Shifting Towards Personalized Learning: Managing Instruction to Ensuring Learning

1. Student From Managing Instruction to Ensuring Learning By Susan Beck Ellen Oderman Phyllis Veith

3. What Is Personalized Learning? Student

4. Specific Support for Personalized Learning Disabilities

5. Discussion Within Sessions • Shift in Federal Policy • Shift in Responsibility • Shift in Specific Learning Disabilities Eligibility • Shift from Early Intervention Model to K-12 Model • Shift from Response to Intervention to Support for Personalized Learning

6. Discussion Within Sessions continues… • Shift from Reading to Reading, Math and Written Language • Shift from Academics to Academics and Behavior • Shift from At-Risk to At-Risk and Accelerated Learners • Shift from Special Education Driven to WVDE Driven

7. Shift in Federal Policy • Special Education within the context of General Education • 1975 Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA) • 1980 -1990 Studies on Performance were Disappointing

8. Shift in Federal Policy Continues… EAHCA Reauthorization as IDEA 1997 and IDEIA 2004 • Shift from Access to Educational Benefit • General Education Standard • Improved Outcomes Not Just Process • Supporting Students Access to Post-Secondary Education and Employment

9. Shift in Responsibility • Shared Responsibility Between General and Special Education Teachers • Responsibility for Learning Outcomes For All Students

10. Shift in Specific Learning Disabilities Eligibility Evolving Understanding of SLD… IDEIA 2004 required states to adopt criteria: • Must not require use of severe discrepancy • Must permit LEAs to use process based on child’s response to scientific, research-based intervention • May permit use of other alternative research-based procedures

11. Summary of Eligibility Criteria and Determinations The multidisciplinary team must determine through a body of evidence: • Level of Learning • Rate of Learning • Exclusionary Factors

12. In Addition… Underachievement cannot be the result of a lack of appropriate instruction, specifically in the essential components of reading and mathematics.

13. Eligibility is based on final determinations that the student … • Meets the eligibility criteria as Specific Learning Disabilities; • Experiences an adverse effect on educational performance; and • Needs Special Education

14. Incidence: Chart 1 • National • Specific Learning Disability Percent of Total Special Education by State in 2009

15. Incidence • West Virginia • Number of identified Students with SLD 2001 - 2010

16. Achievement • Achievement Gap Between Students with SLD and Students without SLD

17. What Is a Multi-Leveled Framework? Core Targeted Intensive

18. Shift in Conceptual Framework • Public Health Prevention Model • Address needs of most students through CORE Instruction • Provides TARGETED Instruction for students not meeting certain criteria • Reserving INTENSIVE Instruction for students with most significant needs

19. Shift in Conceptual Framework continues… • Various models are all based on the same framework • Not specific curriculum or program • Provides framework for allocating instructional services and resources in response to students’ needs

20. Support for Personalized Learning Framework • School wide • Multi-level instructional and behavioral system • Identify students at-risk and who need acceleration or enrichment • Monitor student progress • Provide interventions • Adjust intensity and nature of interventions

21. SPL Framework Core Characteristics • General classroom instruction • Monitoring of student performance • Screening • Multi-levels of instruction

22. SPL - Key Principles • Majority of student needs are met within the Core • Screening used to identify needs • Progress monitoring used to measure effectiveness of instruction • Interventions are proportionate to students’ individual needs • Decision making is data based

23. Implementing and Monitoring an SPL System • Solid CORE Program • Universal screening • Differentiated support within the CORE Program • Progress monitoring of students within the CORE program • Supplemental (TARGETED) Instruction for students slightly below grade level

24. Implementing and Monitoring an SPL System continues… • Progress monitoring of students within TARGETED Instruction • INTENSIVE Instruction for students well below grade level • Progress monitoring of students within INTENSIVE Instruction • Referral for formal evaluation for Special Education eligibility

25. The CORE • The Core is every school’s initial instructional practices – the teaching and school experiences every student receives daily. • The Core should meet the educational needs of at least 80% of the students.

