Agenda Des Moines, IA • October 27–29

Monday, October 27

7:00–8:00 a.m. RegistrationContinental breakfast

Grand Ballroom FoyerGrand Ballroom B

8:00–9:45 a.m.Keynote—Mike MattosSimplifying Response to Intervention: Four Essential Guiding Principles

Grand Ballroom A

9:45–10:00 a.m. Break

10:00–11:30 a.m. Breakouts Titles & locations: p. 3Descriptions: pp. 7–13

11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Lunch Grand Ballroom B

12:30–2:00 p.m.Keynote—Austin BuffumConcentrated Instruction: Designing and Refining Our Instruction Around Student Learning

Grand Ballroom A

2:00–2:15 p.m. Break

2:15–3:45 p.m. Breakouts Titles & locations: p. 3Descriptions: pp. 7–13

Tuesday, October 28

7:00–8:00 a.m. RegistrationContinental breakfast

Grand Ballroom Foyer Grand Ballroom B

8:00–9:30 a.m.Keynote—Janet MaloneConvergent Assessment: Connecting the Dots to Increase Student Learning

Grand Ballroom A

9:30–9:45 a.m. Break

9:45–11:00 a.m. Breakouts Titles & locations: p. 3Descriptions: pp. 7–13

11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. Lunch Grand Ballroom B

12:00–1:15 p.m.Keynote—Mike MattosCertain Access: Meeting Our Moral Responsibility for Every Child

Grand Ballroom A

1:15–1:30 p.m. Break

1:30–2:45 p.m. Breakouts Titles & locations: p. 3Descriptions: pp. 7–13

2:45–3:00 p.m. Break

3:00–3:45 p.m.Team timeA collaboration time for your team. Presenters are available for help in team discussions.

Grand Ballroom A

Wednesday, October 297:00–8:00 a.m. Continental breakfast Grand Ballroom B

8:00–10:15 a.m.

In-depth seminar—Austin Buffum, Mike Mattos, & Laurie Robinson-Sammons Putting It All Together: Creating a Pyramid of Interventions

Grand Ballroom A

In-depth seminar—Janet Malone Conflict: Resource or Roadblock? 303–308

10:15–10:30 a.m. Break

10:30–11:30 a.m. Keynote—Austin BuffumEating the Elephant: Transforming Ideas Into Action Grand Ballroom A

Agenda and presenters are subject to change.

Agenda

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2-day workshops

Register today! 800.733.6786 solution-tree.com/Workshops

“

“We walked away not

only with a clear picture

of how [transformation]

could look in our schools,

but the inspiration to do

it with integrity.”

—Susan Kinney, assistant to the superintendent, Boyertown area School district, Pennsylvania

A commonsense, flexible

approach to improving

student achievement.”

—Stacy Mayo, teacher, Lake Braddock Secondary School, Virginia

Come with a vision, leave with a plan

SPRING 2015

Building Common Assessments March 24–25 Sacramento, CA April 27–28 Pasadena, CA

Common Core for English Language Arts March 9–10 Seattle, WA April 21–22 San Diego, CA

Mathematics at WorkTM

April 29–30 Pasadena, CA

Response to Intervention in Math March 11–12 Seattle, WA March 17–18 San Antonio, TX April 13–14 Minneapolis, MN

RTI at WorkTM March 19–20 San Antonio, TX March 26–27 Sacramento, CA April 15–16 Minneapolis, MN April 23–24 San Diego, CA

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Breakouts at a G

lance

Breakouts at a Glance

Presenter & TitleMonday, October 27 Tuesday, October 28

10:00–11:30 a.m. 2:15–3:45 p.m. 9:45–11:00 a.m. 1:30–2:45 p.m.

