Response to Intervention Implementing Response to Intervention: Key Administrative Challenges to...

Response to Intervention

www.interventioncentral.org

Implementing Response to Intervention: Key Administrative Challenges to Changing a System

Jim Wrightwww.interventioncentral.org



Workshop Agenda

RTI: Reaching a Shared Understanding of the Model

Accessing Free RTI Resources on the Internet

Establishing ‘Command and Control’: Creating an RTI Leadership Team

Identifying and Addressing Teacher ‘Reluctance’ Toward RTI

Discussion: 2010-2011 RTI Training Needs



PowerPoint and Resources from Workshop Available at:

• www.jimwrightonline.com/dcboces.php

3


www.interventioncentral.org 4

“ ”Tipping point: “any process in which, beyond a certain point, the rate at which the process increases dramatically.” (Tipping Point, 2010).

Source: Tipping point (sociology). (2010, February 17). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 02:52, March 1, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tipping_point_(sociology)&oldid=344548179



“ ”“The tipping point is the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point.” (Gladwell, 2000; p. 12)

Source: Gladwell, M. (2000). The tipping point: How little things can make a big difference. Little, Brown and Company: NY.



RTI: Research QuestionsQ: What Conditions Support the Successful

Implementation of RTI?

RTI requires:• Continuing professional development to give teachers the skills to implement RTI and

educate new staff because of personnel turnover.• Administrators who assert leadership under RTI, including setting staff expectations for

RTI implementation, finding the needed resources, and monitor ingthe fidelity of implementation.

• Proactive hiring of teachers who support the principles of RTI and have the skills to put RTI into practice in the classroom.

• The changing of job roles of teachers and support staff (school psychologists, reading specialists, special educators, etc.) to support the RTI model.

• Input from teachers and support staff (‘bottom-up’) about how to make RTI work in the school or district, as well as guidance from administration (‘top-down’).

Source: Fuchs, D., & Deshler, D. D. (2007). What we need to know about responsiveness to intervention (and shouldn’t be afraid to ask).. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 22(2),129–136.



Preventing Your School from Developing ‘RTI Antibodies’

• Schools can anticipate and take steps to address challenges to RTI implementation in schools

• This proactive stance toward RTI adoption will reduce the probability that the ‘host’ school or district will reject RTI as a model



RTI Assumption: Struggling Students Are ‘Typical’ Until Proven Otherwise…

RTI logic assumes that:– A student who begins to struggle in general education is typical,

and that– It is general education’s responsibility to find the instructional

strategies that will unlock the student’s learning potential

Only when the student shows through well-documented interventions that he or she has ‘failed to respond to intervention’ does RTI begin to investigate the possibility that the student may have a learning disability or other special education condition.



Use Time & Resources Efficiently By Collecting Information Only on ‘Things That Are Alterable’

“…Time should be spent thinking about things that the intervention team can influence through instruction, consultation, related services, or adjustments to the student’s program. These are things that are alterable.…Beware of statements about cognitive processes that shift the focus from the curriculum and may even encourage questionable educational practice. They can also promote writing off a student because of the rationale that the student’s insufficient performance is due to a limited and fixed potential. “ p.359

Source: Howell, K. W., Hosp, J. L., & Kurns, S. (2008). Best practices in curriculum-based evaluation. In A. Thomas & J. Grimes (Eds.), Best practices in school psychology V (pp.349-362). Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.



RTI ‘Pyramid of Interventions’

Tier 1

Tier 2

Tier 3

Tier 1: Universal interventions. Available to all students in a classroom or school. Can consist of whole-group or individual strategies or supports.

Tier 2 Individualized interventions. Subset of students receive interventions targeting specific needs.

Tier 3: Intensive interventions. Students who are ‘non-responders’ to Tiers 1 & 2 are referred to the RTI Team for more intensive interventions.



RTI Interventions: Standard-Treatment vs. Problem-SolvingThere are two different vehicles that schools can use to deliver RTI interventions:

Standard-Protocol (Standalone Intervention). Programs based on scientifically valid instructional practices (‘standard protocol’) are created to address frequent student referral concerns. These services are provided outside of the classroom. A middle school, for example, may set up a structured math-tutoring program staffed by adult volunteer tutors to provide assistance to students with limited math skills. Students referred for a Tier II math intervention would be placed in this tutoring program. An advantage of the standard-protocol approach is that it is efficient and consistent: large numbers of students can be put into these group interventions to receive a highly standardized intervention. However, standard group intervention protocols often cannot be individualized easily to accommodate a specific student’s unique needs.

