By: Julie Johnson

By now you’ve heard not only the acronym MTSS (multi-tiered systems of support), but also about the Tiers of instruction within its framework.  MTSS is full of moving parts and can be difficult to understand.  For the purpose of this article, we will focus on what Tier 1 is.

Tier 1 is high-quality classroom instruction coupled with universal screenings and in-class small group instruction.  Within Tier 1 all students take a universal screening assessment and receive high-quality instruction, both of which are delivered by qualified personnel to ensure a student’s difficulties are not because of poor or inadequate instruction.

Screeners are given periodically (usually 3 times per year) to establish baseline data for both behaviors as well as academics, to identify struggling learners that might need additional support.  One way to provide that support is through in-class small group instruction provided by the classroom teacher.

So what does all of this translate into for middle school?  Establishing a strong Tier 1 requires team collaboration.  Whether it is grade-level, content or a combination, it takes a team to stay on top of the needs of students.  A good way to accomplish this is to devote time (weekly, twice a month or monthly) as a team to discuss students who are showing signs of needing added support.  In identifying these students, you need a way to keep track of them. One method for doing this is to keep a running Google document where students discussed are added along with strategies tried and progress monitoring data to show what’s working and/or what is not.  In addition, this is a place to keep notes on parent contacts.  It is important to  assign roles within teams to allow for organized, productive discussions. These can be roles such as facilitator, note-taker, time-keeper, resource officer, etc.  Establishing these roles up front will keep your meetings moving forward and keep everyone on track.

Maintaining this as a running list allows the team to circle back to students, analyze collected data and brainstorm other ideas and strategies to try.  Being a running document also allows for the addition of students who may present as needing additional support further into the year.  This document also serves as the start of a body of evidence should a student eventually need to move to the next Tier.

I know, this all sounds great, but when do we find the time for these critical discussions?  As a former middle school assistant principal with a block schedule, one plan per week was devoted to these meetings.  When that is not an option, before and after school, for part of a staff meeting and as part of professional development days can also work.  Get creative, but make sure you find the time for this crucial Tier 1 activity.  The more students we can successfully support at Tier 1, the stronger the school as a whole.

Below is a link to a list of Tier 1 strategies that we use in our district.

Tier 1 strategies

Reference: hbpirates.org

Julie Johnson is the MTSS Specialist for Weld RE-4 School District. 

Of course we don’t want to belabor this point, but 21-22 was a REALLY tough year for many reasons.  One of the lingering effects of the pandemic was the loss of our school community as we knew it.  When I arrived at Longs Peak Middle School in August of 2019, the community among staff and students was the strongest I’d seen, and that sense of community acted in many ways as a safety net for students to take risks, explore their passions, and find a sense of purpose and belonging at school.

In the absence of full-time, in-person learning, many of our students turned elsewhere for that sense of safety and belonging.  When they returned to in-person learning for the 21-22 school year, we began to see signs that many of our students did not view school as the source of fun, excitement, and community they once had.  We spent the school year attempting to draw our students back in, cope with new and more intense behavioral needs, while at the same time putting ourselves back together as educators and as humans.

By May of 2022, we knew what we would need for a successful start to the next school year. Our leadership team asked administration to find time for staff to come together and reconnect. Staff surveys reflected a need to set and maintain high expectations and tight structures for students.  We needed to heal ourselves from the past year, so that we could be whole for our kids and rebuild our vibrant school community. If we were to rebuild, then we had to start with the foundation of our most basic needs.

So we designed a back-to-basics approach:  An all day staff retreat where we focused on rebuilding trust, visualizing the school year we wanted for ourselves and for our students, and making a plan to bring that visualization to life.  

All teachers participated in Kagan Cooperative Learning Day 1 training the day before kids returned to the building.  Thinking about engagement, teambuilding, academic conversations, and involving every child was the perfect way to kick off the week.  On the first day of school, our admin team walked through every classroom, and I have never seen as much movement, conversation, and joy on the first day as I did this year. 
Each grade level committed to a weekly or bi-weekly all-grade team building activity during our advisory class, RamReady.  

