DOMAIN 5

COMMUNITY-REFERENCED CURRICULUM AND PROGRAMS IN PRACTICE

As Wehmeyer and Gragoudas explain, “promoting choice and self-determination is mandated by federal disability policy and legislation from the transition-mandates in IDEA to the choice requirements in the Rehabilitation Act” (2004, p. 55). No specific curriculum or resource is mandated, which means professionals may be responsible for finding their own resources, particularly if their state or school district does not provide resources for them to use. There are many resources available for professionals to utilize in order to address the community-referenced curriculum and programs domain. Many resources are free, while others may have a fee associated per student, per license, or per annual subscription. When developing a new program, it may be useful to utilize free resources initially, to see what works best with the population. Examples of programs or assessments I have utilized, or plan to utilize in the future, are explained in the following paragraphs.

The AIR Self-determination assessment is one of the many useful resources that can be found on the Zarrow Center’s website (Zarrow Center for Learning Enrichment, 2018). I have utilized the AIR Self-determination assessment for students, parents, and myself as an insight into a student’s level of self-determination. The information revealed through the assessment results helped initiate a conversation about a student’s opportunity and capacity to make decisions for themselves and increase levels of self-determination. It also provided great insight into how a student viewed themselves and how much control they feel they have in their lives. This particular tool is most useful with my students who have mild intellectual disabilities. It is important to note that not all tools are appropriate for use with every student, professionals need to have a wide variety of resources available to them and develop a plan to gather information about a student from multiple perspectives. This specific resource is free for download and use. There are other resources on the Zarrow Center’s site that do have a cost associated with them.

Due to my role as an educator and case manager for students with mild to severe intellectual disabilities in a self-contained setting, I look for instructional methods and tools that can be utilized with all of my students. One excellent resource for teaching self-advocacy skills, and a variety of other transition related topics, is Self-Advocacy Online (2018). The website has a variety of lessons, testimonial videos, and resources. One of my favorite aspects of the lessons and videos is the inclusion of individuals with disabilities. My students can see people like themselves in the videos and relate to the content. I have utilized some of the lessons with a whole group of ten to thirteen students and have allowed students to navigate the site independently or with a partner, if they need support navigating the site. Students have no problems staying engaged with the material when allowed to select videos to watch independently, and it allows them to be in charge of their own learning. This resource is free to use.

Learning to navigate the community is an important skill for any youth. Many students start with knowing how to get from home to school and back, others start with being able to go to the gas station down the street for snacks. This natural desire to be able to navigate from one place to another independently is no different for people with disabilities. Many of my students have the ability to navigate their immediate communities, but struggle with knowing how to get to areas outside of their neighborhood. I developed a lesson for planning a trip to a destination using public transportation. I call the activity Route Exploration. Route Exploration is conducted whole group, through a think aloud process, with students who have some capacity for reading simple words and numbers. I developed a worksheet for students to complete that serves as a graphic organizer. There are questions to answer that help students determine where they are going, what time they need to be there, how many busses they will need to take, and how much time they will spend using public transportation. Students determine departure and arrival times for the busses they will need to take using bus books that offer maps and time tables for the bus system. We also use the website, which allows people to enter an address or landmark, and will indicate potential routes to reach that destination from a specified location. When we plan to go on outings as a class, we will use the routes and times identified in Route Exploration, to demonstrate the application of the activity in real-life scenarios. I developed this resource myself, and access to the public transportation system information online is free. The printed bus books are otherwise associated with a nominal fee or are sometimes donated by the public transportation agency. This particular agency, RTC Washoe, has proved to be an excellent partner. They have donated free bus rides for outings in the past, which they also use a training for their staff to learn how to secure wheelchairs and support individuals with disabilities who access public transportation. Depending on the scenario and purpose of the trip, this service may be free, or our district will also purchase bus passes for student use if the student is unable to cover the cost. Staff accompanying students must obtain a travel trainer ID, which must be displayed to ride for free. This type of partnership with a community agency is incredibly valuable and has served our students well; as mentioned it also supports the agency in training their staff.

My district requires the use of a particular curriculum in the self-contained special education program in which I teach. Unique Learning System, a product of n2y, LLC., is an online curriculum that offers lessons for students with intellectual disabilities. The curriculum is available for elementary through high school, and transition aged students. There are multiple levels of differentiated content, and text-to-speech functions for online material. My students access the Transition band, which does not cover the same type of academic content that the High School grade band covers. The Transition band content discusses personal life skills, community skills, functional math skills, social skills, employability skills and career exploration. This curriculum is most beneficial for my students with moderate-severe intellectual disabilities. There is a fee associated with the curriculum, which is dependent on how many licenses are purchased.

In addition to the activities mentioned above, I recently discovered a program being piloted by the Nevada Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities. The Youth Empowering Students (Y.E.S. initiative) brings transition, advocacy and self-determination information into the schools with a peer to peer educational model that reaches youth transitioning out of high school. I am currently working with my administration to get this program into my classroom.

As an educator, it is important for me to meet the needs of my students to prepare them for life beyond high school. The evidence emerging from “special education literature that enhanced self-determination leads to more positive adult outcomes” makes it even more important to constantly evaluate and expand the resources I use in my classroom to address transition-related needs (Wehmeyer & Gragoudas, 2004, p. 55). After attending the Council for Exceptional Children conference in Tampa, Florida in February of 2018 and through learning more about transition-related services through the master’s program at the University of Kansas over the past two years, I have plans to continue to revise and expand the resources I use with my students in order to provide high-quality transition services.