Jonily : That's the point of tier one intervention is to
create this environment, inclusive and accessible to all,
but not stripping the complexity out of the mathematics.
Cheri Dotterer: Hello, everyone. I'm Cheri Dotterer. And I'm here
with Jonily Zupancic. And we are here at tier one interventions.
And we are so glad to have you here today. Lee, we
Jonily : have a good bit of content today that we're going
to roll out to you. We're gonna lay some foundation, though, and
define what is tier one intervention. And we're going to
start by Sheree and I are going to converse a little bit about
that crazy C word that seems like it keeps coming back. And
that is COVID. And I don't know if it's a good or a bad thing
that we're starting with that conversation. But I think it's
necessary. I believe that it keeps coming back even years
later, because I believe that it is an effect that has been on
humans since 2020. And it's drastically changed our
emotions, our mindsets, our practices, our thinking. And the
first thing that I want to say about COVID in its relation to
tier one interventions is tier one being whole class general
classroom instruction, meaning for the last probably dozen
years or so we've moved more to inclusion model in schools,
which means mainstream we want every kid regardless of ability,
deficit struggle, we want them to experience whole classroom
regular general instruction, which we're going to call tier
one. Tier one is whole classroom regular classroom. And I will
say that prior to COVID. In math and writing, tier one was not
where it should be, regardless of COVID. I actually got a
little excited post COVID Because I thought this is a
chance to reframe what regular classroom tier one looks like
feels sounds. And now we can move forward with growth on
serving all kids in this tier one inclusion model. But my fear
has come to be and that is we've regressed back to where we were
prior to COVID. And I think that in many classrooms, we've
defaulted back to even pre COVID, where it was not
instruction for inclusion at all. It is time today and for
all of the sessions to have these conversations. That was a
lot share, you asked me to share a little bit, but that was a
lot. And I know that you have some specifics for writing. But
Sherry, let's just talk you and I a little bit about how COVID
has affected schools, students, and especially our students with
learning specialties.
Cheri Dotterer: Sure. As I was contemplating and thinking about
the impact of COVID on my students and job in general, one
thing I reflected back on as an OT might, generally, across the
country and even in other parts of the world. OT caseload, were
escalating even before COVID, we were hearing conversations of
OTS having 100 kids on their caseload, and I'm like, How do
you do that and treat the child with efficiency and meet the
goals the way they're supposed to be met? Because it's
impossible to see 100 kids as an OT, and to do sessions with them
that are go small groups. We see a lot of kids more in the tier
three, which we'll talk about in a little bit. But that's more
like a one on one session. We generally can do like a two on
one. But Medicaid doesn't allow us to do bigger groups. Unless
we adjust time like there's so a lot of rules about the way we
are allowed to treat kids and I I know. So I worked in cyber,
before COVID head. So cyber had its own issues. I know my kids
went to cyber. So I know that there was 165 kids in a English
class general ninth grade English for one of my kids, and
I can't remember, I think it was Michael's class. And I'm like,
for the teacher. That's a lot of work to be greeting Romeo and
Juliet 165 times. But yet, you break that down, there is no
feasible way that a physically and OT could work one on one
with a kid because a lot of what I was doing, even in the world
of cyber, I was going to their home, which is where they went
to school. And I was doing direct treatment, I'm physically
in a home for one hour, one on one with a kiddo with the travel
time with plus travel time, and typically there was an hour
between kids. So just that's the way that's the nature of being
in home health, home environment setting, even when I worked in
home health, with adult rehab. So there were some times I was
traveling two hours between clients. So I say that, and yes,
I did work in a brick and mortar building as well. And I was
maxed out, my brain was maxed out trying to manage 15. Now, I
know Teresa is on this call, she has a caseload nearly 100 kids
that she's trying to manage. But the difference between that kind
of her caseload, and sometimes what I was referring to, was
that she is the OT she has an an occupational therapy assistant,
supporting her with some of the students. So that's a code is
doing some of the work as a math teacher, you don't get a math
assistant teacher helping you out. But there, the way the
structure is, with ot two, teaching is a little bit
different. So when I heard these case loads going on, I'm like,
how can we change? How can we make it so that it's reusable?
