Response to Intervention in Urban Schools: Placing Culture ... · PDF fileRTI frameworks that...

Response to Intervention in Urban Schools:

Placing Culture and Equity at the Forefront of Practice

URBAN PROFESSIONAL

LEARNING SCHOOLS INITIATIVE SUMMER INSTITUTE

July 23, 2010

Kathleen King Thorius, Ph.D.

[email protected]

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Response to Intervention in Urban Schools (King Thorius) UPLSI SUMMER INSTITUTE 2010

ACTIVITY 1: What I know about RTI’s… Purposes: Features: Challenges: Additional considerations for implementing RTI in urban schools:

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RTI frameworks that foreground culture and equity have great potential for creating and

ensuring students’ opportunities to learn in classrooms and schools that value and are

responsive to them. From this perspective, RTI provides the opportunity to examine and

address the diverse strengths and needs of students and families, of teachers in practice, and

of the systems that support them.

What do we mean by opportunities to learn?

• Access to key resources (e.g., qualified teachers, funding, relevant and rigorous

curriculum)

• Factors related to the nature of school interactions (e.g., teacher-student shared

understandings of the purpose of tasks and activities, culturally inclusive participation

frameworks in classroom interactions) 3


ACTIVITY 2: OPPORTUNITIES TO LEARN In this activity, participants will identify and discuss opportunities that promote learning. This activity provides a forum to discuss opportunities provided for student learning presented in three classroom vignettes. Consider the questions listed below as you read the following vignettes. You might use these questions to guide your identification of opportunities to learn in your own classroom and in other classrooms in your school, as well as in your school as a whole.

Guiding Question: How does each of these vignettes illustrate opportunities to learn and missed opportunities to learn? Below, you’ll find several questions to help move your thinking forward. After you address each question, reflect on these two interrelated issues: Who benefits? Who does not benefit?

• How do the rules and routines of classroom participation, conversation, and interaction affect (both positively and negatively) opportunities to learn? • Does the teacher use students’ unique preferences, identities, and backgrounds to create and support opportunities to learn? If yes, how so? • How do issues related to the larger educational system (e.g., standardized curricula, class size, etc.) impact opportunities for learning?

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Vignette 1 The final bell rings for Ms. Kilpatrick’s third period Math class as students wait outside the door for their teacher to arrive. The students, ranging from 6th to 8th grade, receive special education due to learning or emotional disabilities. This class is at the lowest level within the school wide math curriculum the district adopted to address students’ low scores on the statewide achievement test. Ms. Kilpatrick arrives nearly 5 minutes late and lets the students into the classroom. As she puts away her materials from her previous class in another building, the students move to take their seats, chatting amongst themselves. Ms. Kilpatrick passes out a worksheet for the day’s lesson and begins copying the problems to the board. As she does this, she states that they will be covering the addition and subtraction of positive and negative integers. She calls on the student on in the first row to give her the first step for solving problem 1. He stumbles through his response as the other students continue to talk around him. Angel and Pilar sit in the back row, speaking softly to each other in Spanish. After he supplies the correct response, Ms. Kilpatrick hastily fills in the rest of the problem, including the answer, and asks the next student in the row to tell her the first step for problem 2. Beven calls out to ask how to do the problem on his calculator and Ms. Kilpatrick says that he must save his questions until he is called on to do a problem. As she writes the answer for the fourth problem, Ms. Kilpatrick tells the class they must show all their work to receive credit.

• How do the rules and routines of classroom participation, conversation, and interaction affect (both positively and negatively) opportunities to learn? • Does the teacher use students’ unique preferences, identities, and backgrounds to create and support opportunities to learn? If yes, how so? • How do issues related to the larger educational system (e.g., standardized curricula, class size, etc.) impact opportunities for learning?

Reflections

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Vignette 2 The third graders in Mrs. Arbenz’s class are into their third week of the thematic unit “Birds Around the World.” The class has a number of students who are struggling with decoding and comprehending the third grade basal readers her school district requires her to use as part of the reading curriculum, so Mrs. Arbenz has included a number of activities and additional nature books and magazines to scaffold (provide guided support) students’ motivation and literacy skills. Students have participated in several activities including bird watching, examining bird feathers, and making bird feeders. Mrs. Arbenz teaches using several literacy strategies: identifying new vocabulary and key words, activating prior knowledge, questioning, and summarizing. In today’s lesson on graphic organization, Mrs. Arbenz stands at the front of the room holding up index cards with bird names and pictures of habitats that represent the different categories of birds (e.g. wetlands, arctic, desert, etc.). William and Maki are sitting in the back row and cannot see the pictures, but they try to follow along based on what is being said. Fernando raises his hand to comment on the birds of San Juan, where he is from, and Mrs. Arbenz reminds him that they are talking about birds, not cities.

