SUPPORTING STUDENTS BEFORE AND DURING INSTRUCTION

1. SUPPORTING STUDENTS BEFORE AND DURING INSTRUCTION

2. “We spend a lot of time trying to remediate students who have failed or are failing our classes. I often wonder why we don’t take that energy we use addressing failure by doing what we can to prevent failure in the first place.” Mindsteps August 18, 2010

3. Learning Targets Participants will : • understand how to interpret four types of data to better understand our students. • understand how to support your students before and during instruction. 3

5. How well do you know Susie? • Susie scored a Level 2 on her 2007-2008 Grade 8 Reading EOG. • Susie scored a Level 2 in sixth and seventh grades, but her elementary scores were consistently higher. • Susie is the oldest of three children who are being raised by a single mother. • Susie’s mother is a college-educated registered nurse. • Susie hates to read, but she likes soccer. • For the past two years, Susie’s reading teachers have used the Brain Buster EOG test-prep series.

6. Support Students Before Instruction • Pretest to obtain data on student background knowledge. • Anticipate what students may find confusing. • Determine key vocabulary and pre-teach it. • Teach students learning skills needed to be successful. (note taking, how to read text, etc.) • Select advance organizers for students. • Fill in missing background knowledge.

7. Supporting Students During Instruction • Identify mastery-level baselines. • Establish “red flags.” • Develop ongoing assessment measures to identify students with red flags. • Select appropriate student interventions for red flags. • Monitor the effectiveness of each intervention.

8. Mastery Baselines • Mastery is not a single point of success, but a range of successful behaviors. • Mastery is determined by the teacher and what the standards and curriculum say the students need to know and how well they need to know it. • Mastery is determined by first looking at a grade baseline for assessments. • Mastery is also determined through other items that may help you develop a fuller picture.

9. Red Flags • “Red Flags” are early-warning signals that students are headed for a destructive struggle and should be: • very clearly defined • hard to ignore • trigger action • focused only on academic concerns, not student behaviors. • Example: Students that miss more than 2 problems on a 10 problem math test.

10. Ongoing Assessment Measures • Should be developed to administer during instruction that will alert the teacher when a student triggers a “red flag.” • Can be formative or summative. • Common assessments, small quizzes, homework, performance task, etc. • Assessment data should be analyzed to determine which students have “red flags.”

11. RED FLAGS WORKSHEET

12. Select Appropriate Interventions • Red flags are symptoms of failure. • Interventions: • address the root causes of failure. • provide a temporary learning support on as-needed basis and are removed when no longer needed. • need to be progressive: Less to more intense as needed. • must be immediate and cannot wait until the student is failing.

13. Intervention Selection continued… • Interventions should: • get students quickly back on track. • NOT be punitive! • be seamless and unobtrusive. • be systematic. • be specific. • NOT be labor intensive. • be a part of the lesson planning process. • Don’t allow students to fail! • Demand Mastery!

14. Examples of Interventions • Conference with student • Good constructive feedback • Graphic organizers • Cheat sheets and cues • Mnemonic devices • Peer tutoring • Mandatory extra help • Task breakdowns

15. Intervention Planning Worksheet

16. Elementary Instruction Planning Sheet