And that's when I'm started delving into what can we do in a
kindergarten classroom, to collaborate, co teach, and
potentially, upfront our intervention, so that we can
help cover these kids that are going to struggle potentially
later, by giving them intensive instruction. And when I go to
all of the research on the science of reading, that's
exactly what structured literacy is designed to do is to create
intensive reading instruction, so that down the road, we can
decrease the number of tier two and tier three.
Jonily : And obviously, tier two and tier three are never going
to be eliminated. No, but as you talked about Sherry, prior to
COVID, not only our occupational therapists caseload is
increasing. But the number of kids with math needs were
increasing, then COVID hits, and then we're out of control with
the number of kids that have needs. So either the kids have
to change, or we have to change. And what Sherry and I are
promoting is that we in schools in tier one regular classroom,
make changes, so that the bottom line is, we are able to serve
more kids in less time with more frequency, and not eliminate,
but reduce the number of students for needs at the tier
two tier three level. And we'll define these tiers in a moment
more specifically, but right now, I just want Sherry And I'd
have this conversation that I want everybody listening to just
hear the conversation as a thought provoking exercise. So
the point of Tier one is to be able to serve more kids in less
time through this collaborative process. Let me talk about what
I do what Cheri does, I am
Cheri Dotterer: rupt you for a moment. Yeah, go ahead. And what
struck me about math class is I had this experience One day, and
it hit me like led brick. I was actually while while I was
writing, handwriting Brain Body disconnect, I was substitute
teaching. And I was I took a job in a learning support classroom.
So I was the Learning Support teacher for the day. One of the
students, I had to shadow them into math class. And I had
already known you or I was just getting to know you at that we
Jonily : know math classes broken Cherie, so just lay it on
us here. But
Cheri Dotterer: so that was like, 2018 ish, that this
happen. And I'm going, Whoa, I can see where this kid is
struggling. Now. He was in a pre algebra class. So he was in
ninth grade, which was not my typical, I usually was taking
elementary kids when I was doing the substitute teaching. But
they had asked me they were like, I need some support today.
So I took the job. And I ended up doing a lot of OT for not
just that kid in the class, but several other the other kids in
that class. And the teacher went, where did you come from,
and, and had no idea where I was trying to intervene and not stop
the math class. But yet, I needed to because he was going a
mile a minute. And I think this is one of those scenarios that
we talked about in math disconnected. And for anybody
who is listening, I know that might take us off on a tangent.
But when I think it was one of those things that we were
talking about, as we were developing that story, where the
math teacher gets derailed by the therapist, because the
therapist is coming in making suggestions on how to change the
entire classroom to make it more accessible for all students
boom.
Jonily : Absolutely. That's of tier one intervention is to
create this environment, inclusive and accessible to all,
but not stripping the complexity out of the mathematics. And what
we're going to bring to you today. Through tier one
instruction. Tier one intervention is how to increase
the complexity of the mathematics. So we're going to
actually have our most struggling kids learning more
understanding more, and being able to decipher more math,
symbols and notations that are their biggest struggle. We're
going to increase the complexity for all but we're also going to
increase the accessibility at the same time too good to be
true. It's not that's what we're bringing to you today. And that
is exactly what's your one means with Sherry, being occupational
therapist, from this medical world, from this neuroscience
world, from this brain based world, and myself Jonily Being
from the educational world, general classroom teacher, as we
begin to have these conversations, and then we've
had these conversations over time, we realize that what we're
doing in our own worlds without the connection of each other, is
not serving these kids long term. So through our
collaboration, and through Sherry's therapies, and math
interventions together, what we bring to you is the post COVID
Miracle math classroom, for lack of a better phrasing. And I know
Sherry, you talked you always are talking to me about the
execution of writing, the fall of writing. Sheree, talk to us a
little bit about how in 2009, like way prior to COVID, the
effects that legislation had on writing in the classroom. And
I'll make that connection to the mathematics. And I know it
sounds like oh, my gosh, in this first 30 minutes, we're just
we're like, massaging the problem, but it's the elephant
in the room. We've got to talk about these things. And then for
the following two hours, it's going to be all solution based.
