Saturday, June 27, 2020

Teaching in this Fall’s Post-Pandemic World: Addressing the Academic Needs of the “Way High” and “Way Low” Students (Part II)


For Some Students, There Will Be No COVID-19 Slide

[CLICK HERE for the Complete Blog Message]

Dear Colleagues,

Introduction

   The pandemic clearly is not over.

   In fact, over the past two weeks, the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths have increased on a day-to-day basis in the United States, and many cities and new geographic areas are experiencing record high incidents.

   And yet, “school”. . . in one form or another. . . will “open” come Fall. And given this, virtually every administrator in our country has begun a re-opening and re-entry planning process.

   As we have discussed in recent Blog articles, at the core of this process is the implicit or explicit post-pandemic re-entry model or models that will be used by a district and its schools. This is significant because each re-entry model has strengths and weaknesses, and every selection will impact the resulting functional, logistical, instructional, and staffing decision and plan. This, in turn, may significantly affect all or some students, and their academic and social, emotional, behavioral, and mental health status and needs.

   Relative to my Blogs, when the pandemic closed all of our schools in March, my bimonthly Blog articles began to directly address COVID-19’s impact on the short- and long-term academic and social, emotional, behavioral, and mental health status of our students, staff, schools, and systems. While I integrated the research and wisdom of others, the contexts, implications, and interpretations in these Blogs most reflected my forty years of field-based experience, and my school psychological perspective.

   This perspective is not more important than others’ perspectives. But it differs in important ways from the majority of the educators nationwide. . . who are focusing more predominantly on administration and/or instruction.

   Indeed, the difference is that psychology is the foundation to understanding how learning occurs, and how to maintain and motivate the social, emotional, and behavioral interactions that facilitate student learning and learning outcomes.

   Said a different way: It’s great to have a great re-entry plan. But a plan is only as good as its implementation. And to implement a great plan, students, staff, administrators, and parents/guardians—individually and collectively—need to have the emotional readiness, the belief and the confidence, and the skills and motivation to consistently execute the plan.

   And so, it is essential to integrate a psychological science-to-practice perspective in order to execute a district or school’s administrative and instructional plans effectively. . . and to—hopefully—maximize everyone’s success.
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Re-Visiting the Fall Post-Pandemic Academic and Instruction Process

   This two-part Blog Series is addressing what schools need to consider now as they plan for their students’ academic re-entry this Fall.

   In Part I, we addressed why (and how) schools should validly assess—as soon as possible when students return to school—the functional, mastery-level status of all students in literacy, mathematics, and writing/language arts. Here, we recommended an assessment process with the following steps (see Part I for the complete discussion):
  •  Identify the Power or Anchor Standards in literacy, mathematics, and writing/language arts at each grade level that are most essential for students to learn and that, typically, represent the foundational or prerequisite knowledge and skills that generalize to help students to learn and master the content in other, related standards.
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  • From the Power or Anchor Standards, identify the knowledge, content, information, and skill-specific test items needed in each grade level’s literacy, mathematics, and writing/language arts assessments that most accurately evaluate students’ current functional learning and mastery status.
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  • Create, administer, and score an Academic Assessment Tool with these items in each academic area to determine students’ grade-level functioning—regardless of their current grade-level standing.
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  • Complement (and re-validate) these assessments’ results with formal and informal classroom- and curriculum-based teacher assessments that are completed during instruction, through independent assignments and work samples, and based on in-class portfolios, projects, or tests.
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[CLICK HERE for Part I of this Blog Series]

   We then recommended that the assessment results be used to identify groups of students who are functioning above, at, below, or well-below their current grade-level placements.

   Here, we suggested that students scoring (a) 1.5 standard deviations above the average functioning of their grade-level peers—in literacy, mathematics, and writing/language arts, respectively—be identified as functioning above their current grade placement; (b) between -1.0 and 1.5 standard deviations to be functioning at grade-level; (c) between -2.0 and -1.0 standard deviations to be below grade-level; and (d) below -2.0 standard deviations to be well-below grade-level.

