Response to Intervention--The beginning

What interventions do I use to reach all students?

This was a question that we were asked in a recent professional development day at our school. Our RTI (more below) team wanted us to think about this question and come back to our next meeting in a month with ideas of things that we do to reach all students. So, here we go.

I try to:

• make class welcoming for ALL students.
• remind students to ask questions. (Just because I love this material doesn't mean that they will love this material.)
• have discussions with kids where I take a sincere interest in their wants and needs.
• challenge them to be there best everyday.
• support them when they fall and help them get back up.

I demonstrate multiple representations using:

• Desmos. Try typing in \( \sin(\frac{x}{y})=\frac{\tan(y)}{x}\)
• Mathjax allows me to type equations like the above into my blog
• Geogebra and Geogebratube
• Plain ol' graph paper
• MIRAs, protractors, compasses, rulers

I differentiate with:

• open-ended problems with multiple approaches.
• changing problem sets for both the gifted and struggling

I need to work on:

• More choice for students
• More student driven problems and learning

After writing all this down, I am absolutely exhausted! I feel that I am "special" for doing all of this for my students, but I don't think that I am unique. I think that many of us on my staff use everything we have to reach every kid every day. This is where I hope that RTI can help our staff focus our energies. Who else is struggling with this student? This topic? Is that was RTI is supposed to help us with?
I've always loved the teachers that I get to work with every day and I am excited to be able to work with them closer with the goal we always held: know our students and get them further than they thought they could go.