TILS Standard A

2: Collaborates with educators to analyze and use multiple forms of data throughout year to
establish specific goals and strategies that reflect a commitment to student achievement and
growth

Disaggregating MAAP Assessment Data

At the beginning of the 2014/2015 school year, we gave the MAAP assessment test to the
entire student body at East Brainerd Elementary School. The MAAP assessment is a new system
wide program used to gain a deeper understanding student's prior knowledge, areas of strengths and
weaknesses, and the determining factor in which students receive RTI or enrichment. The test is
given over a 4 day period in which the students use a computer to answer a series of multiple choice
questions in reading and math. After the assessment data came in the leadership team met to get
specific instructions on how to interpret the data and create RTI groups. After this meeting, team
leaders were asked to lead their team in disaggregating the data and submitting the final results to
administration. The following week, were given a modified schedule so that we would have an entire
day without our students. We were to use that day to come together as a grade level and dig into the
data and create our RTI and enrichment groups. We met in the library and spent the entire day
working together to complete the task. In the allotted time we created 2 reading and 4 math RTI
groups, 5 reading and 3 math enrichment groups, 7 class lists for both subjects, assigned teachers to
each group of students, and created a rough draft pacing guide for the material that needed to be
taught.

What went well?

We were able to get a lot accomplished in the amount of time we had. I feel that I did a good
job of disseminating information about expectations from administration to my teammates at the
beginning of our session. I believe that this eliminated a lot of confusion and questions and brought a
small sense of relief because everyone was so apprehensive because this was something they had
never done before. I felt more comfortable with this task because I spent my first 3 years of teaching
working in a Title 1 school that was on target and one step away from state take over. We were
constantly looking at data, creating data walls, comparing TCAP to Think Link to Dibels, you name
it, we looked at it. I was able to use my prior knowledge and experience with data to answer
questions that my teammates had, give them ideas on how to use the scores to group students, help
them use their knowledge of the student's ability along with the test data to make the most beneficial
decision for the student, and give them information about the benefits of looking a data in this
manner. In the 4 years that I have taught at East Brainerd, this was the first time we looked at data,
and none of my teammates saw the benefit of doing this "extra work" at the beginning of the task, but
by the end they were starting to get more comfortable with the idea that this was a great way to
individualize instruction to try to meet the needs of all students. I also felt that when I did not feel I
had enough knowledge and expertise to answer a question, I did a good job of seeking advice from
our instructional coach and principal. Even though I was the most experienced on my team in the
area of data, I did not know everything and I knew when to say, "Let me go check with admin before
we move any further." I felt that when I did have to do to administration for answers, I got back with
my teammates in a reasonable amount of time with the information they needed to know.




What did not?

After the planning session was over and we started our RTI rotations, I realized that one member of
our RTI team had not been adequately informed on what to do. All grade level teams were assigned
one related arts person to take a group of enrichment students during the RTI rotation. My grade
level was assigned our science lab teacher, who is in his 1st year of teaching. Even though we created
a class list for him and made a copy of the skills he was supposed to teach, no one had sat down with
him to explain in detail what he was supposed to do, answer any questions he may have had, or
provide him with the necessary materials he needed to teach his group of students. So I found myself
trying to do these things 5 minutes before the rotation was supposed to start on the first day. He was
very frantic and felt like he was thrown to the wolves. I was very empathetic towards him because I
had some of those same feelings during my 1st year of teaching. I often felt that I was expected to
know what to do without given proper guidance or instruction. I asked him to come back to my room
after school so that I could help him. After talking with the rest of the related arts team I discovered
that they were all in the same boat as our science teacher. I thought about this all day because it
really bothered me. It wasn't fair that this entire group of staff members had unrealistic expectations
upon them without the proper training. Untrained teachers would not be able to do what was best for
kids during this RTI time, especially those who don't teach a content area daily. I talked with our
instructional coach to see if she was aware of the situation and she was not. It was apparent to me
that this all boiled down to admin simply overlooking one group on the faculty. I did meet with our
science teacher after school and tried to answers as many questions as possible. I gave him some
materials (books, websites, etc.) that I thought would be helpful, went over the data he had for his
group of students and helped him understand how to use it to create activities, and let him know that
I would be available if he needed extra help. Another thing that did not go well happened after the
RTI rotation started. Everyone selected what content area they wanted to teach as well as if they
wanted to teach an small RTI group of 7-8 or an enrichment group. A few weeks into the rotation,
literacy teacher that were teaching math decided that they did not have enough knowledge to teach an
enrichment group and vise versa with the math teachers teaching literacy and we had to create
another rotation list and change the students placement after they had been going to these classes for
over a month. This was an abrupt change that came out of the frustrations of teachers not adjusting
well to being out of the comfort zone of their content areas.

Given the chance to do it again, what would you do differently?
If I had the chance to do it again, I would take our related arts teachers into consideration
during the planning process with the leadership team. I would create a plan for at least 2 professional
development sessions with those teachers during the school day before the RTI rotations start. Since
this was a new requirement that related arts teachers usually dont do, I would not want to ask them
to stay after school for a training session. I would ask the literacy and math coaches to lead the
training for the related arts teachers. I would have them focus on how to read and interpret the
standards/strands from the MAAP assessment, the RTI kits (Do The Math and Lucy Calkins), and
explain and model how to create lessons and enrichment activities for the non-RTI classes. I would
also have the math, literacy, and instructional coach assist the related arts teachers the first 2 weeks
of the RTI rotation to make the transition easier and help them as needed. The coaches would
actually be in the classrooms with the related arts teachers modeling and observing in order to
provide those teachers with the support they needed. Another thing that I would do is to have my
teammates think about their teaching strengths when choosing which RTI class to teach. If a teacher
felt that they were a strong literacy teacher, I would encourage them to teach a literacy class instead
of choosing a math class. I would remind them that we are expected to do whats best for kids and
use this RTI time to move children academically.
This process made me realize that it is very easy to overlook important components when
you are implementing a new system. Our administration had a great idea to use related arts teachers
during RTI in order to make class sizes smaller and provide grade levels with extra support, but they
failed to train those teachers who were expected to do something that was very new to them. I also
realized that simple dialogue is very important as well. By taking a few extra minutes to talk with the
science teacher, I was able to gain a clear understanding of his distress. I believe that as a leader, you
can learn a lot from informal conversations with your co-workers. I also learned the importance of
being intentional at all times. Our grade level felt like we had a solid plan in place to begin our RTI,
only to start the rotation and run into the problem of being uncomfortable during teaching a new
subject. If we wouldve been more intentional during our subject selection, we couldve avoided that
problem. The last thing I learned from this situation was the importance of keeping the vision in the
forefront. If we wouldve reminded ourselves during the planning process that our goal was to move
kids academically in the areas of reading and math, I believe that we wouldve seen the importance
of teaching the subjects that were our strengths.