Throughout the year, the National Institute for Direct Instruction (NIFDI) provides staff development through in-service training sessions for schools implementing Direct Instruction (DI). These in-service sessions pick up where the preservice training leaves off by preparing participants to teach formats that appear later in the program and expanding on techniques covered during preservice. The NIFDI Implementation Manager initially conducts the in-services. The building coordinator and grade-level coaches (with the support of the NIFDI Implementation Manager) begin conducting training sessions after they have completed the first level of the coaches’ training program and gained some experience teaching the DI programs.
In-service sessions can involve just the teachers or aides teaching a specific level of a program, or they can involve the whole staff. The sessions may focus on a specific technique or format for a small group of teachers, such as a rhyming format, or on a more general topic for the whole staff, such as motivating students. In-services can last anywhere from 30 minutes to a whole day depending on the topic and the number of teachers involved. As with the preservice training, in-service training sessions usually focus on the direct application of DI techniques through simulated practice to ensure that teachers and aides can perform these techniques in their classrooms.
Session topics are based on student and staff needs, not on a predetermined schedule. Sources for session topics include classroom observations by the NIFDI Implementation Manager and the building’s coaching staff, teacher reports of student problems, and student performance data. Although there are some reoccurring in-service topics--like using specific praise effectively, teaching to mastery and providing appropriate think time for students to respond to tasks--the in-service sessions for each school are unique and designed to address problems specific to each situation.
IMPORTANT: An effective preservice training can provide a good start for a successful implementation of DI, but for teachers to be highly successful with the program, they should receive ongoing professional development throughout the first three years of implementation. Schools that receive in-service training sessions targeted at specific needs will be much more successful than schools that simply rely on an initial preservice training for professional development.
See also: Practicing
A common misconception is that Direct Instruction (DI) programs are easy to teach because they are composed of scripted lessons. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mastering the instructional skills needed to teach the DI programs is difficult. Preservice is the start of the learning process for teachers, teaching assistants and administrators to master these skills.
A thorough and timely preservice training in DI methods ensures that all teachers are prepared to start teaching DI effectively the first day of school. Within a few weeks of the start of school, a preservice training in DI methods lasting three to five days is provided on site to teaching personnel (teachers and assistants) and administrators. The preservice training focuses on the direct application of DI techniques through simulated practice. Preservice participants are given a program overview and are shown the rationale behind the lessons. More importantly, they learn the instructional skills needed to teach the specific exercises they will use with their students during the first few weeks of school. Participants learn DI presentation techniques (following the script, quick pacing, signaling) and monitoring and correction techniques (part-firming and delayed testing). They also learn additional procedures for assessing, placing and motivating students. Teachers receive individual feedback from the National Institute for Direct Instruction (NIFDI) trainer during preservice, and teachers are assessed by the NIFDI trainer on DI techniques on the last day of the session.
Sessions are offered for different levels of the program as the techniques for different levels differ radically. For example, the first level of the Reading Mastery program involves formats for rhyming and phonemic awareness that are not needed in higher levels of the program. For this reason, it is critically important that students are assessed accurately in the spring and that teachers attend the sessions on the specific program levels they will be using with their students.
A preservice training can be shared by more than one school if the schools are in close proximity to each other. NIFDI can also arrange large-scale trainings involving hundreds of teachers. Regardless of the size of the trainings, session sizes are kept small so trainers can devote sufficient attention to each participant.
IMPORTANT: An effective preservice training is a major prerequisite for a successful implementation of DI. If teachers are not fluent in DI presentation, monitoring and correction techniques, and if they are not familiar with the first lessons they will teach in the fall, their use of the DI materials will not be effective with students. Student success and progress will also be greatly impaired throughout the school year. Since re-learning DI techniques requires much more time and effort than learning the techniques correctly the first time, an effective preservice training can save schools much more time and effort as it provides a strong basis for initial success for teachers and students in the DI programs.
Providing placement test training to staff and conducting placement testing of students in the Direct Instruction (DI) programs are important first steps in implementing any model of DI. The individual assessment results allow students to be placed and grouped in specific DI programs. Placing and grouping students in late spring allows DI instruction to start on the first day of school. This initial assessment also provides a basis for ordering specific levels of the DI programs in reading, language, writing, math, and spelling, and the results from the initial assessment are used to determine which levels of the programs teachers need to be trained to teach. Since the instructional skills used to teach DI programs and levels are highly different, it is vital that teachers be trained in the specific program levels that they are going to teach.
