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Solving Academic and Behavior Problems: A Strengths-Based Guide for Teachers and Teams - Paperback | Diverse Reads

Solving Academic and Behavior Problems: A Strengths-Based Guide for Teachers and Teams

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If you are a teacher looking for a proven way to help and inspire more students, a coach searching for more effective practices to support teachers, or a school leader working to create positive, systemwide change, then this book is for you. It is a book of wish craft--a way to craft, or to make real, our most important wishes for our students.
--From the foreword by Harvey F. Silver

How many times have you been stumped by a student's failure to learn? You tried everything in your tool kit, but nothing worked. Now what if there were a process that would help you pinpoint the student's specific need and design an action plan to swiftly remedy the problem? In Solving Academic and Behavior Problems, Margaret Searle and Marilyn Swartz offer just that.

This process, based on the positive psychology of appreciative inquiry, builds on what is working with students to address what is not working. It's a system of support that helps general education teachers partner with specialists and parents to learn new ways to enrich academic, social-emotional, and behavioral growth through structured conversations and a series of productive meetings of 30 minutes or less.

Using more than 25 video clips, Searle and Swartz walk you through the six basic steps of the appreciative inquiry problem-solving process:
1. Connect with team members and stakeholders.
2. Review the meeting focus/concern.
3. Share a story that details when you successfully addressed the concern.
4. Establish a goal using a concise DATA framework.
5. Design an action plan.
6. Commit to an action.

The authors also outline how to use five whys to uncover hidden barriers to student achievement when learning isn't improving.

Each chapter contains links to online video examples, activities, reflection questions, scenarios, handy tools, and tips from practitioners. A great resource to strengthen RTI and MTSS plans and invaluable to teachers, support staff, and administrators alike, Solving Academic and Behavior Problems provides the kind of insights and guidance that expand and sharpen educators' capacity to help all students learn.

ISBN-13: 9781416629481

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: ASCD

Publication Date: 09-18-2020

Pages: 184

Product Dimensions: 8.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.43(d)

Margaret Searle is president of Searle Enterprises, an education consulting firm. She specializes in the areas of social-emotional learning, executive function development, differentiated instruction, inclusive education, and leadership team development, as well as in training teams to implement Response to Intervention and Multitiered Systems of Support. She is also an adjunct professor at Ashland University. Her teaching experience covers every grade from preschool through 8th grade in both a general and special education capacity. Her administrative experience has been as a K-12 supervisor, a middle school principal, and an elementary school principal. She served as an advisor to President George H. W. Bush on elementary and secondary education issues. Searle's books include What Every School Leader Needs to Know About RTI (2010); Causes and Cures in the Classroom: Getting to the Root of Academic and Behavior Problems (2013); and Teacher Teamwork: How Do We Make It Work? (2015).Marilyn Swartz is a national and international speaker. Her expertise on solving academic and behavior problems stems from many years teaching special education and general education students at multiple grade levels. She also spent years as a curriculum director and consultant for a special education resource center. Today, Swartz is a consultant with Searle Enterprises working with school districts on RTI and MTSS implementation, research-based instruction that supports students of trauma, executive function, inclusive practices, differentiated instruction, co-teaching, and teacher collaboration. She also trains mentors for the Ohio Department of Education's Resident Educator Program and is an adjunct professor at Ashland University. She is the coauthor of Teacher Teamwork: How Do We Make It Work? (2015).

Table of Contents

Foreword xi

Introduction: A Support System That Works xiii

1 A New Lens for Solving Old Problems 1

Activity 1 How to Use the Strength Charts 10

Activity 2 Using the Five Whys: Celina's Case 13

2 Strengths-Based Team Conversations 15

Activity 3 Meeting Protocol Reflection 18

Activity 4 Organization Meeting: Tier 1 Concerns 22

Activity 5 Organization Meeting: Clarifying Concerns 25

Activity 6 Clarifying Concerns: Your Turn 26

Activity 7 Team Planning Meeting: Connect 30

Activity 8 Team Planning Meeting: Focus and Success Stories 34

Activity 9 Accommodations and Interventions Sorting Activity 38

Activity 10 Team Planning Meeting: Design 38

Activity 11 Team Planning Meeting: Commit 41

Activity 12 Determining Strengths and Needs: Calvin's Case 43

3 Nothing About Us Without Us: Student and Parent Conversations 45

Activity 13 Student Interview: Cassie's Case 49

Activity 14 Student Interview: McKintey's Case 52

Activity 15 Parent Interview: FaceTiming with Cassie's Mother 56

Activity 16 Parent Interview 58

4 The First Meeting with a Coach 60

Activity 17 Student Watch List 61

Activity 18 Success Stories: Parker's Case 66

Activity 19 Connect and Focus: Max's Case 68

Activity 20 Success Stories: Max's Case 69

Activity 21 DATA Goal Practice 71

Activity 22 DATA Goal: Max's Case 74

Activity 23 Matching Goals and Strategies: Trenton's Case 75

Activity 24 Design Home and School Action Plans: Max's Case 78

Activity 25 Design the Student Action Plan: Max's Case 79

Activity 26 Commit: Max's Case 81

5 Getting to the Hidden Cause with Five Whys 83

Activity 27 Five Whys: Cassie's Case 89

Activity 28 Five Whys: Max's Case 95

Activity 29 Spotting Key Points in a Five Whys Conversation 95

Activity 30 New DATA Goal: Max's Case 97

Activity 31 The Five Whys Session: Where Did the Coach Go Wrong? 98

6 The Student Support Team Meeting 105

Activity 32 Student Support Team Overview 105

Activity 33 Preparing the Parent: Cassie's Case 114

Activity 34 Preparing the Parent for the Student Support Team Meeting 116

Activity 35 Preparing the Student: Cassie's Case 117

Activity 36 Preparing the Student: Maddie's Case 119

Activity 37 Student Support Team Meeting: Maddie's Case 130

7 Questions Asked-And Answered 135

Activity 38 How to Get Started 137

Activity 39 How to Find Time 138

Activity 40 Making Better Use of Time 138

Activity 41 Involving Parents 140

Activity 42 Giving Students Voice and Choice 141

Activity 43 Sustaining the Work 143

Activity 44 Selecting Coaches 144

Acknowledgments 149

Answer Key 150

Appendix A Strength Charts 154

Appendix B List of Videos 171

References 174

Index 177

About the Authors 181