Running Head: RESILIENCE 1

EPSE 598

RESILIENCE AND INDIVIDUAL EDUCATION PLANS

Jo Ann Whitham

71195804

University of British Columbia

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Introduction “It’s okay Ms. Whitham,” said one of my new students, a young man with severe Dyslexia, “I am just stupid. Lots of teachers have tried to help me but nothing works. I will never be smart.”

………….. I have been working with students with Learning Disabilities (LD) for fifteen

years. During this time I have seen amazing transformations in student’s confidence and

ability. But there were some students I just couldn’t reach, and I couldn’t understand

why; they were like puzzles and I couldn’t fit the pieces together to help them. When I

decided to pursue a Masters in the field I had some burning questions I wanted to answer:

why are some students able to overcome their learning difficulties while others are

not? Why are some students resilient in the face of their challenges and others just give

up? What can I do as an educator to change this?

When I declared my area of interest I chose Self-Regulated Learning (SRL)

because it seemed to me to be the key piece of the puzzle. People must be able to self

regulate to be successful in both school and life. I had observed and facilitated students

using the principles of self-regulation such as analyzing tasks, choosing strategies to

complete them, reflecting on their strategy choice and adjusting their strategy choice to

successfully complete these tasks. My research led me to the concept of self-efficacy for

self-regulated learning and its crucial role in academic success. I learned that for students

with LD, “belief in his or her capabilities to manage the learning environment” is almost

as important as skill level (Klassen, 2010). Because students with LD have a history of

failure in the academic arena, their self-concept about their ability to learn is consistently

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lower than students without LD, and this negative self-concept can be extremely

resistant to change (Elbaum & Vaughn, 2001). So the question became how could I help

empower students who have given up to “buy in” to the self-regulation process and build

feelings of self-efficacys?

This led me to study motivation in search of an answer. The motivation piece of

the puzzle showed me the importance of mindsets and gave me ideas about how to help

students change their self-perception. I learned ways to help them change how they

thought about the reasons for their “failures” and what they attributed them to. I learned

about our basic human needs of relatedness, autonomy and competence, which gave me a

framework to think about how to move students from a state of amotivation towards the

desired goal of intrinsic motivation. I incorporated these ideas into my teaching and my

mentorship, and saw many successes. These ideas were so powerful that our school

incorporated the goals of relatedness, autonomy and competence into our mission

statement.

When I started reading about resilience I realized I had found the key to the

puzzle—it was like seeing the picture on the puzzle box and realizing which pieces fit

where. Research on resilience shows that successful LD students display certain

characteristics that educators can foster and develop to create positive outcomes both in

school and in life after school. These characteristics include self-awareness, self-

regulation, motivation and self-concept, critical thinking and problem solving; all of the

topics I had explored were included in the literature on resilience.

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Meanwhile, in my career, my role began to change. First I was given the

role of doing adjudications for Provincial Exams, which meant I was reading the psycho-

educational reports of most of the senior school and recommending appropriate supports

and strategies. Next, the Ministry of Education changed its policy on funding and tied

this directly into Individual Education Plans (IEPs). Under this new policy, schools are

now directly responsible for having all documentation included in the IEPs and audit

teams are being sent out to check for compliance. I applied for a contract position as an

auditor and was accepted, and through this position I learned what we needed to do to

change our IEPs to comply with Ministry guidelines. At the same time, the school

decided to change our School Information System (SIS), and is in the midst of designing

this system with a private company called MySchool. This system will have an IEP

function, and I was put in charge of leading a team to create a goal, objective and strategy

bank to ensure that our IEPs will meet Ministry guidelines.

Our school is one of the few designated schools in the country. As such, every

student is on an IEP, and all of our teachers are required to contribute a goal for the

year. Because of this, we do not conduct physical IEP team meetings, as some teachers

would need to attend over fifty meetings. Instead, our IEPs serve as virtual team

meetings, and all of a student’s teachers read each other’s goals and strategies as a

starting point for working with that student. We have always used the IEP as a vehicle for

student growth, but in a top down manner. We review the IEP with the student and

discuss their strengths, needs, and their teacher’s goals for them. Because of this virtual

process, the student was not included. I knew this did not fit with current best practices,

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which show that student involvement in and ownership of their IEP is highly

beneficial (source). I realized that moving to the new system would give us the

opportunity to have the students contribute to this.

