Finding Common Ground: Tips to Promote Self-Determination in Inclusive Contexts for High School General and Special Educators

Insights from General and Special Educators

During focus group interviews, both general and special educators emphasized that self-determination was important for students they supported across settings. As Anna stated, “Everybody needs self-determination.” All teachers shared students benefited from engaging in goal-directed action using the SDLMI in a group setting as this built a sense of community. Mary noted, “One of the best things I think about doing the SDLMI or just working on self-determination in general with a whole class of students is that they learn from each other and they create a community.” In addition to peer-to-peer relationships, the general education teachers found that the SDLMI enhanced their relationships with students to support them in content area classes. As Emily noted, “So then I was like let me just talk to them all and I had them all come to me, tell me their personal goal, and it felt like I got to know them better. I did that with every single one of my students in Algebra I and they thought that I really cared about them.” In addition to student benefits, general educators shared benefits to their own teaching and instructional practice. All four general education teachers reflected on how the SDLMI positively changed their teaching practices to enable more effective instruction. Specifically, teachers felt the SDLMI helped them become more organized and deliberate in their instructional decision-making. As Matt noted, “It’s got me more organized about the things to do and how to say it.” Allie agreed, saying, “I think it’s made me more intentional as a teacher like, ‘There’s a reason why these words are coming out of my mouth.’” In addition to recognizing the value of this intervention for students, educators implementing the SDLMI may discover that the intervention also provides direct benefits to their own instructional practices.

Tip 1 in Practice

Opportunities to build abilities and skills associated with self-determination (e.g., goal setting, decision making, problem solving) are relevant and beneficial for all students, as noted by Oak High School teachers. Educators can ensure all students, inclusive of students with ESN, have opportunities to engage in self-determined action is by creating classroom environments that support students in developing self-determination in natural contexts. For example, educators can empower students to choose elective classes based on their interests, preferences, and values instead of setting predetermined classes they will participate in. As students work toward their academic, transition, or social goals, educators may also provide opportunities for students to identify their own solutions to barriers they encounter as they work toward those goals. For example, when a student with ESN forgets to bring their science book to class and this affects their goal of getting an A in science class, educators might engage the student in problem-solving and ask the student, “Alright, what are ways we can remove this barrier in the future?” instead of identifying solutions without the student’s input. In addition to constructing classroom processes and procedures around the abilities and skills associated with self-determination, educators may also begin to explore options in becoming trained in evidence-based practices designed to promote self-determination, like the SDLMI. Often, the first step is identifying a school-based team to support implementation and plan for school-wide adoption. Educators should reach out to their administration and fellow colleagues to identify how self-determination instruction and perhaps the SDLMI align with current practices, programs, and initiatives as well as reach out to experts to discuss options for training.

Insights From General and Special Educators

General and special educators expressed that the SDLMI supported the development of students’ abilities and skills associated with self-determination or had the potential to support their development. For example, special educators emphasized the potential value of the SDLMI for students with disabilities who experience marginalization. As Evelyn shared, “I think for my students, it just would give them an additional voice that they don’t always have.” General educators provided explicit examples of how students with and without disabilities have benefited from the intervention. Anna described experiencing success with students who were challenging to engage: “I saw them actually . . . make a goal . . . that may not have been my goal for them, but it was their own goal, and they met it.” Educators implementing the SDLMI recognized the value of self-determination for all students, including students with ESN. However, both general and special educators noted the importance of tailoring the intervention to best meet the needs of different student groups. For instance, special educators felt that the SDLMI materials provided during professional development (e.g., PowerPoint presentations, text-based fillable resources) would need to be adjusted to meet the learning needs of all their students. Although Ashton implemented the SDLMI with his students with high-incidence disabilities, he noted, “I think that students also felt a little bit more comfortable when they weren’t doing worksheets and things.” Therefore, it is important for educators to consider how they can tailor SDLMI materials to make them accessible to individual students, including those with ESN. For example, teachers can use plain language, use visual supports, or develop supplemental lessons to ensure students are meaningfully engaged in SDLMI content.

