Drafting an individualized education program (IEP) is one of many duties with which special educators are tasked. It is important that the IEP process remains individualized to each student. It may be helpful to view an IEP as more than a document or an annual meeting, but rather an opportunity for the team of stakeholders to review data, celebrate successes, consider current needs, and set goals for the coming year.
As follows, we will explore strategies that lead to a meaningful IEP, facilitate quality instruction, and enable data collection. Most importantly, we will consider ways to keep the student at the center of the process.
Involve students in the planning.
Encourage your students to take some ownership in the IEP process. While students in Virginia must be invited to their IEP meetings beginning at age 14, it is advisable to get them involved at a much younger age.
Student leadership in the IEP process offers two amazing benefits. First, learners who contribute to their IEPs have a greater understanding of their disability and increased self-determination skills (Branding et al., 2009). Student guidance may also lead to a program that more accurately reflects strengths and needs (Biegun, Peterson, McNaught, & Sutterfield, 2020). When students select goals that are interesting and meaningful to them, they are likely to work harder toward meeting the goals.
Start small- give several goal options and allow students to select a favorite. As your students gets older, encourage them to suggest new goals to address. Check out the I’m Determined Project Goal Plan, which serves as an excellent graphic organizer for goal writing. Remember, the IEP process is about the student, so they should be as involved as possible.
Write measurable goals.
Writing measurable goals involves much more than simply adding some ratios or percentages. Measurable goals require two things- an observable behavior and quantifiable progress.
The easiest way to write observable goals is to carefully choose our verbs. For example, we may want students to know something or understand something, but we can’t directly observe that a student is knowing or understanding a concept. On the other hand, we can observe other verbs such as counting, writing, or summarizing. Choose wisely!
Measurable Verbs:
- count
- define
- compare
- read
- write
- complete
- differentiate
- demonstrate
- measure
- summarize
Troublesome Verbs:
- learn
- understand
- know
- comprehend
- cover
- appreciate
- study
- familiarize
- be aware of
- be exposed to
Avoid cookie cutter goals.
Have you ever heard the horror story where a teacher presents an IEP draft to a family who notices that another child’s name is on the document? This happens when we copy and paste from one student’s IEP to another. The best way to avoid such an embarrassment is to properly craft each student’s IEP from scratch. Remember that the ‘I’ in IEP stands for individualized!
There are two effective ways to ensure that every student has goals that are individualized to their needs. First, make sure that every goal is related to a specific area of need identified in that student’s present level of performance. Second, refer to the first strategy above and involve your student in the creation of his/her goals.
Be mindful of the number of goals in an IEP.
This strategy will foster an improved experience for both student and teacher. If a student has too many goals to work on, it may be difficult to receive the level of specially designed instruction needed to master any of the individual goals. You can prioritize potential goals by working with the IEP team (including the student) to ensure that you have ample time and resources to address a student’s greatest areas of need.
Similar to our above discussion of cookie cutter goals, you may want to consider if each potential goal is directly tied to the student’s current needs. Be mindful of goals that have been repeated over multiple IEPs. If a student has not accomplished a goal after two or more years, it may be time to consider reshaping the goal or moving on.
It is also important to consider what is feasible for the teacher. For example, if you have 10 students and each of those students has 8 or more goals, you may find it impossible to teach and assess everything at a high level. Work with the IEP team to prioritize areas of need and related goals.
Reconsider how to quantify mastery.
Another way to avoid cookie cutter goals is to carefully consider the numbers and percentages that we include. A popular example involves goals that ask students to achieve a targeted behavior in 4/5 trials with 80% accuracy. We should ask ourselves- Does 80% demonstrate mastery in all skills?
For a student who is presently spelling words 60% of the time, a goal of 80% may be reasonable. What about a goal involving a student safely crossing the street during community-based instruction? We can probably agree that 80% would not be acceptable in this case.
Perhaps a student has a goal that requires her to place all of her assignments in her binder in 80% of trials. Maybe she properly stows her materials during the first 16 trials, but fails to do so during the final 4 trials. In this example, she has met the 80% threshold, but has she displayed mastery of the skill?
For some goals, you might consider mastery to be success over a set number of correct trials, rather than a target percentage.
Example: Given an initial prompt by a teacher, the student will place all returned assignments in the correct section of her binder in 100% of trials over 5 consecutive data days by April 2025.
The student demonstrates mastery by correctly and consistently performing the task. This will also save you from calculating a percentage based on every single trial that she has been offered over the course of the year.
The takeaway is to consider the best way to quantify each individual goal. For some, a percentage might suffice. For others, you might look at success over consecutive trials.
References:
Biegun, D., Peterson, Y., McNaught, J., Sutterfield, C. (2020). Including student voice in IEP meetings through use of assistive technology. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 52(5), 348–350.
Branding, D., Bates, P., & Miner, C. (2009). Perceptions of self-determination by special education and rehabilitation practitioners based on viewing a self-directed IEP versus an external-directed IEP meeting. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 30(4), 755–762.
For technical support with crafting quality IEP goals for students with significant support needs, contact T-TAC ODU Specialist Daniel Biegun: dbiegun@odu.edu