Austin BuffumCreating a Culture of Collective Responsibility: From Believing to Doing 306–308

Is the Central Office Central to RTI? 309–310

Convergent Assessment: Digging Into the Data for Elementary Schools 306–308

The Chicken and the Egg: Behavioral Interventions as Part of RTI at Work 306–308

Janet Malone

Are We a Group or a Team? 303–305

Bullseye! Targeted Learning and Engagement for All Students 303–305

Thinking Like an Assessor 303–305

Learning CPR: Creating Powerful Responses When Students Don’t Learn 309–310

Mike Mattos

More Powerful Than Poverty Grand Ballroom A

Secondary Concentrated Instruction: Beyond Curricular Chaos

Grand Ballroom A

Convergent Assessment: Digging Into the Data for Secondary Schools

Grand Ballroom A

It’s About Time: Making Time for Supplemental Interventions

Grand Ballroom A

Laurie Robinson-SammonsOne Is the Loneliest Number: Building a “Systems Team”—One Brick at a Time 309–310

Ready, Aim, Fire! Identifying Essential Learning Targets 306–308

Building Common Assessments: One Step at a Time 309–310

Assessing Students Responsively: Differentiating for the Needs of All Students 303–305

Agenda and presenters are subject to change.

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Impact student learning with RTI

Get started!solution-tree.com/RTIatWorkPD

Beginning the Implementation

Advancing the Implementation

Coaching Academy

Gain a big-picture view of tiered support and the guiding principles at the heart of RTI. Discover how to detect learning gaps and build shared knowledge among your team. Explore what the RTI process requires of principals, teachers, and leadership teams in your school or district.

• One day on-site with an expert

• One interactive web conference

• Online course: Pyramid Response to Intervention: How to Respond When Kids Don’t Learn

• Resource: Simplifying Response to Intervention

Dig deep into the guiding principles at the heart of RTI. With research-based study and expert guidance by your side, you’ll learn about the three tiers of the RTI process and gain practical strategies to recognize and focus on the right interventions. Identify students who need help—and which interventions will best support them.

• Two days on-site with an expert

• One interactive web conference

• Resource: Simplifying Response to Intervention

This dynamic series of PD engagements is designed to help you form leadership teams to act as informed agents of change throughout a district. The academy builds on the foundation of the PLC at Work™ process by using team structures and a focus on learning, collaboration, and results to drive successful outcomes.

• Six days on-site with an expert

• Three interactive web conferences

• Online course: Pyramid Response to Intervention: How to Respond When Kids Don’t Learn

• Resources: Simplifying Response to Intervention and Pyramid Response to Intervention (DVD)

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Site Maps

Community Choice Credit Union Convention Center

Level 4: Ballroom Level

Level 3: Meeting Room Level

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Learn more! solution-tree.com/Courses/Overview 800.733.6786

Pyramid Response to Intervention: How to Respond When Kids Don’t Learn Online Course

Developed by leading experts, every online course offers an exceptional professional learning experience packed with research-based strategies and techniques.

In this online course, Austin Buffum, Mike Mattos, and Chris Weber share their experience implementing pyramid response to intervention. These experts take you through the critical stages of establishing professional learning communities in schools and districts, using universal screening tools to ascertain students’ learning needs, and devising interventions for students at three tiers.

Learning Outcomes • Facilitate a professional learning community in your

school or district.

• Locate and utilize universal screening tools to ascertain students’ needs.

• Devise appropriate interventions at each of three tiers.

• Monitor student progress and revise interventions accordingly.

• Conduct productive team meetings.

Foster student growth with effective RTI

Presenters:

Austin BuffumMike MattosChris Weber

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Austin Buffum

Concentrated Instruction: Designing and Refining Our Instruction Around Student Learning Rather than asking, How can we make our scores go up? collaborative teams should ask, What specifically do students need to master? and How can we, as a team, construct a plan for instruction, intervention, and enrichment to accomplish our goal of mastery for every student?

Dr. Buffum helps teams clarify how to identify the essential knowledge and skills that students must master in order to be successful in school and in life.

