joshuamitchell_discussion

=Self-determination and Professional Practice=

Self-determination is an important quality for student success. Self-determination can aid not only in transition, but also in the everyday activities of life. Some researchers suggest that in order to effectively teach self-determination, professionals themselves should be self-determined. Field and Hoffman (2002) identified five self-determined steps for teachers:


 * 1) Know themselves and their students. They need to understand the strengths, weaknesses, needs, and preferences of their students and have a solid grasp of their own strengths and weaknesses as teachers.
 * 2) Value themselves. They need to believe in their assessment of their skills and their situation, and they need to be able to move forward with their curriculum implementation plans with confidence.
 * 3) Put their knowledge and beliefs about the needs of their students and what they as teachers can offer to their students into a plan. They need to undertake the necessary preparation that will help to ensure success for their curriculum implementation.
 * 4) Put their plan into action.
 * 5) Evaluate their implementation efforts, modify their plans for the future, if needed, and celebrate their successes. (p. 93)

I think these guidelines can extend beyond the classroom and into other areas including academic and student supports. For example, in tutoring, if the tutor understands his or her strengths and weaknesses as well as those of the student, the tutor can work to balance those and utilize the strengths of both the tutor and the tutee to have an effective session.

They also need to believe that they have the skills needed to move the student forward with his or her goals. Confidence does not always have to be in knowing the right answer; instead, confidence can be in knowing the appropriate people and/or resources to use when the tutor does not know the answer.

The first step to any tutoring session should be to develop a plan. Preparing a plan includes identifying the potential barriers to the student’s learning and success. Understanding these areas and well as what the tutor can and cannot do, will help to identify resources for use in subsequent sessions.

After the plan is created, put it into action. However, be sure to assess the plan as well as the potential learning difficulties during each session or at least every couple of sessions. This will aid in identifying if the initially identified problem is truly the issue, or if something else is causing the problems. If other issues are identified, adjust the plan accordingly and seek the needed resources for effective tutoring and successful learning.

//From Joe - excellent ideas... it is so very important to take the time to think about what worked, and what didn't work. Its hard to give ourselves the time to really do this. We finish one session, or lesson unit, or class, and jump onto the next task, without taking just a few minutes to think about what we did and to do this mini-evaluation. By doing this ourselves, hopefully we can model this for our students, and help to promote successful outcomes (be it learning, tutoring, or counseling) but also to promote SD!// //Response to Josh- From Allison P.// //Josh, you did a nice job laying out the steps to self-determination very clearly. I also like your examples of developing a plan when tutoring an individual student. I like the idea of getting to know a student's strengths and needs- specifically what they see as their learning barriers. We need to know this information in order to develop an action plan together, to help the student compensate for or get past these difficulties. I can relate to these ideas- at the beginning of the year and after a student's annual review, I sit down with him/her and walk them through their IEP. Even though they are at the meeting and participating, many students tell me that they don't look through the IEP after the meeting, which leads me to wonder whether or not they truly understand what their needs are, goals, and what accommodations they are entitled to by law. I explain this to them in an informal way as we flip through the pages, to make this process or document less intimidating to students and more accessible in their education. Personally, I don't think this process happens enough, at least at the public high schools where I have worked. As educators, we naturally make sure parents and school team members understand the agreements in the IEP and what needs to be put in place for the student. However, after the meeting, we sometimes overlook the student's thoughts or opinions on the IEP. I think presenting the IEP to them more regularly as a learning tool, will help them become stronger self-advocates, and make "person centered planning" more meaningful directly "to" the student instead of a document "about" the student.//