How MTSS Strengthens Student Self-Efficacy and Family Engagement

By: Guest

Academic interventions are the “how” behind student growth, ensuring all learners have the knowledge and skills they need to succeed. When students also understand their own personal “why” behind these strategies, their sense of self-efficacy expands. They feel empowered to play a more active role in their own learning.

Families benefit too. They can partner more effectively with educators around the intervention strategies and goals, which strengthens their engagement with their child’s school.

The key to this empowerment is to match the right amount of instruction and support for each student so they see steady progress—and many districts are choosing Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS), in which academic intervention is organized into three levels.

To make sure MTSS is successful, educators need a consistent way to collect data, monitor progress, and share updates. This is where Otus comes in.

Progress monitoring in action

Otus helps educators see how well Tier 1 core instruction is working for all students through reports on baseline measures. They can spot early warning signs in attendance, grades, or behavior and easily communicate with students and families about their observations.

When Tier 2 support is needed—as it often is for 10-15% of students—teachers can set up short-term group interventions like reading sessions, math fact practice, or behavioral skill boosters. Rather than being viewed as addressing students’ shortcomings, this support can be an opportunity for positive collaboration.

For example, at Brooklet Elementary in Georgia, students who need targeted support from Tier 2 track their own progress on academic interventions and celebrate growth along the way.

“Every two weeks, the student and the teacher will work together to decide on a goal for the next two weeks,” said Brooklet Elementary MTSS Coordinator Jennifer Hutchens. “Students reflect on their progress and adjust goals as needed.”

Meanwhile, educators are also staying in touch with families through their preferred channels, including communication options within the Otus platform. While there is flexibility in how the information is sent out, all messages point parents toward Otus as a resource for checking their child’s progress. “We had a lot of teachers using different platforms, and parents were getting confused,” said Lexi Robinson, instructional technology coordinator at North Short School District 112 in Illinois. “Utilizing Otus helped us to really streamline so there was one single system to help their student navigate learning.”

Query This unified approach to progress monitoring ensures there are no surprises about why a new strategy for instruction or intervention might be needed.

“If a student is not making adequate progress toward their goals, there are several strategies that teachers can implement,” Hutchens said. “They may need to consider flexible grouping within the grade level, scaffold learning for the student, or it may be that the student would benefit from accommodations such as extended time or modified assignments.”

For the 1-5% of students who might need the Tier 3 safety net of highly targeted, intensive supports, having a shared view of data about academic, behavioral, and life skills progress is essential. This level of individualized intervention is often delivered one-on-one, and it can too easily become siloed or lead to misconceptions about a child’s ability in other areas.

“It is great that everyone who works with a student who is receiving support is able to see all data, interventions, and progress monitoring for the student in one centralized location.”

Jennifer Hutchens

MTSS Coordinator
,
Brooklet Elementary (GA)

Integrating information about the whole child

Otus helps educators proactively identify students who might need MTSS or, after successful intervention, which children are ready to change to another level of support.

Keeping students engaged and informed about these developments in their own education addresses many interrelated challenges, from mental health and well-being to stubbornly high rates of chronic absenteeism.

Looking at the whole picture of a student was important to the attendance team at Maureen Joy Charter School in North Carolina. “It's no secret that attendance has become even more of an issue across the nation for educators as we've returned from online learning,” said Jessica Conn, MTSS coordinator. “I'm able to look and see, what does this attendance look like, what does their progress and intervention look like?”

Progress-Monitoring-Page-Section3-L (2) Conn references the information in conversations with parents, helping them see specifically how being in school would benefit their child academically. “We have students who have multiple barriers,” she said, “and those might be related to basic needs, food, hygiene, housing, but it can also be academic related, behavioral related, social, emotional related. So we're really just trying to work with families to remove as many barriers for students so they can be successful in school.”

Otus partners with MindPrint Learning to offer a strengths-based approach to intervention and acceleration for grades 3 to 12. Its puzzle-like assessment tasks provide objective measures of executive functions, complex reasoning, memory, and speed. The MindPrint profile identifies how students learn best, offers next steps to support their academic and cognitive growth, and points toward the interventions that are likely to be most effective for each individual.

Perhaps most importantly, the MindPrint information is designed to be delivered in a way that resonates with students. Understanding their own natural tendencies builds students’ self-awareness during a period of rapid cognitive development and ever-evolving needs.

Turning support into growth still requires hard work from students. But when they know what they’re working toward and why, they will become more motivated and engaged. An intrinsic reward like increased self-efficacy that students can carry forward on their learning journey is the most valuable impact of academic interventions.

See How Otus Supports MTSS