The Web Based Teaching Tool (WBTT)- History of the WBTT Program
The Promoting Early Intervention Initiative (PEI) - A Partnership between LDAO and the Ontario Ministry of Education
The WBTT program was created in order to help facilitate earlier intervention for struggling students by helping to ensure:
- A more systematic approach to screening young students in Ontario’s school boards
- A strong link between screening and intervention
- An acknowledgement of the diverse needs of young students
- Better resources for classroom teachers, and therefore students
- A better use of the special education system due to early screening and student monitoring over time
The Web Based Teaching Tool program was developed out of the Promoting Early Intervention (PEI) pilot project, which was funded by the Ontario Ministry of Education from 1999 to 2003. The PEI initiative was aimed at creating significant change within Ontario's educational system for young students who have Learning Disabilities. The initiative began in 1999 as LDAO's response to the McCain-Mustard Early Years Report, Reversing the Real Brain Drain (explained below). The goal was to promote early intervention for students aged 4-8 at risk for school difficulties. A series of Working Groups composed of various professionals from across Ontario studied the facts and issues, and identified the need for a resource like the WBTT program.
PEI 's Working Groups were governed by two central beliefs:
- Most children whose cognitive and behavioural characteristics are poorly developed in their early years have difficulty succeeding in the school system, which can lead to higher levels of:
- School failure
- Antisocial behaviour
- Delinquency
- Crime as teenagers and young adults
- Students entering SK arrive with highly diverse experiences and various degrees of school readiness. Learning difficulties may result from different factors, including (but not exclusively):
- The tendency toward a certain learning style
- English as a second language (ESL)
- Vision or hearing impairments
- Socio-economic circumstances
Initially, 14 focus groups with school boards around Ontario determined that there was a wide range of practice regarding screening and assessment, especially in the early years. These focus groups determined that there was no uniform standardized approach to screening across the province of Ontario and no guarantee that screening leads to intervention with flagged, or struggling, students.
The PEI Working Groups recognized that educators work on the front lines in supporting individuals with Learning Disabilities and other exceptionalities as they often detect and remediate learning difficulties in the classroom. It became apparent that there was no easy way for these educational professionals to obtain the information they needed to make the best decisions in a timely fashion for the special needs learners in their classrooms.
As well, the market for educational resources changes rapidly. New products are released weekly and illuminating research is generated constantly. Teachers everywhere develop great ideas for further developing education. Unfortunately however, there was no way to make all these ideas or information available to the education community in a cost-effective way. The WBTT was created to provide teachers with a place to go for the most up-to-date, research based -approaches while allowing them to share tried and true strategies from their own classrooms.
The McCain-Mustard Report
The McCain-Mustard Early Years Study Report, Reversing the Real Brain Drain (1999), stated that brain development in the period from conception to six years sets the stage for learning, behaviour, and health over an individual's life cycle. Children whose cognitive and behavioural characteristics are poorly developed in their early years have difficulty succeeding in the school system, which can lead to higher levels of antisocial behaviour, delinquency, and crime as teenagers and young adults. Studies have found that boys who exhibit antisocial behaviour in kindergarten and disruptive behaviour later in school classrooms are more likely to drop out of school early and 28 percent of these boys will be delinquent by age 13. By flagging and supporting struggling students early in their school years, the Ontario Ministry of Education and LDAO through the WBTT program seeks to improve every student’s' opportunity for long-term success