The purpose of this inquiry is to improve student engagement, motivation, self-

regulation and resilience through involving them in the IEP process. They will contribute

and monitor a goal on their own IEPs to track progress and growth, reflect on the

effectiveness of strategy use and hopefully derive motivation to continue with the self-

regulation cycle. It will serve as the first step in creating more student involvement in

their IEPs, and my goal is to eventually have them lead one of the three yearly parent

teacher conferences.

Literature Review

...children and adolescents with learning disabilities... given their history of learning difficulty and failure, are especially vulnerable to feelings of frustration, low self-worth, and helplessness. (Brooks, 2004, p.3) If teachers were to vocalize what they are hoping to achieve with their students,

most would say they want them to master the knowledge and skills required in the subject

areas they teach, and that this mastery would enable their students to be successful when

they leave school and pursue either higher education or employment. They would also

say that they wanted their students to become effective and happy human beings. But

what happens when a student has a Learning Disability (LD)? What happens when a

student has significant challenges that hinder his or her ability to learn and master a

subject? Some of these students are able to overcome these challenges and go on to be

successful adults and contributors to society. Others give up trying. According to

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statistics gathered by the Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario (2011),

76% of parents of typical learners reported that their child was doing well in school as

compared to only 25% of parents of children with LD. Over 25% of students with LD

did not complete high school. They were “2 to 3 times more likely to report fair to poor

physical, general, and mental health, and 2 to 3 times less likely to report very good to

excellent physical, general and mental health than the general population.” People with

LD were also “more than twice as likely to report high levels of distress, depression,

anxiety disorders, suicidal thoughts, visits to a mental health professional and poorer

overall mental health compared to persons without disabilities.” This report also shows

that adults with LD make up only 2-5% of the population of post secondary institutions,

have a lower employment rate and make lower wages than the general population, and

have been refused interviews and jobs because of their disability. These statistics show

that students with LD are at risk of becoming unsuccessful and unhappy adults.

Resilience

According to Dr. John Grohal, resilience “is the process of adapting well in the

face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or even significant sources of stress — such as

family and relationship problems, serious health problems, or workplace and financial

stressors. It means “bouncing back” from difficult experiences.” (PsychCentral, 2007).

Research in resiliency over the last fifty years has sought to understand why some “at-

risk” students can overcome negative experiences and become functional adults.

Early research focused on risk factors such as poverty or physical disability and

their effects on individuals, but the focus soon shifted to studying “protective factors”

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that allowed individuals to overcome those risk factors to produce positive

outcomes (Bernard, 1998). Bernard emphasized the idea that how people cope with

difficult situations is a result of their environment, and that rather than trying to “fix”

kids, we should focus on creating positive family, school and community environments

that promote resilient behaviours. The protective factors she lists are social competence,

problem solving skills, autonomy and a sense of purpose and future. In their introduction

to the Handbook of Resilience in Children, Goldstein and Brooks (2012) emphasize the

concept of wellness in children and show how wellness stems from healthy interactions

between an individual and his or her environment. They quoted evidence from meta-

analytic studies of preventative interventions and stated that we can decrease the damage

of some emotional and psychological issues by understanding how our interactions with

our environment can shape our lives. They concluded that if we study how children thrive

and then teach them a “resilient mindset”, we could help to offset the risk factors that can

lead to anxiety, depression, substance abuse and suicide. They identified three types of

protective factors: dispositional traits that allow the person to view the environment in a

positive manner, family environments that encourage independence, trust, proactivity and

healthy relationships with others, and community support that builds self-concept and

self-confidence.

Research into resilience with a direct focus on people with LD has shown similar

findings. Researchers at the Frostig Center, a school and research facility in Pasadena,

California, conducted a twenty-year longitudinal study of fifty students who were

identified as learning disabled and had been enrolled in their school at some point from

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1958 to 1965. The primary question guiding this study was to determine the

factors that either promoted or prevented people with LD from being successful in

adulthood (Raskind, Goldberg, Higgins & Herman, 1999). Indicators of success included

“educational achievement, employment attainment/accomplishments, social and familial

relationships and life satisfaction” (p. 36). They found that there were common attributes

among the participants deemed successful according to the above criteria: “self-

awareness, proactivity, perseverance, emotional stability, appropriate goal setting, and

effective use of support systems” (p. 37). These researchers stated in a subsequent article

that these “success” attributes were “more powerful predictors of success than numerous

other variables, including IQ, academic achievement, life stressors, age, gender,

socioeconomic status, and ethnicity” (Raskind, Goldberg, Higgins & Herman,

2002). Ofiesh and Mather (In Goldstein and Brooks, 2013) identify LD students as being

vulnerable because their difficulties in school damage their self-concept and affect them

socially, emotionally and behaviourally. They also list protective factors gathered from

research on resilience and LD such as promoting self-awareness, changing self-

perceptions, goal setting, creating an internal locus of control, maintaining high

expectations, emphasizing autonomy, and building a strong system of support.

