Page 27 - Learning for All – A Guide to Effective Assessment and Instruction for All Students, Kindergarten to Grade 12, 2013

Instructional Approaches • 25
As noted in Education for All, K–6 (p. 60), the success of the tiered approach depends on the provision of effective professional learning opportunities focused on assessment practices, progress-monitoring methods, and intervention strategies for students with diverse educa- tional needs.
Providing Tiered Behavioural Support
One school used the tiered approach to provide Positive Behaviour Support
for students experiencing behavioural challenges. Training was provided for teachers and staff to work together, on a school-wide basis, to identify students in need of support, develop personalized plans for them, monitor their progress, and devise interventions of increasing intensity as required.
The tiered approach can be applied, by analogy, in other areas – for example, in promoting positive mental health in schools, as described in Supporting Minds: An Educator’s Guide to Promoting Students’ Mental Health and Well-being (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2013, p. 144; available at www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/reports/SupportingMinds.pdf). The strategies for educators that are outlined in that resource guide are most relevant at Tier 1 – defined as “universal” and involving programming to promote mental health through student engagement and school-/class-wide social-emotional learning – and are designed to help educators identify students who may be in need of extra support from a trained mental health professional at Tier 2 (“targeted”) and/or Tier 3 (“clinical”).
The Tiered Approach: Guiding Questions and Checklist
To check for:
• the provision of a continuum of support and a range of strategies to address the needs of diverse students;
• the appropriate adjustment of instruction or goals in response to observations from frequent monitoring and assessment results;
• the use of timely and appropriate preventive strategies, and of intervention strategies of increasing intensity, as needed, from Tier 1 through Tier 3;
• the use of student response data to aid in decisions, with the help of
the in-school team, about next steps for students who require additional support (e.g., specialized interventions, professional assessments, and, where appropriate, the development of an IEP);
• the prompt implementation of next steps.
(continued)