Using student input, teachers worked with their classes to create a list of what characterizes a safe community. In what type of class do I feel safe?  Unsafe?  What am I willing to do to contribute to a safe school community?  
Anyone reading this knows we did nothing flashy or new.  In fact, it is in attending to and acknowledging our most basic needs as humans that we have found our path to healing. It’s been the commitment to a fundamental idea that is helping to bring us back:  We are a community.  We look out for one another.  This community is dedicated to giving you every opportunity to succeed.  You want to be part of it.  And, as part of this community, you have responsibilities.  

Start with the assumption that all of our kids want to belong, because they do. Remember that our students will rise when asked to be part of something meaningful and exciting.  Building on that foundation will create the conditions for a nurturing, collaborative, and robust learning community where we can all thrive.

By Sandy Heiser, Principal of Longs Peak Middle School in Longmont, Colorado.  

Colorado recognizes exemplary schools serving middle level students in grades 5-9 alongside the National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform through the Schools to Watch program. Thirteen schools from across the state currently hold a Schools to Watch designation, which is based on four categories: Academic Excellence, Social Equity, Developmental Responsiveness, and Organizational Structure. Middle Schools designated as a School to Watch are honored annually at the Colorado Association of Middle Level Education (CAMLE) conference, as well as in Washington D.C. at the national Schools to Watch conference.

Colorado Schools to Watch demonstrate a trajectory of success and exhibit replicable practices for middle grades students. 

The School to Watch application for 2023 designation is now available! If you are interested in learning more, consider joining us on October 7th at the CAMLE preconference and visit your choice of three schools designated as a Colorado School to Watch. Additionally, the annual CAMLE conference will feature a Schools to Watch session to learn more about the application criteria, process, and selection. More information can be found on the CAMLE conference website.

By: Katie Gustafson

By: Paige Jennings, M.Ed.

First, it's real. And it doesn't get nearly enough air time. There’s a reason why Dylan Wiliam posted on Twitter, “I've come to the conclusion Sweller's Cognitive Load Theory is the single most important thing for teachers to know” (Wiliam, 2017). I agree. Here’s why. 

In a nutshell, cognitive load theory (CLT) refers to the capacity of our working memory (Mayer, 2017). Information comes in and sensory memory either immediately discards it or moves it into working memory (Cognitive Load Theory, n.d.). Once in working memory the information is either discarded or processed further and eventually moved into long-term memory. Our working memory system also takes prior knowledge from our long-term memory and combines it with the new incoming information to develop schemas, which are organized frameworks of knowledge. This bolstered construct is sent back to long-term memory. The good news is that long-term memory is infinite. 

The not-so-good news is that the capacity of our working memory is extremely limited; it can only ‘hold on’ to 3-5 chunks of information for a very short period of time (Cowan, 2010.) If working memory is overloaded with more information than it can process (cognitive overload), the information will be discarded, and not put on the path towards long-term memory. This predetermined ‘load’ is referred to as cognitive load theory (Cognitive Load Theory, n.d.).

Because of the limitations of the brain to work with no more than 3-5 chunks of new information at one time, it is important that educators design learning experiences that keep cognitive load theory in mind (pun totally intended.) We must: 

• reduce extraneous load (get rid of stuff that doesn’t matter so it doesn’t take up precious WM space);
• ​manage essential load (even if it’s important, if it equals more than 5-9 chunks of information, the brain won’t hold on to it); and
• increase germane load (integrate the new information into existing schema and long-term memory, AKA, learning) (Mayer, 2017).

Let’s look at a few concrete application examples of how to manage cognitive load. 

One way teachers can reduce cognitive load is through note-taking. Any time a student is learning something new, writing information down has the potential of reducing cognitive load because they are not trying to hold all of the new information in their working memory (Nuckles, Roelle, Glogger-Frey, Waldeyer, & Renkl, 2020). As the lesson continues, students can continue to pay attention, knowing that the previous information is not ‘lost.’ They can refer back to it anytime. If you’ve ever woken up in the middle of the night and had to write something down so you were sure to remember it the next day, you understand this feeling of relief that the information has been ‘captured.’ You can let it go and go back to sleep just like our students can let it go and pay attention to the next part of the lesson.

​Worked examples can also reduce cognitive load, particularly for students who are learning brand new information or learning information that is particularly complex. Worked problems help reduce cognitive load by freeing up space in working memory. Students don’t have to ‘hold on’ to all of the details of the problem. They can study one aspect of how it’s solved and easily reference various parts as needed while they acquire the new information. As future examples are scaffolded to include less help, students can reference back to completed examples to check their understanding and identify and correct errors. 