General education teachers, who tended to have more experience implementing the SDLMI, expressed few concerns about students’ abilities to engage with the materials, but mentioned that it could be helpful to tailor the intervention for students across grade levels. Anna explained, “What personally I’d like to see [is] something more simple at a ninth-grade level to something more like . . . how do I set the expectation for a senior or a junior making their decision as to what their goal is, just being a hierarchy.” Emily agreed, saying, “Freshmen, I feel like they needed that hand-holding.” While noting that additional tailoring for students could be useful, these teachers also described taking an active role adjusting the intervention to their content or teaching style. Allie shared,

It does look different for every class. So like the first time I did it, I was so glued into Anna’s PowerPoint. . . And by the time we hit this semester, nothing [was] on my screen. It was me sitting on that stool with all these 30 kids looking at me, running my mouth like normal.

Educators implementing the SDLMI may find it helpful to tailor the intervention not only to individual students or specific student groups but also to their individual teaching style.

Tip 2 in Practice

Once educators are trained SDLMI implementers, customizing the SDLMI materials to their students’ needs and preferences along with their own teaching style is critical as what works for one student or teacher may not work for another. Educators are provided with the SDLMI Teacher’s Guide (Shogren, Raley, et al., 2018) as well as supplemental guides to support them in implementing the SDLMI with students with complex communication needs (Shogren et al., 2019b) as well as in the context of transition planning (Shogren et al., 2019a). In addition to these guides, the SDLMI materials (e.g., sample lesson plans, PowerPoints, resources) provided during training serve as a template to support educators in providing specific and structured ways for students to engage in self-determined action while also providing students visual supports to engage in the abilities, skills, and attitudes associated with self-determination. Thus, educators can use the guides to support them in customizing materials to students’ needs and preferences as well as their own. Another way to customize materials to students’ and teachers’ needs is by determining the version of SDLMI that will be implemented. There are multiple versions that can be implemented depending on the context, which is decided by the school-based team in conjunction with the SDLMI training staff. For example, if being used within a transition planning context, often implementers will be trained to implement the SDLMI Transition Planning materials, but if the context is academic content areas, such as that in Oak High School, then implementers will be trained to implement the SDLMI Whole-Class version, which has been developed specifically for whole-class use in content area classes.

Educators may also begin to customize materials by taking notes throughout their implementation, so the next time they can customize materials based on student feedback and educator experience. As Allie mentioned, she used Anna’s materials as they were given to her and she noted that these did not align with her teaching style. Therefore, the next time she implemented she engaged in discussions with her students without a PowerPoint as a visual support. Each SDLMI student and teacher experience will look different just as each person’s self-determined action looks different.

Insights From General and Special Educators

In addition to describing intervention-level factors related to implementation of the SDLMI, educators also described factors that affected their willingness or ability to implement the SDLMI with their students. First, educators emphasized the importance of seeing a value in the intervention and understanding how the SDLMI fit in with their daily instruction. Special educators, who were earlier in the implementation process, saw the potential for integrating the SDLMI into instruction. For example, Ashton felt, “I think if it could be worked in organically with the transition plans, . . .I think that more teachers would buy into it because . . . it’s directly related to the work they’re already doing.” Mary also felt that the SDLMI had the potential to support the transition process, saying, “I’m very eager to find ways to align those SDLMI tools with that [transition] process, if we can.”

General educators tended to be further into the implementation process and felt the SDLMI seamlessly aligned with their teaching. Matt shared that the SDLMI reflected “what you do every single day as a schoolteacher.” Similarly, Anna felt that the SDLMI provided her with a structure for teaching abilities and skills she already emphasized, saying, “It felt like I’ve done all of this, but not as organized and specific.” General education teachers believed in the value of the SDLMI, which encouraged them to make time to implement the intervention in the face of many competing priorities. As Allie shared, “I’ve got to find the value in it for myself to make that time carved out of my class time.” Special and general educators emphasized that it is important for those implementing the SDLMI to consider how the intervention aligns with their daily instruction and supports their priorities and learning goals for students.

