Skip Nav

Ask the Expert

Lou Danielson

Photograph of Lou Danielson
Lou Danielson
Managing Director
American Institutes for Research

Louis Danielson, a national leader in the field of special education, has been involved in programs that improve results for students with disabilities for over three decades. He brings an unparalleled and unique depth of knowledge in both special education policy and research to his current position as a Managing Director with the American Institutes for Research.

Dr. Danielson was awarded a doctorate of philosophy in educational psychology from Pennsylvania State University. His career spans several roles in education including secondary school science and mathematics teacher, school psychologist, and teaching at the university level. Until recently, Dr. Danielson held leadership roles in the U. S. Office for Special Education Programs and was responsible for the discretionary grants program, including technical assistance and dissemination, personnel preparation, technology, and parent training priorities, state improvement grants. He has served in numerous research and policy roles and has been involved in major school reform activities.

A frequent contributor to professional journals, Dr. Danielson has published extensively in the literature and is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences and events focusing on special education. His particular areas of interest include policy implementation and evaluation and scaling up of evidence based practices.

<< Back to Ask the Expert Home

Ask the Expert Your Question!

Question 3: What role does technology play in Tiered Intervention on the high school level?

Technology plays a large part in providing better ways to implement tiered interventions. To begin with, individualizing tiered intervention relies on monitoring student progress. There are many progress monitoring tools that can help teachers collect and use student data – for example, Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) and AIMSweb, which allows students to trace their own progress. In addition to monitoring student achievement in various content areas, progress monitoring can also be used for targeting students for dropout prevention programs using systems such as the National High School Center’s Early Warning Signs tool (http://www.betterhighschools.org/topics/DropoutWarningSigns.asp).

Once it becomes clear that a particular student requires additional educational services outside of regular tier-one instruction, scheduling time and providing more intensive support for students can be difficult to manage, especially at the high school level, so programs that take advantage of technology can make employing instructional interventions much more realistic. Some examples of computerized interventions that offer systematic individualized instruction include Failure Free Reading, PLATO software for math and reading, READ 180, and LANGUAGE! Furthermore, even within the context of regular classroom, assistive technology can make instruction more accessible to struggling students and students with disabilities. The CITEd Research Center describes how assistive technology can help students with work on writing skills: http://www.cited.org/index.aspx?page_id=108.

Disclaimer

It is important to note that the National High School Center does not endorse particular programs or practices.

<< Go Back