As more states adopt the Common Core State Standards, teachers face new challenges. Teachers must unpack these standards and develop explicit learning targets to make these rigorous standards accessible to their students. This task can be especially challenging for special educators who must balance standards-based education with individualized…

With many states adopting new standards and evaluation systems, teachers must adopt effective instructional strategies and assessment methods aligned to the rigor of new standards and assessments. One way to improve student achievement is through supporting student ownership of learning, a core component of formative instructional practices.…

Setting meaningful individualized education program (IEP) goals and objectives is one of the challenges that special education teachers face. In written expression, this task is even more difficult. Not only is assessing writing a subjective and difficult endeavor, but writing itself is a complicated task. Because many students with disabilities…

Researchers and practitioners have emphasized the importance of teaching self-determination skills to students with disabilities for more than a decade. One major barrier to teaching self-determination in recent years has been teachers' not knowing how to focus on reading, writing, and mathematics and simultaneously teach self-determination…

When students become involved in the process of developing their own Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), they have the opportunity to practice many of the essential self-determination skills they need in school and in life. Unfortunately, students are often excluded from this process, and their presence at an IEP meeting does not necessarily…