Implementing the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction in Culturally Responsive Ways

Abstract

Being self-determined can improve in- and post-school outcomes for all students, including racially and ethnically marginalized students with disabilities. The Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction (SDLMI) is a flexible model of instruction educators can use to promote self-directed goal setting and attainment based on each student’s strengths, assets, family values, cultural knowledge, and learning needs to enhance self-determination. This article describes how educators can implement the SDLMI using culturally responsive teaching practices, building on the assets of all students to enhance self-determination and related goal attainment outcomes by focusing on setting and working toward goals that are culturally responsive in general education classrooms.

Keywords

self-determination Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction culturally responsive teaching practices racially and ethnically marginalized students with disabilities

“People develop self-determination when they have opportunities to set and take action toward culturally responsive goals.

Educators can strengthen relationships with students and families by centering students’ voices and setting high expectations for their self-determined learning.

Educators implement the SDLMI by using strength-based approaches situating racially and ethnically marginalized students with disabilities, and their communities as essential instructional resources.”

Omar is a 15-year-old Black student in 9th grade. He goes to a high school in an urban area. While the majority of students in his school are Black or Latinx, the majority of the teaching staff are White. Omar excels in graphic design, supporting classmates, and building relationships with friends. Omar spends most of the school day in general education classrooms and receives special education services and supports as a part of having an Individualized Education Program (IEP) with an educational disability classification of intellectual disability. Ms. Sarah, a White female high school general education math teacher, and Mr. Eric, an Asian American male special education teacher, co-teach a math class that Omar is enrolled in. They notice that Omar, as well as his peers with and without disabilities, aren’t always engaged in the class activities. Although they co-plan lessons, they don’t think students are seeing connections between the content of the class and their lives. Ms. Sarah and Mr. Eric start thinking of better ways to engage their students, especially Omar and other students with IEPs. To start, they decide they want to learn more about what students are interested in and center student’s voices in the curriculum. Also, Ms. Sarah and Mr. Eric decide to start connecting with Omar and other student’s families to gain their perspectives and work collaboratively. They meet with Omar and his family and learn more about his strengths and interests in and out of school. Omar and his family highlight the centrality of supporting friends and their community in their lives. Omar also says that he doesn’t always get how math is connected to his life. After this meeting, the teachers start reflecting on their own identities, biases, and expectations that might impact opportunities and supports for their students, including Omar, to make connections to the content they include in their curriculum. They decide to begin a process of changing their instruction to be more student-directed and linked to the sociocultural identities and funds of knowledge all students bring to the classroom. Ms. Sarah and Mr. Eric learned about the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction (SDLMI) at a professional development training. They think that the SDLMI can enable them to engage students in goal setting and attainment, shifting to student-directed learning that provides opportunities and supports for students, including racially and ethnically marginalized students with disabilities, to become self-directed learners and celebrate their cultural identities in setting and working toward goals.

Promoting self-determination has received substantial attention in secondary special education as enhanced self-determination is a predictor of in- and post-school student outcomes for students with disabilities (Rowe et al., 2021). Implementing interventions designed to enhance self-determination, for example, has been associated with improved academic goal attainment (Raley et al., 2020), employment (Dean et al., 2017), and community participation outcomes (Shogren, Wehmeyer, Palmer, Rifenbark, et al., 2015). A self-determined person acts or causes things to happen as they set and work toward personal goals (Shogren, Wehmeyer, Palmer, Forber-Pratt, et al., 2015). People develop self-determination when they have opportunities to set and take action toward culturally responsive goals that align with their strengths and funds of knowledge or the cultural knowledge and values of students’ families and communities that students bring to the class (Moll et al., 2005).