In sum, the following is a compilation of the factors that make up resilience as

stated by the authors above: (Brooks, 2004; Bernard, 1998; Goldstein and Brooks, 2012;

Raskind, Goldberg, Higgins and Herman, 1999; Raskind, Goldberg, Higgins and

Herman, 2002; Ofiesh and Mather, 2013). There is some variation in terminology but the

experts in the field stress these factors:

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Self-Awareness, Emotional Competence and Relational Skills

-Self-awareness and understanding of strengths and weaknesses

-Social awareness, emotional literacy, impulse control -Empathy and caring

-Self-esteem, self-confidence, self-efficacy and self-advocacy

Thinking and Problem Solving Skills

-Ability to think abstractly, flexibly and reflectively

-Ability to attempt alternate solutions to both cognitive and social problems Autonomy and Personal Competence

-Sense of personal identity; belief in one’s ability to act independently and exert some control/ influence over one’s environment; sense of mastery

-The ability to separate oneself from dysfunctional environments

-Sense of personal competence

-Commitment to personal excellence and achieving goals

-Persistence and commitment to learning

Sense of Belonging, Purpose and Possibility

-Sense of purpose and future; hopefulness, hardiness, belief in a bright future, optimism

-Healthy expectancies, goal directedness, motivation to achieve through effort

All of these resiliency attributes can be found in other areas of educational research that

pertain to students with LD and how to help them succeed. It may help to break down

these areas and survey them individually to see how they relate to self-efficacy,

motivation and self-regulated learning.

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Self-Concept, Self-Awareness and Self-Efficacy

According to Elbaum and Vaughn (2001), school is the arena where children and

adolescents form much of their self –perception and is second only to the family context

in shaping their ideas about themselves. In school, students form perceptions of

themselves academically, socially, and behaviourally that, when negative, can be

detrimental to their success. A negative academic self-concept affects performance,

motivation and future life outcomes. These researchers reviewed literature regarding the

academic self-concept of students with LD as compared with typically functioning

students. In one study (Chapman, 1988) LD students showed a disadvantage in academic

self-esteem of -0.81, and in another (Prout, Marcal and Marcal, 1992) the standard

deviation for negative academic self-concept was 0.71.

In their meta-analysis of studies on interventions to enhance self-concept, Elbaum

and Vaughn found that academic interventions had a significant effect for all students and

counseling/mediated interventions were more effective for adolescents. Could this be

because older students were more firmly entrenched in their negative self-

concept? Developing a realistic sense of self is the cornerstone to interventions with LD

students, as it allows them to understand their personal strengths and weaknesses and

develop a plan to capitalize on strengths and develop effective strategies to cope with

weaknesses (Butler in Wong, 2004).

Changing negative self-perceptions begins with self-awareness, but factors such

as motivation, self-determination and self-regulation are essential for creating self-

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efficacy. Self-efficacy is defined as believing that one is capable of achieving a

desired outcome. According to Klassen (2007), the difference between the two concepts

is this: “self-concept is defined as a reflection of one’s competence (“I’m pretty good at

spelling”), self-efficacy captures one’s perceived capabilities in a particular situation

(“I’m confident that I can do pretty well on this spelling test”) (p. 495). His quantitative

study showed that LD students were low in self-efficacy, but often overestimated their

performance abilities. Teachers in this study postulated that this was a self-protective

tendency. This skewed view indicated a lack of self-awareness that can be as damaging as

a negative self-concept because “successful performance depends on a realistic

evaluation of their strengths and weaknesses” (p.502). He concluded that to build self-

efficacy in LD students, teachers should use positive performance feedback for effort,

examine student’s attributions, and engage in metacognitive evaluation of past

performances to create realistic self-knowledge.

Motivation

Several motivational concepts are mentioned in the literature on resilience:

mindsets, attributions and self-determination theory. Carol Dweck’s (2000) concept of

implicit self-theories, more popularly known as mindsets, defines two extremes of a

spectrum of how people view their own intelligence. People with a fixed, or entity theory

(also referred to as an achievement orientation) view intelligence as something we have a

set amount of, and believe that cannot change, so they continually compare themselves to

others and must validate their intelligence continually. They are afraid of attempting

difficult tasks because they don’t want to be seen as “dumb”.

