Hello everyone, welcome to inclusive education in school context. This is lecture 5 and in this recorded lecture I'll be talking about multi-tiered systems of support or MTSS. Some of you might already be familiar with this model from the placement you have had in schools or the work you are doing or you have done previously in school settings that adopt this particular framework. for supporting students, especially students who might have more complex needs and circumstances.
So I'll talk about what MTSS is, we look at the four models of MTSS and I'll use an example from one of the scenarios in the subject and that is scenario number five from OSCQR to sort of give a bit of a context around some discussions around and about MTSS. Now what is multi-tiered system of support? Well, MTSS is a comprehensive framework or approach that is specifically designed to support the students across the diversity of needs, academic needs, behavioural needs, and social emotional needs. So in that sense it is a very overarching, a comprehensive framework for addressing the diversity of the student needs.
If we look at one of the scenarios from the subject that you'll be working with in your first assessment, and that's scenario number five, there is a student called Oscar who is a five-year-old boy in year one in a rural primary school setting, and Oscar is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Now, what can we glean and learn from the MTSS that can help us work with a student? like Oscar in our classroom? Well, MTSS gives us a structured approach and framework to work with and understand the unique needs of Oscar and also helps us to deliver the types of support that Oscar needs in order to promote his learning, his participation, and his academic and behavioral outcomes. Now let's look at the four pillars that make up multi-tiered.
the multi-tiered systems of support. Well, these four pillars are sort of essential to working with the students like Oscar so that they get the right types of support that they need. The first pillar of the MTSS is the varying levels of evidence-informed supports that are tailored to the specific needs of the students.
So that's really looking at three tiers of support for students depending on their needs and circumstances. The second pillar in the multi-tiered system of support is universal screening and this is really about us screening and observing and trying to understand our classrooms, our students, their needs and where they are and where interventions and additional supports might be needed. The third pillar, and I'll come back to each of these pillars and I'll talk about each of them more specifically, is about monitoring progress.
So once we have screened our classroom, we've got a good sense of where our kids and our students are, and we have put in place specific tiered structured support for the classroom and for particular students, then we really need to be tracking the progress of the students, whether that's in their academic space and academic learning. or if it is in terms of their social, emotional or behavioral needs. So, this gives us the evidence we need to make sure that we are on track and the students are making progress.
The last pillar in MTSS is about the use of evidence and data in its various forms to inform our judgments, to inform our decisions. And this data can come from various sources. It could be data based on our observations of our classroom and on observations about the way students, for instance, respond to particular instructional approaches. It could be their data we gather about their performance. It could be informal conversations we have with the students.
It could be something like their attendance records if the student's skipping certain classes or missing school days. So all this constitutes the body of evidence and data we need in order to inform our decisions within the multi-tiered system of support. Now let's look at each of these pillars individually and perhaps in a bit more. details.
Pillar one is about the varying levels of evidence-informed support. Now within a multi-tiered systems of support and within pillar one we are specifically looking at three tiers of support that broadly correspond to student needs. So if you look at the the image on the right hand side of the screen at the bottom of the pyramid we have tier one support. which roughly corresponds to what we do in terms of general classroom practices that cater for the needs of the majority of our students. And in normal classroom, I would say that would be around 80% of the students.
And that's for a quote unquote, a normal classroom. So tier one is really that universal support that is about high quality instruction that all the students, regardless of their needs. including Oscar, for example, would benefit from.
For example, including something like visual schedules into the classroom benefits Oscar in particular, but would be of interest and benefit to the rest of the class as well. So that's really in terms of the foundational work that we do that includes the whole class and benefits students regardless of their needs. Then if we go one step above, Tier 1, we have Tier 2 and this is a bit more targeted.
This is for perhaps smaller groups of the students around roughly 10 to 15 percent of the students who might need additional support beyond what we give at Tier 1. So this is really the targeted support, the additional help for students who might need more practice or make more guidance or extensions and And for Oscar, for example, at the Tier 2 level, we could be thinking about structuring activities in ways that correspond or respond to his sensory preferences. For instance, with his ASD condition, you could think about, for instance, creating quieter spaces for Oscar to do the activities outside the classroom setting could be one option. Now, if you go to Tier 3, this is where we really bring in more intensive individualized interventions. And a lot of times, Tier 3 support is something that teachers do in collaboration with a specialist.
So at Tier 3, we think about intensive supports. This is highly personalized to help the students with significant needs. And again, in a quote-unquote... normal classroom setting, we're really thinking about 5 to 8 percent of the students needing Tier 3 support. Now, what does all this mean in terms of a student like Oscar, for example?
If you go back to the scenario under the assessment tile and read Oscar's scenario, then it gives you a sense of who Oscar is, what his particular needs are. what challenges he's facing because of his ASD. So for Oscar, perhaps, the class would start with visual schedules and adjustments and peer group adjustments.
So that's tier one. That's something that you would do regardless of whether you have Oscar in your class or not, because it benefits all the students regardless. Now, if Oscar's behavior...
continues to become more and more challenging and disrupt the classroom routines then he might receive a bit more personalized behavior support plans. So that's in terms of whether you want Oscar to work with a particular student or whether you think Oscar may not benefit from working with the students and maybe a bit of an individual activity or work for Oscar can be of more help and that's really thinking in terms of in terms of tier two adjustments. Now for more specific and more specific challenges for example OSCAR's non-verbal communications you really need to think about intensive support that might involve the speech therapist.
