Personal Learning artifact- Tracy Petersen

My goal was to personalize learning for my speech IEP students. Each student has an individualized plan but it does not always seem personalized. It is a plan that is typically developed by parents, teachers, and speech language pathologists with limited student input. IEP goals have to be written to meet certain standards that are not very student friendly. The IEP is updated at least monthly and reviewed at least annually but it is a somewhat static document that didn’t allow me to personalize, as I wanted. I cannot change the IEP document so I decided to develop a template that would help me individualize for my students. As I reflected on the template, I did not want to create additional paperwork, I know that I would use it only for this class and then let it drop as I ran short on time. Instead, I decided to incorporate the ideas into a template for a log that I use on a daily basis. It is a dynamic document that I can update as needed. The template is found here: https://docs.google.com/a/gwaea.org/spreadsheets/d/171KQtq-JZotZaozAo-TJPV-Chk7AEqlSiG04POaU9aM/edit?usp=sharing

In the IEP, we ask for strengths, interests, and preferences so I did not think I needed to add that information on the log, it would be duplication. What I did add were questions and information for the students to contribute so that the plan could become more their own. This includes the IEP goal stated in the student’s own words, steps that they will take to meet the goal, how they will know if they are successful, and an end goal; “when I am done with speech I will be able to..”   I also added the self-assessment piece so that they could begin to monitor their own learning and use the self-assessment piece to inform their instruction. I have created visuals for the self-assessment piece; one aimed at preschool and non-verbal students and the other for elementary aged students. I will use the visuals to help students self-assess and then add that information to the log. The visual supports are included here (you must have Boardmaker to see preview) https://drive.google.com/a/gwaea.org/file/d/0B4dYntjrQ7qLRWZIczdjUjBIbUU/view?usp=sharing

I have added a sample student to the template, this is a student that I am currently working with, her new IEP is March 6 and I asked her all of the questions and included those on the sample. She created the self-assessment rating scale; I may adapt that for each student after I have used it this spring. If so, I will create individual visuals for each student. I am planning to share the information that she shared with her family and teachers at the IEP conference.  I also added a sample articulation student, but this is one that I created. I then added a version of my own goal.
I am going to implement the log template with the students who have spring IEPs and then next fall I will use it for every student. I typically set up logs in the fall and have those set up already for this year but will create new logs for those students this spring, to work out implementation issues, so that I can adapt as needed to have it ready to go for the fall.
I am also thinking that as I look at the student’s information, it will help me identify different ways to set up their learning environment and possibly different ways to provide speech services based on the student identified steps and success measures.