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People with an incremental, or growth mindset (also referred to as a

mastery orientation) believe that intelligence is malleable, and can increase through their

effort, and so they work hard to become smarter. They take on challenges with the

understanding that this is how they can develop their intellectual capability and problem

solving skills. Yeager & Dweck (2012) stated that these mindsets affect our reactions

and judgments about ourselves that can lead to patterns of thought, or attributions, that

reinforce either resilience or vulnerability.

Chodkiewicz & Boyle (2014) review psychologist Bernard Weiner’s attribution

theory and the influence it has on learning. Weiner argued that the reasons, or attributions

we give to our successes and our failures shape how we react to them. These attributions

occur in three areas: stability, locus of control, and controllability. These factors form

the basis of either an adaptive or maladaptive style of attribution. Chodkiewicz & Boyle

explain “an adaptive attributional style involves attributing the causes of success to

stable, controllable and internal factors (such as ability) and those of failure to unstable,

controllable and external factors (such as effort) (p.79). Thus we can see how this

adaptive style of attribution is both dependent on and fostered by a growth mindset and

positive self-efficacy beliefs.

On the other hand, “effective learning is hindered when individuals attribute

success to external, unstable and uncontrollable factors (such as luck) and failure to

internal, stable and uncontrollable factors (such as lack of ability) (p. 79). This

maladaptive pattern of attributions demonstrates how students with a fixed mindset will

perpetuate negative self-efficacy beliefs and will lose motivation to persist with

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challenging tasks. Research has shown that direct teaching of growth mindsets

(Blackwell, Trzesniewski & Dweck, 2007) and attribution retraining (Chodkiewicz &

Boyle, 2014) can impact student achievement and self-efficacy.

The third motivational theory that has a direct correlation with resilience literature

is self-determination theory. Deci and Ryan, alone and in collaboration with other

scholars, have written a formidable body of literature explaining their theory; they

describe it as “the investigation of people’s inherent growth tendencies and innate

psychological needs that are the basis for their self-motivation and personality

integration” (Deci & Ryan, 2000, p. 68). They have postulated that all humans are born

with curiosity and a desire to learn. This “intrinsic” motivation to explore and engage

with their world can either be fostered or extinguished by the contextual situations in

their lives (2000). They created a motivation continuum, with complete amotivation

(where the only motivation comes from external sources) at one end, intrinsic motivation

on the other end, and various stages of internalization in between (2009). Their research

has shown that people with more internally regulated motivation are happier, more

excited about life, more confident, have higher self esteem, perform better and have more

general well-being than people who are more externally regulated in their motivation

(2000).

They identified three basic psychological needs that are crucial for this positive

development: relatedness, competence and autonomy. People are more likely to

internalize behaviours that are not intrinsically interesting (such as applying themselves

to school work) when they are modeled by people they want to feel related to, when they

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feel efficacious about them, and when they feel they have choice and volition.

Deci and Ryan’s research into these needs in relation to education has shown that

teachers who are controlling (and therefore assume a lack of competence) create a loss of

initiative and less effective learning in their students, whereas teachers who encourage

autonomy create intrinsic motivation and a willingness to take on greater challenges

(2000). They link autonomy with a perceived internal locus of control (attribution) and

with a willingness to take on challenges (growth mindset).

Self-Regulated Learning

Self-regulated learning takes the concepts described above, self-awareness, self-

concept, self-efficacy and motivation, and embeds them in a cyclical metacognitive

process that enables students to become mindful, strategic and resilient learners. Hadwin

(in Good, 2008) defines self-regulated learning (SRL) as “the deliberate planning,

monitoring, and regulating of cognitive, behavioural, and affective or motivational

processes toward completion of an academic task” (p. 175). Many perspectives on SRL

are rooted in Bandura’s (2001) social learning theory, which postulated that humans have

a unique ability to understand and control our processes, which he called “agency”. This

agency allows us to set goals and then plan, execute, reflect on and learn from our pursuit

of them. According to Cleary & Zimmerman (2004), “self-regulation involves learners

who proactively direct their behaviour or strategies to achieve self-set goals. They also

rely on affective, cognitive, motivational, and behavioural feedback to modify or adjust

their strategies and behaviours when unable to initially attain their goals” (p. 538). As

with all the other concepts already discussed, self-regulated learning is contextual and

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individual. Social cognitive approaches stress the “triadic” nature of personal,

environmental and social factors that affect self-regulation (Bandura, 1986 in

Zimmerman, 2000), that continually change depending on home life, the task, the teacher,

the class, self-efficacy beliefs, intrinsic motivation and expected outcomes, to name a

few.