   Next, we recommended that schools pool all of the assessment data for the students at each grade level, completing a “StoryBoard” process to determine the best instructional groups to assign each student to in each academic area. These assignments would then determine the best way to organize students—across the three academic areas—into classroom cohorts.

   Significantly, this StoryBoard process should also identify the students who need specific multi-tiered services, supports, and interventions. . . which should eventually result in decisions as to (a) what support staff will work with which students and grade levels of teachers, and (b) what additional instructional or technological resources will be used with which students.

   Finally, in Part I, we discussed how (and why) to organize students who are functioning within one grade level of their respective grade placements into Homogeneous Skill Groups and/or Heterogeneous Comprehension or Applied Groups. We provided a Third Grade example with literacy results, integrating the data into one of the six national models that most districts will use when students return to school in the Fall.
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   In this Part II of the Series, we will discuss how to use the assessment results to address the academic progress and enrichment of students who are “above” their grade-level standing, and the academic gaps of students who are below and well below their grade-level placements.
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Teaching Students Who are Academically Above Average

   Without overgeneralizing, students functioning above their grade level placements in literacy, mathematics, and/or writing/language arts have probably been ahead of the game for a number of years. And while they may have received phenomenal virtual instruction during the months of this pandemic, they also probably (a) took advantage of and were able to learn from this instruction and approach; (b) are self-motivated, and competently engaged in self-instruction; and/or (c) have parents and/or peers that motivated or facilitated their learning and mastery.

   An important point here is that some students will not experience a pandemic learning loss or slide. This is why we have emphasized, especially during this Blog Series, the importance of collecting current (in the Fall) assessment data. . . and not assuming or guessing students’ academic status.

   But when these above average students return to school this Fall, the ultimate question is:
What instructional staff and materials, and what learning environments and approaches, will maintain and extend these above average students’ learning, enrichment, and progress?

[CLICK HERE for the Complete Blog Message that Answers This Question]

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Teaching Students Who are Academically Below or Well Below their Grade-Level Placements

   Despite the pandemic, students who are identified this Fall as being below or well below grade-level functioning in literacy, mathematics, and/or writing/language arts need to be evaluated within the context of an effective and science-to-practice multi-tiered systems of supports. Essentially, this means that a data-based functional assessment of their educational history, learning conditions, speed of mastery, and current status needs to be completed for each student.

   This assessment is important because, for example, five students who are all two years below grade level in reading could have five different learning patterns and progressions, and five different root causes explaining their academic gaps. Only by differentiating among these different root causes can these students be individually scheduled into the best instructional groups with the most effective teachers so that they can receive the services, supports, strategies, and interventions that they need.

   Critically, except for new students to the district, is it unlikely that district or school personnel will be surprised by the identities of the below and well below average students this coming Fall. Moreover, while their learning gaps may be somewhat larger, it also is unlikely that the pandemic and the need for “home-schooling” caused these students’ problems.

   Thus, if they have been successful in the past, schools may only need to transfer and adapt these students’ programs from last year to this year.

   However, if they have not been successful—or if critical conditions have changed, schools may use the pandemic-driven need to modify instruction for all students as a leverage point to provide these students the programs that they need and that—from an equity perspective—they deserve.

   And so, when these below and well below average students return to school this Fall, the ultimate question is:
What instructional staff and materials, and what learning environments and approaches, will strengthen and accelerate these below and well below average students’ learning, enrichment, and progress?
   NOTE that this question is remarkably similar to the question asked above for above average students. And NOTE, that these students also need enrichment—especially as a way to motivate and engage them in an educational enterprise that often frustrates and knocks them down.
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   In the next two sections of this Blog, we provide two research-to-practice blueprints to help answer the question above. The first blueprint focuses on a continuum of services, supports, and interventions for students who are academically struggling. The second blueprint addresses some potential grouping and instructional patterns for these students.
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The Positive Academic Supports and Services Continuum

   Based on the data-based functional assessment of the root causes of a student’s academic struggles, an effective multi-tiered system of supports links the root cause results to high probability of success services, supports, strategies, and interventions. One way to conceptualize these services and supports is through a research-to-practice Positive Academic Supports and Services (PASS) blueprint or continuum.

