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Learning Acceleration Part 3: Rethink Intervention

Writer's picture: Peter CoePeter Coe

It's been a while, so I'm picking this series up again! I think this will be the final piece in a series about design principles for learning acceleration in mathematics. The first two centered on the idea of focus, at a macro and micro level.


This piece is all about tutoring and intervention. It probably isn't a surprise that committing time outside of the core math block is essential for accelerating learning. But what's the best way to spend that time? I want to describe two common patterns in how intervention time is spent, and a third way that I believe is necessary to support acceleration.


In having this conversation, I'm assuming that there is extra instruction time in the school day outside of the core math block, let's say at least twice a week. This could look like:

  • Tutoring sessions (either during the school day or after it)

  • Time inside an extended (say, 90 minute) math block in which a teacher (which could be the student's math teacher or someone else) works with students in small group.


Within structures like these, I’ve noticed a couple of common patterns in the ways that schools currently implement intervention in math.


The first I call the personalized flavor. Under this system, students are offered additional practice or instruction on mathematics from prior grades, often involving computer-based assessment, instruction, or practice. Areas of need from prior grades are identified via assessment and students are exposed to additional instruction and/or practice on these topics, regardless of their relevance to grade-level learning opportunities in the core mathematics block. So for example, seventh grade students learning about graphs of proportional relationships in their core mathematics block might be learning to add fractions, solve one-step equations, categorize quadrilaterals, or myriad other topics from prior grades during intervention time.


The second flavor I call the reactive flavor. The governing logic of this system is to “respond to data.” Student performance on periodic assessments (usually unit tests or interim assessments) is used to establish “gaps in understanding” that are then attended to during intervention time. For example, seventh graders might take an assessment about proportional relationships and specific topics such as graphing a proportional relationship from a contextual description or using an equation that represents a proportional relationship to solve problems are identified. After the assessment, intervention time is used to address these “gaps.” These additional learning opportunities may again be administered either by a computer or a human being.


While these two approaches are different in many ways, they are the same in two critical ways:


First, the intervention content is mostly incoherent with the content that students are learning in their core mathematics block. Whether the content is intended to be personally tailored for the student based on an initial diagnostic assessment or “responsive” to a recent interim assessment, it usually is not meaningfully related to what students are learning in their core mathematics block. That is, it is either different enough from what students are learning in their core block to be relevant or occurring too far after the fact to be helpful. If on occasion the intervention content is relevant to what students are learning in their core block, it is a happy accident.


Second, student effort and performance within these intervention contexts are not measured or recorded in ways that matter to the student. While students may be quite successful in these additional learning opportunities, because the content they are learning is so far removed from the work being assigned in their core mathematics block, their success in intervention does not translate to success in their core block. Even when they experience success in intervention, they often do not feel similarly successful in their core block.


So What Do We Do?


This third design principle for learning acceleration in math is to rethink intervention, and specifically I'm advocating for a different flavor that I sometimes call “priming and preteaching.” In this system, intervention content is either (a) relevant prerequisite content taught when students need it (ie before the core math lesson where they will need these prerequisites) or (b) a “preteaching” of a grade-level topics before students experience a grade-level lesson about that topic in their core math block.


Designing intervention in this way addresses the two concerns above. Namely, students now engage in prerequisite instruction in a coherent way: just before they will need to apply these prerequisite understandings in their core mathematics block. No more adding fractions in intervention, only to plot points and work with equations in their core block. Further, there is a far better chance that what is learned in these intervention contexts will translate into success that is meaningful for students; they may earn better grades on in class assignments and tests, and ultimately on their report cards.


It's important also not to obsess over prerequisites. Grade-level math can be made a lot more accessible than many might recognize at first. One activity I like to do is a lesson-level "barrier analysis," which goes like this:


  1. For an upcoming unit, examine each lesson and try to name the skills taught in prior grades that might be barriers to success if students can't yet readily access them. If you need to, limit yourself to the top two in each lesson.

  2. Look across the unit at the skills you've named. What trends emerge? These skills can now form your intervention scope and sequence; map out the skills to be worked on in intervention time, say the week before students will need them in their core block.


Unfortunately, most programs available for purchase are not designed this way. Intervention products are not designed to cohere with a core curriculum and most core curricula don't offer comprehensive intervention materials. Further, these design principles may run against conventional wisdom in ways that provoke conflict and unease (i.e., educators may not like the idea of previewing core content to some students; educators may not believe that students in intervention should be given grade-level tasks and activities). The notion of personalization and long, linear paths of mathematics topics that must be trudged along before students may emerge as worthy of grade-level learning opportunities runs deep.


But the prevailing intervention methods are not organized around the hope and promise of ultimate student success; they are not geared toward unlocking the potential of all students to be successful with grade-level learning. Unless we imagine and try a new way of organizing intervention, there is little hope for learning acceleration in math for all students.


I hope you have enjoyed this series on these three learning acceleration design principles. This will be the last entry, for now. I have a few others I’m considering and may add later on. Let me know what you think in the comments!



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