The MTSS GUIDE TO CORE INSTRUCTION

5. What’s the Deal with Differentiation in Core Instruction? And How Do Educators Use It? 

Effective core instruction uses differentiation to meet the needs of the wide range of skills that exist within a classroom. Curriculum tells educators what to teach. Differentiation tells educators how. In a true system of MTSS, differentiated, core instruction accessible to all students is essential. 

Differentiation allows instruction to be tailored to the needs of all students, based on varying readiness levels, interests, strengths, and learning preferences to provide equitable access to core instruction and curriculum. It is important to understand that the expectations or standards do NOT change when using differentiation. It is a refinement, not a substitute, for high-quality curriculum and instruction.

What Is Differentiation? 

Differentiation includes tailoring instruction for ALL students’ readiness levels, interests, strengths, and learning preferences based on current assessment data.

At its heart, differentiation is considering multiple approaches to instruction and learning. No single instructional approach can address all students' vast and diverse goals and needs. The content, process, product, and environment may change, but it still meets the same objectives. 

It is impossible to expect that all students will be taught the curriculum in the same way, at the same time, and have them all respond the same. All students deserve access to rigorous instruction. With this in mind, educators can ask a couple of questions to begin planning for core instruction to meet the needs of ALL students: 

•  What does the student need to learn to master this grade level? 

• How can this student access this learning in a way that meets their unique learning needs?  

Educators can answer these questions by planning to utilize differentiation when planning each lesson to support the individual learning needs of all students and encourage student success.

How Do We Differentiate Core Instruction/Tier 1?

Differentiation occurs at each level of MTSS, beginning with core content instruction delivered to all students (Tier 1). The process of differentiating instruction includes analyzing the lesson's content, the process and delivery of instruction, the product for students to demonstrate their learning, and their learning environment. 

Content of Instruction (what is to be learned), including:

• Ensuring content presented is based upon appropriate “power standards” (“power standards” are the standards most necessary for a student to master at their current grade-level)

• Student interests and learning preferences are considered

• Varied resources/texts/content are utilized throughout the lesson

• Lessons are planned to build on student’s areas of strength, bolstering areas of need as based upon data

The Process and Delivery of Instruction, including:

• Utilizing accelerated learning strategies (more information about accelerated learning below)

• Scaffolding lessons (learn more about scaffolding below)

• Flexible grouping to provide learning opportunities for students based upon their readiness and learning styles

• A variety of learning tools are utilized to tap into student’s preferred learning styles

• Drawing out student thinking using a variety of strategic questions and tasks

The Product for Students to Demonstrate their Learning, including:

• Authentic and engaging activities are planned and implemented

• Ensuring there are a variety of ways for students to demonstrate their understanding (writing, speaking, creating, moving, etc.)

• Informally assessing students to determine next instructional steps

The Learning Environment, including:

• Flexible grouping and flexible room arrangement to accommodate whole group, small group, and individual instruction

• Students have ownership in determining their next instructional steps

While differentiation means taking in the skill-level of students into account when delivering core instruction, it also means accounting for the engagement/interest level of students. This guide will discuss engagement strategies in a later section, but here is an example of a differentiated scenario that accounts for the various needs of learners.

6. How and Why Accelerated Instruction Can Benefit Students

Accelerated instruction is not new to the education world; however, the way educators have begun to discuss this term may be new to some. Prior to COVID-19, accelerated learning was mistakenly thought by many to be only an enrichment instructional approach for gifted students. But accelerated instruction is much more. Accelerated instruction prioritizes curriculum standards based on the learning needs of all students in response to a gap in instruction (or due to a need identified by universal screening assessment data). 

Accelerated instruction doesn’t necessarily mean rushing through content; it simply means using data to determine where students are and meeting them where they are to further assist them in continuing grade-level work. It also doesn’t mean lowering the grade level of content delivered to students to “meet them where they are.” That is remediation. 

