KU Center for Research on Learning
Examining the Role of the Special Educator in a Response to Intervention Model
The researcher gathered instructional practices data by watching the special educators while they were engaged in instruction and recording what instructional practices they were using every 30 seconds during instruction. Instructional practices were categorized as those with greatest effects and those with typical effects according to Hattie (2009). The results are displayed in Table 5.
The researcher also analyzed instructional data according to the tier within an RTI framework in which it took place (Tier 2 or Tier 3), as shown in Table 6.
2011 SIM Impact Award
CENTRAL ACADEMY MIDDLE SCHOOL
JAMES RIVER HIGH SCHOOL
BOTETOURT COUNTY, VIRGINIA
Students at James River High School and Central Academy Middle School in Botetourt County, Virginia, are the clear winners in an intense, six-year (and counting) process to develop a comprehensive, unified program to improve literacy skills and academic achievement. The schools were selected to participate in a State Personnel Development Grant in which they adopted the Content Literacy Continuum, developed by the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning, as a framework for schoolwide literacy improvement.
Before 2005—the year the initial grant was awarded—30 percent of the students at Central Academy Middle School scored below proficient on the Virginia Standards of Learning state assessment for reading and writing. A closer look showed that 70 percent of students with disabilities scored below proficient, as did more than 55 percent of economically disadvantaged students.
The situation at James River High School was better—86 percent of the high school’s students passed the reading assessment—but the school did not have a systematic approach to improving literacy of secondary students.
“One of the chief reasons that Botetourt County Public Schools applied for the CLC grant was the recognition of a problem area related to adolescent literacy, which was apparently not being adequately addressed by the school division,” says Superintendent Anthony Brads. “Although not misguided in the least, the division literacy focus was mainly placed on early intervention. When applying for the grant, we were looking for a vehicle to assist us with developing a comprehensive Pre-K through 12 approach to literacy. CLC has become a significant part of that process.”
Through support received from the grant, the two schools adopted CLC as their framework for an extensive school improvement effort focused on improving literacy skills of all students. In the years that followed, teachers received professional development tailored to their roles and classroom needs as well as follow-up support in Strategic Instruction Model Learning Strategies and Content Enhancement Routines. The schools developed new classes to meet students’ literacy needs, and a speech-language pathologist joined the team to collaborate with all teachers at both schools and provide therapeutic intervention for students with the most severe language deficits. Literacy Leadership Teams formed to guide the schools’ efforts, and collaboration across content areas, grade levels, and schools became the norm. In addition to the CLC and SIM focus on literacy, the schools also introduced block scheduling and encouraged integrating effective use of technology into instruction, resulting in many significant changes to school structure and culture in a short time. That the schools were able to juggle the changes and at the same time see dramatic increases in test scores and student achievement is a credit to the dedication of teachers and administrators alike.
“Our experience tells us that the schools and districts achieving the largest literacy gains are those with strong administrative leadership,” says Don Deshler, director of the Center for Research on Learning. “Clearly, one of the keys to the success in Botetourt County has been the cadre of committed leaders at the division and school levels.”
All five levels of the Content Literacy Continuum are in place in the Botetourt County schools. The collaboration between schools, including regularly scheduled leadership meetings focused on shared literacy issues, creates a unified experience for all students from sixth-grade through graduation.
Though CLC is firmly established, the schools continually evaluate results at all five levels as leadership teams consider how to sustain improvements to instruction and student achievement. An annual planning document specifies the interventions to be used at each level (whether SIM strategies and routines or other programs, such as LANGUAGE!), classes in which teachers will be expected to implement interventions, evidence of implementation, resources to support instruction or indicators that more intense instruction is necessary, and speech-language pathologist support for each level.
The thoughtfulness of the planning and persistence in pursuing improvement have resulted in exciting advances in literacy levels at the two schools.
“In the short amount of time I have been here, the impact SIM has had on CAMS is astronomical,” says Timothy McClung, who is in his second year as principal of Central Academy Middle School. “We have students who have gained over two grade levels in reading in one year. Our state accountability scores were higher in 2010 than they have ever been.”
Figures 1 and 2 show Central Academy Middle School students’ pass rates for the state assessments in reading and writing. Pass rates in both reading (Figure 1) and writing (Figure 2) have improved for all students and for the subgroups of students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged students.