Hadwin (in Good, 2008) summarized how many researchers in the field, including

Zimmerman, Winne and Hadwin, and Pintrich, have developed recursive, cyclical models

of self-regulated learning designed to help students analyze and plan for a task, choose

appropriate learning strategies and reflect on their success. Cleary & Zimmerman (2004)

described this process as encompassing three phases: forethought (goal setting, strategic

planning, motivational beliefs), performance control (self-control, self-observation,

strategy choice and implementation, self-monitoring), and self-reflection (self-judgment,

self-reactions, causal attributions, and adaptive inferences regarding the effectiveness of

strategies used), which will then influence the forethought phase going forward.

Butler (2010) described the critical elements of this process as “specific attention

to how students adapt strategies reflectively and flexibly within recursive cycles of task

analysis, use, and monitoring” (p. 82). In Butler’s model, monitoring includes self-

monitoring and also seeking and incorporating external feedback from teachers, peers,

etc. She also stressed other key instructional goals in this process: promoting a positive

self-concept (competence), motivational beliefs (attributions, mindset), and self-efficacy

(competence and autonomy). Her emphasis on motivation is supported in a meta-analysis

of the literature on goal orientation, self-regulated learning and performance conducted

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by Cellar, Stuhlmacher, Young, Fisher, Adair, Haynes, Twichell, Arnold,

Royer, Denning and Riester (2011), which determined that a mastery goal orientation

“influences the frequency of self-monitoring, self-evaluation, self-efficacy and more

positive self-reactions” (p. 478).

Building on a socio-constructivist model of SRL, Butler designed a program

called Strategic Content Learning (SCL), and has applied it in both post secondary and

secondary school environments with positive results (2003). In seven studies at the post

secondary level, her data showed improvement in “students’ task performance;

metacognitive knowledge about tasks, strategies, and self-monitoring; perceptions of self-

efficacy” and in “patterns of attributions strategies that addressed their individual needs.

They were also observed to take an active role in strategy development and to transfer

strategic performance across contexts and tasks” (p. 50). In a two-year study in a

secondary school setting, students supported by teachers drawing on SCL principles were

shown to have similar outcomes: “at all-schools meetings and in exit interviews, teachers

reported observing gains for students in terms of their (a) independence and self-

directedness; (b) self-confidence, pride, and sense of control over learning; and (c)

awareness of the value of their individualized learning strategies to their academic

success” (p. 53).

It is clear that we can create more resilient and successful students by enabling

them to become more self-aware and to have a realistic concept of their abilities, by

promoting a growth mindset, appropriate attributions and self-determination, and by

involving students in the recursive cycle of self-regulated learning.

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The IEP Connection

When I was given the task of creating a new IEP process and program for our

school, I realized that this was an opportunity to increase student engagement,

motivation, agency and self-regulation by having students become more involved in their

IEPs. As seen above, goal setting and reflection are integral to resilience as they increase

feelings of self-efficacy, provide motivation and are essential to self-regulation. While

there is research regarding students participating in IEP team meetings, there is very little

research on students making contributions to their IEPs in the form of goals.

There is a large body of literature on how increased student participation in IEP

meetings and the transitions process increases self-determination. For example, Agran

and Hughes (2008) described the behaviour of self-determined students and it sounds

very much like self-regulation; they “make choices, act on those choices, experience the

results, and then make new choices” (p. 69). They go on to describe autonomous, self-

regulated and problem solving behaviours. Their study on students’ opinions of their

IEPs concluded that very few students were being given the chance to have input in IEP

development, which “negates their active and motivated involvement in their

development and learning” (p. 74).

Martin, Van Dyke, Christensen, Greene, Gardner and Lovett (2006) conducted

research that measured the increase in self-determined behaviours in students who had

been given instruction in the Self-Directed IEP (Martin et. al., 1997) instructional

program. When compared to a control group, students who had received instruction in

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how to lead their IEP meetings showed significant gains in both starting, leading

and participating in their meetings. Students also reported “significantly higher positive

perceptions of their IEP meetings” (p. 313).

In 2010, Bernard and Lechtenberger conducted a groundbreaking study to

determine if there was a link between IEP participation and academic

achievement. Using the data collected from the Special Education Elementary

Longitudinal Study (SEELS, 2005), they concluded that there was a “significant positive

association between IEP participation and academic achievement” (p. 346).

