Collection | Transition Strategies to Build Pathways to Success

Presenters: Jennifer Bumble & Matthew Flanagan

Time: 71 minutes

Community resource mapping is an innovative approach to identifying and 'mapping' potential services and supports that facilitate postschool success. Through this hands-on session, practitioners will learn the 'Connecting to the Community' process so they can build their own virtual community resource maps individualized to their students, school districts, and communities. Participants will be guided through live demonstrations and will work through the first few steps of creating their own resource maps during the session.

Participants will be able to:

1. Describe the purpose for and benefits of community resource mapping.
2. Create a list of potential services and supports to include on a digital map.
3. Describe the steps to create a digital community resource map they might share with students, families, and colleagues.

Presenters: Rebekka Jez, Karla Rosette Sanchez, & Juan Marques

Time: 23 minutes

Many students with disabilities from culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) backgrounds struggle with postsecondary outcomes. Join us in challenging Eurocentric influences by adapting self-determination and social-emotional learning activities designed for the Culturally Responsive Student Transition Portfolio to specific CLD contexts. Participants will leave with online access to resources and activities.

Participants will be able to:

1. Review current research on culturally responsive transition practices that challenge Eurocentric norms.
2. Adapt supplemental activities created to support the development of the Culturally Responsive Student Transition Portfolio on: a) culturally responsive self-determination skills and b) culturally responsive social emotional learning skills.
3. Receive access to online resources to support transition for CLD youth in specific contexts.

Presenters: Malarie Deardorff & Belkis Choiseul-Praslin

Time: 13.5 minutes

The University of Oklahoma's Zarrow Center for Learning Enrichment houses numerous resources devoted to the promotion of successful transition outcomes for students with disabilities. Zarrow Center faculty will showcase the available resources for download to promote transition education from their website as well as other websites from across the country. Materials, including curriculum, lessons, activities, and transition assessments, found on and off the site provide numerous benefits to practitioners and students and are available free of charge.

Participants will be able to

1. Learn how to navigate the free resources available on the Zarrow Center for Learning Enrichment's website and other access materials on other places across the internet.
2. Locate and identify age-appropriate transition assessments for students.
3. Identify key steps in transition planning and multiple transition education curricula.

Presenters: Wendy Mitchell & Nancy Young

Time: 30 minutes

The presentation identifies a family-planning approach to interagency collaboration for postsecondary transition planning. Research has identified interagency collaboration as an evidence-based practice for student success (Povenmire-Kirk et al., 2015). Communicating Interagency Relationships and Collaborative Linkages for Exceptional Students (CIRCLES; Povenmire-Kirk et al., 2011) is a three-tiered model with a family-planning approach. CIRCLES has been shown to significantly improve outcomes for students transitioning from high school to adulthood. Participants will receive tips on improving interagency collaboration and transition services.

Participants will be able to:

1. Identify the three tiers of the CIRCLES collaboration model.
2. List at least three service providers whom they can invite to attend a community-level meeting.
3. Describe at least one accommodation that would enable a person who requires extensive support needs to participate in their own IEP meeting, and overall.
4. Implement a family-centered approach to create strong interagency collaboration with their local service providers, school staff, students, and their families.

Presenters: Daniel Cullen, Amanda Lynn Helman, & Josef Franzo

Time: 32 minutes

The purpose of this presentation is to detail a game-changing, evidence-based, personal, and authentic transition planning model. It includes the design of personalized assessment leading to authentic instruction for secondary students with unique and complex needs. The presentation will provide participants with an evidence-based transition assessment protocol designed to engineer customized pathways leading to successful post-secondary outcomes at the time of or prior to graduation for secondary students with unique and complex needs.

Participants will be able to:

1. Define the purpose and urgency for appropriate personalized transition assessments across all grade levels.
2. Describe the components of the CIU20 Transition Protocol for students with disabilities aged 14 through 21 with attention to the personalization and authenticity of connected instruction focused on supporting and sustaining post-secondary transition outcomes for students with complex and unique needs at the time of or prior to graduation.
3. Identify a highly effective and reproducible evidence-based process for engineering transition assessment data to make game-changing personalized decisions leading to personalized outcomes.

Presenters: J Edward Carter & Emily Meehan

Time: 31 minutes

Despite many advances over 35 years, specialists providing transition services are isolated, have little support, and even less accountability. This session presents a teacher accountability model, tailored to the needs of transition specialists, that promotes progressive programs, accountability structures, and positive outcomes for students transitioning from special education to adult life.

Participants will be able to:

1. Engage in the application of the accountability model for transition services to their existing programs.
2. Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of their transition programs using the accountability framework.
3. Make future program recommendations based on discrepancies identified by the transition accountability model.

Presenters: Meg Grigal & Clare Papay

Time: 37 minutes

How can educators and families better support students with disabilities to begin their college journey ready for success? This presentation will describe how to support high school students with disabilities to cultivate foundational skills; access needed academic supports; and develop 21st century skills using technology for communication, navigation, and social connections.

Participants will be able to:

1. Explain the importance of having high expectations and secondary preparation for the postsecondary success of students with disabilities.
2. Apply two strategies to change one's own expectations about the potential of students with disabilities to attend college.
3. Apply four strategies to support preparation of students with disabilities for success in three college contexts.

Presenters: Gwen Schilling-Dickey & Rebekah Dyer

Time: 16 minutes

Students with disabilities transitioning from secondary to post-secondary opportunities lose protections provided by IDEA. In order to access disability services at a university, they need to understand the new requirements and how to navigate the system. Once students are deemed eligible for services, research indicates university instructors have little to no direct experience in the nuances of providing adequate educational opportunities to adults with diagnosed disabilities. This session will provide information on strategies for removing barriers to success for university level students.

Participants will be able to:

1. Have a greater understanding of the barriers that prevent students with disabilities from being successful at the post-secondary level.
2. Describe strategies that can be implemented at the secondary and post-secondary levels to increase the success of students with disabilities.