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Goal Setting

This lesson plan aims to teach students self-advocacy skills over four years of high school through a Self-Advocacy Plan. In the first year, students learn about learning disabilities and legislation in a seminar. They also begin participating in their IEP meetings. In subsequent years, students further explore careers, set goals, and learn to negotiate accommodations with teachers. The final year focuses on independent use of support services. Interviews will evaluate the effectiveness of the Self-Advocacy Plan in preparing students for post-secondary life.

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Liz Lurie Kozodoy
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
76 views

Goal Setting

This lesson plan aims to teach students self-advocacy skills over four years of high school through a Self-Advocacy Plan. In the first year, students learn about learning disabilities and legislation in a seminar. They also begin participating in their IEP meetings. In subsequent years, students further explore careers, set goals, and learn to negotiate accommodations with teachers. The final year focuses on independent use of support services. Interviews will evaluate the effectiveness of the Self-Advocacy Plan in preparing students for post-secondary life.

Uploaded by

Liz Lurie Kozodoy
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Research to Practice

Lesson Plan Starter

Decision Making and Goal Setting

Objective: To simulate the transition from parent advocacy to self-advocacy by providing the
student with practice in assuming responsibility for planning and decision making.

Setting and Materials:

Setting: Instruction takes place primarily in the school, but there are also some visits to colleges
and job shadowing experiences in the community.
Materials: Uses the Self-advocacy Plan.

Content Taught

The Self-Advocacy Plan, a four-step plan covering four years of high school. Starts with
Learning Disabilities Seminar that covers:

1. The concept of a learning disability

2. Information about specific learning disabilities

3. School and social relations issues that related to learning disabilities

4. Specific learning strengths and weaknesses of participating students

5. People who have a learning disability and have succeeded in careers

6. Legislation regarding learning disabilities (P.L. 94-142 and Rehabilitation Act 504)

7. The availability of postsecondary assistance

8. Responsibilities of the Division of Rehabilitation Services

Teaching Procedure
Step 1

1. Planning and Placement Team (PPT) meeting for transition to high school. Parents are
given a short explanation of the plan and parents and students are given a written booklet
that describes the plan in greater detail and includes final goals and objectives.

2. Student then may indicate willingness to participate.

3. 3-5 weeks into the first marking period of the ninth grade, a case meeting is scheduled for
the student with all of the classroom teachers and the resource teacher. The student is
required to be present but need not be active in the discussion.
4. The resource teacher presents a summary, prepared with the student’s help, of the student’s
strengths and weaknesses and suggests necessary classroom modifications. A brief
conference is held with the student afterward to review perceptions and feelings about the
meeting.

5. At the start of the second marking period, students are asked to participate in the Learning
Disabilities Seminar, which meets once per week for 10 weeks under the co-leadership of a
counselor and a resource teacher. Participants received no high school credit for the
seminar.

6. On-site visits to colleges are planed to reinforce the content of the topics under discussion
in the group and so that high school students can meet with support personnel and college
students receiving support services.

7. Several weeks after the seminar is over, students are organized into small groups to focus
on and discuss their learning styles and strategies. They are required to keep learning logs,
which consist of personal observations of what works for their learning in class and what
strategies have been less successful, and to fill out a learning style inventory. (These
activities allow the students to identify their strengths and weaknesses and focus on how
they think and learn. They raise student’s self-awareness and help them to acquire explicit
knowledge of their own cognitive resources.)

Step 2
th
1. Begins in the 10 grade, with the resource teacher’s review of students’ strengths and
weaknesses. Students develop outlines describing their particular learning styles. Case
meetings are held with the student 3 to 5 weeks into the first quarter. This year most
students play an active role by stating their own strengths and weaknesses to the teachers.

2. In the second marking period, students participate in a career awareness seminar with other
students with LD. Tenth grade activities emphasize career exploration tasks such as taking
vocational interest inventories and job shadowing.

3. Students synthesize information to help them plan for the future by looking at planned
courses, extracurricular activities, and summer employment that relate to newly acquired
career information. The synthesizing helps ensure compatibility of programming efforts
and student needs. This information is useful at PPT meetings, when students plan their
academic courses for future years.

Step 3
th
1. Begins in 11 grade. Students compare each teacher’s teaching style with their learning
styles and try to identify with the resource teacher when their styles are in conflict.
Students then set up individual conferences with certain teachers to discuss possible
adjustments or modifications in classroom procedures or expectations.
2. Students keep records of these meetings, which are documented in the PPT file. The
students must state how they function as learners and describe any modifications needed in
the classrooms. The resource teacher often uses role playing to prepare them for these
negotiations.

Step 4

1. Step 4 is a developmental one. Some students demonstrate, through observed behavior,


their ability to self-evaluate and to decide why and if they need to use the resource room
and for what purpose. After maintaining at least average performance in all major academic
subjects, they are eligible to request an individual education plan (IEP) that states that they
will have access to the resource room on a consulting or “as needed” basis. (This may not
be the only component of the IEP; students may have additional goals and objectives).

Method of Evaluation

1. Conduct standardized, open-ended interviews with students, resource teachers, and parents.

Lesson Plan Based on:

Phillips, P. (1990). A self-advocacy plan for high school students with learning disabilities: A
comparative case study analysis of students’, teachers’, and parents’ perceptions of program
effects. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 90, 466-471.

This document was produced under U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs Grant No. H324D980069 and
updated under Grant No. H326J050004. Marlene Simon-Burroughs served as the project officer. The views expressed herein do not
necessarily represent the positions or polices of the Department of Education. No official endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education
of any product, commodity, service or enterprise mentioned in this publication is intended or should be inferred. This product is public domain.
Authorization to reproduce it in whole or in part is granted. While permission to reprint this publication is not necessary, the citation should be:
National Secondary Transition Technical Assistance Center (2008). Decision Making and Goal Setting, Charlotte, NC, NSTTAC.

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