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Premium Member Book (May 2010)

Enhancing RTI

by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey

Table of Contents

A Study Guide for Enhancing RTI: How to Ensure Success with Effective Classroom Instruction and Intervention

This ASCD Study Guide is designed to enhance your understanding and application of the information contained in Enhancing RTI, an ASCD book written by Douglas Fisher & Nancy Frey and published in May 2010.

You can use the study guide before or after you have read the book, or as you finish each chapter. The study questions provided are not meant to cover all aspects of the book but, rather, to address specific ideas that might warrant further reflection.

Most of the questions contained in this study guide are ones you can think about on your own, but you might consider pairing with a colleague or forming a study group with others who have read (or are reading) Enhancing RTI.

Chapter 1: Choose Your Adventure

  1. How do you explain the human learning process? Consider the various theories you have been exposed to and discuss your own philosophy.
  2. Think about your experiences with each of the three learning environments presented as options for Adam. Describe your personal or professional experiences with each.
  3. Identify a student in need of additional help, and talk with colleagues about assessments that can guide your instruction and intervention.
  4. Using a Venn diagram, compare and contrast RTI and RTI2. What additional benefits does a focus on instruction offer a school system?
  5. Audit your school or district prereferral process, and identify areas that need improvement.

Chapter 2: Response to Intervention

  1. As an educator, have you experienced situations in which learning outcomes varied while time and instruction were held constant? Have you experienced situations in which learning outcomes were held constant while time and instruction varied?
  2. Does the cholesterol analogy relate to your personal experiences with trying to allocate interventions?
  3. Describe the three tiers of RTI to someone unfamiliar with the concept. Which areas are clear to you, and which areas generate more questions for you?
  4. Figure 2.3 includes an approximate percentage of students in each tier. Are these numbers consistent with your experiences? How can schools increase the percentage of students who are successful in Tier 1, so that the need for supplemental and intensive interventions is reduced?
  5. Use the questions on page 27 as a needs assessment. Interview various members of your educational community and determine areas that need improvement.

Chapter 3: Quality Core Instruction

  1. Discuss the four components of the release of responsibility model and identify specific areas of strength and need within your educational community.
  2. What is the definition of a focus lesson?
  3. How can you identify relevant content and language goals for the classroom?
  4. Describe teacher modeling as it relates to the gradual release of responsibility framework. Model your own thinking for peers to get feedback and guidance.
  5. What are the key features of productive group work, and why is this a critical component of classroom instruction?
  6. What is meant by guided instruction? How do cues, prompts, and questions differ, and how can each be used during guided instruction?
  7. What types of independent learning are appropriate within the gradual release of responsibility framework?
  8. Use the Gradual Release of Responsibility Lesson Planning Tool at the end of this study guide to design a lesson with all of the relevant components.
  9. Use the quality indicators on pages 49–50 as a needs assessment to determine specific areas of strength and need within your classroom, grade level, and school.

Chapter 4: Supplemental Interventions

  1. What supports can be considered as supplemental interventions? Inventory the supports currently available at your school.
  2. Supplemental interventions require increasing intensity. Discuss the ways that this can be accomplished, such as with group size, time, assessment, and expertise.
  3. Discuss ways that teachers can implement small group supplemental interventions within their classrooms.
  4. Consider the role that academic recovery can have for students. How might academic recovery efforts help schools improve and students achieve?
  5. Design an academic intervention plan or learning contract with a student and his or her family. Discuss implementation of the plan with colleagues, and determine areas that can be improved in future plans.
  6. Compare and contrast various extended school day and year programs, and then determine which model(s) might be useful for supplemental interventions. Work with the school leadership team to help expand the supplemental interventions already available.
  7. What accommodations might be useful for students without disabilities? Meet with a special educator to get more information about these accommodations.

Chapter 5: Intensive Interventions for High-Risk Learners

  1. Intensive interventions should be delivered individually to students. How can this recommendation be realized?
  2. Use the rubric on page 77 to evaluate current intervention efforts at your school. Which areas of strength can you can build upon, and which areas of need can be improved?
  3. Consider the three conditions necessary for effective intensive intervention efforts. Are they currently in place at your school? If so, how are they used? If not, could they be implemented?
  4. Use the questions on pages 87–89 to develop an intensive intervention for a student with significant learning needs. How did the student respond to the intensive intervention? What lessons did you learn that might apply to other students?
  5. Consider Raquel's experiences, as described on pages 89–92. What might have been different if the core, supplemental, and intensive efforts were not aligned?