But Sherry talked about some of the catastrophe that happened
with writing, and explicit writing instruction or lack
thereof. And then I'll parallel that to mathematics. And why
this is affected tier one instruction as well.
Cheri Dotterer: My entire career has been funding changes so on
But I'm even going to take it back a little step further
because yeah, graduated from college in the late 90s, I
entered acute care. As they were changing all the fundings and
all the regulations from you could treat kit people as long
as you want. And that's when they were trying to minimize the
amount of time that you spend in the hospital. So we went from
this large gap of time spent in a hospital enter acute care, we
start DRGs. So don't worry about what the definitions is with
those. But they were trying to shorten hospital stay. I moved
my progress my life over to long term care. The whole medical
world shifted. And now they were implementing the same DRGs and
in subacute, an acute and long term care. So I work with that a
while. By the time I get to homecare, they did the same
thing with DRGs and have gone, when am I going to get free of
this limiting my ability to do work, I transitioned over to
pediatrics. And doggone it, don't they come up with a thing
called Common Core. So around the time that I was starting to
work in pediatric school based therapy, I was also working
early intervention zero to two. So I was going out to homes and
I'm working with babies, toddlers, don't they do the same
art thing where they have similar things called the same
DRGs, which were the limiting the thing to babies and
toddlers, which happened around 2009. And what happened was,
when babies were having a Dilek developmental delay, they will
come out and there were six domains. And don't ask me to
recall those domains, right at the moment, because I forgot to
pull that up and list them out because I can never remember
them. Anyway, long term short is, within those six domains, if
there was one of them that there was 25% delay, they could get
therapy for that area. So it could have been that they needed
learning support. So they get an actual special education teacher
who was zero to two trained. So I don't know where you get that
specific training in education, I think you have to go back and
get a master's degree. But besides birth one, so you could
get that if they had gross motor skills, they were getting PT,
speech, delay, speech, therapy, and then ot would do fine motor
and play. While that was happening, I was also working
school system. And we were doing pretty good. And NAD around word
2012, this thing called Common Core hit and I'm like, What is
going on. And that's when the escalation started. So the
combination of oxtails sub the kids hitting first second grade
having that decrease in that percentage, because so I forgot
to say was that with the change in Rockdale, it was now overall
25%. So it wasn't just one area, it was overall 25%. So you could
have still had it 30% delay in fine motor skills and knockout
therapy. So now these kids we're hitting kindergarten, first
grade, I'm working with these kids, and I'm getting more
referrals for for kindergarten and first grade, that they're
struggling with fine motor skills, incomes Common Core. And
we get escalated. And all of a sudden, caseloads are starting
to go Raizy across the board in occupational therapy, and we're
like, What in the world is happening as
Jonily : far as fine motor handwriting, those types of
things. And because it was not direct in the curriculum
anymore.
Cheri Dotterer: And so thank you for referring my brain back to
what happened in Common Core is the writing standards do not
specifically say handwriting instruction. They say text and
font. And the way it's worded it does not say that somebody needs
to be able to read and write in a handwritten font. All of a
sudden, all these other demands were coming on the teachers
Himani get pushed and pushed and pushed. And all of a sudden
there's just no time in the day to do that. recommended 20
minutes of handwriting instruction, which is what the
research says. The research says 20 minutes of handwriting
practice per day improves long term handwriting it also
improves memory and retention skills. Boom, let's
Jonily : not just like breeze by that. It also improves memory
and retention skills.
Unknown: Nilima says tier one interventions was a sensitizing
workshop systematically thought through put into an easy to
understand framework and well presented. Thank you to you
both. Thank you Nilima. You've been listening to tier one
interventions with Jonily Zupancic and Cheri daughter.
Tier one interventions is released on the first and third
Tuesday of the month. The podcast is recorded live on the
third Saturday of each month except July, the first segment
of the podcast is released to your favorite podcast app. To
hear the entire workshop go to tier one interventions.com and
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cheri Dotterer educational consulting