Making MTSS Work: Proactive, Practical Strategies for Equitable Learning
Lee Ann Jung
(disclaimer – this post is a live blog from a PD session. I am rushing to capture as much info as possible, so I’m not checking for spelling, typos, or grammar. Sorry not sorry!)
Nine features of a solid MTSS system:
- Universal Design for Learning
- Targeted
- Intensive
- Problem solving
- Diagnostic
- Data meetings
- Progress monitoring
- Core review
- Screening
MTSS is the same concept as RTI; RTI is more about academics but MTSS is more broad to include social-emotional and behavior.
MTSS is a framework for making decisions (problem-solving model).
Connect initiatives intentionally in service of the same goal (strategic plan)
Evidence-based practices to help with this work:
- Standards/competencies
- Backward design
- Universal design
- MTSS
- Assessment
Fact: Purpose of MTSS is to prevent learning gaps! We have to notice and intervene early!!!
- Example – phonics instruction. Used to be an intervention for struggling readers, but it’s good for all students K-6!
MTSS Correct Assumptions
Tier 1: All students can learn well, and and we can prevent most learning gaps by using evidence-based core instruction
- core = general classroom instruction time (we can’t pull students from core instruction to provide intervention time)
Tier 2: Some students will be at risk, and we can mitigate that risk before it becomes a gap with targeted intervention.
Tier 3: A few students will have gaps that we can close with intensive intervention.
It’s not about the label; it’s about the needs that students have. Plenty of kids don’t have the label of dyslexia, but they still need support with reading. You don’t have to have the label of having text anxiety to have anxiety during tests! There will always be a whole lot of kids without a label that still need support. Conversely, you could have the label but not have big needs. We have to blow up the mindset that the label is about how we give support. We have to do things based on needs. The dichotomy of label/no label is FAKE. It doesn’t reflect the nuances (a lot of this reflects eligibility).
Remember, MTSS is the system for all schools whether they have a plan for not. It’s for all kids.
TED Talk – the myth of average (book rec: Todd Rose, The End of Average)
Tier 3 does not imply a disability. Labels can be useful to know but it also can cause some teachers to lower their expectations. Tier 3 is intensive intervention for any student who needs it, for as long as they need it.
Sending a kid to a room for time with a learning support teacher is not a tier 2 or tier 3 intervention. Often the only thing kids in a room with learning support have in common is that they have learning support. It’s often in the schedule or the fact that they have a plan that puts them in the room together. We aren’t making good use of learning support teachers when they are given groups of students that don’t have needs in common.
Minutes in a resource room is not a strategy!
Helping students with assignments and homework is not an intervention. The best person to help students with assignments or homework is the person assigning it!
Do kids need help with content? Yes, of course. But that’s not part of MTSS, that’s core teaching.
Who does Tier 2 and Tier 3 intervention?? There is no pre-defined person. It’s who has been trained on the individual intervention and can deliver it with fidelity.
We often thing that behavior gets in the way of learning, but in reality, often it’s that students are struggling academically, which is one behavior issues arise (so true!).
Inclusive language
No “learning support students.” They are just students who receive learning supports. There are no LRC students, IEP students, etc. There are no “Alex’s students.” There are no “MTSS students.” There are no “Tier 3 students.” There are no “my students” or “your students.”
MTSS Teams
Core Review Team
- Grade level of subject teams
- Look at the data with an eye on core
- If they see an obvious pattern, embed instruction on it in core, like if 40% of kids are struggling with something, embed that in Tier 1 instruction.
Data Team
- Intervention providers
- learning support
- principal
- make all the placement decisions(screening, progress monitoring, diagnostics)
MTSS Leadership Team
- Principals
- Heads of School
- Make decisions about tools and trainings
- agendas
- master scheduleing
- assessment calendar
- assesses health of MTSS system for the school
Invest a lot of time in every faculty member’s confidence and competence in UDL, there will be so many benefits.
Talk less about students of concern and more about skills of concern!
Universal designers think about students on the edges, identifying barriers to engagement, understanding, and showing learning and then they eliminate the barriers. The purpose of UDL is to make core instruction work well for students. It’s harder to retrofit to make something accessible than it is to make it accessible from the outset. Think from the beginning about differentiation and how to make lessons work for all students from the outset. Design the lesson from the beginning to have ramps and curb cuts.
Accommodations are support fro any skill other than the one we are targeting (glasses to support vision on a driving exam). Modifications are support for the thing you are measuring (glasses on an eye exam). Extended time is an accommodation unless you are measuring speed. If you don’t give the accommodation, you don’t have a valid measurement. If someone doesn’t have their glasses and they crash the car on the driving exam, you don’t know if they crashed bc they are a bad driver or if they couldn’t see. So if you don’t give extra time and they fail an exam, did they fail bc they don’t know the content or bc they didn’t finish?
The Lamp Life 