I was very impressed with the level of questioning that came from my group. This is an undergraduate / post-baccalaureate level course and in truth only counts as a third of a course for them in credits. However, this is a group that wants answers! They will also be researching interventions for the next several weeks to address the needs of case study students I have assigned to them. I wanted to share this wonderful list of questions generated by the class. This finally prompted me to start a blog and use this as my first post.
I am inviting our guest speakers to respond in the comments. Students can respond with answers to one another and further questions. Any readers of the blog are also invited to respond. I am also going to try an experiment and tweet this blog post out at the #NASP convention. The questions are numbered so that you can reference the question you are responding to in your comments.
1. How long does a child stay in Tier 3 before being referred to special education? How many kids end up going to Tier 3 and actually get better and don’t need special education?
2. How much time is spent on professional development to ensure teachers are prepared & well educated about RTI?
3. How often do kids come off IEPs? If making progress on IEPs, do you go back to Tier 3, or Tier 2 interventions?
4. How long do we progress monitor Tier 3 students before the teacher could consider keeping a student back a grade?
5. What is the line between getting pulled out of class vs. having an aide come into the classroom?
6. How did your school begin to implement RTI? Was it a long process to begin? Is this something that every school should/will do?
7. How can you ensure the support will get put in place? And that it follows through year after year?
8. Do you think 6 weeks is too long to wait between each evaluation? Can’t a teacher tell something isn’t working in a shorter amount of time? (3-4 weeks)
9. What steps do you take when a parent is against intervention? What if they feel their child does not need intervention?
10. Can parents request that their child has an aide without being on an IEP?
11. If the student is getting a Tier 2 or Tier 3 intervention at the end of the year, does it follow them into the next grade?
12. When you start a new schedule for Tier 2, what if there is more kids than last time, how do you fit them all in? Could this lead to pairing students who need solitary instruction?
13. Can you give an example of targeted intervention/instruction within the classroom?
14. Who is working with the small group of Tier 2 children? Always a FIEP (interventionist) or can the teacher work with them? If so, what is the rest of the class doing?
15. How does the teacher make several differentiations for each step in the day?
16. How would a teacher implement this if the principal is not behind RTI?
17. If kids are on Tier 2 and have progressed slightly but stay the same (above avg) do you keep them on because they have not increased progress or because they are above avg. they can be removed. Do you want to increase the progress? Or just above average?
18. What is the difference between “normal” teaching and Tier 1. I thought that tier 1 always is happening.
19. Where do special education teachers come in? Are they working more in the general population?
20. Are there manuals? Do teachers share resources, lesson plans?