How do the rules and routines of classroom participation, conversation, and interaction affect (both positively and negatively) opportunities to learn? • Does the teacher use students’ unique preferences, identities, and backgrounds to create and support opportunities to learn? If yes, how so? • How do issues related to the larger educational system (e.g., standardized curricula, class size, etc.) impact opportunities for learning?

Reflections

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Vignette 3 Mr. Yusuf’s high school junior government students are hard at work on their latest class projects. A couple of weeks ago, Saria asked why the bilingual program she participated in since freshman year was discontinued. Mr. Yusef changed his original plan to study branches of government to respond to the class’s interest in Saria’s inquiry. Currently, the students are divided into five groups of four to study landmark Supreme Court cases around education and civil rights. Several students are using the computers in the back of the room to research the history of their cases. Others sit at the tables pouring over textbooks and library books they have just brought back from the school library. Mr. Yusuf moves from group to group checking students’ progress and answering questions. He reminds students to refer to the assignment guidelines and grading rubric that he reviewed at the beginning of class as they plan their projects. Elante’s group has decided to hold a mock trial. Mr. Yusuf suggests that they look back at their notes from the previous unit when the superior court judge visited as they plan. Alec, Mihn, Olivia, and Joaquin will write a paper and create a PowerPoint presentation for the class. Micah’s group has gone to the media lab to check out equipment so that they can make a video for their project. Saria’s group chooses to hold a panel discussion about how their case has influenced their own educational opportunities and challenges, and invite family and community members to share their own educational experiences.

How do the rules and routines of classroom participation, conversation, and interaction affect (both positively and negatively) opportunities to learn? • Does the teacher use students’ unique preferences, identities, and backgrounds to create and support opportunities to learn? If yes, how so? • How do issues related to the larger educational system (e.g., standardized curricula, class size, etc.) impact opportunities for learning?

Reflections

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Universal Screening

Robust Evidence-

Based Instruction

Progress Monitoring

RTI Tier 1: Universal Interventions

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Robust Evidence-

Based Instruction

Notes:

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Progress Monitoring

Notes:

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ACTIVITY 3: Progress Monitoring Participants will identify and discuss the ways that they assess student learning on an everyday basis, both as students are learning concepts and skills, and as they demonstrate mastery. Participants will learn the definition of progress monitoring, and types of progress monitoring: mastery measurement, curriculum-based measurement, and performance based assessment. In the space below, list, draw, or describe the forms of assessing student learning used in your school.

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Progress Monitoring

Classroom

Formative

Summative

School-wide

Formative

Summative

Classroom progress monitoring should help educators answer the following

questions:

Are the students understanding the curriculum? If so, what are they

understanding? What can they do? If not, who isn’t understanding it?

Are there patterns across learner needs or characteristics that could better inform

the instruction? For example, if the majority of students who are not getting it are

leaving the classroom for separate English as a Second Language instruction, are

there ways to restructure teaching so that the ESL teacher and general education

teacher work together on lessons and co-teach throughout the day?

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Determine whether students are benefitting from an instructional program

Identify students not demonstrating adequate progress, and consider student data disaggregated by language, gender, race, & ethnicity

Inform culturally responsive

instruction/ interventions for

students not benefitting from current practices

Compare efficacy of different forms of instruction & design more effective, individualized instructional programs

Determine expectations (outcomes) for the quality & rate of student progress

that consider language and other relevant student

factors

THE FUNCTIONS OF PROGRESS MONITORING

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Universal Screening

Notes:

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Universal Screening: Scaling up progress monitoring school-wide. All students are administered a brief screening measure, usually in reading and math. Schools have several options related to how they conduct universal screening. These decisions relate to the following factors: • Frequency of the screening • Selection of the screening measures • Criteria used to determine which students are in need of intervention

In Tier 1, all students receive robust evidence-based high quality instruction in the general education classroom. Additionally, progress of students identified as struggling during the universal screening is frequently monitored.

Progress Monitoring

Classroom

Formative

Summative

School-wide

Formative

Summative

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Cautions & Tensions with Universal Screening: Determining Norms for Performance CBMs, when used as universal screening tools, are used to contrast individual student performance to that of a group of students. This brings up the decision about using pre-determined grade level norms (often provided by CBM publishers) vs. local norms (think DIBELS). Results on any universal screening tools should never be interpreted as scores only. Low scores on these tools should indicate the need for deeper analysis of patterns across student factors, grade levels, preparation of teachers, professional learning opportunities, and other context-specific factors that could be affecting student performance (e.g., who is administering the CBM). To foreground equity and culture in RTI frameworks is to consider the context of the unique school student population when determining what learning outcomes are expected. Some CBMs obtained from national publishers, provide pre-determined norms (or expected scores) on CBM probes, as cut-offs for determining which students are struggling, and which students are performing as expected. These norms may be considered as guidelines, but local norms for student performance on CBMS should also be determined, and just as with the forms of progress monitoring conducted in the classroom, decisions about who is getting it and who is not, curriculum, and instruction, must carefully consider the local school context, including its teachers and students.