   The foundation to the PASS blueprint is effective and differentiated classroom instruction where teachers use and continuously evaluate (or progress monitor) evidence-based curricular materials and approaches that are matched to students’ learning styles and needs. When students are not consistently learning and mastering academic skills after a reasonable period of effective instruction, practice, and support, the data-based, functional assessment, problem-solving process is used to determine the root causes of the problem. 

   Results then are linked to different instructional or intervention approaches that are organized along the following PASS continuum. This continuum consists of approaches related to Assistive Supports, Remediation, Accommodations, Modifications, Strategic Interventions, and Compensation.

[CLICK HERE for the Complete Blog Message with Descriptions of these Components]
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Students with Significant Academic Skills Gaps: Connecting Their Needs to Closing-the-Gap Options

   From a multi-tiered perspective, the results of the data-based problem-solving process is essential to quantify, analyze, and hopefully close the academic gaps that exist for below and well below grade-level functioning students. Just like the diagnostic process that a doctor completes when you are sick—before prescribing the medicine and other facets of your medical intervention—data-based problem-solving is a necessity if we are going to implement effective, high-probability-of-success academic interventions.

   Unfortunately, many schools have some student data, but it typically is descriptive and not diagnostic data. At times, these schools use these data to inadvertently play “intervention roulette”—throwing “interventions” at problems without really knowing the root causes as to why they exist.

   I am critiquing, not criticizing, these schools. More often than not, they are doing what they were told to do by their “experts.”
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   But, critically, at the point of intervention, there still are times when schools hit the proverbial “fork in the road.” 

   This occurs, specifically, when students’ prerequisite academic skills are so low that everyone knows that they have virtually no chance of passing the next middle or high school course.

   Here, most schools use one of five instructional or student grouping Options.

[CLICK HERE for the Complete Blog Message with Descriptions of these Options]

   Option 5 is for students who have no chance of passing their next middle or high school course, even with Options 1, 3, or 4 above, because their prerequisite academic skills are so low. Critically, for students who do not have a disability and, therefore, do not qualify for services through an Individualized Education Plan (IEP; IDEA) or a 504 Plan (Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act), Option 5 may be the best option.

   Indeed, the most common root causes for these students’ academic struggles include the following:
  • There were significant instructional gaps during the student’s educational history such that the student did not have the opportunity to learn and master essential academic skills.
This includes, for example, students who were (a) home-schooled, (b) had new teachers who were unprepared to teach, (c) had long-term substitute or out-of-field teachers for lengthy periods of time, or (d) were in classrooms with too many different student skill groups for the teachers to effectively teach.
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  • There were significant curricular gaps during the student’s educational history such that the student did not have the opportunity to learn and master essential academic skills.
This includes, for example, (a) schools without the appropriate evidence-based curricula or curricular materials to support teachers’ goals of effectively differentiating instruction; (b) schools where teachers—at the same grade level—were teaching the same content but with different algorithms, rubrics, or skill scripts that were then not reinforced by the next year’s teachers—especially as they “inherited” a mix of students who were taught specific skills in vastly different ways; or (c) schools that adopted grade-level curricula that were not aligned with state academic standards, and that did not articulate with the curricular expectations at the next grade level.
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  • The schools, attended by the student during his/her educational history, had an absent, inadequate, or ineffective multi-tiered system of supports that did not address his or her academic needs.
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  • The student was taught, over a long or significant period of time, in a school or classroom where the relationships or climates were so negative (or negatively perceived by him/her) that they impacted his/her long-term academic engagement, motivation, attendance, and access or ability to learn.
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  • The student had known or has newly-diagnosed (due to the root cause analysis) biological, physiological, biochemical, neurological, or other physically- or medically-related conditions or factors that significantly impacted his or her learning and mastery, or the speed that s/he learns and masters new skills.
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  • The student had (and may still have) frequent or significant personal, familial, or other traumatic life events or crises that impacted his or her academic engagement, motivation, attendance, and access or ability to learn.
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  •  The student’s skill gaps created such a level of frustration that the resulting social, emotional, or behavioral reactions by the student (along an “acting out” to “checking out” continuum) overshadowed the original and present academic concerns— resulting in the absence of (or the student’s avoidance of) needed services or supports.
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   The vast majority of these root causes point to the fact that students who will most benefit from an Option 5 approach are students who did not have the opportunity to originally learn and master the academic skills that are now embedded in their significant skill gap.

