Student Directed IEPrezi

After joining a forum on student directed IEPs, I was a greatly humbled to find that I was not doing near enough to encourage the self determination of my students. I found out that other teachers were having students run their IEPs. While I knew this was “best practice”, I had settled into thinking I was being successful if I could get the student to attend the meeting. The positive peer pressure forced me to change the way I approach the planning of the IEP. Over the last few years I have included students in the assessments, but when they attended the meeting, students were reluctant spectators. Based on Daniel Pink's theory that the most effective motivation is found in the task, I decided to have a student create a Prezi to guide their IEP. Based on the six critical elements I provided the student a template and a draft of their IEP. As the student went through their IEP, they asked me questions which facilitated discussions that probably would not have occurred. I was curious to see the Prezi but I waited till the meeting as the point of the Prezi was to give more control to the student. I will definitely use the Student Directed IEPrezi for both an assessment and scaffolding for student directed IEPs. Please view Kris's Directed IEP. I believe Kris has more ownership of his future and in case you are wondering, Kris will be in choir next year. The Prezi fostered a healthy discussion among all team members and a solution was found in which Kris could take both choir and more electives.