Chunking information also reduces cognitive load (Thalman, Souza, & Oberauer, 2019) When similar material is combined into one chunk, working memory can hold that one chunked unit instead of the individual components that make it up. Imagine if you were going to the grocery store and had to remember 7 items: apples, cucumbers, broccoli, bananas, lettuce, strawberries and cauliflower. Chunking them into fruits (apples, bananas and strawberries) and veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, cucumber and lettuce) would help you remember more easily since fruits and vegetables are known constructs in your brain and would count as 2 ‘chunks’ of information instead of the initial 7 individual food items. 

Cognitive load theory also explains why students need memorized, factual knowledge (information that is stored in long-term memory) in order to think critically and creatively. Because working memory can only hold between three and five units of information, a robust amount of content-specific knowledge must be stored in long-term memory so that there is enough space available in working memory to creatively and critically think about that information (e.g., making new connections, analyzing information, etc). Willingham points out, “Critical thinking is not a set of skills and strategies that can be directly taught, practiced, and applied to any topic. Students need deep knowledge of a subject in order to think creatively or critically about it” (2016, p.1). 

​Cognitive load theory affects every aspect of learning. Educators must always keep working memory capacity at the forefront of our lesson planning and ask: what can we get rid of that doesn’t matter (reduce extraneous load), how can we help students manage what does matter (manage essential load) and how can we connect what matters into existing schema and move it into our infinite storehouse of long-term memory (increase germane load or learning)? We got this. 

                                                                                        References
Cowan, N. (2010). The Magical Mystery Four: How is Working Memory Capacity Limited, and Why? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19(1), 51. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721409359277

Cognitive Load Theory on My Mind - The Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning. (n.d.). Retrieved July 24, 2022, from https://www.thecttl.org/2021/07/29/cognitive-load-theory/
​​
Mayer, R. E. (2017). Instruction Based on Visualizations. In Handbook of Research on Learning and Instruction. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203839089.ch21.

Nückles, M., Roelle, J., Glogger-Frey, I., Waldeyer, J., & Renkl, A. (2020). The Self-Regulation-View in Writing-to-Learn: Using Journal Writing to Optimize Cognitive Load in Self-Regulated Learning. In Educational Psychology Review (Vol. 32, Issue 4). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-020-09541-1

Thalmann, M., Souza, A. S., & Oberauer, K. (2019). How does chunking help working memory? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 45(1), 37–55. https://doi.org/10.1037/XLM0000578
Wiliam, D. (2017). I’ve come to the conclusion Sweller’s Cognitive Load Theory is the single most important thing for teachers to know http://bit.ly/2kouLOq. Twitter.

Willingham, D. T. (2016). Knowledge Matters Knowledge and Practice: The Real Keys to Critical Thinking. 1. www.KnowledgeMattersCampaign.org

​Paige Jennings is the Professional Development Coordinator for Weld Re-4 School District. She has a Master's degree in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from the University of Northern Colorado and a graduate certificate in Mind, Brain and Teaching from Johns Hopkins University.

By: Sarah Cavender

The anticipation for the new school year is settling in.  There’s a bit of nervousness topped with a strong helping of excitement.  As with every year, I find myself thinking about what my new students will be like.  After two solid years of adapting and changing expectations due to COVID, this year seems like it could be the first for a while that has a sense of normalcy to it - the new normal.  But with that new normal comes a host of questions that aren’t at all new.  How will we create a classroom community that underscores the fun in thinking and creating?  How will we develop an inclusive environment where students come to know their voices matter?  What do we need to do to make sure all students walk away from the classroom loving to learn, through all of the ups and downs that come with the learning process?

The first days are always the most important days, so they say.  We lean on learning student names and become investigators of our students over those first few weeks.  What personalities exist in our classroom?  Who are the cutups and who are the quiet observers?  Who exudes confidence, and which students are unsure of themselves?  Our classrooms are made from a wide and varied cast of characters that, in the middle school years, change and shift and grow over the course of the year.  This is the exciting part of teaching in a middle school - watching these humans grow and change - trying on new hats, feeling out new friend groups, surviving the middle school drama that inevitably shakes things up along the way.  My goal, in the end, is to use these first days to help show my students that all of this growth and change is supported and encouraged in my classroom - for who are we, if not middle school students coming of age in all of its messy and unpredictable ways?