Problem-solving (Classroom-Based Intervention). Individualized research-based interventions match the profile of a particular student’s strengths and limitations. The classroom teacher often has a large role in carrying out these interventions. A plus of the problem-solving approach is that the intervention can be customized to the student’s needs. However, developing intervention plans for individual students can be time-consuming.



RTI Leadership Team: Setting a Course for Response to Intervention




What is the Purpose of the RTI Leadership team?The RTI Leadership Team guides the overall RTI process.

The group meets periodically (e.g., monthly) on an ongoing basis to evaluate the RTI project, shape its future direction, determine what resources the project requires, and allocate those resources.

The RTI Leadership Team also ensures that a standard RTI process is followed across individual schools.



What is the Purpose of the RTI Leadership Team?• The RTI Leadership Team has several functions: (1) to draft and update a district

RTI implementation plan, (2) to keep all schools throughout the district in compliance with good RTI practices, and (3) to identify and make available to schools the resources required to implement RTI successfully. The RTI Leadership Team’s duties include:

• Drafting a multi-year plan that will guide the district in the implementation of RTI while using existing resources. The team’s RTI Plan should encompass a three-year rollout schedule.

• Supervising RTI implementation. The RTI Leadership Team oversees that RTI is implemented in a uniform manner throughout the school district.

• One caution: Be sure not to overlook ‘dissident’ voices when select RTI Leadership Team members. Members who may have some reservations about RTI but also possess experience and knowledge that would be valuable to the team.

14



Who Should Serve on the RTI Leadership Team?• Your district should assemble a multi-disciplinary team to serve as your

RTI Leadership Team. The team should include influential district administrators such as those who control resources (e.g., staff development funds; instructional budgets) or supervise staff (e.g., school psychologists, reading teachers) across the district that will participate in RTI. Additionally, the team should have representatives from school buildings to help the team to keep lines of communication open with its campuses. Finally, the membership on the team should be balanced to include representatives from important stakeholder groups (e.g., building administrators, general education teachers, etc.).

15



Who Should RTI Leadership Team Meetings Be Organized?

• Team meetings should follow a fixed schedule, with a standard set of meeting agenda items regularly brought up for team discussion:

• Regularly scheduled meetings. The RTI Leadership Team should meet at least monthly.

• Standing meeting agenda. In addition to those topics brought up for discussion by team members, the RTI Leadership Team should establish a small set of ‘standing agenda’ items— e.g., ‘school-wide literacy screenings’, ‘resources for classroom interventions’, and ‘update in state RTI guidelines and regulations’.

• Subcommittees. If the RTI Leadership Team is so large that frequent meetings are difficult to schedule and unwieldy to run, consider dividing the team’s work among subcommittees.

16



What Are Structured Forms of Planning That Can Benefit The RTI Leadership Team?

• There are structured planning formats that teams can follow to increase the probability that they have considered the most important issues when preparing a district RTI Plan:

– SWOT analysis. In the complex RTI planning process, it can be helpful to perform a SWOT (‘strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats’) analysis to determine those enabling and hindering forces within and outside of the school district that could affect RTI implementation.

– Stages of RTI implementation. When introducing any significant changes to a school system, the RTI Leadership Team should think about planning for that systems change by using a four-stage process: (1) Preparation; (2) Initial Implementation; (3) Institutionalization; (4) Ongoing Development/Updating.

17



How Can The RTI Leadership Team Find Resources to Support RTI?

• The great majority of school districts that implement RTI will do so largely by using their existing resources. The RTI Leadership Team can help the school district to adopt an RTI model by systematically inventorying district and building resources (personnel, instructional and assessment materials, staff development funds, etc.) that can be made available to support RTI.

18



RTI Leadership Team ‘Action Steps’• Determine the team’s scope and responsibilities. At the district level,

decide on what the scope, authority, and responsibilities of the RTI Leadership Team are to be. Be sure to confront potentially difficult questions such as ‘Will the RTI Leadership Team’s RTI recommendations be binding on individual schools or merely advisory?’