Unfortunately, as stated above, the nature of our school and the IEP process

prohibits physical IEP meetings, and therefore student led meetings. Instead, I decided to

have students contribute a goal to their own IEP and use the self-regulation cycle to see if

it would increase self-determination and feelings of autonomy.

An initial search of the literature showed there was very little peer reviewed

research on student contributions to the IEP. In fact, I only found one PhD thesis that

contained aspects of my enquiry. Kunsch (2010) conducted a study with four middle

school students with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Her enquiry focused on whether self-

monitoring certain behaviours (calling out, time spent on task, organizational skills and

asking for help) would increase goal attainment. Results of the study were

inconclusive. According to Kunsch, results were “highly variable across participants and

within participants. All participants experienced some improvement in their target

behaviors, but a functional relationship was established for only one participant” (p.

73). She was originally planning on having students create their own goals to increase

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student engagement, but as this was not possible, she chose a behaviour related

goal from the IEP. Stated limitations of the study include possible negative motivational

effects rising from this lack of choice. As discussed above, motivation is an essential

component in studies linking self-regulated learning, self-efficacy, resilience and student

achievement. The outcome of this study reinforced the importance of having students

create their own goals to give them ownership and autonomy in the process.

My enquiry will explore what I can observe from having students contribute their

own goals to their IEPs; will I see steps towards self-awareness, self-efficacy, increased

motivation and self-regulated learning, ultimately resulting in greater resilience,

depending on student’s individual circumstances? What can I learn from the literature

and from implementing the project to inform my own practice and that of the school as a

whole?

The Project: Vision vs. Reality

The original vision was that in September a short survey would go out to the

students to give a baseline about how much the students knew and understood about their

IEP and its function in their education. Then the tutoring department would deliver a

lesson about creating SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time

bound), and the entire student body would create a goal with their tutors, in a multi

sensory way, which would appeal to them and provide engagement and motivation. To

ensure student autonomy and self-direction, there were to be no qualifications around the

type of goal a student could set, and it could be academic or personal. Then the students

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would enter their goal, objectives and strategies into a special student tab on the

IEP itself and upload pictures of their multi-sensory goal, with the objective of giving

them more ownership of their IEP. There would be an area on this student tab where they

could revisit their goals each term and reflect on them—what worked, what didn’t—and

revise their goal throughout the year, building self-regulated learning and creating more

self-awareness and self-efficacy.

Within this timeline I would have two sets of reflections to examine to see if the

process was having the effect I was hoping it would have. I would interview a selection

of students to get qualitative comments about their feelings and thoughts about having

their own area on the IEP and I would also have the feedback of the tutors who were

going through the process with the students to correlate with student feedback. This

seemed achievable when I was planning it in the summer. Then real life happened.

When I started this project I had no idea how complicated it would end up

being. Developing an entirely new product from the ground up was turbulent at best. It

was great to have input on how the IEP would function so it was tailored to our own

needs, but there were three issues that were outside of my control. The first revolved

around getting the IEP built and working. What actually happened was that the IEPs

were not ready for teacher input until later than we had anticipated and we barely had

time to get our own goals done in time for review and a Ministry accreditation visit at the

end of October.

In November we were unable to do goal setting with the students because

benchmark testing was being conducted through tutoring and took approximately three

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weeks to finish. The second issue was that the IEP was only one part of the new

School Information System (SIS) being customized, and many things not deemed

“essential” were tabled until a later date to make way for other areas that needed

attention. Once IEP essentials were in place, reports cards were due, so the student goal

section was put on the back burner so the company could build our reporting section. I

revised my plan and we settled on doing the goal setting in January when we returned

from break. My colleague in charge of the SIS assured me that the student goal section

would be complete by then.

When we returned to school in January it was still not done, and he wasn’t getting

any communications from them about when it would be ready. Two weeks after the goal

setting had occurred, I was informed they would not have the student tab ready. And so I

began to revise again. If I couldn’t implement the idea school wide (yet), what could I do

to create a “pilot project” that would come as close to the original idea as possible? It

was certainly a test of my own resilience!