Promoting individual and collective (e.g., group) self-determination are core features of the disability rights movement and other social justice movements, including Anti-Arab/Anti-Muslim Racism, Black Lives Matter, immigration advocacy, LGBTQIA+ rights, Me Too, and Stop Asian American Pacific Islander Hate. However, collective self-determination has not always been reflected in efforts to enhance personal self-determination in school contexts, leading to disconnects between students, families, and schools. These social justice movements, however, provide opportunities for racially and ethnically marginalized youth with disabilities to collectively advocate for equitable opportunities to self-determine their lives as they challenge systemic racism and ableism. Such advocacy and collective self-determination can be infused into school efforts to advance self-determination outcomes for racially and ethnically marginalized students with disabilities. However, self-determination instruction needs to infuse the funds of knowledge (Moll et al., 1992) of students and culturally responsive and sustaining practices (Paris, 2021; Sleeter, 2012) to provide a context for advancing individual and collective self-determination.

When supporting students to build individual self-determination and apply associated abilities and skills (e.g., goal setting, problem-solving, self-advocating) across multiple areas of their lives, including to advance social justice, educators can focus on three self-determined actions: DECIDE, ACT, and BELIEVE (Shogren & Raley, 2022) and advancing culturally responsive approaches to supporting students to develop these skills and abilities. DECIDE (selecting goals based on one’s strengths, preferences, family values, and beliefs) might involve students in Ms. Sarah’s and Mr. Eric’s class, including Omar, deciding to seek out information about what inequalities exist in their community and school to identify goals to challenge systemic barriers in how the curriculum is delivered and the content that is included. ACT (taking action toward self-identified goals that support goal attainment) might involve Omar identifying the lack of materials that include examples of students who look like and learn like him in his textbook and class worksheets as a barrier he wants to challenge. BELIEVE (believing in one’s abilities to attain selected goals) might be Omar and his peers growing in their feelings of empowerment to challenge injustices as they identify goals, barriers, and possible solutions. Using culturally responsive self-determination instruction that centers the experiences of racially and ethnically marginalized youth with disabilities through instruction can enable educators to create opportunities, supports, and experiences for students to build abilities and skills associated with DECIDE, ACT, and BELIEVE in their classrooms.

Culturally Responsive Self-Determination Instruction

Providing inclusive and culturally responsive opportunities and support for self-determination are critically important to advance equity and self-determination for all students, inclusive of racially and ethnically marginalized youth with disabilities (Shogren & Raley, 2022). However, educators often lack of knowledge and skills to use culturally responsive teaching practices. For example, pre-service special educators report that they do not know how to use culturally responsive teaching practices to meet their students’ needs (M. R. Brown et al., 2019). This may explain, in part, why students with disabilities and their families encounter systematic barriers to receiving equitable and inclusive support and benefiting from self-determination instruction as delivered in schools. For example, families of students with intellectual and developmental disabilities report they face a lack of communication and low expectations from school personnel (Wilt & Morningstar, 2018). This issue is exacerbated for students with intersectional identities (e.g., disability, race) and their families, as they are even less likely to have access to inclusive and equitable opportunities and supports that meet their needs (Blanchett et al., 2009). Researchers have found that racially and ethnically marginalized youth with disabilities encounter systematic barriers as they are placed in segregated settings and receive limited opportunities and support to build self-determination (Hughes et al., 2013; Kurth et al., 2016). Researchers also have found that teachers tended to perceive students’ self-determination as lower than students themselves, particularly when the race/ethnicity and disability status of teachers are different from their students (Shogren, Anderson, et al., 2021). This is despite the emphasis on establishing inclusive environments that elevate and celebrate the cultural identities of marginalized students with disabilities in the transition literature (Shogren, Scott et al., 2021; Trainor, 2007). These inequities in placements and opportunities for self-determination reflect deficit-based approaches rooted in ableism and racism.

