This report from Jobs for the Future and Authored by Sharon Vaughn, Lou Danielson, Rebecca Zumeta Edmonds, and Lynn Holdheide, 1) reviews previous efforts to promote better educational outcomes for students with disabilities, 2) describes research-based instructional strategies that can support them and other struggling learners, and 3) shares the kinds of policies and local resources needed to ensure that all young people have meaningful opportunities to learn deeply and become truly prepared to succeed in college, careers, and civic life.
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Implementation Guidance and Considerations
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In this video, Dr. Rebecca Zumeta Edmonds, Co-Director of NCII discusses the role professional development should play when preparing staff to implement a multi-tiered system of supports.
How might MTSS affect what's measured on report cards, including academic and non-academic measures?
In this video, Dr. Rebecca Zumeta Edmonds, Co-Director of NCII, discusses ways that a multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) can help educators consider what student report cards can measure beyond academic performance.
In this video, Dr. Rebecca Zumeta Edmonds, Co-Director of NCII discusses the differences between the terms “multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS)” and “Response to Intervention (RtI).”
Data teams serve multiple roles in the data-based individualization (DBI) process and across a multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS). Although schools may have multiple teams that review different types of data across a multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS), the intensive intervention or DBI team is focused on the needs of individual students who are not making progress in their current intervention or special education program. It is critical that these meetings are driven by data, occur regularly, and use an efficient, consistent process that allows participants to review progress and make intervention decisions for students. NCII has created a series of tools to help teams establish efficient and effective individual student data meetings.
Parents and families are critical partners in supporting students with intensive academic and behavioral needs. It is important to recognize that every parent and family member is different, with varying levels of knowledge and comfort with school; they may not consider their involvement in the school in the same way that the school perceives it. As a result, our approach to parent and family engagement should be differentiated. It is important to: share information about the school’s approach to multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) and data-based individualization (DBI) to ensure that families have an understanding of the process, ask parents and families for information about their child, and invite them to be a part of the process as relevant.
Research tells us that ongoing coaching is essential for achieving practice change. And without ongoing coaching and practice opportunities, professional development is highly unlikely to lead to increased knowledge and skills to implement a new practice soundly. This rings especially true for complex processes like data-based individualization (DBI). DBI requires that educators commit to engaging in the iterative process of providing intervention, analyzing progress monitoring data, and making data-based decisions to adapt and individualize interventions when needed. To help schools effectively implement DBI, ongoing implementation support in the form of coaching that provides opportunities to learn critical information, apply and receive feedback, and troubleshoot problems when they occur is essential.
Research indicates that for successful implementation to occur, it is important to look at not only what is being implemented but how it is implemented. Implementing DBI often necessitates that educators make school-wide instructional adaptations, engage in systematic data analysis, and conduct individualized student-level decisions at levels that task the bandwidth of resources, staffing, and budgets of many schools. Assessing readiness from multiple stakeholders with different perspectives prior to implementation allows educators across many levels (schools, districts, and states) to prioritize areas for their initial efforts and then slowly use the momentum to build capacity toward full implementation. In this section, find training materials, lessons learned from those who have implemented DBI, and tools to assess your initial readiness and build capacity to implement intensive intervention.
Many students who require intensive intervention also are students with disabilities. Thus, when used school-wide, data-based individualization (DBI) can help school teams design and implement a prereferral process and high-quality special education services. Furthermore, DBI also provides schools with a validated approach for identifying and supporting students with severe and persistent learning and behavior problems, including students who may require special education. This is because the data collected through the DBI process can assist teams in assessing the need for specialized instruction, which is one of two requirements for determining eligibility for special education. In addition, data collected through the DBI process can support special education teachers in more accurately developing present levels, goals, and specialized instruction and support that will be included in the initial IEP.
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 and 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.