Tip 3 in Practice

As educators and professionals begin to implement the SDLMI, they should think about how to embed it into their established processes (e.g., transition planning) and how it aligns with other initiatives and programs to enhance implementation and sustainability. Given research in the implementation science field demonstrating that effectively implementing a new evidence-based intervention or program can be expected to take two to four years (e.g., Fixsen et al., 2001; Panzano & Roth, 2006), planned change is an iterative process that happens in distinct stages (i.e., exploration, installation, initial implementation, full implementation, sustainability). Furthermore, these implementation stages do not cleanly end before another begins, as evidenced by the special educators continuing to consider how the SDLMI aligns with the current initiatives and exploring implementation while the general educators were engaging in initial implementation activities. However, to support school-wide adoption and implementation, establishing a school implementation team that can provide an internal support structure to move the SDLMI through the stages of implementation across departments is critical for an integrated and transformational model for change.

In addition to supporting school-wide adoption and implementation, the school implementation team can consider and develop supports that would account for unique issues related to instructional organization (e.g., complex school schedules), the focus on graduation requirements (e.g., creating a need for interventions that support credit accrual), and multiple and competing initiatives (e.g., extent to which interventions complement numerous other initiatives and activities at the secondary level; National High School Center, National Center on Response to Intervention, and Center on Instruction, 2010). For example, school implementation teams could develop a plan to address the lack of time and space general and special educators have to collaborate to implement evidence-based practices, like the SDLMI, using innovative planning solutions such as virtual planning models. An important consideration in developing these school implementation teams is to ensure equitable representation across general and special educators to avoid “silos” that commonly occur in large organizations like secondary schools.

Insights From General and Special Educators

Educators described school-level factors that facilitated their implementation of the SDLMI, including being part of a community, seeing or experiencing success, and experiencing administrative support. Educators felt that being part of a community with SDLMI experts and teachers in their school supported their own implementation of the intervention. Being part of a cohort of teachers provided opportunities for them to share ideas. Allie shared, “It was much easier to do it when Emily and I were doing it that first semester . . . we could also troubleshoot with each other like, ‘I did this and it worked.’” When he began implementing the SDLMI, Matt described asking Allie “a ton of questions,” which helped him “figure it out.” Educators also described how having a community within their school building provided a level of accountability. Mary explained, “I think Anna took the bull by the horns and was like, ‘Hey, we’re going to have these set times to talk about this.’ . . . And that was helpful to me.” Similarly, knowing that an SDLMI expert was coming in from the university supported accountability and implementation because teachers did not want to “waste her time.” Educators expressed appreciation for the support they experienced and felt their interaction with colleagues and experts promoted more effective implementation of the SDLMI.

In addition, educators also described how experiencing or seeing success encouraged their implementation of the SDLMI. In some cases, educators described personally experiencing success with their students. For example, Allie explained, “So seeing the success I could have in that advanced group, makes me want to even more for the [Algebra I] kids.” Similarly, Anna described witnessing how her students started to become better self-advocates and take responsibility for their actions, but cautioned, “Until you experience some success, you’re going to think it’s not worth it.” Other educators described how seeing a colleague or SDLMI expert model the intervention supported their own implementation. For example, Leslie felt that seeing the SDLMI expert model the intervention with her students was “really helpful.” Educators implementing the SDLMI may find it helpful to implement the intervention together with a colleague, starting small (e.g., with one class) and growing the practice as they experience success.

Finally, educators saw administrative support as critical for facilitating implementation. Ashton noted, “I think, unless [administrator] dictates it to be a thing that people have to do, I think it’s going to be harder to find people willing to engage.” Other educators expressed concerns about administrators mandating the SDLMI, but nevertheless saw administrative support as essential. As Mary stated, “I want to find ways to have more departmental buy-in and maybe that is administrative guidance, but I’m also wary and don’t want this to be then just another like thing that people have to do.” Although educators felt administrative support was a necessary support for implementation, they also cautioned against administrative mandates and emphasized the importance of administrator actions along with words. If possible, educators implementing the SDLMI should work with administrators to gain their support, especially for common planning and training opportunities.

