Applying a Systematic Approach to Intervention within an MTSS Model, DiFrancesco, Spring 2025
| Course Number: | EDX 5710 S35 |
| Instructor: | Allison Cosey DiFrancesco, M.S./C.A.S. |
| Location: | Online |
| Dates and Times: | Jan 16, 2025 - Feb 27, 2025. Zoom meetings on the following dates: 1/16/25 4:00-6:00 pm 1/23/25 4:00-6:00 pm 1/30/25 4:00-6:00 pm 2/6/25 4:00-6:00 pm 2/13/25 4:00-6:00 pm 2/27/25 4:00-6:00 pm The remainder of the course is asynchronous using Canvas. |
| Credits: | 3 Graduate Credits |
| Tuition: | $1,195 |
Course Description
Course Description: Tiered intervention practices have been brought to the forefront in Vermont’s education system. Act 173 and VTmtss have thoughtfully brought change to systems throughout the state to meet the needs of our struggling students. These changes have forced educators and systems to engage in a variety of learning around new programs, curriculums, teaching methods, time management, and how to effectively serve our students within an ever-changing world. This course aims to look at intervention practices through a problem-solving approach from start to finish. Beginning with screening for needs to identify specific skill deficits and moving into designing interventions, we then move onto how to make needed changes to plans, what and how to progress monitor, how to interpret the data, and the most important part- what does this all mean for our students? We will take a comprehensive look at how an intervention is formulated, carried out with integrity, and how the data that is collected can support decision making. Students will walk away from this course with an understanding of how to develop and carry out an intervention plan that aligns with VTmtss and Act 173.
Audience: All educators K-8; classroom teachers, academic interventionists, EST coordinators, school counselors, school psychologists, special educators, administration with a Bachelor's Degree.
Course Goals & Objectives
Course Goals:
• Understand how to identify academic and social-emotional skill deficits through universal screening measures
• Understand how to develop an intervention plan and make goals based on evidence-based practices
• Understand progress monitoring data and how to use that data to inform decision making
• Understand how to intensify interventions using various methods
• Be able to apply a problem-solving approach to students in need of intervention supports through a case study
Course Objectives:
• Students will be able to identify methods used in their schools/districts or that they have researched independently to identify skill deficits at a universal level.
• Students will be able to develop an intervention plan based on an identified skill deficit.
• Students will be able to make a goal and identify progress monitoring tools to track that goal through a SMART goal format.
• Students will have an understanding of rate of improvement in identification of specific learning disabilities.
• Students will be able to identify ways to intensify an intervention based on lack of response to the current intervention plan.
Instructor
Allison Cosey DiFrancesco, M.S., C.A.S.
Allison graduated from the University at Albany in 2016 with a Master's in Educational Psychology and Methodology and in 2018 with a Certificate of Advanced Study in School Psychology. Since then, she had made her career and home in Vermont, currently working in Slate Valley Unified School District. In addition to the traditional assessment role of a school psychologist, she has worked alongside district administration in the reshaping of the school's MTSS/EST systems. She found a passion early on in her studies in the area of early intervention of learning and social-emotional needs and continues to pursue this area in hopes to help more students feel successful in school and in life.
Course Schedule:
1/16/25 Introduction to Course
Reading: Universal Screening Within a Response-to-Intervention Model
Assignment: Universal screening
1/23/25 Designing an intervention
Reading: Distinguishing Between Tier 2 and Tier 3 Instruction in Order to Support Implementation of RTI
Assignment: Intervention Development
& Fidelity Checklist
1/30/25 Goal setting and tracking
Reading: Aligning Smart Goals to the Just Right MTSS interventions
Assignment: Goal setting
2/6/25 Progress monitoring & intensification
Reading: What is Intensive Instruction and Why is it important? & The Taxonomy of Intervention Intensity
Assignment: Intensification two ways
2/13/25 Challenges, coordinating practices and expectations
Reading: Challenges to MTSS
Assignment: Final Project due 2/27 at 4pm
2/27/25 Referrals to SPED- SLD identification and functional performance for adverse effect
Required Texts
All Required Readings are Provided.
Other Suggested Readings/Texts:
Best Practices in Universal Social-Emotional and Behavioral Screening (2020)
or
Assessment Practices Within a Multi-Tiered System of Supports pg. 12-19 (2020)
What is Intensive Instruction and Why is it important? (2014)
Aligning Smart Goals to the Just Right MTSS interventions (2021)
The Taxonomy of Intervention Intensity (2017)
Challenges to MTSS (2021)
Other Suggested Readings/Texts:
VTmtss Field Guide (2019)