By Dr. Will Killins
October 26, 2022
Going into November, schools should review practice to ensure a firm daily agenda for teaching and learning “within targeted interventions.” What does instruction look and feel like to the targeted populations for interventions? Students and families should be part of the projected growth toward achievement patterns as advocates for individual children and the school. The transparency of the approach to improving proficiency performance for subgroups or from an aggregated perspective should be deliberate in including community stakeholders’ awareness of how interventions are implemented. This includes intervention outcomes.
Schools, families, and communities involved with strategic collaboration can create cinderblocks for school improvement. Amir Tarson Ayres suggests students benefit from “instructional tiers” in an article titled “An Asset-Based Approach to Instruction and Assessment” (2022). Ayers contends that “grouping students into tiers allows teachers to differentiate by context and process to meet the needs of learners at or above grade level” (2022). Further, “when students cannot demonstrate understanding, an asset-based grasp of student ability recognizes the significance of figuring out a new approach to reteach, reframe, rework, and retry where expectations have not been met” (Ayers, 2022). This is powerful!
The takeaway is creating a mindset that challenges each teacher, student, family, and community stakeholder. This collaborative community has the charge of answering deep-diving questions such as:
What is the relationship between standardized testing and instructional tiers as a function of asset-based instruction and assessment?
Are ability-based groupings a natural part of implementing targeted interventions?
How do you accelerate students below standard and challenge those at or above?
When teachers believe it is possible, students will believe it is possible. When the community raises expectations for all, a new standard becomes normalized. Reflection on learners' perceptions without judgment is critical for growth (Ayers, 2022); therefore, impartiality is an asset to transparency in transformation. Regardless of geography or demographic, the achievement is possible. However, radical achievement transformation requires a school to have the “capacity” to challenge the limited student-teacher contact time within a school year and the lack of teachers as a resource. Schools may prioritize the redistribution of teacher talent in traditional ways, while the intervention implementation continuously needs strengthening.
Teachers as a resource were addressed in an article titled “What if Innovation, Not More Teachers, Is the Solution to the Teacher Shortage?” Greenberg (2022) suggests that if schools could return to the old approach of a single teacher in front of a class, they should not do so.” Greenberg (2022) operationally defined innovation as divided into edtech products and tutoring to be critical toward addressing teacher shortages or sustainability. For schools and communities with limited internet access, methods of instruction require innovation. This required innovation is fueled by student, parent, and community collaborations. Schools identified as needing improvement also require the “leaders of principals” to encourage moving away from the status quo of instruction.
Stay tuned for more information if you want to participate in deep-diving conversations about school interventions specific to Targeted Schools and Interventions (TSI) and Assisted Targeted Schools and Interventions (ATSI) status environments.
References:
Ayres, A., T., (2022). An Asset-Based Approach to Instruction and Assessment. Edutopia (Online October 14 Edition)
Greenberg, B. (2022). What if Information, Not More Teachers, Is the Solution to the Teacher Shortage? The 74 Newsletter (Online October 18 Edition)
Dr. Will Killins
Equity Assurance &TSI/ATSI Specialist
Nevada Department of Education
Email: willie.killins@doe.nv.gov