26. Characteristics of Effective CORE Instruction • Differentiated instruction • Small group activities • Focusing on most critical standards and objectives • Ongoing analysis and response to assessment data • Ensure of quality teaching • Maximizing instructional time • Implementing programs as intended

27. Targeted Instruction • Must meet the needs of: • Students who despite their struggling have not been successful • Intentional nonlearners – students who fail to try • Must group students by the cause of their difficulties, not the symptoms

28. Characteristics of Effective TARGETED Instruction Supports for intentional nonlearners… • Mandatory study hall • Mandatory homework help • Frequent progress reports • Study-skills classes • Goal-setting and career planning support • Targeted rewards

29. Characteristics of Effective TARGETED Instruction… continued Supports for struggling learners… • Initial pedagogic practices don’t correspond with learning style – lecture vs. visual/tactile • Additional time • Prerequisite skill review • Smaller groups formed around reasons for not learning

30. INTENSIVE Instruction Is designed for students who show low content area skill and/or lack of progress over time when quality CORE and TARGETED instruction have been provided.

31. INTENSIVE vs. TARGETED Instruction The main differences are not necessarily the interventions themselves, but the: • frequency; • duration; and • progress monitoring requirements.

32. INTENSIVE Instruction Refers to the… • Amount of time per day • The number of days per week • The number of weeks of instruction • The number of students receiving the intervention at a given time

33. The Eight Components of Support for Personalized Learning

34. SPL - Component # 1 School Climate and Culture A positive school climate provides the foundation on which instruction will occur and all students will be engaged in learning and depends on four essential elements.

35. SPL – Component # 2Leadership Leadership is critical for effective implementation. Success will be determined, to a great extent, by the degree to which district and school leaders are able to move the focus from philosophical understanding to actual practice.

36. SPL - Component # 3Teams and Processes The purpose of the problem-solving process is to assist educators, parents and service providers in selecting and/or designing strategies that have high probability for success in maximizing the academic and behavioral performance of students.

37. SPL - Component # 4Family and Community Partnerships Central to effective partnership is the recognition of shared responsibility and ownership of student challenges and successes by parents, families, students, community members and educators.

38. SPL - Component # 5Assessments Effective use of assessments provides data to drive the decision making process at the individual student, classroom and school levels.

39. SPL - Component # 6Core Instruction …Must be viable, rigorous, relevant, standards-driven and characterized by teachers: • Scaffolding • Immediate response • Multiple strategies • Emphasizing student responsibility • Emphasizing 24/7 learning

40. SPL - Component # 7Targeted Instruction …Is characterized by evidenced-based instructional strategies and strengths-based interventions based on the student’s specific learning and/or behavioral needs. Targeted Instruction serves a two-fold purpose.

41. SPL - Component # 8Intensive Instruction ...Is intended for students with significant and/or chronic deficits as well as for students with significant underachievement. Intensive Instruction is used to provide: • Interventions • Enrichment and/or advancement in a specific area of study; • Training on student-specific learning needs.

42. Defining Personalized Learning

43. Support for Personalized Learning is... …about getting the right instruction to each student as quickly as possible for the greatest amount of time.

44. Support for Personalized Learning is... …about understanding that solutions to problems are context specific.

45. Support for Personalized Learning is... ...about having rich conversations about students that put their performance into a personalized context.

46. Support for Personalized Learning is... …about determining whether an identified problem exists for one student, a small group of students, or a large group of students and using this knowledge to form the most appropriate response.

47. Support for Personalized Learning is... ...about the individuals closest to each student collecting pertinent data and actively participating in designing the most appropriate response.

48. Support for Personalized Learning is... …about utilizing a problem-solving process to analyze possible reasonsfor a student’s academic and/or behavioral needs and providing the most effective configuration of support.

49. Support for Personalized Learning is... ...about envisioning and articulating viable expectations for every student.

50. … about identifying and manipulating the variables that affect a student’s performance. Support for Personalized Learning is...