“As a school, the biggest success has been the improvement of our eighth-grade writing scores,” says Denise Sprinkle, science teacher and building leader for the CLC project at the middle school. “We feel the incorporation of the writing strategies into our curriculum has been critical to the student gains in writing.”
James River High School has realized similar improvements on state assessments for its students. Figure 3 shows improvements in pass rates for all students in the areas of reading, math, science, and history from the 2005-2006 school year to 2009-2010. Writing pass rates remained about the same. More students are passing their reading and writing state assessments with a rating of “advanced proficiency,” as seen in Figure 4.
“We now have a common goal—to improve literacy for all students—and we are reaching that goal. The Content Enhancement Routines and Learning Strategies have been the foundation for the schoolwide change,” says Dana McCaleb, special education teacher, building leader for the project, and SIM Professional Developer at James River High School.
Teachers and administrators are justifiably proud of the improvements they are seeing in their students’ literacy skills. They also note personal benefits in professional and collegial growth, including more open communication and more opportunities to collaborate not just within schools but across schools. At James River High School, principal Jamie Talbott credits CLC with improving communication across departments and creating positive collaboration among teachers, both of which he says have led to improved classroom instruction and student achievement. Sprinkle, at the middle school, believes communication is one of her biggest responsibilities. “As the building lead, communication with all levels of administration is crucial. Communication with fellow teachers and listening to their concerns is part of what I do,” she says.
Extending collaboration between schools means the educators have regular opportunities to discuss student progress—including students’ transition from middle school to high school—and the effectiveness of instructional methods across all grade levels.
“The collaboration has allowed us to better meet the needs of our incoming students, providing services for them to meet their literacy levels and improve literacy across the board,” says McCaleb.
Central Academy Middle School and James River High School have met the thorny challenge of improving student literacy with an admirable tenaciousness and a determined focus on the needs of their students, realizing exceptional gains in student achievement in the process. They also have created a literacy-centric culture, owned by all teachers and administrators, that will continue to serve the best interests of the schools and their students well into the future.
“I have witnessed the growth of principals and teachers into such strong instructional leaders,” says Joni Poff, the division’s supervisor of secondary instruction and gifted education. “To sit back and watch a CLC team meeting take place in a school is fascinating. The level of the conversation, the knowledge of the members, and the focus of the team are incredible.”
The Text Pattern Intervention
Students who learn this intervention first practice recognizing and making meaning from noun phrases, connectives, and passive voice at the sentence level. Then, they apply their knowledge to longer passages, including paragraphs and textbook sections. The lessons end with students using identifiers and connectives to discern the theme and important details of increasingly difficult social studies and science passages.
Lessons 1 and 2: Defining Verb Types
The first two lessons focus on active and passive verbs, and the figure below shows a visual aid that is used to explicitly teach the types of verbs. Lesson 1 involves a review of action verbs and starts out with words representing concrete physical movements that students typically encounter in narrative texts, such as jump and grumble. The students then work with more abstract thinking verbs, such as watch and listen, so that they develop familiarity with the words that commonly appear in expository texts. Lesson 2 shifts the students’ attention to passive verb formations, which scientists and historians often use in their writing. The students learn to choose and use both linking and helping verbs. This lesson helps students convey information in writing while maintaining the objective stance that portrays authority on the matter at hand. However, because some disciplines require that authors write in active voice, the students also practice translating passive into active voice sentences.
Lessons 3 and 4: Structuring Noun Phrases
The next two lessons build on the students’ knowledge of verbs in order to convert them into nouns and noun phrases. Lesson three introduces a list of suffixes that change words from verbs to nouns. Once the students have practiced using root words as verbs and nouns, they add identifiers (i.e., a and the) and adjectives to the left and prepositional phrases to the right of the main subject to form noun phrases (see the figure below). Finally, the teacher asks students to identify noun phrases in their content-area textbooks. This generalization activity helps the students apply their skills to new reading situations.
Kansas Demonstration to Maintain Independence and Employment
Division of Adult Studies
Through analysis of results of the DMIE study, Hall’s research team argues that it is more cost-effective to provide better health insurance coverage up front than to pay Medicare or Medicaid plus disability benefits for life. Study participants in the intervention group received more comprehensive benefits at less cost and, as a result, sought more appropriate medical services for their conditions and had better long-term health outcomes.
