WEBVTT

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I'm Dave Tilly, and I'm
the director of innovation

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and accountability at
Heartland Area Education Agency

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in Johnston, Iowa.

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We provide services in
lots of different areas

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of education to our schools.

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Heartland's role in
the evolution of RtI,

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I guess I would say,
is we began looking

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at ways we can improve our
system in the late '80s.

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We've gone through multiple
iterations of implementation

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of these principles
and practices,

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but we've remained constant
in our implementation

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that the purpose of what we
are doing is squarely improving

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results for all of our kids.

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In Iowa, we made the decision,
as a state and as a team,

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to not use the words
"Response to Intervention,"

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but instead we use the term
Instructional Decision Making.

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Most important change that needs
to happen is instruction needs

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to continually improve because
instruction directly impacts

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student learning, and the
better we get as teachers,

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the better we get
as instructors,

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the better instruction we are
able to provide to our students,

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the better the learning
outcomes are.

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Implementing IDM in
a school really is

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about answering these ten
interrelated questions

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with data, and they're
questions like, you know,

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the first question
in the series is,

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"Is our core curriculum
sufficiently effective?"

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Wow, that's a big question that
we hadn't been asking before.

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One of the things that
we've learned as we've gone

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through the process of
working with many, many schools

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over many years and many
educators is that within RtI,

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or what we call Instructional
Decision Making,

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there's really a predictable
pattern of phases that folks go

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through as they implement
the process.

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And there's really three
sort of big phases,

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and they're interrelated.

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The first phase is
consensus building.

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One of the things we
learned early on is

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that taking the time upfront

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to help people not only
understand what it is

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that we're proposing in terms
of the changes but also,

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importantly, why is it that
we need to make these changes.

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Doesn't mean everybody is always
going to agree, but developing

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that common purpose upfront,

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what we have realized
is absolutely critical.

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And that consensus building
process allows schools

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to build a knowledge level,
to build a buy-in level,

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and to build an understanding
of not just what it is we need

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to do but why it is
we need to do it.

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So, when schools embark they're
doing it as informed consumers,

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as informed professionals.

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Why they're doing it, and
then they can move it forward.

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Consensus building
is never over.

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When we first started to think
about it, we kind of thought

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about it, "Consensus building
comes first and then phase two

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and then phase three."

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What we have learned is
consensus building is truly

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on ongoing process.

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The second phase, that we've
learned is fairly predictable,

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is what we call infrastructure
building.

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I've never worked with a
school who, when I walked

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through the front door,
didn't already have some

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of the components
of RtI in place.

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I've also never worked with
a school, on first blush,

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that had all of the
components of RtI in place.

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So, the infrastructure
building part really is

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about doing a gap analysis
of, "Which of these components

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of RtI or IDM do
we have in place?

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Which of these do
we need to build?"

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And every school is unique on
that, so we have some tools

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that we use to help schools do
sort of that needs assessment.

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The school will have
a leadership team,

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and that leadership team will
work with the rest of the staff

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to kind of get that done,

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and then that can
set some priorities.

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And the infrastructure building
really relates to maintaining

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and strengthening the
components we've already got,

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as well as building some of the
components that we don't have.

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So, it may be that we've
got really effective initial

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instruction in place, but
we don't have good tools

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for monitoring students'
progress.

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And that process takes a
good year to 18 months just

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to get some of those components
built, and it just depends

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on the school-where they
are starting, which pieces

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that they need to build and
what they prioritize-how slow

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or how fast those
pieces fall into place.

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But as they're infrastructure
building,

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they're also starting their
initial implementation

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because part of that
infrastructure building is

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identifying and starting to
answer some of those questions,

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you know, "Is our
core-curriculum effective?"

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If it's not, you know,
"For who is it effective

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and who isn't it effective?"

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If it's not effective, if it's
not as good as we want it to be,

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"Why isn't it effective enough?"

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And then it turns into, "What
are we going to do about it?"

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and then monitor,
"Did what we do work?"

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And that's one

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of the foundational pieces
underlying all of RtI is sort

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of that very common and
simple problem-solving

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thinking framework.

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The final phase in RtI or
IDM implementation, really,

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is full implementation, and full
implementation is the process

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of very planfully

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and thoughtfully
institutionalizing the

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new practices.

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Doing new skills
and new behaviors,

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it's a new thing for a while.

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And all of us, when we're
learning new skills,

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there is a phase where it's
still a little uncomfortable.

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So there's feedback, there's
support, there's coaching,

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there's lots of different
pieces that go

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into that initial
implementation.

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Full implementation deals with
the process of, as I said,

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institutionalizing and building
the practices into the fabric

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of the culture, into the fabric
of the culture of the building.

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Full implementation is
basically the integration

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of the new things we've learned
through infrastructure building

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into the business as
usual at the school.

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There are benefits to the system
that accrue at all levels,

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but it is a process, and
it doesn't occur overnight.

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RtI doesn't tell people what
to think; it tells them what

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to think about, and when they're
thinking about the things

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that make the most
difference in the school

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and making modifications
to those

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and monitoring how
well they're doing,

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it makes a great difference.