELL) and grades behind. Research has shown that it can take YEARS of intensive intervention to catch students up on missed learning opportunities. You can not use the results of screening data to qualify students for special education (SpEd). What I want to see growth compared to expected yearly growth.
This year I have been trying to get teachers away from focusing on a end result and focus more on the growth that the student has made. I'll give you an example using fluency data. The fourth grade fluency benchmark (BM) for September is about 100 words correct per minute (wcpm), the BM for June is 114 wcpm. That a growth of 14 wcpm.
Student A: She starts the year at 40 wcpm and ends the year at 85, she has make the astounding growth of 45 wcpm. Which is more than 400 percent of the expected growth. This student, while still in the 'at risk' category on a screening assessment is responding incredibly well to intervention.
Student B: He starts the year at 98 wcmp and ends the year at 109 wcpm. While this student would be placed in a 'some risk' category, he has only made 78 percent of the expected growth for the year. If this growth pattern continues, this student will fall far behind. This student is not responding to an intervention.
Growth is an important part of RtI. I am excited to try and use an excel spreadsheet (with flags!) that will allow us to color coordinate student growth... It also happens to be an inspiring statistic to look at.
There are still a number of questions that we need answered. How much growth do we expect out of a student if we expect them to catch up? 110 percent? 120? 150? I have tried to do the research and its hard to get a definitive answer, so trial and error, here we come!
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