“When everything is important, nothing is.” Simplifying Response to Intervention: Four Essential Guiding Principles pg. 47

Start By Creating: Frequent, collaborative time during the professional work day Teams that support each person’s “day job” Following team norms SMART goals

Essential Guiding Principles Focus on learning. Create a collaborative culture. Clearly define what all students must learn.

PLC Critical Question(s) 1. What is it we want our students to learn? 2. How will we know if each student is learning each of the essential skills concepts, knowledge, and dispositions that we have deemed most essential? 3. How will we respond when some of our student do not learn? 4. How will we enrich and extend the learning for students who are already proficient? (DuFour et al., 2010) It is difficult if not impossible, for schools to attempt to answer questions 2, 3, and 4 if they have not sufficiently answered the first question.

Chapter 4 – Concentrated Instruction: Where Do We Need to Go? This chapter describes a realistic protocol that collaborative teacher teams can use to plan a team teaching-assessing cycle.  In this protocol, teams: define the knowledge and skills that every student must master in order to be successful in school and in life(that is, Tier 1 core instruction), plan when and how the team will provide additional time and support to those who need it (Tier 1 and Tier 2 interventions), and create common formative assessments that will be used to monitor how well the core instructional program is working for each student.

“Nice to Know” Versus “Got to Know”

Identifying Essential Skills and Knowledge Reeves (2002) has offered one set of criteria that teachers might use to distinguish between what is nice and what is essential for students to know: Endurance– Will this standard provide students with knowledge and skills that are valuable beyond a single test date? Leverage– Will it provide knowledge and skills that are valuable in multiple disciplines? Readiness– Will it provide students with knowledge and skills essential for success in the next grade or level of instruction?

We are NOT making a list. It is a process! The process involves dialogue between collaborative teams of grade-level or course-alike teachers and the district “prioritizing the standards and indicators rather than regarding all of them as being equal in importance” (Ainsworth, 2003, p. 6).

Get Beyond the List… The dialogue needs to ensure that team members are interpreting the standard in the same way, have agreement on the level or rigor and what might constitute proficiency, and have identified the prerequisite skills and knowledge necessary for students to be successful in mastering the new standard.

Rewrite the Standard Into Teacher-Friendly, Student-Friendly Language The tool recommended for engaging teachers in a process of this dialogue is the Essential Standards Chart figure 4.2 (page 51)

What Is It We Expect Students to Learn: Descriptions of Standard: Essential Standard? Student-friendly vocabulary Example of Rigor: Proficient student work looks like? Prerequisite Skills: Prior knowledge, skills, and/or vocabulary for mastery Taught when : When will this standard be taught? Common Summative Assessment: Assessments to measure mastery Extension Standards: What will be done when students have already learned this standard?

Plan for Extra Time and Support (1) clarifying what all students must learn, (2) defining the level of rigor, (3) identifying the prior skills needed for success, (4) agreeing on the instructional pace and summative assessment for the unit Teacher teams should develop a general plan for remediation, intervention, and enrichment. “Schools that attempt to build an intervention program before they have clearly identified what is essential for all students to learn are placing the cart before the horse.” page 48

Unwrap the Standards Into Learning Targets Beyond simply rewording the standard into user- friendly language, teachers need to tightly align these standards with their curriculum, assessment, and instruction. This process of alignment is described here as unwrapping the standards. This approach has one end in mind: to make the process of using standards more manageable and to ensure that teachers understand and interpret the standards in the same way.

Building Common Formative Assessments Teacher teams have identified essential standards and have unwrapped some of all of those standards into learning targets. These targets are intended to: To help teachers answer the question, WHERE ARE WE NOW? And To help students answer, WHERE AM I NOW? Because these assessments are linked to individual learning targets rather than an entire standard, the team can focus on the causes rather than the symptoms when students struggle.

Formative Assessment can: Help teachers group students for intervention and enrichment Help teachers create lessons appropriate to the needs of students Inform students of their own progress Provide individual students (about where they are) and collaborative teacher teams (where to go next) corrective feedback

A Protocol for Getting Started The team teaching-assessing cycle to unwrap an essential learning target…may take several weeks or more to complete.

Fidelity to Standards “It must become fidelity to standards and learning instead of fidelity to programs. The programs will still be our primary, or even our sole, resource, but we must more intelligently and professionally use these resources to shore up the core instructional program.”

Concentrated Instruction and Behavior Systems “Effective  RTI models apply the same four essential guiding principles use the same tiered system of supports, and answer the same critical questions of learning for behavior as for academics….Ensuring timely, systematic, successful, and certain access to behavioral supports falls to the schoolwide leadership team, as the inverted pyramid indicates.”

Social VS. Academic Misbehaviors Social misbehaviors are qualitatively different from academic misbehaviors; academic misbehavior may appear as acts of omission aimed at avoiding a task or situation, while social misbehavior may appear as acts of commission aimed at getting attention (Kohn, 1996).

Social Misbehaviors “Appropriate behaviors must be clearly defined, explicitly taught, and modeled by adults AT ALL TIMES.  Positive, desired behaviors must be immediately and consistently corrected.” The school leadership team, or a designated behavior team, should take the following actions: 1. Clearly define behavior as a responsibility of the schoolwide team. 2. Identify expectations and desired behaviors. Example, Naughty vs. Nice… 3. Teach desired behaviors.

Without the firm and consistent commitment of every adult on campus, the implementation of a system of behavioral supports will not yield results.

Essential Behavior Learning Targets Academic Misbehavior(s) Generally, we want all students to self-regulate and self- monitor.

Academic Misbehaviors When it is confirmed that neither a lack of quality instruction nor a lack of skills is the cause of poor academic performance, it can likely be attributed to inadequate self-regulatory skills such as: Time management Organization Note taking Goal setting Self-motivation. These strategies have RARELY IF EVER been explicitly taught in schools.  When students exhibit these behavioral difficulties and lack of self-regulation is the cause, the school should explicitly teach or reteach students how to behave in a scholarly manner.

The Best Intervention is Prevention: Concentrated instruction in Academic Behavior Explicitly teach and reinforce self-regulatory strategies. Assign high-quality tasks for student to complete. Praise and encourage effort to support a growth mindset. Emphasize the importance of regular attendance.

Social Misbehaviors When it comes to social misbehaviors, prevention– systemic, schoolwide prevention– is essential. Concentrating instruction in the area of social behavior means taking collective responsibility for student behavior and committing to explicit, consistent modeling and reinforcement of agreed-upon  expectations.  The school leadership team should take the following actions. Clearly define behavior as a responsibility of the schoolwide team. Identify expectations and desired behaviors. Teach desired behaviors.