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Life Centered Education Transition Curriculum

An all-in-one set of 1,200 transition lesson plans with related tests, the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC)’s Life Centered Education (LCE) is a fully online, secure transition curriculum that students and teachers can engage with 24/7. LCE’s online portal tracks and reports on progress and outcomes and is specifically designed to help meet Individualized Education Program (IEP) goals.

 Join the ranks of 2,000 transition specialists in over 500 locations worldwide who already use LCE to prepare students for independent and rewarding lives. Learn more about LCE to get started:

    Life Centered Education logo

    This short demo video shows you the ins and outs of LCE's features to help you learn more and get the most out of the program.

     

    LCE Pricing and Order Forms

    Subscription Option First-Year Price Annual Renewal Fee
    Individual License
    1 teacher, up to 30 students
    $995 $450
    Group License
    Up to 10 teachers, up to 200 students
    $2,975 $725
    Group License Add-On (each)
    Up to 5 additional teachers, up to 100 additional students
    $1,800 $550

    Note: Multiple users from different school buildings can all use the program simultaneously.

    Order or Renew Now

    Interested in learning more about LCE? Request a free trial:

    Features and Benefits

    Comprehensive

    • All-in-one curriculum with instruction, assessment, and reporting  
    • Includes lesson plans in daily living, interpersonal, and employment skills  
    • Reaches beyond academics to functional life skills for independence  
    • Provides opportunities for family involvement and community service

    Accessible

    • Available anytime, anywhere – entirely online, with a secure portal  
    • Lesson plans are presented at three levels of difficulty  
    • Offers tips for differentiating instruction, one-one, or in groups  
    • Includes links to relevant Internet activities promoting interaction

    Widely Applicable

    • Content spans a wide range of skill, age, interest, and involvement levels  
    • Amenable to integrated settings: self-contained and pull-out programs  
    • Subscribers include parents, teachers, counselors, agencies, and employers  
    • Used in middle and high schools; post-secondary and higher education programs  
    • Cyber, charter, and private schools; residential facilities; and foundations also subscribe

    Save Time

    LCE instruction is ready-made, readily available

     

    • LCE provides 1,200 online lesson plans and 450 related test items
    • Each lesson includes explicit instruction, practice, and evaluation
    • Tracked performance results are easily transferred to IEP updates
    • Reporting feature eliminates need to keep separate paper records

    Be Accountable

    Meet legal requirements for transition plans

     

    • LCE was designed expressly by special educators for special educators
    • As a curriculum, it supplies the backbone of mandated transition services 
    • Lesson plans correlate to common core state learning standards
    • LCE can fulfill graduation requirements of a blended learning course

    Respond to Workforce Realities

    Transition from school to life takes skill

     

    • Among people with disabilities, only half of them are employed
    • One third of the jobs held by people with disabilities are part time
    • Those with disabilities face twice the unemployment rate of others
    • Impact these statistics: Use LCE to teach how to get and keep a job. (See www.bls.gov and DisabilityStatistics.org) 

    LCE Assessment Instruments

    Our Life Centered Education (LCE) transition curriculum includes three types of assessment instruments to measure degree of skill attainment and target instruction accordingly. They can be used alone or together depending on reading level of individual students and amount of improvement data required by the setting.

    1. Competency Rating Scale – behavioral checklist, qualitative
      An inventory completed by teachers and/or parents based on their judgment of student mastery on each LCE sub-competency.
    2. Knowledge Battery – multiple-choice items, quantitative
      A set of written test items that students complete either online or on paper.  An audio option is available for each test item.
    3. Performance Battery – rating scale of observed performance, qualitative
      Consists of scenarios that teachers arrange and judge regarding amount of student skill acquisition. Involves students in role-plays, card sorts, etc.

    LCE assessment results are stored, tracked, and reported within the online system, so you can readily and justifiably:

    • Establish present levels of student competency (strengths, deficiencies)
    • Determine and update IEP goals and objectives
    • Use on a pre-post basis to guide program planning and instructional content     
    • Construct post-secondary vocational and educational plans

     

    Interested in learning more or signing up for a FREE trial of LCE? Click HERE. Contact lce@exceptionalchildren.org for questions. Fill out this order form to order LCE, or renew your order.

     

    LCE FAQs

    LCE is intended for all age and grade levels regardless of disability severity or involvement. It includes lessons at three (increasing) levels of complexity. Suggestions for differentiated instruction, including modifications and accommodations, are included in the lesson plans.