Eating the Elephant: Transforming Ideas Into Action How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

Implementing RTI can be daunting. The key is to break the process down into meaningful bites. In this session, Dr. Buffum assists participants in creating practical action steps to implement the four C’s of RTI: collective responsibility, concentrated instruction, convergent assessment, and certain access. Participants leave with a doable implementation plan and the inspiration needed to get started.

Creating a Culture of Collective Responsibility: From Believing to DoingCollective responsibility is built upon two assumptions: 1) A belief that we, as educators, must accept responsibility to ensure high levels of learning for all students, and 2) The assumption that all students can learn at high levels.

Participants in this session:• Assess their own schools’ beliefs relative to the two assumptions stated above.• Acquire tools and strategies needed to create this condition in their schools.• Examine the differences between cultural change and structural change.

Is the Central Office Central to RTI?Why are so many schools and districts struggling to reap the benefits of RTI? Some schools mistakenly view RTI merely as a new way to qualify students for special education— trying a few token regular education interventions before referring struggling students for traditional special education testing and placement. Others implement RTI from a compliance perspective, doing just enough to meet mandates. The RTI efforts of still others are driven by a desire to raise test scores, which too often leads to practices that are counterproductive to the guiding principles of RTI.

This session explores the findings of two articles, and then applies these findings to the work of central office administrators attempting to implement RTI at Work™ across school districts.

In this session, participants:• Learn the difference between bureaucratic and professional change strategies.• Examine their RTI implementation efforts in light of these change strategies.• Network with other central office administrators.

Session Descriptions

= Keynote

SessionD

escriptions

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Austin Buffum Convergent Assessment: Digging Into the Data for Elementary Schools

Once a collaborative team has identified what is essential for all students to master and has built common assessments that tell it “where each student is” relative to each essential skill or learning target, the team needs to practice using these data in a significant way.

This session provides a data set and protocol for examining the data in order to target interventions/enrichment and identify effective teaching strategies. Participants engage in a role-playing activity and should therefore attend with other members of their school or team, if possible.

Participants in this session:• Practice answering the questions, How do we respond when students haven’t learned? and

How do we respond when they already know it?• Experience a process for responding to common assessment data sets for both student and

adult learning.• Gain insights into current assessment practices.

The Chicken and the Egg: Behavioral Interventions as Part of RTI at WorkOur most at-risk students usually lack the will and the skill necessary for success. Successful interventions require us to address the specific causes of a student’s difficulties, not just the symptoms. Focusing on both skill and will help us to pinpoint the origin of a student’s struggles.

Dr. Buffum guides session attendees to:• Consider how academic skills, social behaviors, and academic behaviors interact in

student learning.• Assess their own schools’ progress in addressing both social and academic behaviors.• Understand how behavioral interventions are organized, implemented, and monitored

according to the RTI inverted pyramid and three teams.

Janet Malone

Convergent Assessment: Connecting the Dots to Increase Student LearningTo converge means to come together. Assessment is the essential component that causes the other components of RTI at Work™—collective responsibility, concentrated instruction, and certain access—to come together as powerful practices for improving student achievement. This interactive keynote highlights critical understandings and strategies that collaborative teams need to collect targeted information regarding specific student learning needs and, in turn, develop a targeted instructional response to leverage maximum success for each student. The guiding question, Where are we now? frames the thinking and processes of powerful convergent assessment.

Participants in this session:• Understand the role that assessment plays in leveraging high levels of learning

for all students.• Gain insights into the connections among the four C’s of RTI at Work™.• Learn processes for implementing powerful convergent assessment practices.

Session Descriptions

= Keynote8

Janet Malone Are We a Group or a Team?

Teamwork and collaboration are the foundations on which successful professional learning communities are built. This interactive session highlights the differences between groups and teams, and provides attendees with the opportunity to experience strategies that help groups become teams. Participants engage in collaborative teamwork and dialogue with colleagues to assess their current reality and identify next steps.