There is a need for the systematic integration of culturally responsive teaching practices into self-determination instruction to advance recognition of the strengths of racially and ethnically marginalized youth with disabilities and capitalize on the funds of knowledge that these students bring to the classroom (Moll et al., 1992; Sleeter, 2012). Culturally responsive teaching practices can be defined as practices that use “the cultural knowledge, prior experiences, and frame of reference, performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant to and effective for them” (Gay, 2018, p. 36). Culturally responsive self-determination instruction is particularly important as we know that each person’s sociocultural identity can influence how they perceive, express, and engage in self-determined actions (Hagiwara et al., 2022). Researchers have established frequent mismatches between how families define and provide support and opportunities to promote self-determination at home or in the community and how educators define and enhance self-determination (Scott et al., 2021). This reflects a history of white-dominant cultural norms in education that perpetuate and privilege white, able-bodied students in transition and self-determination instruction. Self-determination instruction must include a focus on undermining white privilege and elevating the assets and funds of knowledge that racially and ethnically marginalized students bring to their schools and broader communities (Moll et al., 1992). Doing so can shift the focus in schools and instruction to challenging systematic barriers to self-determination (Scott et al., 2021). Given a large body of research suggests the effectiveness of evidence-based culturally responsive teaching practices (e.g., Fallon et al., 2022), this article focuses on how educators can implement the Self-Determined Learning Model Instruction (SDLMI) in culturally responsive ways to enable all students, particularly racially and ethnically marginalized students with disabilities, to enhance self-determination and related goal attainment outcomes by setting and working toward culturally responsive goals in general education classrooms.

SDLMI and Culturally Responsive Practices

The SDLMI is a flexible model of instruction teachers can use to individualize their instruction based on each student’s strengths, assets, values, and self-identified areas of growth to teach self-determination abilities and skills (Shogren et al., 2018). For example, educators can incorporate discussions of social justice movements and individual and collective advocacy in their teaching of skills associated with self-determination. The SDLMI has been implemented with students with and without disabilities to promote self-determination and research has documented improved academic and transition goal attainment (Hagiwara et al., 2017). However, limited research has directly explored the relevance and impacts of the SDLMI on racially and ethnically marginalized students with and without disabilities (Hagiwara et al., 2017). The limited research suggests the importance of integrating culturally responsive practices into the SDLMI and the potential harms of not doing so (Shogren, Scott et al., 2021).

However, strategies to advance this outcome have not been well defined in the research and practice literature. Many culturally responsive teaching practices, however, naturally align with the SDLMI. For example, educators can first focus on engaging students as self-directed learners, leveraging their funds of knowledge (Moll et al., 1992). Educators can also strive to learn and understand students’ sociocultural identities (Rychly & Graves, 2012). Second, educators can support and advance students’ understanding that sociocultural identities impact barriers that students face in living self-determined lives. For example, researchers have found that students with disabilities report that their educational experiences often discourage them from identifying disability as an aspect of their lives (Mueller, 2021). To shift toward a disability justice perspective, educators seek to integrate content in curricula that elevate disability history and justice movements (Baglieri & Lalvani, 2019). Third, educators can build and share their multicultural awareness with students, integrating content and activities linked to real-world experiences that connect and value students’ cultures in the classroom (Sleeter, 2012). Fourth, educators can establish collaborative partnerships with families, communities, and students to ensure that funds of knowledge are reflected in their curriculum and the ways they teach (Abdulrahim & Orosco, 2020; Fallon et al., 2022). Educators can strengthen relationships with students and families by centering students’ voices and setting high expectations for their self-determined learning (Farinde-Wu et al., 2017). Finally, educators can establish a support system within their classrooms to ensure students can succeed and collaborate with other students, their families, and communities, removing barriers students might encounter as they set and work toward their goals (Abdulrahim & Orosco, 2020; Hsieh et al., 2021). Educators also can further connect with families, as well as consider the class as a unit where everyone in the class can provide support for all students to ensure community and shared goals (Farinde-Wu et al., 2017).

