Hi Tony,<div><br></div><div>Thanks for the feedback.<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 1:48 AM, <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:forster@ozonline.com.au">forster@ozonline.com.au</a>></span> wrote:<br> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">Caroline<br> <br> Thanks for bring this to my attention, you have done a good video presentation of it. Testing (and tailoring instruction as a response) is coming back into fashion in Australia. Australia seems to lag the US in this.<br> <br> The US has had the No Child Left Behind for a while now, which has an emphasis on testing. The Australian government has just introduced the Myschool site <a href="http://www.myschool.edu.au/" target="_blank">http://www.myschool.edu.au/</a> which lists schools by their two yearly test results. The results are moderated by the school's socioeconomic status. The justification is that it rewards effective teaching and gives parents the opportunity to vote with their feet.<br> </blockquote><div><br></div><div>The difference between NCLB testing and RTI is that RTI is supposed to be a "low stakes" test. It is designed to screen all kids 3X a year and students at risk as often as every 2 weeks. It is difficult to use yearly tests, especially with large lag times in getting the data, to make instructional decisions.</div> <div><br></div><div>RTI test results are not part of the "school report card" type public communications as I've seen things like the Myschool site called.</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"> <br> The strongest argument against is that any easily administered testing is biased towards lower level skills (as defined in Bloom's taxonomy). That would be OK, depending on how the data is used. Any attempt to modify teaching in response, biases the teaching towards the lower level skills.<br> </blockquote><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><br> In the Australian case, schools will be forced to confine their teaching to lower order skills to maintain their ranking, preserve enrolments and avoid criticism and funding cuts. In the case of RTI, it risks defining student progress by a narrow subset of education skills and overly concentrating teaching on this narrow subset.<br> <br></blockquote><div><br></div><div><div>Yes, I absolutely agree. The prof in the class says that RTI is only really well defined for K-3 literacy and behavior. There is some data on early math. However, in education people take a hot concept/name and start to use it for all sorts of things.</div> <div><br></div><div>I'm reading about reading and Dyslexia this week. "Overcoming Dyslexia" Literacy and numeracy are crucial low level skills. And its crucial to later success that they get set into the neurons and become fast, low level, subconscious and automatic. Dyslexia can be seen on a functional MRI.</div> <div> If you read with one part of your brain you will read faster and more accurately then if you do one of two other known reading pathways. Hopefully I will have a better understanding of the state of the art in a couple weeks as I complete these readings and classes.</div> <div><br></div><div>I may do another Youtube on this. Reading this book I think I'm probably somewhat Dyslexic myself. :)</div><div><br></div><div>I do think you have hit a really important point. We can't take a simple dicotomous view of "higher level/lower level" thinking. Especially if it lets us slip into higher = good, lower = bad. Its time to look at the research and think about who needs to learn what and why but not define students as equal to their weaknesses.</div> </div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"> Tony<br> <div class="im"><br> <br> <br> > This is a simple, yet powerful idea of tracking student progress in real<br> > time and trying different interventions to see what works.<br> ><br> > I give a brief three minute description here:<br> > <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI95fgBnJWI" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI95fgBnJWI</a><br> ><br> > There is a great deal on the web about RTI but everything I have seen in<br> > class or on the web is US. I'm wondering if maybe a similar concept is<br> > being used under a different name else where?<br> ><br> > Thanks,<br> > Caroline<br> ><br> > --<br> > Caroline Meeks<br> > Solution Grove<br> > Caroline@SolutionGrove.com<br> ><br> > 617-500-3488 - Office<br> > 505-213-3268 - Fax<br> </div>> This is a simple, yet powerful idea of tracking student progress in real time and trying different interventions to see what works.<div><br></div><div>I give a brief three minute description here:�<a href="<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI95fgBnJWI" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI95fgBnJWI</a>"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI95fgBnJWI" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI95fgBnJWI</a></a></div><br> ><br> > <div><br></div><div>There is a great deal on the web about RTI but everything I have seen in class or on the web is US. �I'm wondering if maybe a similar concept is being used under a different name else where?</div><br> > <div><br> > <br></div><div>Thanks,</div><div>Caroline<br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Caroline Meeks<br>Solution Grove<br>Caroline@SolutionGrove.com<br><br>617-500-3488 - Office<br>505-213-3268 - Fax<br><br> > </div><br> > _______________________________________________<br> > IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)<br> > <a href="mailto:IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org">IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org</a><br> > <a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep" target="_blank">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep</a><br> <br> </blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Caroline Meeks<br>Solution Grove<br>Caroline@SolutionGrove.com<br><br>617-500-3488 - Office<br>505-213-3268 - Fax<br> </div>