The reality of the project occurred as follows. We went ahead with multi-sensory

goal setting in January with the whole school. As mentioned above, students were

encouraged to create goals in their own way and had autonomy in choosing the type of

goal they would like to add. Many students chose academic goals as they had just

received their first term report cards. We created bulletin boards on the tutoring floor with

the intention of fostering a community of goal setting in accordance with self-

determination theory and the concept of relatedness, modeling goal setting and making it

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an integral part of the school. Examples of the goals created by the students and

the goal board are included below:

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Then I chose one class that I teach myself to be part of the pilot project

so I would have access to them and be able to use some class time to do surveys, conduct

interviews and talk to them during the process. To still provide the experience of

entering a goal into their IEPs, I decided to have them enter their goals into the teacher

area where we add our goals. Though not ideal, I hoped that it would still mean

something to them to see their name on the document. I chose my grade 11 class simply

because they are the only class I have that doesn’t have a provincial exam, so I have more

time to play with. There are seven students in the class, six boys and one girl. They are a

higher functioning class, despite being at our school because of a variety of learning

disabilities such as disorders of reading and written expression, disorders not otherwise

specified (working memory and processing speed) central auditory processing disorder,

and various combinations of ADHD and ADD (inattentive, combined-type, unspecified

type). To compensate somewhat for the loss of motivation I felt was inevitable because

the student goal tab was not ready yet, I explained to them what a pilot program was and

explained that the intention in the future is for them to have their own goal area. We

defined and looked at examples of “early adopters,” and I asked if they would be early

adopters by allowing me to track their thoughts during and after the process. I explained

that their feedback would shape how we will be doing things in following years. I

assured them their feedback would be anonymous, and I would value anything they had

to say whether positive or negative to attempt to mitigate any response bias.

About five years ago we established a procedure for students to review their IEP

annually with their tutors with the express purpose of building self-awareness. I was

RESILIENCE 25

hoping they would have a general knowledge of the components of the IEP:

cognitive scores and diagnoses, strengths and weaknesses, accommodations and goals. I

wanted to establish a baseline for myself of what they currently understand about these

components. To do so I asked them two simple questions. The first was “What do you

think about your IEP?” The second was “Do you think your IEP is useful to you?”

The responses were interesting to read. Only one student mentioned that it is a

legal document. Another recognized that it would be with her forever. The component of

the IEP that received the most comments was the accommodations section. Most of the

student comments revolved around the accommodations they receive and how important

this is for them to be successful in school and moving on into post secondary. Only one

of them mentioned their “percentiles,” the cognitive scores from the WISC as being what

qualified them for their accommodations. Several mentioned that it documented their

strengths and weaknesses, and one student commented that it showed her weakness and

strengths for current and future teachers “to better understand who I am as a

student.” Another student commented that the IEP documented strengths and

weaknesses, but also contained potential ideas and tools to help him succeed. I was

pleased to see this knowledge in play; we have done a good job in explaining this to our

students and teaching them self-advocacy around their accommodations.

It was interesting to note that none of them recalled the teacher’s goals for them

except one student who had a goal that he disagreed with. His unhappiness reinforced the

idea that students can feel that their education is something that is done to them, and not

with them, and this lack of autonomy can be detrimental to student motivation and

RESILIENCE 26

involvement in their IEPs. I noted this comment for future growth—how can

we make this more meaningful? Where can we build in time for teachers to discuss their

goals with the students? I will present this question to the IEP team at our next meeting to

brainstorm some ideas to implement this idea.

The next step was to meet with the tutors of my students to ask their help in

entering the goals into the IEP system. I gave them similar guidelines about how to

introduce and accomplish the task, taking care to address bias and avoiding leading

questions, and brainstormed lesson plans with them that addressed the unique learning

styles of their particular students. I felt that the tutors should deliver this in their own

way so the process would be natural and organic, rather than “scripted.” I also asked

them to take notes on any reactions or questions the students had.

The feedback from them was good. They felt that the students took their time and were

thoughtful about the goals they created; they took it seriously and were engaged in the

process. Most of the tutors got the goals entered by the beginning of February, but one

tutor did not, and then her students were both away sick for more that a week, so their

goals did not get entered into the system until February 16th, three weeks before the first

reflection date, set for March 9th. Again, this was not ideal, but when we finally did get

them entered and the students saw their names there with the teacher’s names they

appeared to be both pleased and proud. I have included a sample of goals entered into the

teacher area of the IEP below:

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Tutors then helped students track their goals, again using a variety of methods suited to

the learning style of the student. Here are examples of a checklists created by the

students and the tutors:

Term 2 Goals To hand assignments in on time. Practice using Dragonspeak once a term.

Week 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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Check email and calendar at 5:30 pm. every day.

Week 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Check with every teacher once a week to make sure everything is up-to-date.

Week 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Check goals every Friday with tutor.