When using culturally responsive practices in self-determination instruction aligned with different academic content areas, like mathematics, it is important to consider how these areas of learning can be made relevant to students’ broader experiences and goals. Educators can consider student and family level (e.g., race/ethnicity, disability, family structures), school level (e.g., diversity of school curricula and content), and system and societal level (e.g., available transportation) factors. For example, educators can use culturally responsive teaching practices in math contexts to enable students to use math concepts and skills to set goals using the SDLMI that capitalize on their strengths and their funds of knowledge to challenge multiple systematic oppressions students encounter within the broader system they are embedded in.

Ms. Sarah and Mr. Eric reviewed what they learned at their SDLMI professional development training. They focus on the three SDLMI core components (Student Questions, Teacher Objectives, and Educational Supports) and how they will apply these in their instruction, building an implementation schedule to deliver SDLMI lessons for the whole class for 15-20 minutes twice a week. Each SDLMI lesson will target a Student Question and its associated Teacher Objectives, supporting students to learn the steps of setting and going after their goals. Ms. Sarah and Mr. Eric also focus on how they will integrate Educational Supports, specifically what Educational Supports might benefit Omar and other students to learn and grow in their self-determination. For example, the teachers use choice-making instruction to support Omar on how to choose a need from his prioritized list of issues that his family and community encounter, like challenging the systemic barriers that lead to dropout and low college enrollment for Black youth. Ms. Sarah and Mr. Eric focus on how they can use the SDLMI to enable all students, including racially and ethnically marginalized students with disabilities, to incorporate their strengths, funds of knowledge, and prior experiences in setting goals related to their mathematics class. The teachers identify broad areas, or “goal buckets,” including learning math skills, applying study strategies, and advancing social justice efforts so that students can select goals that connect to their lives and communities. The teachers plan to link these goal buckets to their class content, recognizing the deeply rooted inequities in academic curricular content and expectations for racially and ethnically marginalized students with disabilities.

The SDLMI in Practice

The SDLMI consists of three phases: Phase 1: Set a Goal, Phase 2: Take Action, and Phase 3: Adjust Goal or Plan. There are a total of 12 Student Questions, four in each phase. Students solve an overall problem associated with each phase (e.g., “What is my goal?” in Phase 1) by answering the Student Questions. Each Student Question is associated with Teacher Objectives that serve as a “road map” for teachers to implement the SDLMI. Teachers can integrate culturally responsive practices throughout all SDLMI instruction, although more work is needed to identify effective and impactful strategies for doing so. There are primary Educational Supports associated with each Teacher Objective that teachers can use to support students to grow in self-determination abilities and skills. This can be a natural point for teachers to leverage students’ funds of knowledge and prior experiences to identify barriers to answering Student Questions and making progress toward goals (see the SDLMI Teacher’s Guide [Shogren et al., 2018] for more information). Before starting instruction in Phase 1 of the SDLMI, educators first engage students in Preliminary Conversations to reflect on what self-determination means to them and their strengths and values, as well as how their sociocultural identities might impact their goals. For example, educators can support discussions about issues racially and ethnically marginalized students with disabilities encounter. They could invite community members to talk about how to challenge systemic barriers and go after academic goals. Educators can take this opportunity to integrate strengths-based approaches, leveraging the funds of knowledge of the communities that schools are situated in and being their multicultural awareness as educators. This can further guide educators in supporting students by delivering Educational Supports (e.g., problem-solving instruction, self-advocacy instruction) to equip students with skills and abilities associated with self-determination that they need to challenge oppression (Gay, 2018). During each phase of the SDLMI, teachers can engage families in multiple ways, using preferred means of communication to collaborate with families and leveraging community supports that students’ and families’ value to support students in setting their goals, creating action plans, and evaluating their progress toward achieving their goals.

