Daniel Pink’s Drive/RSA Animate No comments yet

We are huge fans of Daniel Pink’s Drive. I’m now a fan of RSA Animate who have put together a great way of ingesting his main ideas.

Networking No comments yet

Summer is here and I’m ready to recommit to writing.

For those of us who are ardent believers in the capacity of Response to Intervention or Multi-Tiered Systems of Intervention to make a real difference in education, it is clear that we will need to unite to get over the hump of resistance.  At the secondary level, there really is a void of information making it all the more imperative that we reach out to each other.  Fortunately, there are a few people in our profession who are great networkers.  Recently, Holly from SCRED and www.secondaryrti.comreached out to us after meeting with Alan Coulter.  More on Holly in a sentence or two, first I’d like to thank Alan.  Alan has been a huge asset in helping to implement RTI across the nation.  Alan seems to have a knack for remembering everything and sharing his knowledge profusely.  Alan was super helpful to us and obviously the many people who have reached out to us because of his advice.  If Alan or one of his LSU associates are in your area, do yourself a favor and stop by and see him.

Okay, now for a plug for Holly.  I first encountered the SCRED (St. Croix River Education District, MN) site about a year ago.  There are some great documents that I recommend that you peruse.  There’s a lot of very basic stuff on the web, I think you’ll find the SCRED materials are more sophisticated and content rich.  I’d give it a look.  There’s quite a bit of updating since I first looked at it.  Check out the www.secondaryrti.com site, too. 

Both Alan and Holly are examples of people who reach out and network.  We’ll only be successful with all of this business if there’s more of this type of connecting.  There’s a lot to be learned and we need to steepen learning curves as much as possible.

Please pass on other sites that I should give a shout out to.  I’d love your feedback.  We’ve got a good number of readers and I’d like to start sharing the collective knowledge.  There are many local education agencies and intermediate education agencies putting out some great work.  We need to get it into our networks.

Thanks for reading.

Charles

The Role of Counselors in Response to Intervention No comments yet

We typically don’t spend a great deal of time on the role of counselors in Response to Intervention.  It’s not intended to be a a slight, we just seem to have so much work to do with  Tier 1 academic programs that we never get to counseling and SEL.  A nice resource just popped up on the web that could help start the conversation.

We often share that SEL easily fits within our model.  The hard part is finding a measurable set of standards to work from.  While the State of Illinois has a nice set of standards, school’s wanting to use them will have to establish their own set of benchmarks.  This is no small undertaking.  British Columbia has a nice set of benchmarks, but they are designed for grades 9 and 10.  This isn’t a bad place to start.

RTI Implementation Process Resources No comments yet

When we first entered the world of RTI, we started with a loose understanding of the concept and dove into it.  We did as much research as we could, but we didn’t discover the NADSE Blueprint until we were already beyond its usefulness.  Nonetheless, it is a great tool for laying out your long term implementation plan.  Over the weekend, I was culling my RTI literature and I came across two other great resources.  Deep in the Heartland Area Education Agency materials you can find some great materials.  I think that the infrastructure development PPT is a great overview.  If you spend enough time digging through the wonderful resources that you can find at Heartland’s site, you might find a reference to New Hampshire’s materials.  New Hampshire has a nice interactive guide that is an alternative to NADSE’s and Heartland’s.  I’m not saying that one is better than the other.  They’re actually pretty similar.  It’s just a good idea to triangulate to find what will work for you.

Upcoming Michigan Presentation No comments yet

We’re excited to announce that we will be presenting in Michigan on May 4.  The conference is called:  Response to Intervention and School Improvement, Fitting it all Together One Common Voice/One Plan: Clarity for Schools. The conference is being produced by Learning Point.  The presentation will focus on RTI at the high school level.

9 Levels - Episode #7 No comments yet

I’m still working on fixing the embedding of video; in the meantime, below is the link.

Episode #7 of the 9 Levels for PLT development and utilization for Response to Intervention.

Nine Levels - #6 No comments yet

We have finished up the webinar series.  I’m not sure why, but we’re having difficulties embedding Vimeo into Wordpress.  I’ll work on it when my schedule slows down.  In the meantime, here is the link for Webinar #6.

The Finer Points of 5-Why No comments yet

In our presentations, the 5 Whys seem to generate a great deal of interest.  This is a good thing.  5 Whys is a simple technique for analyzing problems.  Those who have tried out the technique know that there are some key subtleties that can make a considerable difference in the success of the experience.  Gemba Panta Rei just put out a great little post on the 5 Whys and when to shift to Hows.  Also, there’s a nice paragraph about why we need to stay away from the Whos.

New Book on Advanced Placement Efficacy No comments yet

Last week, Ed Week put out an important article on the efficacy of Advanced Programs across the country.  I think that this is a study that merits a close look.  If you have an early copy, please give us your review.  I know that we are strong advocates of AP and some of this material contradicts the studies that we’ve worked from.  let us know what you think.

NASSP No comments yet

We will be presenting at this week’s NASSP Convention in Phoenix. We have a number of readers from around the country. If you’re there, please stop by and say hello.

This will likely be our last major presentation for the school year. We have a few more webinars to wrap up and then we can get back to work on attending to our website.

We’re working on a multi-day workshop. It has been a regular request. If you’re interested, please email us and let us know. If it comes to fruition, we’ll make sure that we send you an invite.

Thanks for reading.