• Review state guidelines that may impact your RTI Leadership Team. Review any relevant guidelines or regulations from your state department of education to determine whether the state offers guidance on the makeup and functioning of the RTI Leadership Team or content of an RTI district plan.

19



RTI Leadership Team ‘Action Steps’• Generate a recruitment list. Create a list of positions and/or personnel from

school buildings and at the district level to be recruited for the RTI Leadership Team. Review the list to ensure that no important district department, school/ program, or stakeholder group has been overlooked.

• Schedule meetings. Create a schedule of RTI Leadership Team meetings for the full school year—and ensure that those meeting dates are shared with all team members.

• Draft a standing meeting agenda. Select topics to be put onto a standing meeting agenda for the RTI Leadership Team. Set time aside occasionally at team meetings to discuss items should be removed from or added to the agenda.

• [Optional] Develop a list of subcommittees. Divide the duties of the full RTI Leadership Team into subcommittees. For each subcommittee, select a descriptive name, define its duties, and recruit members from the larger team.

20



Activity: Put Together an RTI Leadership Team

At your table:

• Review the guidelines for setting up an RTI Leadership Team in your district.

• Generate a list of the people or positions that should be represented on this team.

• Talk about how the team will function: e.g., how often will it meet? How will the team communicate with stakeholders in the district about RTI?



Engaging the Reluctant Teacher: Seven Reasons Why Instructors May Hesitate to Support Implementing Classroom RTI Literacy Interventions




Engaging the Reluctant Teacher: Seven Reasons Why Instructors May Resist Implementing Classroom RTI

Literacy Interventions1. Teachers believe that their ‘job’ is to provide content-

area instruction, not to teach vocabulary and reading-comprehension strategies (Kamil et al., 2008).

2. Teachers believe that they lack the skills to implement classroom vocabulary-building and reading-comprehension strategies. (Fisher, 2007; Kamil et al., 2008).

3. Teachers feel that they don’t have adequate time to implement vocabulary-building and reading-comprehension strategies in the classroom. (Kamil et al., 2008; Walker, 2004).




Literacy Interventions (Cont.)

4. Teachers are not convinced that there will be an adequate instructional ‘pay-off’ in their content-area if they implement literacy-building strategies in the classroom (Kamil et al., 2008).

5. Teachers are reluctant to put extra effort into implementing interventions for students who appear unmotivated (Walker, 2004) when there are other, ‘more deserving’ students who would benefit from teacher attention.

6. Teachers are afraid that, if they use a range of classroom strategies to promote literacy (e.g., extended discussion, etc.), they will have difficulty managing classroom behaviors (Kamil et al., 2008).




Literacy Interventions (Cont.)

7. Teachers believe that ‘special education is magic’ (Martens, 1993). This belief implies that general education interventions will be insufficient to meet the student’s needs and that the student will benefit only if he or she receives special education services.



RTI: The Art of Negotiation



Comparison of ‘Harsh’ and ‘Soft’ Social Power Bases‘Soft’ Social Power Examples

• Expert Power. The consultee complies because the consultant is recognized as being an expert in the field.

• Direct Informational Power.The consultee complies because the information presented by the consultant is logical or ‘makes sense’.

• Referent Power. The consultee complies because he or she wishes to be associated with or seen as similar to the consultant.

• Personal Reward. The consultee complies because he or she seeks the approval of the consultant.

‘Harsh’ Social Power Examples

• Legitimate Position Power .The consultee complies because the consultant holds line authority over him or her.

• Impersonal Coercion Power .The consultee complies to avoid potential negative consequences (‘punishment’) (e.g., withholding of intervention resources) from the consultant.

• Personal Coercion Power. The consultee complies to avoid being disliked by the consultant.

27

Source: Wilson, K. E., Erchul, W. P., & Raven, B. H. (2008). The likelihood of use of social power strategies by school psychologists when consulting with teachers. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 18, 101-123.



Recommendations on Use of ‘Social Power’ Strategies

When working to enlist teachers’ support for and participation in RTI, schools should use ‘soft’ power strategies whenever possible. However, schools should reserve ‘strong’ social power strategies as backup when needed for a reluctant teacher. For example, if a classroom teacher is unwilling to comply with RTI advice for Tier 1 interventions from a consultant reading teacher (Expert Power), the principal may meet with that instructor to emphasize that all teachers are required to implement consistent Tier 1 strategies (Legitimate Position Power).