What Is the Difference Between Acceleration and Remediation? 

Some Benefits of Accelerated Instruction:

• • Increased coverage of grade-level content

    • Accelerating instruction increases time spent teaching new content.

    • Teachers focus more on instructing new content and less on repeating old content.

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    • 	Previous Grade Normed-Learning Expectations
      	Beginning Grade Normed-Learning Expectations
      	Mid-year Grade Normed-Learning Expectations
      	End of Year Grade Normed-Learning Expectations
      	Data-driven differentiated core instruction is designed to meet 100% of learners’ needs

• • Deeper conceptual understanding

    • Students are able to demonstrate stronger recall, make new connections, and engage with content that is new and rigorous.

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Accelerated Instruction Is an Effective Core Instruction Strategy for Supporting All Students in MTSS

How To Implement Accelerated Instruction

While a single educator can look at their student data to determine how to guide core instruction to meet the needs of their students, implementing a robust accelerated instructional framework within MTSS requires a system-level approach. This implementation needs all stakeholders to have a clear vision of their goals and a clear pathway to how they will meet these goals. 

As with any initiative, the following questions should be considered by collaborative teams to determine how accelerated instruction can fit into each classroom’s repertoire:

1. How can we use our universal screening, informal assessment, and observational data to understand our school and identify ALL student’s areas of need and areas of strength? 
2. How can we create a plan to target accelerated instruction based on this data? 
3. How can we facilitate and lead collaboration with grade-level/department teams to identify “power standards” (as mentioned above, “power standards” are the standards most necessary for a student to master at their current grade level)? 
4. How can we incorporate “power strategies” (educators' instructional approaches to quickly and dramatically increase students' academic achievement) within core instruction?
5. How can we identify evidence-based resources and support implementing them? 
6. Have we included support for the whole child, including social-emotional learning, behavior, attendance, and academic support? 

At the grade/department level, teams can consider which standards, strategies, and learning supports they will utilize to meet the needs of all students through accelerated instruction. 

1. Determine what “power standards” will be prioritized. Consider the following when deciding if a standard is a “power standard”: 
1. Learning Endurance: Ask, is this standard essential beyond this unit, and can it be applied later in life? 
2. Learning Leverage: Ask, is this standard relevant across other disciplines? 
3. Learning Readiness: Ask, does this standard provide students with the tools and skills they need for the next unit, course of study, or grade level? 
2. Identify “power strategies,” including (but not limited to): 
1. Ongoing use of progress monitoring assessment tools to guide instruction;
2. Incorporating tapping the prior knowledge base and vocabulary activators, such as pictures, photographs, infographics, music, and videos.
3. Incorporating and communicating student agency by including students in setting individual goals and sharing progress data.
4. Explicitly teaching executive functioning skills to the whole class, such as flexible thinking, working memory, and self-control.
3. Accelerated instruction provides continuous scaffolded support for students to master grade-level content. As with any supportive strategies provided, scaffolded supports should be:
1. Targeted, research-based, and chosen based on alignment with core instruction.
2. Used in conjunction with SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Result-oriented, and Time-bound) and progress monitoring tools.
3. Utilize SEL learning supports and interventions to provide additional support beyond academic resources for students.

As educators work through the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic for years to come, it is critical now more than ever for all students to access grade-level content, and accelerated instruction can support this effort despite students experiencing any instructional gaps during the past few years.

7. Top Scaffolding Strategies To Support All Students in Core Instruction

Scaffolding is the process through which teachers break up content for students so it can be learned more easily and then connect it to a new concept or skill. Scaffolding allows for new topics to be taught, builds content with increasing difficulty, and connects the prior concepts to new ones. Scaffolding is commonly used within a differentiated repertoire of instructional strategies.

Lev Vygotsky coined the term “zone of proximal development (ZPD).” ZPD refers to "the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem-solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers.”

