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Eight Steps To Help Students Develop IEP Goals

By Jamie L. Van Dycke and Lori Y. Peterson

Imagine you are to attend an education conference. You forgot to send in your pre-registration form, but you expect to get in. As you start to register, a staffer says, "I'm sorry, but you have been reassigned to a different conference; we are over our limit for this one. Please sign in for the Brick Layer's Convention. We've pre-selected sessions for you."

Are you likely to attend the Brick Layer's Convention? Probably not. Are you likely to remember to pre-register for next year's conference? Probably yes - unless this year's experience completely turned you against the idea of attending conferences at all.

We put students with disabilities in situations like this every time we compose an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) without student input. It is just like setting a student up to attend a conference for which he or she has no interest. The 1997 Amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) require students to be invited to attend their IEP meetings by age 14, which implies that students are to be active members of the IEP team. However, without the opportunity to contribute in IEP meetings, most students just attend without giving any input.

Students with disabilities can help compose their IEP goals and objectives, even in the elementary grades, through the following eight-step process. In some cases, students may only perform one or two of the steps.

Eight Steps to IEP Goals

1. Evaluate current performance: How am I doing now?

Students can use the statement of their present level of performance to develop their goals. For secondary students, performance levels are often tied to graduation and show areas for improvement. For elementary students, terms and symbols such as "On My Own" or ":)" (independent), "With Help" or ":):)" (instructional), and "Not at All" or ":(" (frustration) can be used to identify their areas of strength and need.

2. Choose goal topic or ACTION: What do I want to work on? or What am I going to do?

Here the student needs to present an action that can be physically observed (orally read vs. read; describe in writing vs. understand). Each action must have a measurable outcome (written document or problems; number of words). While many education goals are standards driven, opportunities can be provided to exercise choice and ownership of goals.

3. Determine CONDITION: What am I going to use to reach the goal?

Conditions include level of difficulty, accommodations, modifications, strategies, or any special materials needed to perform the action.

4. Set CRITERIA: How well do I want to do?

Help students identify a target point that can be reasonably accomplished in the time frame. Students may over- or underestimate criteria in the beginning. Experience with the process will help them set realistic criteria.

5. Write the GOAL: What do I want to accomplish?

At this point students would use their identified Action, Condition, and Criteria to write their goal. To assist students, the formula provided can be used as a fill-in-the-blank tool: FORMULA: Given (CONDITION), (student) will, (ACTION), (CRITERIA).

6. Take ACTION: Do it!

7. Evaluate ACTION: How well am I doing?

Students can apply the terms or symbol(s) they used in Step 1 to state their performance and progress toward their goal.

8. Determine and make adjustments: What do I need to change?

Students respond to questions (What worked? What didn't work? What would have made it better?) to determine and make changes to the goal.

Resources

Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction: Early Elementary Version, by Michael Wehmeyer and Susan Palmer.
Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction: Adolescent Version, by Michael Wehmeyer and Susan Palmer.
ChoiceMaker Self-Determination Curriculum: Take Action, by Laura Huber Marshall, James E. Martin, Laurie Maxon, Terry L. Miller, Wanda Hughes, Toria McGill, and Patty Jerman.
Jamie Van Dycke is a project coordinator at the University of Oklahoma. Both Van Dycke and Peterson are members of the Oklahoma CEC.