   At the same time, many of these student will need additional social, emotional, or behavioral services and supports so that the academic interventions can be successful.

[CLICK HERE for the Complete Blog Message with a Complete Description of Option #5]

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Summary

   This two-part Blog Series addressed what schools need to consider now as they plan for their students’ academic re-entry this Fall.

   In Part I, we addressed why (and how) schools should validly assess—as soon as possible when students return to school—the functional, mastery-level status of all students in literacy, mathematics, and writing/language arts. Here, we recommended a step-by-step assessment process to identify groups of students who are functioning above, at, below, or well-below their current grade-level placements.

   Next, we recommended that schools pool all of the assessment data for the students at each grade level, completing a “StoryBoard” process to determine the best instructional groups to assign each student to in each academic area. These assignments would then determine the best way to organize students—across the three academic areas—into classroom cohorts.

   Finally, we discussed how (and why) to organize students who are functioning within one grade level of their respective grade placements into Homogeneous Skill Groups and/or Heterogeneous Comprehension or Applied Groups. We provided a Third Grade example with literacy results, integrating the data into one of the six national models that most districts will use when students return to school in the Fall.
_ _ _ _ _

   In this Part II, we discussed how to use the assessment results to address the academic progress and enrichment of students who are “above” their grade-level standing, and the academic gaps of students who are below and well below their grade-level placements.

   Here, we suggested that (a) most of these students were already well-known to their teachers, and (b) it was unlikely that the last three months of pandemic-driven “home-schooling” was a root cause of these students’ acceleration or decline, respectively.

   At the same time, we encouraged districts and schools, once they identify these students this coming Fall, to use the following question so that these students receive an appropriate educational program:

What instructional staff and materials, and what learning environments and approaches, will strengthen and accelerate these students’ learning, enrichment, and progress?

   To help answer this question, we discussed a number of possible instructional grouping patterns for the above average students.

   For the below and well below grade-level functioning students, we emphasized the importance of an effective, science-to-practice multi-tiered systems of supports. At the core of this process are data-based functional assessments of struggling students’ educational histories, learning conditions, speeds of academic mastery, and current status to determine the root causes of their difficulties.

   We then provided two research-to-practice blueprints to address these students’ needs (and root causes). The first blueprint, the Positive Academic  Supports and Services (PASS) model, outlines a continuum of services, supports, and interventions for students who are academically struggling.

   The second blueprint provided five instructional group or class assignment options for students with academic skill gaps, with a discussion of Option #5 for students with gaps that are so large that there is no way that they can benefit from or pass a course at their current grade level.
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   While there is nothing positive about the current pandemic, districts and schools know that they need to adjust in order to “survive.” These adjustments give us an opportunity to think more creatively, and to act more effectively on behalf of all students.

   From an academic perspective, we need to use timely and sensitive data to determine the current functional skills of our students—especially in literacy, mathematics, and writing/language arts.

   We then need to determine if students’ current academic standings were impacted by the last three months of virtual and long-distance instruction, and what instructional environments, conditions, groupings, strategies, and interventions are needed to help them to learn, progress, and succeed.

   And all of this needs to occur in the context of re-establishing educational equity— especially for students of color, from homes of poverty, and for students with disabilities.

   This can be done. . . and, hopefully, these last two Blogs have provided the blueprints and steps that are needed.

   I appreciate your ongoing support in reading this Blog. As always, if you have comments or questions, please contact me at your convenience. 

   And please to take advantage of my standing offer for a free, one-hour conference call consultation with you and your team at any time.

Best,

Howie

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