The SDLMI is a cyclical process; students typically work through the 12 Student Questions using SDLMI materials and lesson plans over the course of one semester, and the materials were designed to be used over multiple semesters. Students benefit from repeated exposure to the SDLMI process to learn and grow in their self-determination abilities and skills. Similarly, by repeating this cyclical process over multiple semesters, trained teacher facilitators grow in their abilities to develop, deliver, and evaluate culturally responsive self-determination instruction in ways customized to each teacher’s classroom and students’ needs. For example, each semester, teachers can learn about their students’ goals, sociocultural identities, support needs, and create opportunities to develop peer and community supports as students set and work toward their goals linked to the curriculum. This provides opportunities for teachers to reflect on how they teach and what they can change to become culturally responsive teachers as they support self-determination and academic learning. In starting to implement the SDLMI, educators can engage in frequent self-reflection about their biases, expectations, and privilege to “initiate, revise, revitalize, and validate” (Gay, 2018, p. 244) students’ experiences.

Ms. Sarah and Mr. Eric start the SDLMI Preliminary Conversations lessons with a whole class discussion about how the SDLMI can enable students to set and work toward achieving goals. They collaborate with students to enable them to reflect on what self-determination means to them and how they can become self-determined learners by setting goals that make learning experiences more relevant to them so they can make the changes they want in their own learning. Omar expresses that self-determination shapes his drive to make impacts on the lives of people around him. He shares this is something that is important to him and to his family. The teachers also use this discussion to personally reflect on their sociocultural identities as an able-bodied white female and an Asian American male. Ms. Sarah and Mr. Eric seek to grow by learning from their students, from books, and from other resources so they can support students in using their funds of knowledge, interests, and preferences in setting goals that are culturally responsive. The teachers celebrate the different ways students define self-determination and highlight how everyone’s perspectives are important and shape their classroom and school community. In addition, the teachers set monthly meetings with families to establish a dialogue about the SDLMI and understand how families are supporting students in choosing a goal based on their strengths, preferences, family values, and sociocultural identities.

Phase 1: Set a Goal

In this phase, the overall problem to solve is “What is my goal?” As students answer the four Student Questions in Phase 1, teachers set high expectations that all students have the abilities to succeed as they set and work toward goals that are culturally responsive. They highlight how the entire class will focus on learning new skills, having new experiences, and building knowledge related to class content that draws upon students’ lived experiences and integrates materials and information from people with diverse lived experiences (Aceves & Orosco, 2014). Teachers support students to act as causal agents and resourceful problem solvers by providing opportunities in multiple ways. For example, in the math curriculum, the teachers infuse examples of how analyzing racial disparities (e.g., lack of academic opportunities for marginalized students) can use math and provide data for challenging systemic barriers (e.g., the lack of opportunities for advanced math classes at their high school) to dismantle such inequities (Abdulrahim & Orosco, 2020; Gay, 2018). Educators integrate these culturally responsive teaching practices into the SDLMI, supporting students to think about how to define social justice-oriented goals that leverage academic skills. Educators can provide examples of goals as they engage students in this self-directed goal setting and act in culturally responsive ways by advocacy and serving as an ally for students, particularly racially and ethnically marginalized students with disabilities, in their selection of goals that reflect their family and community’s needs (Gay, 2018).

Students begin Phase 1 with support from Ms. Sarah and Mr. Eric, thinking about their goals related to the class content in two broad goal buckets: learning math skills and advancing social justice. To answer Student Question 1 “What do I want to learn?,” the teachers support students in defining strengths as things they do well that might help them achieve their goals. The teachers provide structured group activities with prompts and questions for students to answer, including What things are you good at? and What things do you want to achieve in the future? What are your interests? What do you want to share about your community? Students share their answers with a small group to identify similarities and unique aspects of their lives and goals (see Figure 1). The teachers notice that some students need more supports to initiate the conversation and share their interests and values. They use communication instruction as an Educational Support by modeling and providing more supports as students seek to identify their interests and values. For example, Mr. Eric models how he celebrates his successes and interests by sharing, “I enjoy reading history books about leaders who contributed to and impacted the lives of people with disabilities in my community, such as Alice Wong.”

