Academic Achievement

The Academic Instruction linked to Academic Assessment, Intervention, and Achievement Component

...focuses on positively impacting the "Instructional Environment" in every classroom within a school.  The Instructional Environment consists of the Teacher-Instructional process, the Students, and the Curricula being taught.

Expanding briefly, the Instructional Environment involves:

1. The different curricula being taught, as well as their respective standards, benchmarks, and scope and sequence objectives (i.e., "What needs to be learned?");
2. The teachers who are teaching, and how they organize and execute their classroom instruction (i.e., "Are appropriate instructional and management strategies being used?"); and
3. The students who are engaged in learning, and their capacity to master the instructional material, along with their response to effective instruction and sound curricula (i.e., "Is each student capable, prepared, and able to learn, and are they learning?").

Project ACHIEVE Outcomes for this Component:

• Academic Progress, Achievement, and Mastery for all Students AYP Progress and Success for all Students
• The Successful Integration and Progress of all Students with Disabilities in the General Education Curriculum
• Effective Progress Monitoring Approaches for all Students, and the Identification of Effective Differentiated Instruction Groups
• Year-End Procedures for Resource Identification and Professional Development Needs
• Year-End Procedures to Effectively Transfer Students with Academic Needs and Interventions

Project ACHIEVE's Academic-Focused Processes

Project ACHIEVE addresses the academic needs of students at three levels:  Prevention, Strategic Intervention, and Intensive Need.

At the Prevention Level, the Instructional Environment is aligned to maximize the academic achievement of all students.  Data evaluating student progress are collected and analyzed continually to determine students' success, and to help explain situations when success is not evident.  When the latter occurs, a functional, curriculum-based assessment and intervention approach is used, involving direct instruction and mastery-focused strategies that include curricular modification, setting-specific accommodations, and academic remediation.  This also involves teaching teachers how to identify and analyze curricular and instructional variables and their relationship to student achievement outcomes, how to assess curricular (i.e., scope and sequence) placement and performance expectations, and how to complete curricular task analyses such that assessment is functionally linked to intervention in the classroom.

Effective School-based Organizational Structures to Maintain Instructional Integrity and Outcomes

At the Strategic Intervention and Intensive Need levels, functional assessments become more comprehensive--using Project ACHIEVE's Data-based Problem-Solving Process and Response-to-Intervention strategies.  When strategic or intensive interventions are identified, they are delineated on an Academic Intervention Plan; they are implemented through a collegial consultation and clinical supervision process; they are formatively evaluated through appropriate progress monitoring approaches; and they are taught, as much as possible, in the general education setting.