One of the most encouraging findings of the study involved a comparison of the physical health of the intervention group and a control group. Although the control group’s overall health was better at the beginning of the study, the health of the intervention group finished better and, in fact, declined less than one would expect due to typical aging.
The DMIE research has implications in the greater health care debate now playing out on the national stage. Recent health care reform legislation established a federal high-risk pool to provide coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. The federal pool is a little less expensive than the state pools, but coverage is similar. In addition, when health insurance exchanges go into effect in 2014, the basic, or bronze, coverage level may look similar to high-risk pool coverage.
“We’re concerned that we’ll see the exact same thing, that even though people have health insurance, they may not be able to afford to use it,” Hall says. “Between now and 2014, we’re really trying to show that maybe we need to reconsider how things are structured, especially for people with chronic conditions.”
Though the DMIE project concluded this fall, the results tie in to a new project led by Hall that will evaluate the federal high-risk pool. The study is part of The Commonwealth Fund’s Affordable Health Insurance program. Hall released an initial report from that study earlier this fall. Her final report, expected in April 2011, will make recommendations for policymakers to consider as they establish insurance exchanges, with particular emphasis on the needs of individuals who are unable to obtain insurance now because of pre-existing conditions.
“Our concern is for people with chronic illnesses or chronic conditions, that their needs are met both in the short term by the national pool and in the long term by the exchange coverage,” Hall said.
Striving Readers
Institute for Research on Adolescent Literacy
“It’s building on the work we’ve done with all of the learning strategies that have been developed here at the Center, starting with Word Identification, Self-Questioning, and Paraphrasing,” says Hock.
Hock and his colleagues packaged Fusion Reading’s redesigned learning tools in a way they hope will be feasible for teachers to use in their teaching and effective for student learning.
“I think the outcome really is more than whether or not Fusion Reading is a good program,” Hock says. “It’s what have we learned through the last 30 years in terms of interventions for students who struggle in learning.”
The Michigan Department of Education will lead the four-year Striving Readers study, which will involve nine schools, nine teachers, and 2,500 students. SRI International, a private research center based in Menlo Park, Calif., will provide an independent evaluation of the effectiveness of the program.
Planning began in October 2009 when project staff met with school representatives to explain the project and conduct screenings of students who had been identified as struggling readers to verify that they were at least two years behind in reading level to qualify for inclusion in the project. In June, staff conducted an orientation for all of the teachers who will participate in the project; participants also included an administrator from each school. Staff reviewed the overall plan and goals for the project, described Fusion Reading, and summarized what we know about struggling readers.
Each teacher left the orientation session with a laptop, a Flip video camera, and an assignment to shoot personal videos throughout the summer. During the next three years, these tools will be used to explore a new approach to professional development: distance coaching.
“We really think that looking at yourself teaching is a powerful professional development tool, and we’re going to test that out in this project,” Hock says.
Aaron Sumner, the Center’s director of technology for research and development, and Amber Nutt, program assistant-online coordinator, showed teachers how to use these tools, combined with iChat, to share and discuss videos online. This “what I did this summer” video assignment will help teachers become familiar with the tools and comfortable with the process in a low-stress way.
Once the school year begins, project staff will mix traditional and new methods of professional development: Hock and Irma Brasseur-Hock, co-principal investigator, will conduct Fusion Reading workshops; Sue Woodruff and Pam Leitzell, who are coaches and members of the SIM International Professional Development Network affiliated with the Center, will conduct on-site coaching and follow up after the workshops; and everyone will participate in iChat sessions.
Distance coaching and technology aside, the real test for this project is whether Fusion Reading will make a significant difference in the reading performance of students in middle schools and high schools.
“It’s very difficult to move the needle with middle school and most difficult to move it with high school students,” Hock says. “They live very complicated lives. We’re hoping we can get them to attend Fusion Reading classes long enough to find out that reading is not as bad as they may have anticipated and that we’re trying to put together a class that reflects what they want out of life and supports their goals.”
Technology Rich Classrooms
ALTEC
New way of teaching, learning
Despite the name “Technology Rich Classrooms,” many of the TRC teachers say that the project is not about technology. Instead, it’s about changing the way instruction takes place.
“Direct instruction is not a big piece of what we ask for,” Rowland says. “We ask for student-centered instruction that uses a lot of higher-order thinking, project-based learning, and using technology as a tool for learning.”