Figure 1.

SDLMI Phase 1 Group Instruction Activity

Omar shares with his group that his family and community value learning and collectively working together with others to make meaningful changes in society. Omar provides an example of when he supported a classmate by volunteering to be a part of reading groups at the local library, after school, for younger kids. The teachers empower students to incorporate their strengths and values when they think about things they want to do. For example, after learning more about Omar and his family, the teachers partner with Omar to empower him to use his family and community values, like interdependence and collaboration with others, and identify what kind of supports he can leverage as he starts engaging in goal setting process. The teachers think about what supports they can draw on for Omar and other students. They reach out to a community leader at a racial justice organization and invite them to come to the class and talk about how they use data and math to gather evidence for advocating for change. The teachers realize that their math curriculum is very standardized, and the examples are not contextualized in ways that show the impact math can have on students’ goals. Therefore, they integrate culturally relevant content into their curriculum. For example, the teachers shared a story about a student at a high school similar to their own that set a goal to understand why fewer Black students with disabilities went to college. The teacher highlighted how this young person used math concepts and skills to document the high dropout rate of students in their high school and then advocated for change. The teachers find that the students are more engaged in instruction about math as they think about how they apply the concepts to other systematic barriers they see in their lives and impact people in society.

In ongoing SDLMI Phase 1 lessons, the teachers continue integrating culturally responsive practices to support students in thinking of their goals, strengths, and the barriers they sometimes face. For example, during the lesson on Student Question 3 focused on identifying what must change for students to learn what they don’t know, teachers provided supports and opportunities for students to work with peers to share barriers they face in working toward their goals. Students work to define the barriers in their own words. Omar talks about barriers he encounters at school, city, and state levels as a Black student with intellectual disability. For example, Omar identifies the lack of accessible transportation options in his community, which makes it hard to get to school on time and means he sometimes misses class. He wants to generate some solutions to solve this problem. And the teachers and students all discuss how math concepts could be used to address these problems. For example, Omar and his peers discuss that they might need to advocate for support from their school and community to enhance transportation schedules to make busses available when needed for students to get to school and families to get to work. The teachers highlight how math could be used to plan for the schedule, such as when and how many buses might be needed. The students plan to provide school leaders with an overview of how many students address these issues and why it is so important to lower dropout rates and support more Black students with disabilities to go to college. In Student Question 4, focused on enabling students to set measurable, observable, and specific goals, Omar defines his goal as wanting to learn math concepts and skills to come up with a solution to provide accessible transportations for all people in his community, including people with disabilities. Ms. Sarah, Mr. Eric, Omar, and Omar’s family also meet via videoconference to discuss Omar’s goals and share their excitement over how Omar identifies ways to apply math to address barriers he sees in his community. They also identify community leaders to engage with to share this information.

Phase 2: Take Action

The overall problem students solve in this phase is “What is my plan?.” In this phase, teachers support students to engage in problem-solving to create an action plan to achieve their goals. Given prior research suggesting limited educational opportunities in inclusive settings for racially and ethnically marginalized youth with intellectual disability, it is important for educators to ensure all students, including students like Omar, are provided with culturally responsive opportunities to learn and practice abilities and skills associated with self-determination (e.g., self-advocacy, problem-solving) with their peers. Educators implement the SDLMI by using strength-based approaches situating racially and ethnically marginalized students with disabilities, and their communities as essential instructional resources (Hsieh et al., 2021). This can advance equitable educational opportunities as students engage in creating and implementing their action plans to work toward their goals together. For example, educators can provide opportunities for students, families, and community members to work together to identify and make a change in the school curriculum and support provided for students (Ishimaru et al., 2018). By inviting Omar’s family and community leaders into the classroom, there can be more focus on the strengths and resources that communities bring to challenge the racism and ableism that produces inequity and affects the quality of lives of people in their community. By providing connections to the broader community, students seek to apply math skills to solve real-world problems (Abdulrahim & Orosco, 2020). In addition, teachers can use this as an opportunity to celebrate students’ sociocultural identities as well as actively engage students as leaders in advancing social justice (Hsieh et al., 2021).

