Teachers know the learning gaps
Support and develop classroom interventions to close learning gaps.
Advantages of a teacher designed intervention.
- Timely performance data
- Current student work
- Knowledge of the student
- Multiple sources of data from experience
- Identify students that need immediate support
- Intervention based on teacher and student needs
- Lessons designed to reteach during school day
Classroom identified learning gaps use recent data generated by the students during the learning process. State or district assessment data is useful, but better informs systemic or institutional decisions. It makes sense to base a district or intervention program decision across many data from many sites, but classroom data is preferential to a teacher.
The advantage of an intervention based on a teacher’s knowledge and experience in the classroom focuses specifically on the student and the instructional process.
What students need immediate help?
Using teacher insight to develop interventions focused on manageable, or short-term, gaps specific to the classroom, team, or department needs.
Support students with long-term intervention needs with institutional defined differentiated instructional models or district program services.
Are we confident in the data used to place students in the intervention?
Using teacher input, combining expertise with student classroom assessment data or tasks, determines a targeted intervention to benefit their current students. This method allows for the creation of quality assessments or tasks available again with confidence in the resulting data.
What intervention materials or resources should we use?
Establishing the reason or need for the intervention helps identify resources and methods to match classroom rigor based on current standards, skills, or knowledge.
Intervention controlled by teachers provides the input, resources, and materials to identify scaffolding processes with the rigor and complexity to bridge the student learning gap.
Does our outcome target a student’s current and future needs?
The reason for the intervention, and how it will help the student, will define the value of the intended outcome.
Intended outcomes should directly benefit students’ learning progression for the current school year and future learning. Teachers and students benefit from focusing on specific needs at this level of decision making.
Do we all understand the process and intended results of the intervention?
Knowing the reason and targeted results will keep everyone focused on improving an outcome.
Once you have decided on the intervention, map out the process for implementation and instruction. The path will be clear and consistent, focusing activities, conversations, and instruction on the outcome.
Do not let other problems sidetrack plans and cause the intervention to creep into issues that do not benefit the process. Interventions grow out of control without a strict focus on the intended outcome.
Who will deliver the intervention?
Every person interacting with an intervention student needs to understand the intervention. Define and communicate the intervention and process to stakeholders, including site administrators, to ensure the integrity of the system.
Resource distribution and availability will be a key success for all students creating a consistent environment. *Consistency is not robotic teaching, resources enhance the quality of instruction based on the intervention definition even with differing teaching styles.
How will we know that the intervention is working?
**What will we be used to monitor student improvement?
Formative models allow for unique perspective
Team or classroom formative assessment models work to measure progress and gain.
When all students, even those not in the intervention, take an assessment, you get a unique perspective. It allows for the comparison of intervention students to those not taking part without additional time impact. It is a good way to check on progress in closing a gap.
Assessments developed to match current instructional rigor and alignment to the instruction, skills and knowledge give a clear picture of achievement and serve the purpose of intervention monitoring.
Informal or teacher created intervention assessments provide instructionally sensitive data and perspective on gap closing. A test simply needs to inform immediate data requirements or needs.
How will we know the student is ready to exit the intervention?
Intervention does not last forever. Plan for student exit, and intervention completion based on data or work-product. Exit students once they show the skills and thinking necessary to move back into the regular classroom learning progression without additional support.