Session participants can expect to:• Understand the differences between groups and teams.• Acquire strategies and tools for strengthening and/or building high-performing teams.

Bullseye! Targeted Learning and Engagement for All StudentsThe impact of concentrated instruction is significantly greater when students and teachers share a common understanding of the essential standards and learning targets. By involving students in developing a clear vision of what’s expected and the level of performance needed, student engagement increases and, in turn, achievement improves. Participants share and explore practical classroom strategies to promote bullseye learning for all students.

Janet helps participants gain:• Understanding of the types of achievement embedded in standards and learning targets• Strategies and tools for providing students with clear learning targets• Insights into the relationship among clear learning targets, student motivation, and higher

levels of learning

Thinking Like an AssessorStudents who are engaged in all aspects of their learning journey develop into reflective, independent learners. In support of such engagement, formative assessment practices, such as involving students in self-assessment, record keeping, and communicating their results, not only promote student motivation but also lead to higher levels of achievement. Participants in this session explore strategies and tools to engage students as partners in thinking like assessors to monitor and manage their own learning.

Participants in this session:• Gain insights into student engagement in assessment, motivation, and achievement.• Share and reflect on current assessment practices.

Learning CPR: Creating Powerful Responses When Students Don’t LearnA highly effective, systematic intervention program is only as successful as the strength of the specific interventions that it is built upon. In this session, participants learn the essential characteristics of effective interventions and engage in a collaborative process to evaluate and improve their current site interventions. Teams explore and learn together to create a tiered system of interventions that provides supplemental and intensive support to students when they are unsuccessful. Attendees get the opportunity to share successful RTI at Work™ strategies with colleagues.

Session Descriptions

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Mike Mattos

Simplifying Response to Intervention: Four Essential Guiding PrinciplesMany schools struggle to realize the powerful potential of RTI due to misguided thinking that is too focused on paperwork and protocols, too rigid to meet the unique needs of each school, and too narrowly viewed as a new way to qualify kids for special education.

In this session, Mike Mattos shares a new way of thinking about RTI, simplifying the process to four essential elements: collective responsibility, concentrated instruction, convergent assessment, and certain access.

Certain Access: Meeting Our Moral Responsibility for Every ChildHow do we guarantee that all children learn at high levels? Mike Mattos addresses this vital question and explains the critical role of support professionals in the RTI at Work™ process, including counselors, psychologists, librarians, and speech therapists.

In this session, participants:• Learn how to create a system of supplemental and intensive interventions.• Identify students in need of extra help.• Determine the proper intervention(s) for each child.• Create processes for quality problem solving.• Determine when special education identification is appropriate.

More Powerful Than PovertyThe achievement gap between poor and non-poor students is twice as large today as gaps that are related to ethnicity or language. As educators, overcoming the corrosive effects of poverty is critical if we hope to achieve our mission of all students learning at high levels. Mike Mattos focuses on five essential PLC practices proven to have a far greater impact on student achievement than the power of poverty.

Secondary Concentrated Instruction: Beyond Curricular ChaosAfter a study of state standards, Robert Marzano declared, “To cover all of this content, you would have to change schooling from K–12 to K–22 … the sheer number of standards is the biggest impediment to implementing standards.” Due to this curriculum overload, secondary teachers are individually determining what they feel is important for their students to learn, thus creating at most secondary schools a system described as curricular chaos.

In this session, Mike Mattos illustrates:• Why it is so important to provide secondary students a guaranteed and viable curriculum• The critical skills needed to prepare students for higher education• How to align vertical and interdisciplinary curricula

Session Descriptions

= Keynote10

Mike Mattos Convergent Assessment: Digging Into the Data for Secondary Schools

Data is a four-letter word at many secondary schools. Too many secondary schools are creating RTI assessment processes that are too complex, burdensome, and disconnected from school interventions. Participants in this session learn a simple, practical protocol for transforming common assessment data into meaningful information to guide effective interventions.

