This module describes how to use data (Module 6) to inform decision making in the classroom. How do you know you are choosing the right interventions, and implementing with the right intensity, to influence a change in student behavior? By the end of this module you should be able to: Describe why we use data for decision making Determine if core features of classroom management practices are in place with fidelity Determine if all individuals in your classroom are achieving desired outcomes Develop an action plan to enhance or intensify support as needed

NCII presented a strand at Center for Exceptional Children (CEC) 2015 Convention and Expo. The strand, "How Can We Make Intensive Intervention Happen?  Considerations for Knowledge Development, Implementation, and Policy," address the range of issues schools and districts encounter as they attempt to implement intensive intervention—knowledge and skills, systems to support and evaluate implementation, and policy context. 

NCII presented a Strand at CEC 2014 Convention and Expo focused on intensive intervention. The Strand Using Intensive Intervention to Meet the Academic and Behavior Needs of Struggling Learners provided participants with an overview of how principles of intensive intervention may be applied to students with severe and persistent learning needs across reading, mathematics, and behavior. The Strand included three content-oriented sessions focused on reading, mathematics, and behavior and one panel session covering common implementation issues associated with provision of intensive services

The DBI Implementation Rubric and the DBI Implementation Interview are intended to support monitoring of school-level implementation of data-based individualization (DBI). The rubric is based on the structure of the Center on Response to Intervention’s Integrity Rubric and is aligned with the essential components of DBI and the infrastructure that is necessary for successful implementation in Grades K–6. It describes levels of implementation on a 1–5 scale across DBI components. The rubric is accompanied by the DBI Implementation Interview which includes guiding questions that may be used for a self-assessment or structured interview of a school’s DBI leadership team.

Providing more explicit instruction, captured within the comprehensiveness domain of the Taxonomy of Intervention Intensity, is critical within intensive intervention. The Recognizing Effective Special Education Teachers (RESET) project, funded by U.S. Department of Education Institute for Education Sciences (IES) and led by Evelyn Johnson at Boise State University, developed a series of rubrics based on evidence-based practices for students with high incidence disabilities. One set of rubrics focuses on explicit instruction. Based on the main ideas of Explicit Instruction, the Explicit Instruction Rubric was designed for use by supervisors and administrators to reliably evaluate explicit instructional practice, to provide specific, accurate, and actionable feedback to special education teachers about the quality of their explicit instruction, and ultimately, improve the outcomes for students with disabilities.

Fidelity refers to how closely prescribed procedures are followed and, in the context of schools, the degree to which educators implement programs, assessments, and implementation plans the way they were intended. When we implement interventions and assessments with fidelity, intervention teams can make more accurate decisions about an individual student’s progress and future intervention needs. In addition, fidelity of implementation to the data-based individualization (DBI) process as a whole, across multiple students in a school, helps to ensure that staff have the necessary resources and processes in place to support strong implementation for individual students. The following tools assess and support fidelity of DBI implementation at the school, interventionist, and student levels.