Response to Intervention: Response to Intelligence

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Response to Intervention Response to Intelligence

• Meeting the needs of gifted learners in all
  educational settings
• Deborah L. Holt
• LBSD School District
• Gifted Coordinator
• January 2013

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• If you are continually asked to jump over a bar
  that requires little or no effort, how long will
  it be before you will not be able to jump any
  higher?
• CAROL ANN TOMLINSON

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What Does RtI Mean for the Gifted Student?
TIER 1

• TIER 1 is the foundation
• or the core curriculum.
• 80-85 of students are
• learning and growing
• in a grade level
• curriculum.

Tier 2 includes supplemental instruction and
intervention in addition to the core curriculum.
TIER 3
TIER 2
Tier 3 consists of intensive instructional
interventions in addition to the core curriculum.
Students are identified for Tiers 2 and 3 through
ongoing assessment. Data-based decision making is
applied across the tiers.
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Definition of Giftedness

• Children who possess
• General intellectual ability
• Specific academic aptitude
• Creative and productive thinking
• Leadership ability
• Visual and performing arts, and/or
• Psychomotor ability (Marland 1972)

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Most Recent Brain Research

• Stimuli enter the rear of the brain, integrate
  in the center, and are interpreted by the frontal
  lobes. Gifted individuals may be able to do this
  faster and with greater accuracy than typical
  individuals.
• Dr. David Sousa (2009)

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What Does This Mean?

• We need to pay close attention to what happens in
  the primary and intermediate grades. What happens
  in the classroom has the potential to raise or
  lower I.Q.
• A disturbing trend is the high number of gifted
  individuals who drop out of high school.
• Dr. David Sousa (2009)

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What Can We Do?

• Offer
• Differentiated curriculum beyond grade-level
  standards
• Differentiated instruction
• Using a faster pace, greater independence in
  study and thought, and increased complexity and
  depth in subject content
• A supportive learning environment also addressing
  social and emotional needs
• Curriculum content initiatives for gifted
  learners including acceleration when needed,
  curriculum compacting, and flexible grouping

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Also

• Instructional processes for gifted learners
  include
• Higher-level thinking
• Creative thinking
• Problem-based learning
• Independent study
• Tiered assignments
• Discovery-based teaching that focuses on long
  term memory processing
• Appropriate products for gifted learners

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The New RtI Response to Intelligence
TIER 3 Intense individual interventions Longer
duration

• TIER 2
• Small targeted group interventions
• Supplemental to the core curriculum

TIER 1 Academic/Behavioral Universal
Interventions for students who can master content
WITH teacher support (differentiation in the
regular classroom)
TIER 2 Individual and/or small groups of
students who need extra support for appropriate
challenge
TIER 3 Individual students who need intense
support for growth
The goal of teaching is to constantly strive to
move students to the right.
Penny Choice (2008)
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Tier 1

• This is where 80-90 of students will achieve
  high levels of growth at this stage in the
  regular classroom.
• Curriculum addresses what is the big picture and
  what is worth knowing and doing?
• There still needs to be differentiation at this
  tier-the more differentiation at Tier 1, the
  fewer provisions for students at Tier 2.

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Differentiation Opportunities in Tier 1

• Thinking at different levels
• Open-ended opportunities for responses
• Tiered opportunities to respond based on prior
  knowledge (i.e., graphic organizers with varying
  degrees of difficulty)
• Product choices
• Primary sources
• Research studies
• Problem solving
• Cluster grouping of gifted students

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Tier 2

• This tier is for students who need additional
  support and opportunities based on their learning
  needs and their rate of learning.
• Students to the left are not making adequate
  progress in the core curriculum, but students on
  the right find the core curriculum redundant.
  They need intensive instruction matched to their
  levels of performance and rates of progress.

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Supplemental Opportunities for Tier 2 Right
(Gifted)

• Self-contained gifted class
• Replacement class (in a content area that is
  occurring at the same time in the regular
  classroom) Example Accelerated math
• A separate school within a school (which would
  include cluster grouping, cooperative learning
  grouping, and cross-ability or age grouping)

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Also

• Concept-based curriculum for this group is
  desirable
• Right Tier 2 students can complete anchor
  activities and extensions while other learn basic
  curriculum.
• Right Tier 2 needs advanced resources available
  to them.
• Exposure to inquiry experiences, problem-based
  learning, debate, future studies, contracting
  through compacting, or competitions work well in
  Right Tier 2.

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Tier 3

• This group should have very few students on the
  left and to the right. These students need
  intensive, more individualized attention.
• Students to the left are not making adequate
  progress in the core curriculum and need
  increasingly intensive instruction which is
  matched to their levels of performance and rates
  of progress. Students to the right also need
  their core curriculum replaced. Students at both
  ends deserve to have individual attention in
  order to have the opportunity to learn new
  content and to grapple with new, challenging
  information.
• Right Tier 3 students have intense needs that
  extend beyond the curriculum of that grade level.

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Right Tier 3 Opportunities

• Right Tier 3 need accelerated, concept-based
  content since they already know the content of
  the curriculum. Their advanced mastery gives them
  time to devote to intensive study of an area.
• Independent Study
• Research
• Problem Solving
• Delving deeper into the content
• Exploration into related areas
• Acceleration opportunities such as grade
  advancement
• Dual enrollment
• Early Advanced Placement Classes
• Early college classes

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Ways to Assess RtI Effectiveness

• observations vocabulary lists experiments
• book review problem solving graphic organizers
• booklet portfolios oral summaries
• charts questionnaires pre-tests
• Checklists Class or small class discussions
• Sample problems to solve diagram with
  labels concept map/web
• Student-produced exhibits thumbs up/down Venn
  diagrams
• KWL charts ticket out the door quizzes
• Standardized tests and many more!

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Development of Creativity and the New RtI

• Creativity is the highest form of giftedness
  (Barbara Clark, 2005)
• Creativity belongs in all tiers of the New RtI,
  but is essential in Right Tier 2 and Right Tier
  3.
• Underachievers are often very creative. This
  group may have high potential but not high
  performance.

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Also

• Truly gifted and talented persons who make
  significant contributions to society have three
  characteristics
• Above average ability
• Strong task commitment
• High levels of creativity
• Renzulli and Reis (2008)

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Curriculum Models That Provide Appropriate Tier
1, 2, or 3 challenges

• The Enrichment Triad Model-This model is
  appropriate for any content area and grade level
  in multiple grouping arrangements. It is perfect
  for RtI because it consists of three enrichment
  levels. (Renzulli)
• Betts Autonomous Learner Model (1999)
• The Parallel Curriculum (Tomlinson 2002)
• Schlichters Talents Unlimited (1986)
• Dr. Calvin Taylors Multiple-Talent Totem Pole
  Model (1978)

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• Until every gifted child can attend a school
  where the brightest are appropriately challenged
  in an environment with their intellectual peers,
  America cant claim that its leaving no child
  behind.
• Jan and Bob Davidson
• Genius Denied