As a result of this session, participants can expect to:• Address the question, How do we respond when students haven’t learned?• Experience a process for responding to common assessment data sets for student and

adult learning.• Gain insights into current assessment practices.

It’s About Time: Making Time for Supplemental InterventionsThe greatest obstacle most secondary schools face when implementing RTI at Work™ is not what to do when students need additional time and support but how to create time during the school day to provide that needed help. The traditional secondary master schedule is often counter-productive to this end.

This breakout explores ways to create intervention time for teachers during the day, when students are required to be at school. Participants in this session learn:

• How to create flexible time to regroup, reteach, and enrich students during the school day• Options for designing a master schedule that provides intervention and elective options

for at-risk students• How to use flexible time to also meet the needs of students who are already proficient

Laurie Robinson-Sammons One Is the Loneliest Number: Building a “Systems Team”—One Brick at a Time

Highly effective teams are designed with the end in mind—collaboration, learning, and results. If you are new to the PLC process, this session lays the foundation by answering the following questions:

• How do we get started? Setting goals and professional commitments as a site-based team• How are teacher teams formed?• What is the value added to learning-focused teams vs. traditional grade-level teams?• How do small schools/singleton teachers make this process work?

Follow the protocols of successful schools and leave with multiple ideas to replicate immediately.

Session Descriptions

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Laurie Robinson-Sammons Ready, Aim, Fire! Identifying Essential Learning Targets

In order to ensure concentrated instruction, teachers and students alike need to see and understand the learning targets. This session provides specific protocols for teams to enact in a collaborative analysis of the standards leading to informed instructional decisions.

In this session, participants:• Identify the types of achievement and specific learning targets embedded in the Common

Core standards. • Experience the collaborative process of deconstructing standards and creating an

assessment roadmap for units of study. • Examine planning templates and websites to ensure quality lesson design aligned

to assessments.

Building Common Assessments: One Step at a TimeOne of the first steps in producing quality assessment is for grade-level and content teams to converge and become assessment literate together. This session provides the big picture of sound and accurate assessment practices—from beginning to end—using the Common Core standards.

Participants in this session learn:• How to select power standards leading to aligned common assessments• The steps to create a quality common assessment• How project-based learning (PBL) can be used as a strong 21st century performance

assessment tool• Tools to begin the process at their own site-based schools

Assessing Students Responsively: Differentiating for the Needs of All StudentsOkay, we have our data; now what do we do? Behind every set of data is a child. The focus of this session is instructional responsiveness as a way of serving that child. Differentiation can be a daunting task when one does not first create a clear instructional roadmap. Establishing a tight curriculum is a necessary first step, followed by instructional strategies to support student diversity.

In this session, participants:• Identify multiple ways to assess student learning through content, process, and product,

according to student readiness, interest, and an accurate learner profile.• Experience the powerful connections among PLC, RTI, and differentiation. • Take away multiple examples of how to differentiate and scaffold essential learning.

Session Descriptions

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In-Depth Seminars Putting It All Together: Creating a Pyramid of Interventions

(Austin Buffum, Mike Mattos, & Laurie Robinson-Sammons)In this breakout, Mike, Austin, and Laurie walk participants through the process of creating a site pyramid of interventions. Based on RTI at Work™ guiding principles, this process includes embedded Tier 1 core support, targeted Tier 2 supplemental help, and intensive Tier 3 interventions.

Conflict: Resource or Roadblock? (Janet Malone)Powerful teams view conflict as an essential resource for continuous improvement. In this session, participants actively engage in collaborative problem solving to gain a deeper understanding of conflict and how to productively manage and use it to strengthen collaborative outcomes. Janet shares protocols and strategies for working with individuals and/or teams.

Participants in this seminar:• Strengthen their understanding of conflict—its dynamics, dangers, and opportunities.• Explore strategies and tools for effectively managing conflict.• Gain insight into personal conflict management styles and skills.

Session Descriptions

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