¶ Intro / Opening
Hey everybody! Welcome to Tier 1 Interventions, where we work on helping you gain the core in your classroom. I am Cheri Dotterer, your classroom coach. That's Cheri with a C and Dot with a stutter. I'm here today with Jonily Zupancic, your instructional coach on mathematics.
¶ Today's Topic: The Paint Problem
And we are here to help learn, help you learn how to deliver your math instruction in a very unique way. Today we are going to talk about the pain problem. Jonily
¶ What is Tier 1? Why it matters
get us started! Hey everybody. I'm Jay-Z. Jay-Z in the house, Jonily Zupancic and Tier one Interventions is, as Cheri said, strengthening your core regular classroom. So this is for specifically the classroom teacher, partnering with the intervention specialist, instructional coach, curriculum leader, principal.
¶ The problem with pull-out interventions
Special Service Provider, Occupational Therapist, Speech Therapist. How can kids get exactly what they need in the Tier 1 Core Regular General Classroom? Too often we have kids leaving the room to be pulled out for small group Tier 2 or Tier 3 intervention.
¶ Recap from last week: "Why?"
Last week, we stopped the video when John Lee asked why. Let's tune in this week and find out how I answered.
¶ The power of movement for attention and focus
And then he, for the next 10 minutes, was so focused and engaged and in tune and working independently. See, focus, a focus trigger for him, he's got to spin and jump. Then he can attune to the task. And he was listening to every word you said. Why?
Why, Cheri? Because he was shifting his brain the way he knew how to make attention.
¶ Brain science: Why spinning helps focus
The movement was turning off parts of his brain that he needed so that he could auditorily understand what you were saying. If you would have just had him sitting there, his brain would have been, I need to spin, I need to spin, I need to spin, and that's all his brain would have heard. It would have never heard.
¶ Activating the brain through controlled movement
The stuff that you were trying to tell him by spinning that part of his brain was occupied. So the other part of his brain could work.
¶ Traditional classroom expectations and their pitfalls
And so in typical traditional school setting, we make everybody sit, we make everybody look at us with their eyes. We make everybody comply. And the three or four kids that Look like they're listening. We explain all the directions and we release them. And then you get the, what are we doing? Oh my gosh, I just told you. The way that you were making them comply when you were explaining negated the whole phrase that you said. Now I can't have 17 kids up and spinning and acting a fool.
But you've got 2 or 3.
¶ Why directions don't always stick
And they might need to do this. As we're giving directions, because nothing frustrates a teacher more than when we explain all these directions so articulately, and then five kids are like, what are we doing? So then we release them and then we get frustrated. Then learn how to teach and explain directions. So why can't the whole classroom
¶ Movement strategies to engage all learners
do spinning activity? Why can't they stand next to their desk, do an activity that's controlled by the teacher that increase, that facilitates movement, that facilitates proprioception, that facilitates the interoception and the vestibular systems as well, so that for a short amount of time, they're all engaging in that and then do the instruction.
¶ Cheri's mission: Preaching movement in education
And that is what I've been preaching for the last two years.
¶ Guest insight: Janet's 7th-grade strategies
Janet, what are you doing? You're giving us video. Explain to us. Janet, you teach 7th grade. Talk to us.
Yeah, I see a lot of, I have two standing tables. I have one standing table that's on wheels. And this one kid goes back and forth because he can't sit. I've got a yoga ball and our chairs naturally rock. And they're all, woo! And I still have to do the crazy eight.
¶ Crazy 8s and playful engagement
I don't know if I call it crazy yet. I call it whatever we need to refocus. I'll have them push against the ceiling. I'll say we'll do an upside down handstand. And I tell them to push harder because, I'm a lot heavier than they are. And then they cross their hands and we make an eight with our arms. And then I'll have them do their name in cursive because that's just funny. And they giggle because they like, Don't know how to do cursive. And we're all just going, ah sometimes I do angles.
I'll say, give me a, cute angle. And then I'm like, give me a straight angle. And then we'll do vertical angles because that's all part of the seven gate curriculum and they don't tend to remember them.
¶ Sneaky academic reinforcement through movement
So we just keep doing it over and over again. And it also helps us refocus. And I sneak those extra experiences in there. Love
¶ More focus triggers and crossing midline
it so much. And what's interesting is those are examples again of focus triggers and a couple that you mentioned cross midline. Now, I did one yesterday on the kindergarten audio.
¶ Kindergarten example: Using transitions intentionally
I was very intentional and deliberate in this kindergarten class because I wanted to put as much in there that people could analyze as possible. So when we were transitioning from one thing to another and I wanted. Everybody's attention, and I wanted all eyes on me. I don't always want this, but I wanted it because we were going to do something a little more complex.
Now, my expectation is I want everybody looking at me, and I want everybody listening, but my expectation is I know there's going to be five or six kids that aren't going to know what I'm doing. After I say it anyway, and as long as we have that expectation when we do that's fine. The reason I wanted everybody focused is I put pencils down and we wiggled fingers because I wanted to transition their brain to another topic, to another skip counting number, to a different shape.
¶ Wiggle fingers and crossing midline for attention
And I said, okay, wiggle your fingers and I waited for everyone's attention. We touched ears. Opposite ears, opposite ears. And we did that five or six times. And what that does is it just, it's a focus trigger. It crosses midline. It gets everybody in tune. And then I can tell them we're switching gears.
¶ Activating the brain for the next step
The brain is ready now for a next step. These subtle focus triggers, there are so many categories of them, and there are so many simple things that you can do. Cheri's handstand flip that Janet mentioned.
¶ More examples of focus triggers
These are all specific focus triggers that will re engage and refocus students. at any time.
¶ Brain-body disconnects: Board-to-table transitions
I also wanted to make a point that you may be finding some kids who can't transition from the board to your table. So those are the kids you're going to have to watch for that. If you're doing something at the board now, I know you brought them closer to you. You may have picked up on some of the kids that was good to have the paper and give it to them because those are the kids that can't go up and down.
¶ Tracking difficulties and the 120 chart
It's vestibular. Also I been finding a lot of kids lately that have really a lot of trouble with tracking and those are the kids you're going to find that maybe can't go across your one 20 chart and are going to need to have the use their finger or a pointer going across. So you're going to have to watch where their head in an alignment kind of thing goes.
¶ It's more than computation-math is cognitive
There is so much more to mathematics than meets the eye. It's not just computation. There is so much cognitive aspect going on that's why we bring you these episodes of tier one interventions so that you can learn how complex the mind is as it's working through the math. Kids that are struggling have difficulty making those connections.
¶ Invitation to subscribe and share
I hope you turn in next week to hear our next episode of Tier 1 Interventions. Until then, make sure that you click that subscribe button, leave a comment, and share this with five of your friends to let them know that we are out there and we are hoping that this is helping you understand what's happening behind the scenes, as they say, or in the brain.
¶ How Tier 1 builds coherence across the classroom
With tier one interventions
and
how do we keep our classrooms coherent, even working alongside the related service provider or other professionals and paraprofessionals that are working the classroom. See you next week on Tier one Interventions.