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ACTIVITY 4: Realizing the Potential of Universal Screening In same school teams, participants will consider the existing ways in which universal screenings are utilized in their school and expand upon the current uses in light of the five functions of progress monitoring: 1. Determine expectations (outcomes) for the quality & rate of student

progress that consider language and other relevant student factors

2. Determine whether students are benefitting from an instructional

program

3. Identify students not demonstrating adequate progress, and

consider student data disaggregated by language, gender, race, &

ethnicity

4. Inform culturally responsive instruction/ interventions for students

not benefitting from current practices

5. Compare efficacy of different forms of instruction & inform the

design of more effective, individualized instructional programs

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Progress Monitoring for the whole class Informs Instruction Progress Monitoring based on the identification of students who are struggling is used to make decisions about the types and intensity of interventions students require (and at which Tier they will receive them). Following the universal screening, the progress of the

students identified as struggling should be monitored at least once each week for a period of at least 6 weeks. After each probe is administered, the teacher or student plots the score on an individual CBM graph.

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Monitoring Student Progress Teachers evaluate student progress using either rate of growth or performance level, both of which can be tracked using curriculum-based measurement. After a predetermined monitoring period—typically 5 to 10 weeks (or a minimum of five data points)—the teacher examines each student's CBM data. If a student is performing at or above the established criterion for performance level or at or above the established criterion for rate of growth, he or she is making adequate progress.

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ACTIVITY 5: Methods for Determining Student Response

Small groups will read and practice applying one of two methods for determining students’ response to instruction/ intervention: • Rate of growth • Performance Level

Then, small groups will pair up with another group and share what they learned.

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Culturally Responsive Secondary & Tertiary Interventions

Who? Collaborative teams of educators with expertise in subject matter and types of support determined appropriate for students who require it.

Where? In general education classrooms through collaborative methods of instruction.

What?

Ongoing professional learning for teachers

around types of supports students require

Curricular & instructional resources to utilize with diverse

learners

Research-based interventions are grounded in culture’s

essential role in teaching & learning.

Time and space for educators to examine & reflect on practices.

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ACTIVITY 6: Culturally Responsive Intervention at Tier 2 and 3 With a partner, generate a list that addresses the following question: - What types of more intensive and individualized forms of supports are available and provided to students who are struggling in your classroom/ school or in a classroom/ school you know well? Write each response on an individual note card. Then, also with your partner, organize your note cards in order across the continuum printed on the next page. Discuss any differences in opinion you have about the levels of support each response reflects.

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Intensive Support

Minimal Support

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Review the research-based approach to reading instruction on the previous page, and in groups, add detail about how you would make sure that this intervention is culturally responsive at the more intensive intervention tiers. The questions below will help stimulate discussion around this goal. Are language development activities that incorporate English as second acquisition best practices (e.g., use of repetitive language, modeling information, facial expressions and gestures in teaching vocabulary, explicit instruction in English language usage) or primary language instruction practices being implemented? How do teachers gather information that facilitates their understanding of their students’ communicative styles and literacy practices? How is this information accounted for in their instruction? How do you inform the students of the norms and expectations of schools and classrooms? How do you build on students’ prior knowledge, interests, motivation, and home language when planning instruction? What does that look like? Are there frequent opportunities to practice reading with a variety of rich materials, in meaningful contexts? How should we decide what additional support to provide? Where will these supports be provided and by whom?

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The Tertiary Interventions Tier: Rationale of RTI for Determination of Special Education Eligibility

Tertiary

Interventions

Reauthorized IDEA provides eligibility and identification criteria for LD [614(b)(6)(A)-(B)]:

When determining whether a child has a specific learning disability

The LEA is not required to consider a severe discrepancy between achievement and intellectual ability. The LEA may use a process that determines if a child responds to scientific, research-based intervention as part of the evaluation.

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Response to Intervention in Urban Schools (King Thorius) UPLSI SUMMER INSTITUTE 2010 What Should LD Assessment Look Like

within Culturally Responsive RTI Frameworks?

The student’s achievement is

substantially lower than

peers

The student’s

progress is substantially lower than

peers

Context: The student has received solid,

research based instruction and

interventions that are culturally responsive

and systems issues that affect student progress have been addressed.

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Lingering Assessment Issues:

In RTI, a fixed point must be determined to indicate the point on a continuum at which LD identification is determined, which is still arbitrary (Vaughn & Fuchs, 2003). How does an arbitrary cut-off favor a certain view of what is considered “normal” and “deficient” performance? How can this be the same point for all students without considering culture and context of schooling?

Other Lingering Issues:

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