Big Brained People

I have always thought that I was a pretty intelligent person. I am typically a quick learner, have an ok memory, and am happy to learn new things. But even with those things I can tell, this internship is going to be challenging! My internship supervisors, Mr. H. and Mr. P are both so knowledgeable! I only got things explained to me for about an hour and a half and I learned SO much.
Today's lessons were focused on RTI as I am pretty much a novice in the area. I had the general idea of the three tiers figured out. But today we talked about how often the data is taken. The school does school wide benchmarks three times a year (tier 1). They use the benchmark data to identify at risk students, who are then placed in an intervention setting (tier 2). We went over lots of the schools data regarding tier 2 students from last year and I was amazed to see how much progress the children were making! They utilize Aimsweb intervention curriculum for reading. With that they complete probes 3 times a week to obtain data and determine how the child is progressing. If the child does not respond to the intervention they can then be referred to traditionally testing or they can simply be qualified for services due to the failure to respond to intervention and their discrepancy in academic ability to normed standards (tier 3) Very interesting stuff. I think I may like to do something for my Masters thesis regarding ELL and RTI reading interventions... could be a good topic, but I will have to figure out more about what the thesis actually entails.
I also learned about the "Matthew Effect" which is basically the concept that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer - but you can also see it in academic settings. Meaning the children with high academics tend to keep going strong and the low academic students fall behind.
I learned a little bit more about the plan for me this year. Mr. P told me that his goal is that at the end of my internship I will be employable. LOL I think that is a great goal! Let's hope I make it!