Chapter 6: The Role of Assessment in RTI2

  1. Discuss the various roles that assessment plays in education and how you can use assessment results to plan instruction and intervention.
  2. Discuss the difference between formal and informal assessments. Identify specific tools that your school, district, and state use in both of these categories.
  3. Select an informal assessment to develop and administer to a student. Share your results with colleagues, identify areas of instructional need, and discuss potential improvements to the assessment tools you create.
  4. Make a list of appropriate universal screening tools you can use to identify at-risk students at the beginning of the school year.
  5. Identify appropriate progress monitoring tools you can use to check student progress. Create a calendar for the administration of these tools.
  6. Plan supplemental and intensive interventions based on assessment data. Share the results with your colleagues as you monitor student progress toward increased mastery.

Chapter 7: Feed-up, Feedback, and Feed-Forward

  1. Discuss the differences between feed-up, feedback, and feed-forward. Why are each important, and how can they be used in an RTI2 system?
  2. Why won't feedback alone result in increased student achievement?
  3. Identify language frames that you can use to increase academic discourse in the classroom. Share these frames with your colleagues, and solicit useful frames that other teachers have developed.
  4. Meet with teachers who teach the same subject, grade, or class as you do. Develop a common formative assessment and administer it to all relevant students. Examine the trends for areas of weakness, and plan future instruction accordingly.
  5. Discuss the concept of competencies with your colleagues. Can you agree on competencies that represent the content you want to teach? What would these do for you in terms of planning? What would these do for you in terms of implementing an RTI2 system?

Chapter 8: Leading RTI2 Efforts

  1. What grade would you give David, based on the example situation presented on page 128? Talk with your colleagues to see if their ideas about quality differ.
  2. Invite someone to observe your class and complete the classroom observation rubric (page 132). Discuss each of the expectations in advance, and assess your shared understanding of each.
  3. Discuss the various roles required for RTI2 to work. Does everyone on your team operate within these roles? How can these roles be strengthened?
  4. Form an RTI2 committee if one does not already exist in your school. As part of the first meeting, discuss the committee's roles and how work will be accomplished.
  5. If your school already has an RTI2 program, assess the extent to which parents are involved. What works well and what needs to be revised? As part of the overall RTI2 effort, develop a plan to engage family members in the school improvement process.


Gradual Release of Responsibility Lesson Planning Tool

Topic/Theme

Standard(s)

Level(s) of Thinking

Recall Relate Connect Create

Literacy Connections

Description:

Purpose and Modeling

Anticipatory Set:

Best Practices:

Guided Instruction

Whole Group:

Small Group:

Extension:

Productive Group Work

(one to three practice, more as needed)

Collaboration 1:

Individual/Section/Group

Collaboration 2:

Individual/Section/Group

Collaboration 3:

Individual/Section/Group

Other Concurrent Activities:

Independent Learning with Conferring

Practice Task(s):

Student/Teacher Conferring:

Assessment

Formative:

Summative:


Enhancing RTI: How to Ensure Success with Effective Classroom Instruction and Intervention was written by Douglas Fisher & Nancy Frey. This 160-page,7 7/8″ × 9 7/8″ book (Stock #110037; ISBN-13: 978-1-4166-0987-2) is available from ASCD for $20.95 (ASCD member) or $26.95 (nonmember). Copyright © 2010 by ASCD. To order a copy, call ASCD at 1-800-933-2723 (in Virginia 1-703-578-9600) and press 2 for the Service Center. Or buy the book from ASCD's Online Store.

Copyright © 2010 by Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. All rights reserved. No part of this publication—including the drawings, graphs, illustrations, or chapters, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles—may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from ASCD.

Requesting Permission

  • For photocopy, electronic and online access, and republication requests, go to the Copyright Clearance Center. Enter the book title within the "Get Permission" search field.
  • To translate this book, contact translations@ascd.org
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