Ms. Sarah and Mr. Eric support students in thinking about the goals they set in Phase 1 to answer Student Question 5: “What can I do to learn what I don’t know?.” The teachers offer times to meet individually with students who might need support as they start Phase 2. Omar meets his teachers, and they discuss ways to make the content more accessible by providing examples with pictures that illustrate the meanings of some content in math. Also, Omar wants his family to be involved in his goal, so the teachers support him in creating materials to take home and share the steps he is taking as he is working toward his goal. Omar also shares that his dream is to go to college, but he doesn’t always feel like there is much focus on how that can be part of his goals. The teachers decide they need to draw in leaders with intellectual disability who have transitioned to college and to better communicate with Omar’s family about the postsecondary options for students with intellectual disability. The teachers also decide to use a collaborative approach to support students to engage with each other and provide peer support on taking steps toward college-related goals and challenging barriers that emerge, such as a lack of transportation for getting to a college fair at a local university. The teachers support Omar and his group members in creating an action plan for their goals and use self-scheduling instruction as an Educational Support to support Omar’s group to both identify what they want to work on, but also how to create a schedule and a plan for taking steps. The teachers support collaborative learning to enable students to identify what could keep them from taking action and what they can do to remove barriers.

For example, Omar and other racially and ethnically marginalized students with disabilities all mentioned they do not feel like they talk about the systematic barriers like ableism and racism they face every day and in thinking about transportations and college. The teachers recognize this issue and acknowledge that they want the class to be a safe place where these barriers can be discussed. They think that they need to ensure they provide a positive learning environment using culturally responsive practices. They ask students to provide feedback on the classroom climate and their teaching methods and offer suggestions for new topics to discuss. This leads the teachers to focus on self-advocacy instruction as Educational Support to empower students to use their voices to communicate their needs. As a result, Omar and his group suggest that teachers can support them by reaching out to invite leaders in their communities to come to class and talk about solutions for accessible transportation and accessing postsecondary education, with a focus on how math can be used so that students are learning and applying key math skills. Omar decides to specifically reach out and interview self-advocate leaders in his community to learn more about how they advocate for change in transportation and postsecondary options. The teachers provide students with tools to monitor progress by using self-monitoring tracking sheets to fill in their goals and tasks for their first day of taking action (see Figure 2). Also, the teachers ask families to come to class and share thoughts about students’ progress and celebrate their student’s successes. For example, Omar’s family comes to the class celebration session. They share their excitement about Omar and his peers connecting learning mathematics with problems related to injustice. The students appreciate this opportunity to have families come to class and share their thoughts and accomplishments!

Figure 2.

SDLMI Phase 2 Self-Monitoring Tool

Phase 3: Adjust Goal or Plan

The overall problem students solve in this phase is “What have I learned?.” In this phase, after students set goals and implement their action plans in ways that are aligned with their sociocultural identities, teachers support students to demonstrate their learning in different ways (J. C. Brown, 2017). For example, teachers use inclusive culturally responsive self-assessments to enable students to self-evaluate their progress toward goals and promote a culture of inclusion and celebration in the classroom environment (see Figure 3). Teachers can communicate a recognition that success is defined differently for everyone, and that celebration of students’ progress is essential (Achola & Greene, 2016). These can enable students to reflect on their growth and how culturally responsive supports benefit them (Gay, 2018). This is also an opportunity for educators to reflect on how culturally responsive teaching practices enhance their instruction and empower them to challenge the systematic barriers that students, like Omar, encounter in and beyond school (Aronson & Laughter, 2016).

Figure 3.

