![Best Practices at Tier 1 [Secondary] - Gayle Gregory](/cover_679455.jpg "Best Practices at Tier 1 [Secondary] - Gayle Gregory")
and Resources
About the Authors
Gayle Gregory has extensive experience as a staff developer and administrator. She consults internationally on brain-friendly differentiation, research-based instruction, block scheduling, assessment practices, early literacy, gifted instruction, and facilitating school change. Gayle has worked with many districts developing school teams to build internal capacity. She has taught at the elementary, middle, and high school levels as well as in university settings.
Gayle is coauthor of Differentiated Instructional Strategies: One Size Doesn’t Fit All, Teacher Teams That Get Results: 61 Strategies for Sustaining and Renewing Professional Learning Communities, and Think Big, Start Small. In addition, she was featured in an edition of the Video Journal of Education focused on differentiated instruction. She is committed to lifelong learning and professional growth for herself and others.
To learn more about Gayle’s work, visit her website www.gaylehgregory.com, or follow @gaylegregory6 on Twitter.
Martha Kaufeldt is a professional development specialist and author. Since 1984, her specialty has been applying educational neuroscience into classroom practice. She travels internationally conducting workshops and trainings on curriculum development, differentiated instruction, school restructuring, assessment, and brain-friendly strategies for teachers. She serves on the Transformative Education Forum Board and has been a trainer and coach for the Mid-California Science Improvement Project.
Martha was a classroom teacher for over twenty-three years in California. As an elementary teacher, she created brain-compatible learning environments for a diverse student population. In the middle grades, Martha was a core teacher on an interdisciplinary instructional team. Her curriculum included integrated project-based and service learning, and she emphasized social and emotional well-being. Martha has also been a district staff development specialist and gifted education program director. For her work in the San Francisco Bay area, Martha was awarded the Mason-McDuffie Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award.
She has written several books, including Begin With the Brain: Orchestrating the Learner-Centered Classroom, Teachers, Change Your Bait! Brain-Compatible Differentiated Instruction, and Think Big, Start Small.
She earned a bachelor’s degree from San Francisco State University and a master’s degree in human behavior from City University.
To learn more about Martha’s work, visit her website Begin With the Brain (www.beginwiththebrain.com).
Mike Mattos is an internationally recognized author, presenter, and practitioner who specializes in uniting teachers, administrators, and support staff to transform schools by implementing response to intervention and professional learning communities. Mike cocreated the RTI at Work™ model, which builds on the foundation of the PLC at Work™ process by using team structures and a focus on learning, collaboration, and results to drive successful outcomes. Additionally, he is an architect of the PLC at Work model. He is former principal of Marjorie Veeh Elementary School and Pioneer Middle School in California. At both schools, Mike helped create powerful PLCs, improving learning for all students. In 2004, Marjorie Veeh, an elementary school with a large population of youth at risk, won the California Distinguished School and National Title I Achieving School awards.
A National Blue Ribbon School, Pioneer is among only thirteen schools in the United States that the GE Foundation selected as a Best-Practice Partner and is one of eight schools that Dr. Richard DuFour chose to be featured in the video series The Power of Professional Learning Communities at Work: Bringing the Big Ideas to Life. Based on standardized test scores, Pioneer ranks among the top 1 percent of California secondary schools and, in 2009 and 2011, was named Orange County’s top middle school. For his leadership, Mike was named the Orange County Middle School Administrator of the Year by the Association of California School Administrators.
To learn more about Mike Mattos’s work, follow @mikemattos65 on Twitter.
To book Gayle Gregory, Martha Kaufeldt, or Mike Mattos for professional development, contact [email protected].
Introduction
As educational practitioners, authors, and consultants who have dedicated their careers to the professional advancement of educators, we know this to be true: response to intervention (RTI) is our best hope in providing every student with the additional time and support needed to succeed in school. The research and evidence supporting our claim is both comprehensive and compelling. In perhaps the most extensive study of the factors that impact student learning, John Hattie’s (2012) meta-analysis, based on over eighty thousand studies and one hundred million students worldwide, finds that RTI ranks second in the most effective influences, inside or outside of school, that can increase student performance. When implemented well, RTI has the power to help students improve multiple grade levels in a year (Hattie, 2012). Imagine for a moment the practical ramifications of these findings.
While these ideas may sound unrealistically optimistic, they aren’t. The research we describe in this book is not reporting theory or results achieved under the ideal teaching conditions of a generously funded experimental program. We have had the honor of working with schools implementing RTI across all fifty states in the United States, every province in Canada, and many countries throughout the world. From Alabama to Australia and South Dakota to Singapore, we have seen these results firsthand in real-life schools facing diverse student needs, limited resources, restrictive contractual agreements, and challenging governmental regulations. At a time when success in school is no longer optional for economic and social stability, RTI provides the ongoing processes necessary to ensure every student learns at high levels.
Understanding Response to Intervention
RTI’s underlying premise is that schools provide timely, targeted, systematic support early, rather than delaying help until students fall far enough behind to qualify for special
