Intended Audience: District and building-level administrators and supervisors
Experience Level: All
Presenters: Kurt Engelmann and Tara Davis

A successful Direct Instruction (DI) implementation requires the active participation of a fully engaged administrative team. The role of these individuals is to ensure student achievement by setting up the implementation for success, providing ongoing support to teachers and paraprofessionals, monitoring the effectiveness of instruction, and solving implementation problems as they arise. This intensive five-day session provides a deeper understanding of the rationale for the comprehensive DI schoolwide model by guiding administrators through practical, proven steps that promote student learning. The Institute addresses how to implement DI as an intervention as well as a schoolwide model.

The goal of the Administrator Institute is for participants to become familiar with 1) what steps are needed to ensure that DI is implemented effectively for all students and 2) when these steps should be taken. The institute is structured around a calendar that provides a month-by-month breakdown of the major actions to take for a successful implementation of DI. Year-to-year changes needed to build the school’s capacity to provide effective implementation support will also be discussed. In addition, the session addresses how to avoid some of the pitfalls that can hamper a schoolwide implementation of DI and prevent schools from maximizing student achievement.

The session references DI Senior Author Siegfried Engelmann’s guidelines for the full implementation of Direct Instruction curricula, as it addresses the following questions:

• What results can schools expect from the comprehensive Direct Instruction schoolwide model?
• How do the design features of the Direct Instruction curricula lead to improved student outcomes?
• What are the advantages of implementing Direct Instruction schoolwide?
• How can instruction be adjusted to meet different student needs through DI?

Participants engage in several activities that simulate specific actions to be taken in schools, including observing videos of actual classroom instruction. A particular emphasis of the session is on analyzing student performance data on placement, mastery, and lesson progress across a wide range of instructional levels and classroom situations. Participants learn how to use these data to guide instructional adjustments to improve outcomes for all students.

This session is appropriate for school administrators, both new and experienced with DI.