In building a classroom of inclusive acceptance, I often turn to the students to share their thoughts and ideas.  The joy of teaching language arts is that there are no right and definitive answers when it comes to interpreting a story.  Every conjecture is viable, as long as you can use textual evidence to support it.  So - we start there…every voice and every idea is interesting and worth investigating and discussing.  The voice of the quiet observers are encouraged, the ideas of those who see things through a different perspective are championed, the jokesters are taken seriously, and everyone in between finds their own ways to share and grow as students and human beings. 

Going into a new school year starts with building trust and camaraderie in the classroom.  When trust exists, and students understand that their ideas and voices are valued, it leads to a fulfilling learning experience for both students and educators.  What works one year may not work the next, but reflecting on those experiences that were so fulfilling the previous year is a helpful place to start.  It's not about recreating the same experience, but rather figuring out what that experience will look like this school year, with these students.  

Of some great things that came out of my classroom last year, one that stands out was the confidence to share writing.  We held a contest in writing, each Friday, where students shared the paragraphs they developed using vocabulary terms correctly.  This seems like a simple task, but middle school students often lack the confidence to share their work (especially reading aloud) with peers in a whole class setting.  The interesting thing about this experiment (yes - all new things tried are experiments!) was the involvement of students!  The first time we tried it, there were 6 students who volunteered to share their writing.  Some paragraphs were hilarious, others serious.  Some were descriptive, and others used the words incorrectly altogether.  But, week after week, more and more students volunteered.  Two students decided they would use this time to add to an ongoing short story.  By the end of the year, students were upset when testing schedules shifted our ability to fit in our paragraph contest.  They begged to have an end-of-the-year extravaganza sharing their last pieces of writing.  As an educator, I sat back in awe and loved every moment of it.  These students, who at the beginning of the year proclaimed to hate reading and writing, were now fighting for the ability to do both, and share about it.  These students, who at the beginning of the year were shy, lacked confidence, and were more apathetic about participating in language arts discovered, over time, that this place was the place they could trust their peers, be vulnerable, and share their ideas.  They learned to be proud of being learners.  Of being confident.  In building a community of trust and valuing the voices of all.

​The takeaway from this is, of course, a question:  How do I help students discover their confidence over the course of their year in our classroom?  Trust.  Love.  Respect.  Inclusion.  Voice.  These are the backbone of my classroom.

Sarah Cavender is a middle school Language Arts teacher. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing and completed her English Education program at Colorado State University.

By: Jessica O’Toole, Ed.D.

The best part of education is that we get a new start every year.  In August, we come into the school year feeling revitalized, energized, and excited for a fresh start with students.  Each August, I feel a mixture of excitement and anticipation for the new year; I spend a lot of my time reflecting on the previous year and planning for the year ahead.  After this last year in education during the global pandemic, I have been wondering what made last year feel so different from my previous 15 years in education.  When I think of my work with teachers last year, I find myself thinking about a trend that I have noticed, all conversations centered on measuring our impact on student learning.  Over the past few years, we were just struggling with figuring out how to keep moving forward when our classes went remote, or we were missing many students due to illness.  As the world slowly returns to normal, I reflect on how to recalibrate our thinking so that we are starting to spend more time measuring our impact on student learning.  I am committing this year to refocus on the basics, the solid instructional practices that produce results and enable students to succeed; I find myself shifting my perspective from the newest educational practices to how to measure the impact of teaching (Hattier & Zierer, 2018).  When we shift our perspective to focusing on what our students understand and our impact on their learning, the instructional practices we choose become easier to identify.  

References

Fisher, D., Frey, N., Almarode, J., Flories, K., & Nagle, D. (2020). PLC+ better decisions and
greater impact by design. Thousand Oakes, California: Corwin A Sage Publishing CO

​Hattie, J & Zierer, K. (2018). 10 Mindframes for visible learning: teaching for success. New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group 

Little J. W. (1987). Teachers as colleagues. In V. Richardson-Koehler (Ed.), Educators’
    handbook: A research perspective (pp. 491-518). New York, NY: Longman. 

​Popham, W. J. (2008). Transformative assessment. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Jessica O’Toole is a middle school assistant principal in the St. Vrain Valley School District.  She has served as a teacher, instructional coach, and administrator.  Jessica has her Ed.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from the University of Northern Colorado.