Student testing is usually scheduled in the late spring and takes anywhere from three to five days, depending on the number of students to test and the number of tests to administer. Staff members are trained to administer placement tests and record test results. This testing team needs to be excused from school duties to have time to test students during the school day. After the initial training, the NIFDI trainer monitors individual testing to ensure that results are reliable and to answer questions about unique student responses. Testers continue to administer the tests until all students have been tested—even if the trainer from the National Institute for Direct Instruction (NIFDI) has departed. The size of the testing team will depend on the number of students to test. Initial placement test training can be provided in-person or remotely, with in-person training and monitoring of student testing as the preferred model. The amount of time needed for placement test training will vary according to how many program level tests will need to be used in identifying the appropriate program placement for students. The time for training ranges from one to two hours per program level.
The placement tests appear in the Teacher’s Guides that are available through McGraw-Hill Education. Most tests take approximately 10-15 minutes to administer, although there’s a great deal of variation based on student skill level. Students may need to complete multiple tests in order to find the correct placement. Tests are administered to individuals and/or groups depending on the program and level being tested. For example, the Level 1 Reading Mastery test is administered to individuals only, while the Level 3 Reading Mastery Test has both an individual and a group component.
NIFDI supplies materials for the trainer (slides and handouts) and a master set of placement tests for all levels of the DI programs to be used at the school. The school makes the appropriate copies from the master set for each student continuing at the school. A record of placement test results and placement test protocols is shared with NIFDI, which analyzes the protocols and creates student lists for the initial, homogeneous instructional groupings.
IMPORTANT: Lack of an accurate initial assessment can prevent a Direct Instruction implementation from getting off to a strong start. If students are initially misplaced in a program, teachers may not receive training in the appropriate levels of the program, and the school may not start the school year with the materials it needs for all students. Starting students in a lesson that is too difficult can be discouraging for students and may result in less-than-optimal progress and disruptive behaviors. Starting students in a lesson that is too easy can be boring for students and may result in less-than-optimal progress and withdrawal or other negative behaviors. Placing students at their current skill level is an important step to ensure that students feel good about themselves, their abilities and their school while they progress through the Direct Instruction sequence!
For additional information, including the administration instructions and the placement tests, see:
In-class coaching helps prepare teachers to become master Direct Instruction (DI) teachers. It is intended to improve teachers’ mastery of DI techniques at the same time that it builds teachers’ confidence in their abilities to effect positive changes in student performance. Coaching involves observing teachers instructing groups, providing specific feedback on what was observed, demonstrating parts of lessons, and modeling entire lessons.
Two levels of consultants from the National Institute for Direct Instruction (NIFDI) provide the bulk of coaching during the first year of implementation: an Implementation Manager (IM), who comes on-site between two and four days a month (depending on the size of the school) and a Project Director (PD), a senior DI expert who comes on site less frequently. Both consultants participate in the weekly phone conference calls. Teachers who participate in the NIFDI coaches training series assume coaching duties in subsequent years.
The NIFDI coaching visits are non-evaluative. The focus is on student performance and student behavior. Coaching visits are designed to provide useful feedback to teachers and the building coordinator about what’s working well for students and what needs improvement. NIFDI consultants reinforce what’s working well and ask staff to change only those teaching behaviors that make a difference with children. The orientation of the coaching visits is that learning problems should be solved jointly between NIFDI and the school. Click here to view a short video you can use to inform staff on what to expect when a NIFDI coach comes on site.
By its very nature, the coaching process has the potential to be disruptive to the classroom. NIFDI strives to minimize interruptions and thereby maintain the flow of teaching as much as possible. Before entering the classroom for the first time, NIFDI consultants meet with teachers to explain the coaching process. When possible, the process is also explained to the students. After each visit, NIFDI consultants provide written feedback on what they observe and what they recommend. Common problems that NIFDI consultants observe become the focus of in-service training sessions.
IMPORTANT: Preservice and in-service training sessions provide teachers with critical skills needed to implement DI in the classroom, but training and practice cannot completely simulate the classroom experience. Students can make a wide variety of responses to instruction. Every classroom situation is different, and every instructional group is unique. Only through several years of regular, ongoing, in-class coaching can teachers learn how to respond effectively to the full range of student behaviors.
