Secondary Transition: Student-Centered Transition Planning

Assessment

Take some time now to answer the following questions. Please note that the IRIS Center does not collect your Assessment responses. If this is a course assignment, you should turn them in to your professor using whatever method she or he requires. If you have trouble answering any of the questions, go back and review the Perspectives & Resources pages in this module.

1. What is student-centered transition planning and why is it important?
2. What are self-determination skills and why is student-centered transition planning an ideal context to help a student build and refine them?
3. Identify and briefly describe the three types of skills educators need to teach students to prepare them to take an active role in the transition planning process.
4. Mr. Longoria was pleased with how Donzaleigh and Jeremy became more active participants in preparing for and leading parts of their IEP meetings. He would like to involve more of his students in this type of process. His school has typically followed a fairly traditional approach as indicated by the first column. Use the second column to identify how they can make the meetings more student-centered.
   

Traditional	Student-Centered
Team members state their names and their roles
Special educator states purpose of the meeting
Psychologist and/ or special education teacher collects and shares assessment information
Individuals (e.g., teachers, parents) report on the student’s strengths and needs; student rarely attends or participates in the meeting
Professionals develop goals
Professionals do most of the talking
Professional closes the meeting

1. Imagine you work in a district that uses a traditional approach such as the one described in the table above. You want to implement student-centered transition planning with all of your students. List at least three ways you could get team members on board.