Who are students with learning and behavior problems?

• Poor academic performance
• Attention problems
• Hyperactivity
• Memory
• Poor language abilities
• Aggressive behavior
• Withdrawn behavior
• Bizarre behavior

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15 to 25 percent of all students have some type of learning or behavior problem,

6% of the student population are special education.

Learning disabilities are five times more prevalent than behavior disorders.

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Factors to Consider when Determining Seriousness of Problem

• Persistence of the problem
• Severity of the problem
• Speed of progress
• Motivation
• Parental response
• Other teachers’ responses
• Relationship with the teachers
• Instructional modifications
• Adequate instruction
• Behavior-age discrepancy

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Effective Instruction for Students with Learning and Behavior Problems

• Individually planned
• Specialized
• Intensive
• Goal-directed
• Employ research-based methods
• Guided by student performance

(Heward 2003)

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Learning and Educational Environments

• Most students with learning and behavior problems are educated in the general education classroom.
• Students with disabilities receive services through special education.

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Including Students with Learning and Behavior Problems (continued)

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• Almost 47 percent of students identified as severely learning disabled spent 80 percent of their time in general education classrooms, whereas only 29 percent of students identified as seriously emotionally disturbed were in regular classrooms for that same amount of time.

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More on Inclusion

• Lawmakers intended for students with special needs who are included in the general education classroom to receive accommodations for their learning and/or emotional needs within the classroom.

More on Inclusion

• Lawmakers intended for students with special needs who are included in the general education classroom to receive accommodations for their learning and/or emotional needs within the classroom.

Identifying Students with Learning Disabilities�

• Typically,
• individuals with learning disabilities have been identified through referral by classroom teachers or families.
• assessments included an IQ and an achievement test.
• If the student’s IQ scores were a certain number of points above their achievement scores (large discrepancy between IQ and achievement scores), the student would be identified as having a learning disability due to their “unexpected underachievement.”
• WAIT TO FAIL

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Alternatives to the IQ-Achievement Discrepancy Model

• The most frequently suggested alternative is a

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Multi-Tiered Systems of Support MTSS

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbFUfC_n588

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2. RESPONSE TO INTERVENTION

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Data Based Decision Making

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6vuc0jC_-w&feature=related

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RTI MODEL

RTI Camden, NJ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNjYVzbWrzE

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Identifying the Student At Risk�

*Universal Screening, Decisions, Progress Monitoring

• The same test is administered to all students to determine who is at risk for academic difficulties
• Three times a year
• Test is brief- only a few items.
• Screening identifies proficiency of all students
• Decisions are made based on data.
• Progress monitoring – is a student improving?

*Written Intervention Plans

Interventions are based on data. Describe them.

Minutes per day, by whom, where,

Specify how long before improvement is seen.

How will success be measured?

Describe progress monitoring strategy, how often,

How often will parents receive a report?

*Special Education Teachers Role in RTI

Role of special education teachers

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• Collaborate with general education teachers
• Help identify children with disabilities
• Offer intensive interventions to Tier 3 students
• Help Tier 3 students access the general education curriculum

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*Using RTI Data and Providing Interventions

• RTI data may not identify learning disabilities but can serve as one evaluation.
• Data about student’s strengths and needs
• Teacher-pacing of lesson, differentiation, appropriate materials, on-going feedback, students respond with feedback.

*Considerations for those Working with ELL Students

Keep expectations high.

Look for strengths.

ELLs with learning disabilities may be underidentified.

Get help identifying and treating.

Working With Families

• Family involvement is required in all aspects of identifying students with disabilities.
• If schools are using RTI models, families must be informed and involved in the process.
• Families can request a formal evaluation for a disability at any time.
• The Council for Exceptional Children suggests that schools let families know about their child’s participation in the RTI process at least by Tier 2.

Identifying Why Students Do Not Respond to Instruction

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• Before concluding that a student is a non responder who needs more intensive services, consider that there are many reasons the student may not be responding to instruction, such as:
• The method is not an effective one with this student, and a different approach would yield better results.
• The level of instruction might not be a good match for the student.
• The environment might not be conducive to learning.

Responders and Non-responders to Intervention

• Responders or high responders – students who respond well to interventions
• Non-responders – students who make minimal or no gains after being taught with high-quality validated interventions

3. Learning Theory

This chapter highlights some of the critical features about how we learn that apply to delivering effective instruction and providing classroom management. Models and theories of learning can assist teachers in understanding and explaining how students learn.

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Stages of Learning in Acquiring Proficiency in Learning

• First stage of learning – entry
• Second stage – acquisition
• Third stage – proficiency
• Fourth stage – maintenance
• Fifth stage – generalization
• Sixth stage – application

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Common Features of Cognitive Strategy Instruction

• Strategy steps
• Modeling
• Self-regulation
• Verbalization
• Reflective thinking

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** See next slide for example of how CSI is used in a resource science class to help students understand the science concepts and textbook.

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Sociocultural Theory

• Sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 1978) is similar to cognitive strategy instruction in that it highlights the importance of modeling and the use of language to facilitate learning. However, the theory assumes that learning is socially constructed and, as a social activity, is highly influenced by the funds of knowledge that learners bring to situations. Knowledge is meaningfully constructed in these social activities.

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(Lantolf & Thorne, 2006; Moll, 1990; Tharp, Estrada, Dolton, and Yamauchi, 1999)

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Sociocultural Theory�(continued)

• Three concepts that are particularly important for teaching students who may have special needs or are from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds:
• the use of resources
• the social nature of learning (including the use of interactive dialogue), and
• the use of scaffolded instruction.

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Schema Theory

• Whereas applied behavior analysis focuses on observable behaviors and views learning as establishing functional relationships between a student’s behavior and the stimuli in the environment, cognitive learning theory focuses on what happens in the mind, and views learning as changing the learner’s cognitive structure.
• Schemas

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Teaching Implications of Schema Theory

• When teaching, think about how you can modify your teaching and the learning environment to direct students’ attention to what you are teaching, and how they think about incoming information. How can you teach students to use executive functioning to coordinate the various learning and memory strategies? (See next slide for general implications.)

Teaching Implications of Schema Theory (continued)

• Provide cues to students so they can be guided to the relevant task(s) or salient features of the task.
• Have students study the critical feature differences between stimuli when trying to perceive differences.
• Have the students use the context to aid in perception.
• Facilitate the activation of schemas, and provide labeled experiences.
• Teach students how to be flexible thinkers and to solve problems, thereby encouraging them to use executive functioning.

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Cognitive Strategy Instruction

• Cognitive strategy instruction (CSI) integrates ideas from behavioral, social, and cognitive learning theories and assumes that cognitive behavior (thinking processes), like observable behaviors, can be changed.

Example of CSI

• Strategy steps
• Teacher selects the steps she wants the students to use when they read their science text.
• She and the students discuss the strategies they currently use and their effectiveness.
• They discuss the importance of improving their skills and the payoff for improvement.
• Modeling
• Teacher tells students about the steps she uses when she reads.
• She reads and explains what she is thinking.

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Example of CSI�(continued)

• Modeling (continued)
• Teacher talks them through the steps as the students try them.
• Self-regulation
• Verbalization
• Teacher gives students lots of opportunities to practice the steps when reading their textbooks, encouraging them to say the steps aloud as they work through them.

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Example of CSI�(continued)

• Reflective thinking
• Teacher provides feedback on how they are doing, and she teaches them how to evaluate their own performance.

Executive Functioning or Metacognition

• The specific processes in the information-processing system (i.e., attention, perception, working memory, and long-term memory) are controlled or coordinated by what has been referred to as executive functioning (also referred to as metacognition).