“Who, What, Here, Now!” was written and designed to engage and empower students with varying abilities with the knowledge and skills necessary to successfully navigate the process of transitioning out of the Massachusetts public school system. Far too often, students with disabilities are left out of some of the most critical conversations concerning their futures. This guide was developed to not only encourage its readers to expand their understanding of their rights as a student with an Individualized Education Plan, but to also become strong self-advocates in the collective decision making process for their future. It is structured to break down the key components of the transition process into easily accessible modules that can be understood by a multitude of different learning styles and varied levels of intellectual disability.
RATIONALE:
Self-Empowerment Tool: Who, What, Where, NOW! Is designed as a tool to help empower students with the knowledge to have an active voice and understanding of the opportunities available and entitled to them. By creating this book, I intend to encourage students to play an active, informed and confident role in the transition planning process. Too often, I’ve witnessed students take a back seat during the transition planning process, primarily due to ableism on behalf of those on their planning team. Additionally, students are often unaware of the many tools and resources available to them or have no idea how to access them. Designed as a guide to the transition process, this book is structured to provide students with insight in to the ways they can empower themselves with knowledge about their rights as a student with an Individualized Education Plan and guidance on navigating the process of transition planning.
CONTENT CHOICE:
As an overtly critical period in the developmental process, Who, What, Where, Now! seeks to enhance the overall knowledge, vocabulary, self-efficacy and advocacy of students navigating the intricate process of transition into adulthood. While the process of transition planning is a daunting one, laden with a wide array of facets to consider and address, this tool provides a broad overview of the central concepts of transition. That said, this guide is intended to serve as a primer, and/or supplementary tool to familiarize students with commonly used terms, stages and processes in transition planning and encourage critical discourse between students and their parents, teachers or other members of their transition planning team. Rather than inundate students with complex text and an in-depth explanation of the vast amount of information, this guide seeks to increase their self-advocacy/efficacy skills through knowledge acquirement and increased perceived benefits of being a proactive part of their planning for the transition to adulthood.
ACCESSIBILITY:
The text and diction employed throughout are written at a fourth grade reading level to allow for a wide array of literacy levels to decode. Additionally, the text is available in audio format for visually-impaired, English Language learners, students with intellectual delay and/or students with difficulty among others.
SPECIFIC AIMS:
- Inform and assess students understanding of the purpose, process and implications of the transition process in a universally designed learning platform
- Encourage students to be proactive and instrumental in their goals and future plans
- Enhance the overall awareness of supports, resources and opportunities they are entitled to and increase overall likelihood that this knowledge will encourage them to seek out the best quality of life as they enter young adulthood.
- Encourage students and families to collaborate more effectively in the planning and preparation process.
SUPPORTS:
- Coaches: There are a total of three Coaches incorporated within the framework of “Who, What, Here, Now!”. They each provide their own specific area of support and serve as guides and information resources to aid in accessibility and comprehension. Two of the coaches, AJ& Lex, are “Transition-Ambition” Ambassadors (Former students who have already navigated the AJ, provides a summary of the information introduced on the page, while Lex highlights new vocabulary and provides additional clarifying information for newly introduced topics. Rover, is designed to monitor and assess comprehension while reinforcing new topics introduced, through the use of ‘higher-order-thinking” questions. He encourages student engagement and interaction within the Power Pod. Their overarching goal is to empower students with independence and confidence, through a greater understanding of the material.
- Engagement/Interaction: The “Power Pod”, is a text input area at the bottom of each page that is designed to allow students to engage with their Coaches, respond to question prompts, pose questions, keep notes, etc. In conjunction with the prompts and topics introduced by the coaches, the Power Pod supports the transferring learning (Fuchs, 2003) that is often difficult for children with significant learning difficulties.
Glossary – An extensive library was designed for this text to help empower students with a wide-array of terminology that they will often encounter throughout the ITP process. Rather than oversimplify them, the intent is to help students to play an active role in their plan development. Further, the glossary serves as yet another form of support to enhance the overall comprehension and transition-related knowledge.