Image sourced from Vygotsky, L.S. (1978) 

There is a lot of complicated jargon in that definition, but this reflects the students' learning process and how scaffolding can assist in this process. Children learn by interacting with others around them. Through their social interactions with adults, teachers, and peers, they are able to continue to learn new things and further develop their cognitive skills. This is the basis for scaffolding core instruction. During instruction, teachers act as mentors to students and scaffold necessary skills to create independent learners.

How To Scaffold Core Instruction

There are many scaffolding strategies and resources available to teachers to help students. Some top scaffolding strategies include:   

• • Providing examples such as worked examples to model all of the steps required to solve a problem (i.e., solved math problems).

  • Tools such as graphic organizers to help students clarify and organize their thoughts/content.

  • Sentence frames that allow for filling in the blank in order to help students get started/activate their prior knowledge base.

  • Questioning techniques such as designing questions to sequence, challenge, and engage students and allow them to show their thinking. 

  • Presenting concepts in multiple modalities (kinesthetic, spatial, musical, visual, auditory) based upon students’ preferred learning styles. 

  • Tapping the prior knowledge base before each lesson so students can activate their learning. 

  • Creating checklists/rubrics for students to use as a guide for completing thorough work and clearly understanding expectations. 

  • Providing discussion protocols (i.e., fishbowls, turn and talk) so students can comfortably and safely discuss their learning. These protocols allow students to understand the expectations for their contributions before they begin. 

These are great strategies and tools to incorporate throughout instruction; however, repeated practice is the most important aspect of scaffolding. The more opportunities students have to use scaffolding strategies to help them learn new information and complete new tasks, the more the scaffolds can fade out.  

Just as things take time to set, scaffolds need to support the structure of student learning before they can be removed. 

Scaffolding for Executive Functioning Skills

It’s important to provide scaffolds for all skills, including executive functioning skills. These skills can sometimes be overlooked, because they are not purely academic skills, but rather, life skills. Through routine and modeling, teachers can aid students in building these skills and becoming stronger and more independent learners. Examples of scaffold executive functioning strategies include support with: 

• • Planning: Providing modeling for writing due dates in a planner or scheduling time to complete work.

  • Organization: Provide students with binders to organize classwork. 

  • Time management: Collaboratively discuss setting alarms in the morning to get to school on time, without skipping breakfast or other necessary morning tasks.

  • Self-monitoring: Support students to have a dialogue and/or make adjustments to their routines if they experience disruption or change. 

  • Self-control: Work to create a plan with students to successfully and quietly transition between activities or ideas. 

  • Flexible/adaptive thinking: Support students by creating action plans. For example, a student may have forgotten a library book at home during library day. The student creates a plan to reserve the new books at the desk, so they return the overdue book the next day and still keep their intended path.

Additional Tips for Scaffolding:

1. 1. Have students practice real-life scenarios to bolster academic and executive functioning skills.

   2. Engage students in self-directed goal setting for academics, behavior, social-emotional goals, and/or attendance.

   3. Create a learning environment that guides students to learn from their mistakes and models problem-solving and decision-making, also known as a “restorative learning environment.”

   4. Utilize a Positive Behavior Support System (PBIS) that emphasizes research-based prevention strategies supporting academic, behavior, and social-emotional goals.