So this is at a level that the teacher often works with. with an occupational therapist or a speech therapist or someone with a specialist to provide a very focused intensive support to the student at the tier 3 level. Now If we look at tier one, really again I'm coming back to tier one because it is the foundational work that we do as educators and teachers and instructors in our classroom and it is really just thinking about that high quality education that benefits everyone.
So what is high quality education? I'm sure you have had quite a few discussions around what is quality education or effective teaching practices. It is in terms of being very explicit in setting goals for students, articulating what the learning intentions are, how success would look like, what the students would learn, effective teaching practices and assessment options, etc.
At the school level there are programs that focus on the students'academic needs but also on their behavioural and social emotional needs. We don't really look into this aspect within this lecture and this module. We come back to social-emotional learning in module four, so I leave that for now. But I just connect this to Oscar's scenario. For example, at the tier one support, which is universal support, you could use, for example, daily visual schedules that would help Oscar understand what to expect throughout the day.
This is particularly effective when you work with students who have a diagnosis with ASD. Having clear visual markers that indicate step by step what the expectations are is a very effective way of working with the students with ASD. And setting expectations and having clear routines within the classroom also helps a lot in terms of reducing anxiety or resistance. removing some of that unpredictability which doesn't really sit well with the students with ASD.
Now when it comes to Tier 2, again you could think about grouping students within smaller groups and then providing additional support and supervision and assistance to particular cohorts of students or groups of students at Tier 2. So for Oscar, and this says Alex but it should be Oscar, It could be close supervision during recess and transition to prevent his attempts to run away, which is explained in the scenario. And also school can also implement a small group reading sessions that focuses on sibling relationships, something that Oscar is sort of struggling with in terms of building, having a good relationship with his sibling. Now at Tier 3 things become a bit more focused, a lot more individualized and a lot more specialized in terms of the type of support. And this is really just considering the very specific needs of individual students and often involves some sort of a specialized help as well. So, for example, you could look at OSPRA's IEP and get support from the occupational therapist or speech pathologist or consultation with parents.
So there will be lots of strategies that you could sort of implement in case of OSCAR. You can think about countdown strategies or timer to signal to OSCAR when the activity would come to an end. So that creates an expectation and a routine and a plan that might help avoid or reduce the meltdowns that OSCAR experiences in the classroom.
So that's in terms of pillar one and we'll come back to pillar one during the tutorial and we do some hands-on activities around some adjustments and activities that you would do in a classroom setting to address various levels of need across those three tiers. Now at pillar two of MTSS or multi-tiered systems of support we're thinking about universal screening. I briefly talked about this at the beginning but this is really a way of us observing and collecting evidence to identify students who might need additional support. And in terms of Oscar, for example, his diagnosis with ASD could be one of the early screening options that allows the school to sort of think about his transition from kindergarten to year one, and then put in a more personalized learning.
or plan for a behavioral plan for Oscar. Now key features of the universal screening is really often is in form of some form of assessment that is quick that is efficient and is often conducted several times a year to collect data over time. And data and evidence often come in various forms, so it is not just one form of data, it is not just it could be specialist tests for ASD, but also in terms of learning behavioral and social emotional needs of the student, you draw on different types of data for those purposes. In terms of Oscar, again you can have ongoing screening of his communication and social interactions that can help the school adjust his IEP.
For example, parents could have input into Oscar's interest. If his interest in trains in the scenario is still in place or does the interest change over time. So all that input is often fed into the the IEP or individual education plan for the student.
Now at the third pillar of the multi-tiered system of support we are thinking about progress monitoring. So once we have provided the support, we have done the screening, we know exactly where the student is, we have put in place strategies to support them in terms of adjusted instruction, we really need to keep an eye on the progress the student makes. So this is about regularly tracking how the students are doing to help ensure that the support they're receiving is working.
Because a lot of times we might provide what we consider as support and helpful, but it may actually not be very helpful for the student. So adjustments need to be made, but that those adjustments are often made based on constant evaluation and progress monitoring. So in terms of again OSCQR, the school could use, or you as a teacher if you're teaching a student similar to OSCQR, you could use regular check-ins to assess OSCQR's response, for example, to visual schedules.
communication methods. Based on observations and reports from the teachers, from the parents, you could sort of optimize strategies for his engagement and for his behavior plans. Well, the last pillar or pillar four of multi-tiered systems of support is evidence-informed decision-making.
Evidence-informed or evidence-based decision-making is about grounding our decisions and our judgments about what the student needs and what types of supports are required into data and evidence. So we are not making ad hoc decisions about adjustments we make to the classroom practice or to our assessment options. We are informing those decisions based on observations, based on collecting data from student performance, based on attendance records, etc.
Now if you look at Oscar's case again, for example, the school might be reviewing data from Oscar's communication book regularly. They might draw on observation data from the school teachers or input from the parents and this might lead to decisions like, for instance, increasing supervision during play time. or perhaps introducing new AAC symbols that are based on comprehensive evidence that is collected. So these are the four pillars of the multi-tiered systems of support.
There will be plenty of opportunities in this week's tutorial to come back to these pillars, to think about them, but also to think about how Adjustments at various levels according to these different pillars of support would look like in a real classroom setting.