Tier 1 Core Instruction and more.

Last Monday during PD I talked about the need for our Tier 1 core instruction to improve throughout the school.  I would like to spend some time here communicating the steps we are taking to indeed improve our core teaching.  First, here is a brief description of Tier 1 and its purpose.

Tier 1: High-Quality Classroom Instruction, Screening, and Group Interventions

Within Tier 1, all students receive high-quality, scientifically based instruction provided by qualified personnel to ensure that their difficulties are not due to inadequate instruction. All students are screened on a periodic basis to establish an academic and behavioral baseline and to identify struggling learners who need additional support. Students identified as being “at risk” through universal screenings and/or results on state- or districtwide tests receive supplemental instruction during the school day in the regular classroom.

Collaboration-  All teachers are collaborating on Monday PD days.  These conversations for core teachers are around 3 specific questions:  

What do we want our students to know?  What knowledge, skills, and dispositions must all students acquire as a result of this grade level, this course, and/or this unit we are about to teach? What systems have we put in place to ensure we are providing every student with access to a guaranteed and viable curriculum regardless of the teacher to whom that student might be assigned?

How will we know if our students are learning? How can we check for understanding on an ongoing basis in our individual classrooms? How will we gather evidence of each student’s proficiency as a team?  What criteria will we establish to assess the quality of student work? How can we be certain we can apply the criteria consistently?

How will we respond when students do not learn? What steps can we put in place to provide students who struggle with additional time and support for learning in a way that is timely, directive, and systematic rather than invitational and random?  How can we provide students with multiple opportunities to demonstrate learning?

Purposeful Planning- Each Thursday morning our Math, Humanities, and Interventionist collaborate and plan instruction based on the critical standards and Acuity Data.   This helps us be more responsive in our daily lessons in order to meet student needs.  

Small Group Teaching- I know our math department has experimented with this strategy and it is one that we will need to grow our capacity around.  Based on our frequent checks for understanding teachers should be planning and using small group instruction.  Example:  If you see evidence that 8 students are not getting the objective of the lesson or have not performed well on an assessment we should be pulling those students together and giving them more instruction in a small group.  

Data- We need to use the data that we collect everyday as evidence of learning and use it to adjust our next steps.  Lots of checks for understanding and using our assessment data to be responsive in both our planning and instruction.  What was the impact of your lesson or strategy on the student learning of the objective?  How do we know if our instruction worked?  How will we know.  

Tier 1 Student Behavior-  Right along side academics is student behavior and student teacher relationships.  This is also an area of tier 1 instruction that we need to address.  In talking with teachers and conducting walk-throughs, student engagement and student effort needs to be targeted with our core instruction.  Craig and I have talked about how we can better support teachers with apathetic students who are unwilling to work, as we know that we cannot let students opt out and just refuse to put forth effort and expect student achievement to increase.  Through a combination of building great student teacher relationships and holding students accountable we think that tier 1 instruction can be improved.  I would like for all teachers to review this behavior plan that is part of our Storm Watch program, which is a tier 1 intervention for behavior.  Behavior Plan  When students come to us for multiple at the line behaviors, (classroom managed behaviors) progressive consequences will occur.  Also read this article that was posted to the blog. 

As a team we will continue to improve our Tier 1 core instruction.  We spent time first semester on various strategies, scaffolding, comprehension strategies, vocabulary strategies, differentiation to name a few.  I encourage to cycle back through your notes and embed what you have learned into your lessons.  I appreciate everyones growth mindset around improving our students success.  

Other Items: 

ISTEP Test-  We will test part 1 paper pencil.  I know this do not sit well with some of you however we must prepare students to be successful.  This will prevent any interruptions during the test and help provide a fluid testing environment for all students.  

Book Study-  On March 1st we will begin several book studies.  Teachers will have 3 choices to choose form.  The study is optional but will provide teachers with the opportunities to get 15-20 PGP points for the year.   I would like to order books in the next week so please fill out the form and choose a book study if you intend to participate.  Here are the choices and the form to choose.