Tip 4 in Practice

Similar to Tip 1, establishing a school-based team is critical. This team should consist of various stakeholders throughout the school building including, but not limited to, multiple educators, department chairs, special education coordinators, college and career counselors, paraprofessionals, and administrators. Each of these stakeholders provides expertise in various aspects of the school policies and procedures that impact implementation and instruction. Therefore, having multiple perspectives and expertise is critical for initial implementation, school-wide adoption, and sustainability. Again, as noted by the general and special educators from Oak High School, it is critical to have a cohort of educators to implement with. The cohort of educators provides a community for support, troubleshooting, brainstorming, and collaboration. Therefore, when educators are thinking about starting SDLMI implementation, identifying educators from multiple departments or one department to engage in initial implementation will enhance the experiences of implementing educators and promote success of initial implementation.

Insights From General and Special Educators

Given the important role of general and special educators in creating inclusive school environments for students with ESN, it is important to understand how educators in these two roles can effectively collaborate. Fortunately, educators found that the SDLMI provided opportunities to enhance collaboration. In reflecting on the role of general and special education in supporting student success, general and special educators agreed they shared a common goal and saw the SDLMI as a potential avenue for connecting instruction that occurred in general and special education settings, including IEP goal development (Raley et al., 2022). Evelyn emphasized that all teachers were responsible for all students, saying, “I think we’re all here for student success, in that all students are all our students, not just [special] or [general education]. We’re all working together, or should be working together, collaboratively to help students meet their goals.” Educators viewed this shared goal as an opportunity for deeper collaboration:

I feel like we’re kind of siloed and we do our own thing. . . I think we’re just all interested in having students graduate with skills more than just, “I can do this assignment, check, right?” So the ability to function, really function in the world. So I think there’s lots of space for us to collaborate around that. (Mary)

Paralleling this belief in educators’ shared goals for their students, educators noted that students’ individual and self-selected SDLMI goals could serve as a focal point for collaboration. Specifically, educators felt that students’ SDLMI goals could be leveraged to facilitate or enhance collaboration between general and special educators. Anna explained, “If the [special education teacher] knows what your PBL [project-based learning] goal is and what the kid has written out, they can support that student. So it’s kind of like the material that puts those pieces together.” Educators also recognized that working toward shared goals could increase the overall efficiency and effectiveness of both general and special educators. As Allie noted, “In the long run, if we’re all working together, it lightens the load for everybody and gets the kid where they need to be.” In addition, general education teachers felt that special educators had closer one-on-one relationships with their students and were therefore well positioned to provide important insights into students’ individual learning needs. Allie noted that at the beginning of the year, Ashton provided her with a useful “highlight reel” of students with disabilities in her class, and Matt described how informal hallway conversations could lead to a new understanding of a student.

At the same time, it is important to note that collaboration could be challenging. Although special educators felt that it was important for them to understand the academic content to best support students, general educators believed special educators could support students’ development of learning strategies or provide insights into individual students.

Although special educators were receptive to the idea of providing support with broader self-management or study skills, they also mentioned realities that could make this shift challenging. Leslie described her frustration in hearing mixed messages from administrators who simultaneously prioritized instruction in both life skills and academic content, saying, “I’ve been in meetings where I’ve heard an administrator say literally almost within the same breath, ‘We absolutely support you developing these life skills and they need to graduate.’” Mary emphasized the challenges of finding time to teach all these skills, saying,

If we are struggling as much as we are to support the content . . . this [teaching non-academic skills] is just another thing, right? Ashton’s priority is that he’s got to get this kid to pass the class, right? . . . I think it’s a matter of time.

Thus, the balance between teaching students content and supporting their development of abilities and skills associated with self-determination represented a point of tension in how educators conceptualized the role of special educators in supporting student achievement. However, the SDLMI provided a common focal point for overcoming some of these challenges.

Tip 5 in Practice

As educators begin to plan for implementation and engage in initial implementation of the SDLMI, having regularly scheduled planning/brainstorming sessions with implementing educators is important. This provides the space to support, troubleshoot, brainstorm, and collaborate, which relates back to Tip 4—having a cohort of educators. The rate of these scheduled times will be different based on each school and potentially even each department within a school as implementation of the SDLMI is a highly flexible-based alignment with other school practices, programs, and initiatives, as well as educators’ teaching styles and students’ needs. In addition to regular planning/brainstorming sessions with implementing educators, there should also be regular check-ins with the established school-based teams within the school. These check-ins provide opportunities for administration and other professional support as well as a space for discussions about expansion of implementation and sustainability.