Year 2 of the grants is when project-based learning typically takes off. One example of a current project-based activity is found at a grade school in Buhler, Kan. An injury at a school intersection propelled students in a TRC classroom to ask the question, “Why is that intersection so dangerous and what needs to be changed?” In their quest to discover answers, students are gathering data to determine how busy the intersection is and what sort of traffic management devices could be installed to decrease accidents. Once data have been gathered, they plan to make a recommendation to the city council about what they believe should be changed.
“One of the big things that I hope students take away from this project is the idea of independence … that they can be their own advocates for finding the answers to questions,” Rowland says. “That is a huge 21st Century skill, and one that I hope all students in the grant take away.”
Future directions
Thanks to funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the number of people who can participate in the TRC program in the 2010-2011 school year has almost tripled. In addition, the program is being expanded from elementary schools into middle schools.
“We really want this project to be a catalyst for change in the state of Kansas,” Rowland says. “We want kids to become tech literate and technology to become the way we do business.
“We know that kids have to use technology when they get into the job market, no matter where their career pathway leads them. So it doesn’t make sense for us to continue to teach them using direct instruction or from a textbook, because that’s not what they’re going to need when they get into the real world. Thus, our big goal is to get technology infused across the state and better prepare kids for their future.”
Teacher Quality
Kansas Coaching Project
This year, the team’s efforts are directed toward making continual improvements in the coaching model based on a deep analysis of coaching in action. To make such an analysis possible, the project issued inexpensive, personal digital video cameras to five coaches in Beaverton. The coaches record every conversation they have and everything they do in their coaching relationship with teachers. Every planning conversation, every time coaches demonstrate an instructional method in the classroom, every time the teacher implements a new method, and every feedback session are all captured on video.
“We’ve been doing coaching for a long time, but we’ve never been able to lay it all out in front of us and see everything so precisely,” Knight says. “We can watch basically every word that passes between the coach and the teacher.”
The researchers review the video periodically, revise the coaching model based on what they see, and then send coaches back into the field to try out the revisions. This process has led to several adjustments to the coaching model and to further exploration of key components, such as effective questioning skills.
A second study this year is a naturalistic qualitative analysis of the activities of outstanding coaches. The team of qualitative researchers will be observing coaches who have been singled out for their influence on teaching and interviewing coaches, teachers, and administrators to find out what great coaches do.
Next year, the final year of the project, researchers will return to a study comparing professional learning that incorporates the refined model of coaching with professional learning that provides no coaching. Knight hopes to continue refining the model based on research findings, too.
* The Question Exploration Routine is one component of the Center’s Strategic Instruction Model® Content Enhancement Routine Series. Teachers use the routine to help diverse student populations explore and understand important course content.
Soaring to New Heights
Division of Adult Studies
December, 2009
What are we learning?
Initial results for students in the Soaring to New Heights classes have been positive. See page 3 for anecdotal examples.
Researchers, too, are learning a number of lessons that will strengthen future projects and potentially lead to greater benefits for more students.
Inadequate self-determination models. First, one of the most surprising findings so far is how deeply unprepared students are to accept the challenges of Soaring to New Heights.
“Kids as juniors in high school, especially juniors that have a relatively long history of being categorized as a student with a disability, they don’t think in terms of self-determination. In fact, if anything, they don’t believe that they have the capacity to become self-determined,” says Johnson.
Both models of self-determination used in this study, the ARC and the AIR, assume that students have a sense of competency and other sources of support, both of which may be missing in the Soaring target student population.
“I wouldn’t want to come across as critical of the ARC or the AIR, but they are white, middle class models,” Johnson says. “This is a multicultural, urban, poor environment. The models of self-determination that historically we use to address transition are not appropriate.”
“Who, me?” Another unexpected lesson is that students in the course—despite years of special education placement—resist the idea that they have disabilities. Information about disability heritage and pride or self-advocacy in terms of a student’s special needs is likely to be met with an attitude of “what’s that got to do with me?”
GOALS
Examine the effects of Sound Effects on adolescent reading and study skills.
PROJECT STAFF
Carrie Mark, KUCRL doctoral fellow
Donald D. Deshler, KUCRL director
RESEARCH DESIGN
Study 1
Single-Case Design
Study 2
Group Design—Random Assignment
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