SDLMI Phase 3 Self-Assessment

As students move to Phase 3, Ms. Sarah and Mr. Eric support students in engaging in a whole-group discussion to discuss steps they took in Phase 2 to achieve their goals and learn from each other. The teachers support students, including Omar, to share their experiences working on their goals and action plans and the role of culturally responsive practices in recognizing and celebrating cultural identities while challenging systemic barriers. For example, Omar shares that he has learned from self-advocate leaders in his community that people in their community lack accessible transportation. He was excited about how he could apply math concepts and skills that to better understand needs (e.g., more frequent bus routes) and generate new solutions. For example, Omar and his peers organize data to show that a large percentage of their community does not have access to a school or community bus that can get them to the school on time every day. Omar’s group and his teachers take this data to the school principal to advocate for transportation services. Omar’s group provides the school principal with data on how this impacts learning (e.g., the number of students that are missing first period math instruction). The teachers and the school principal are so impressed by how Omar and his group acted as problem solvers, and they agree to bring this to the school and city council.

Conclusion

Overall, Ms. Sarah and Mr. Eric find students enjoyed and actively engaged with their goals and were further engaged in math content after this first cycle of the SDLMI. They feel their integration of self-determination instruction with culturally responsive teaching practices was key to success and to making their math curriculum more tangible. They found that they could teach the content students needed while focusing on students’ broader goals and enhancing their self-determination and advocacy for dismantling systemic barriers. The teachers think the flexibility of the SDLMI supports them in individualizing instruction based on each student’s strengths, assets, family values, funds of knowledge, and learning needs. The teachers plan on continuing to use the SDLMI, enabling all students, especially racially and ethnically marginalized students with disabilities, to set goals and create an action plan to achieve their goals and integrate their sociocultural identities and lived experiences.

Promoting self-determination has been identified as a predictor of in- and post-school success for all students. The SDLMI is an evidence-based practice that can support educators in teaching self-determination skills and abilities, and culturally responsive teaching practices can be infused into self-determination instruction, allowing for personalization of instruction based on each student’s strengths, assets, values, funds of knowledge, and learning needs. This will look different in different classrooms, content areas, and communities. But, the SDLMI can be a valuable tool for educators to use to make their instruction student-driven when culturally responsive practices are infused throughout implementation. The SDLMI can enable educators to provide individualized support and inclusive opportunities for all students, inclusive of racially and ethnically marginalized students with disabilities, to become self-directed learners of their learning process by setting and going after the goals. This can be accomplished by ensuring that goals set by students integrate their lived experiences and funds of knowledge into their learning to make academic content relevant and meaningful to all students’ lives and experiences and advance disability and racial justice.

Footnotes

Conflict of Interest

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Sheida K. Raley

Author Biographies

Abdulaziz H. Alsaeed is a graduate research assistant at the Kansas University Center on Developmental Disabilities (KUCDD) and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Special Education at the University of Kansas. His research focuses on self-determination assessments and interventions for all students, inclusive of students with disabilities.

Karrie A. Shogren, PhD, is the Director of the Kansas University Center on Developmental Disabilities (a University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities) and Ross and Marianna Beach Distinguished Professor in the Department of Special Education at the University of Kansas. Dr. Shogren’s research focuses on assessment and intervention in self-determination and supported decision-making for people with disabilities.

Sheida K. Raley, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Special Education in the Curriculum and Instruction Department at the University of Arkansas. Dr. Raley’s research focuses on assessment and intervention related to self-determination for all students, including students with extensive support needs learning in inclusive contexts.

Dr. Jennifer A. Kurth is an Associate Professor of Special Education at the University of Kansas, and affiliated faculty at the Kansas University Center on Developmental Disabilities (KUCDD). Her research centers on enhancing high-quality inclusive education for students with complex support needs.

LaRon A. Scott is an Associate Professor of Special Education at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on strategies and policies for recruiting and retaining historically marginalized teacher educators and special educators. He also focuses on postsecondary transition programming and outcomes for Black youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

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