Energizing Teachers About Your School

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Energizing Teachers About Your Schools RTI Team
Jim Wrightwww.interventioncentral.org
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Teachers may be reluctant to refer students to
your RTI Team because they

• believe referring to the RTI Team is a sign of
  failure
• do not think that your team has any ideas that
  they havent already tried
• believe that an RTI referral will mean a lot more
  work for them (vs. referring directly to Special
  Education)
• dont want to waste time on kids with poor
  motivation or behavior problems when more
  deserving learners go unnoticed and unrewarded
• dont want to put effort into learning a new
  initiative that may just fade away in a couple of
  years

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Teachers may be motivated to refer students to
your RTI Team because they

• can engage in collegial conversations about
  better ways to help struggling learners
• learn instructional and behavior-management
  strategies that they can use with similar
  students in the future
• increase their teaching time
• are able to access more intervention resources
  and supports in the building than if they work
  alone
• feel less isolated when dealing with challenging
  kids
• have help in documenting their intervention
  efforts

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• Never believe that a few caring people cant
  change the world. For, indeed, thats all who
  ever have.
• --Margaret Mead

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RTI Team Strategies to Win Over Reluctant
Teachers(from Cialdini, 1984)
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Reciprocation

• When people are given a gift or have a service
  performed for them, they feel obligated to pay it
  back.

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Reciprocation Team Tips

• Stuff teacher mailboxes with intervention tips
• Sponsor teacher workshops with handouts
  refreshments
• Accommodate a teachers schedule to hold RTI Team
  meetings
• Offer to collect baseline information on a
  studentshare results with teacher
• Compile list of RTI Team members services
  invite teacher to select 1 or 2

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Consistency

• People strive, often unconsciously, to
  maintain consistency between their opinions or
  attitudes and their actions.

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Consistency Team Tips

• Invite a reluctant teacher to an RTI Team
  meeting to support a colleague
• Sign up teachers as consultant members of the
  RTI Team
• Ask a teacher to keep RTI Team referral forms or
  other RTI Team resources in classroom to share
  with colleagues
• Set up contest for best intervention ideas
• Showcase ideas from reluctant teachers

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Social Proof

• People are influenced to take an action when
  they see that others like them are also doing it.

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Social Proof Team Tips

• Encourage teachers to give RTI Team
  testimonials at faculty meetings
• Make sure that all grade levelsare represented
  on the RTI Team
• Share successful RTI Team intervention ideas with
  other members of a referring teachers team
• Bring in RTI Team speakers from another school
  who resemble underrepresented groups
• Share general RTI Team statistics with staff

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Liking

• People are motivated to carry out the requests
  of those whom they like or with whom they feel
  connected.

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Liking Team Tips

• Ask satisfied teachers to invite afriend to
  refer to the RTI Team
• Assign RTI Team members to invitefriends,
  acquaintances to an RTI Team meeting
• Encourage referring teachers to bring friends,
  teaching partners to an RTI Team meeting
• Praise teachers at an RTI Team meeting for
  positive teaching, management qualities
• Seek out popular, respected staff to serve on the
  RTI Team

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Authority

• People respect and follow those with
  authority (organizational, experiential,
  professional).

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Authority Team Tips

• Have principal encourage newteachers to refer to
  the RTI Team
• Invite building- or district-level
  administrators to make positive comments about
  the RTI Team to faculty
• Have teachers with experiential, professional
  authority to give positive testimonials about the
  RTI Team
• Send Thank You cards signed by principal
• Ask outside presenters to plug the RTI Team

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Scarcity

• When items, resources or opportunities are in
  short supply, people value them more (especially
  when competing for them).

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Scarcity Team Tips

• Establish a cut-off date foraccepting RTI Team
  referrals
• Limit the number of RTI Team referralsthat your
  team will accept in a year
• Publicize the limited slots available at key
  referral times (e.g., end of marking period)
• Give away limited-edition packets of intervention
  resources at RTI Team meetings
• Sign up consultant member to the RTI Team but
  limit the number of meetings that he or she
  attends

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References

• Cialdini, R.B. (1984). Influence How and why
  people agree to things. New York William Morrow
  Company, Inc.