    LCE could be infused into existing courses or it could be a self-standing elective or independent study course. Lessons on personal finance could be taught within math or economics. Lessons on voting could be taught within government or social studies.

    Lessons are meant to be teacher-led and require no reading from students. Worksheets can read aloud by the teacher or other peers and test items have audio feedback, which does not require reading. Two of the three forms of testing require demonstration of mastery, not reading. 

    CEC has online videos, and you can contact lce@exceptionalchildren.org for more resources and information. Webinars are available at 90 minutes for $950 and live, full-day workshops are available for $4,000 plus travel and lodging expenses.

    All you need is a computer and a web browser. The LCE portal works best on Internet Explorer 8 and above and the latest versions of Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. The test item audio playback function can be accessed from most browsers.

    No, the LCE account administrator needs to be someone willing to serve as the main contact for users and take responsibility for entering usernames into the system. (Note: Users can be teachers, local agency partners, parents, etc.)

    Teachers have the only access to student data. However, they can share their student data across classrooms and screens of performance data with supervisors, upon request. Not all user teachers need to be in the same building.

    Unlike the few competitive products on the market, CEC’s LCE transition curriculum does not rely on kits, discs, manipulatives, or binders. LCE is paperless and completely accessible online. Plus, it is the most comprehensive transition program on the market that:

    • Combines instruction along with related assessment items 
    • Contains a progressing tracking and reporting function
    • Covers daily living, interpersonal, and employment skills

    The account administrator enters a username and password for each teacher, who then names and enters his/her classes into the system. Teachers assign each student a username and password and enters them. Then, the teacher scrolls through the objectives, selecting which to test first. They then create a customized (mini) test or choose a test stored in the online system. Once students complete the test, the system stores individual results as a baseline. Teachers follow the system’s lesson plans (arranged by level of complexity), then re-test; results get stored within the system for easy transfer to IEPs. The system ultimately contains several years’ worth of instruction with over 1,200 lessons. 

    Yes, the LCE portal is accessible on an iPad and the audio playback feature, which is available for the knowledge battery test items, should also work. As for use in Moodle, create a link from Moodle that launches the LCE portal.

    No, CEC does not distribute the lesson plans alone because they are directly tied to related test items and worksheets, which would be necessary to implement the lesson plans.

    No, you cannot pick individual questions to place in a customized mini-test. But, you can select groups of questions that relate to a sub-competency’s objectives.

    No, an annual renewal fee (minimal) must be paid to continue access to the curriculum. The account contact receives reminders of when payments are due.

    Their names can be deactivated. Should they return, they can be reactivated.

    Measures of performance improvement are tracked on an individual student basis to facilitate transfer onto IEPs, but data across students can be generated in a report.

    The account administrator enters teachers into the system, including each teacher’s school name; so, the name of each school is associated with a teacher. Then, teachers name their classrooms and enter those classroom names into the system, along with a username and password for each of their students. If you wanted to further differentiate classes within one school, teachers could name classes (for example, “Bedford HS:  transition class” or “Bedford HS: functional math class”). 

    1. Choose objectives relating to daily living and independent living skills.
    2. Select lessons at the lowest difficulty level (“awareness” level).
    3. Print out the worksheets and tests so the students can complete paper copies.
    4. You, or higher-functioning students, could read aloud for the others.
    5. Make use of the Internet resources suggested for each lesson, including short videos.

    Yes. LCE is being used with students as young as elementary school and as old as 26 (through post-secondary, workplace, hospital, and corrections settings).

    View a sample of the LCE platform!

    Yes.  LCE is hosted by d'Vinci Interactive's hosting provider – Amazon Web Services.  All MySQL databases are kept secure and all credentials are kept secure.  The LCE Portal uses SSL secure connections for all log in attempts.

     

    FERPA and COPPA Compliance (2/4/2021)
    CEC’s online transition curriculum, Life Centered Education (LCE), complies with all applicable provisions of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA – 20 USC Section 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99) and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA – 15 USC 6501 et seq.)

     

    • CEC does not receive or have access to any student data from LCE subscribers
    • Using teachers are not able to access through LCE any student educational records that are maintained locally
    • Using teachers are not required to provide any personal identifying information (PII) on students in order to access the 1,200 lesson plans that are stored in the online LCE curriculum
    • Optionally, the system can store (for teacher access only) worksheet completion dates and percentage correct on pre-post tests for individual students, if a student’s first name and last initial, and password are supplied 
    Last Updated:  5 January, 2024

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