   5. Include scaffolds for English Language Learners to make grade-level content accessible. 

Engagement Strategies for All Instruction

1. Provide essential questions with each lesson: There is always one essential question per lesson that students should be able to answer. Be sure to engage students in that question before, during, and after instruction.
2. Create activating strategies: Engage learners to connect actively to the information learned. Whether it’s new or old, they should always be making connections.
3. Scaffold relevant vocabulary: Keep vocabulary limited to what students can handle and ensure that it’s actively used in context throughout the lesson.
4. Limit “lectures'' to short periods of time (or remove them altogether): Consider using a “flipped model” approach to prioritize active learning and allow students to watch lectures or presentations at home (or during study periods). If you decide to lecture, remember to keep it short and immediately engage students with a relevant activity (even if it’s for a few minutes), this helps students make connections. 
5. Utilize graphic organizers: Students need to be able to conceptualize whatever information is given. The graphic organizer is student-friendly.
6. Incorporate multisensory instruction: Multi-modal instruction helps with muscle memory and engages learners. Observations, student profiles, and checklists provide data to teachers to determine their student’s preferences. 
7. Create higher-order thinking questions: Presenting students with at least three higher-order-thinking (“HOT”) questions during the lesson demonstrates a higher level of engagement and mastery. 
8. Plan rigorous lessons: Activities should be developmentally appropriate and challenging. Create aligned extension activities to minimize opportunities for students to move on when they finish their work early. 
9. Robustly close each lesson: Through summarization and exit tickets, educators can informally assess their students' abilities to answer the essential question effectively, and determine their next instructional steps.
10. Create student-centered lessons: The ways that educators instruct their students must demonstrate that students are the focus, and what educators do is centered on their students’ success. 

10. Incorporating Social-Emotional Learning and Behavior Support in Core Instruction 

MTSS supports the whole child in academic, social-emotional learning, and behavior. Core instruction aligned with MTSS should include the same supports embedded throughout Tier 1 instruction. This guide has focused heavily on providing academic support at Tier 1. Still, teachers also need to account for their students' social-emotional (SEL) and behavioral needs during core instruction. 

What Is SEL in MTSS?

SEL is the curriculum and/or strategies specifically designed to develop the skill set for understanding and managing emotions, building resilience, problem-solving, and developing healthy relationships. Students learn from explicit instruction as well as from the actions and behaviors they are observing from others.

Aligning SEL to CASEL

Schools can implement district/school-wide SEL programs to promote social-emotional competency and well-being for all students. SEL should be incorporated into content within the classroom to allow students to practice skills continuously. SEL strategies and content should align with CASEL’s core competencies (seen in the graphic below). CASEL stands for the Collaborative for Academic and Social-Emotional Learning, and it’s a trusted source for high-quality, evidence-based SEL resources and professional development.

These five areas have been identified as the critical components to support student development and long-term success. Each competency has a unique definition; the skills relate to each other. The focus of SEL is to promote student self-management, not to create an environment that seeks to control or discipline. 

Assessing SEL

Similar to academic needs, educators will need to utilize data to understand the SEL needs of their individual students and at the school level. Some common approaches to measuring SEL include: 

1. SEL Surveys questionnaires completed by students, teachers, and staff on feelings, attitudes, and experiences related to SEL skills 
2. SEL Assessments: an assessment that measures the SEL competencies of an individual and group of students 
3. Teacher-Reported SEL Assessments: a report completed by a classroom teacher on the SEL skills of a student 
4. Parent-Reported SEL Assessments: an SEL assessment on a student completed by parents or guardians 
5. Student-Reported SEL Assessments: an SEL report completed by a student on their own competencies and sense of well-being 
6. Direct SEL Assessments: students complete a set of tasks or engage with an interactive game/program that can measure SEL skills without answering direct SEL questions 
7. SEL Screeners: a type of assessment that can be used to identify students who need additional support (Important note: Screeners differ from assessments as they prove a deeper look into a student’s skills by using research-based cut-points) 

SEL Instruction at Tier 1 in MTSS

Social-Emotional Learning can be integrated into everyday lessons across content areas. Universal, Tier 1 SEL programs can be used to explicitly teach students about expectations around behaviors and how to treat others with respect. Programs that include hands-on lessons and activities provide a great opportunity for students to practice these skills and better understand shared norms and values. 

Incorporating SEL into MTSS has been proven to lead to: 

• Improved academic performance 

• Improved social skills and sense of belonging 

• Reduction of behavior interruptions and negative behavior incidents 

• Positive school culture