Source: Wilson, K. E., Erchul, W. P., & Raven, B. H. (2008). The likelihood of use of social power strategies by school psychologists when consulting with teachers. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 18, 101-123.



RTI Teams Engage in Negotiation With Referring Teachers

• Definition of Negotiation: “a dialogue intended to resolve disputes, to produce an agreement upon courses of action, to bargain for individual or collective advantage, or to craft outcomes to satisfy various interests.”

• RTI Teams negotiate with classroom teachers about the types of interventions to be used, degree of teacher involvement, time period during which intervention will be implemented, etc.

29

Source: Negotiation. (2009, December 16). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 12:23, December 17, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Negotiation&oldid=331934640



Elements of Negotiation• Goal: “Goals are statements that state specific,

measurable outcomes, with time requirements as appropriate.”

• Target: “The target is what the negotiator would like to get or the outcome that will satisfy him [or her].”

• Resistance point: “The resistance point is a minimum acceptable outcome the negotiator will accept.”

30

Source: Page, D., & Mukherjee, A. (2009). Effective technique for consistent evaluation of negotiation skills. Education, 129, 521-533. p. 525.



Comparison of Possible Goals, Targets, & Resistance Points for Classroom Teacher and RTI Consultant or RTI Team

Classroom Teacher• Goal. The student will pass the course• Target (Desired Outcome)

– The student will pass all tests, quizzes..– The student will be motivated to complete and turn

in homework and to work on in-class assignments.– The school will find intervention support for the

student outside of the classroom.– Any classroom interventions will require minimal

teacher efforts.

• Resistance Point (Minimally Acceptable Outcome)

– The student will get a passing course grade..– Any classroom interventions will require minimal

teacher efforts.

RTI Consultant or RTI Team• Goal. The student will pass the course• Target (Desired Outcome)

– The student will get a passing course grade..– The student will be motivated to complete and turn in

homework and to work on in-class assignments.– The teacher will implement appropriate, feasible

evidence-based interventions in the classroom.– Interventions will be implemented with integrity.– The teacher will collect data on the intervention.

• Resistance Point (Minimally Acceptable Outcome)

– The student will get a passing course grade..– The teacher will implement appropriate, feasible

evidence-based interventions in the classroom.– Interventions will be implemented with integrity.– The teacher will collect data on the intervention.

31

Source: Page, D., & Mukherjee, A. (2009). Effective technique for consistent evaluation of negotiation skills. Education, 129, 521-533.



Possible Future RTI Training Topics…



RTI Workshop Possibilities• RTI & Data-Based Decision Making: Training in how to

set student goals, use building or research-based norms as estimates of ‘typical’ student performance, create decision rules for RTI (e.g., how many intervention trials required and for how long), etc.

• Changing Roles of Educators in RTI: Define 3 ‘positions’ required under RTI: interventionist, consultant, data analyst. Discuss how to ‘cross-train’ various disciplines in the shared skills of these positions.

33



RTI Workshop Possibilities (Cont.)• RTI Academic Intervention Lab (Elementary & Secondary

Levels). Share a starter set of intervention ideas for attending participants to use as a foundation for their own intervention ideas. Participants are given a structure for formatting new intervention ideas and recommended websites for research-based strategies.

• RTI Behavioral Intervention Lab (Elementary & Secondary Levels). Share a starter set of intervention ideas for attending participants to use as a foundation for their own intervention ideas. Participants are given a structure for formatting new intervention ideas and recommended websites for research-based strategies.

34



RTI Workshop Possibilities (Cont.)• RTI Classroom Assessment & Progress-Monitoring Lab

(Elementary & Secondary Levels). Share a starter set of feasible methods for collecting baseline classroom information on student behavioral and academic performance. Also share classroom ideas for student progress-monitoring.

• RTI Consultation: How to use Persuasive Communication Tools. Review of effective methods of communication that can reduce teacher ‘reluctance’, increase RTI buy-in.

35

Response to Intervention Implementing Response to Intervention: Key Administrative Challenges to...

Documents

Transcript of Response to Intervention Implementing Response to Intervention: Key Administrative Challenges to...