Week 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Two weeks later the Student Goal Area was added to the IEP, just in time for the

students to review their progress. It was not perfect; it had grammar errors and the

uploaded picture of the student’s multisensory goal was only there as an attachment, not

as a picture as we had hoped. The goal appeared on the front page, which we didn’t

RESILIENCE 29

want. We put in tickets to have these areas fixed but went ahead with using the

tab so that the rest of the student body got to have the experience of seeing their own

goals on the document. The tab looks like this on the goals page of the IEP:

Once opened, this is the student view:

Note that the third area should read, “What do I need TO get there,” and should include

the word “strategies” in brackets. The fifth area that reads “Attachment” is where the

picture of the student’s goal is uploaded.

One week later we started the assessment of and reflection on the goals. I wanted

to ensure that students were assessing their progress with a growth mindset. I was

concerned that students may feel a lack of self-efficacy if they were not achieving their

goals. The head of Learning Services and myself collaborated on an email that was sent

to all tutors with general guidelines for the review process that read as follows: Please go

RESILIENCE 30

over the following guiding questions to help your student reflect on the their

goals. This information can then be entered into the student goal section on the IEP.

(Most students can do this themselves). Please have them only enter the relevant

information. We want the answers to be in the student’s words so that they take

ownership of their learning by having input into their own IEP. Kindly complete this

activity before we go for Spring break.

Student SMART goal reflection:

1. Review your SMART goal 2. Was it achievable? 3. If yes, what strategies did you use to achieve it? 4. If no, what changes could you make to make easier to achieve? For this question got through the SMART acronym with your student. 5. How did the process of setting a goal help your learning? 6. In what other areas of your life could you set goals?

Here is an example of a goal assessment generated from the general student body:

To reinforce this growth mindset message, I met once more with the tutors of my pilot

students and asked them to highlight the learning potential of the review process. The

RESILIENCE 31

focus of the review was to look at the goal, the objectives and the strategies and

try to objectively evaluate their effectiveness. If the student was on the way to meeting

their goal, what was working for them in the process? Did they find an effective strategy

or monitoring tool that helped them achieve their goal? If the student was not meeting

their goal, what was not working for them? Were the goal and/or the objectives too

broad? Were the strategies ineffective and if so, what new strategies could they try? Did

their monitoring tool work for them or could they find a better way to track their

achievement? Once they analyzed their goals in this way they were asked to utilize this

knowledge to assess their progress and begin the cycle of self-regulated learning. Here is

an example of a finished goal assessment from my pilot group:

Out of the seven, two fully met their goals, four partially met them and one did

not. The one who did not was able to evaluate his goal and came to the realization that it

had not been achievable and that he had learned the importance of that particular piece of

RESILIENCE 32

the SMART acronym. The ones who partially met their goals were able to

reflect on their strategies and evaluate why they were effective or not and suggest other

strategies they might use. They all stated that they were continuing with their goals for

term three with their adjusted strategies. The one who met their goals also wanted to

continue and set a new goal for term three, even when this was not “required”. Many of

the assessments from the rest of the student body also provided displayed the same

determination to continue with goal setting.

RESILIENCE 33

Discussion

Motivation is reinforced when students feel that their voice is heard and respected, and when they feel they have some control over what transpires in their lives (Brooks, 2014, p. 9).

The driving question behind my Master’s program and ultimately this project was

why some students with LDs are able to overcome negative experiences and move on to

become successful adult and some do not. A review of the literature showed that there

are environmental and dispositional characteristics that have been identified as

“protective factors” (Bernard, 1998). These factors allow individuals to respond to their

environment in a positive way, even when facing failure or obstacles. To examine these

factors more closely I broke them down into components from various bodies of research

to examine how they could be incorporated into student goal setting and allowing

students to contribute to their own IEPs.

The factors that I chose because they were highlighted for LD students include

self-awareness, changing self-perceptions, motivation, emphasizing autonomy, and

building a cycle of self-regulated learning. After interviewing my pilot group and

reading the goal assessments done by the general student body I feel that I observed many

of these resilience factors in action. By examining some examples of the relationships

between the literature and these reflections, I am hoping that I can inform and revise both

my personal teaching practice and the IEP student goal project going forward.

RESILIENCE 34

Self-Concept, Self-Awareness and Self-Efficacy

Research in this area showed that academic self-concept is crucial to success in

school for LD students. According to Elbaum & Vaughn (2001), negative academic self-

concept affects performance in school, motivation to persevere, and future life

outcomes. To create a more positive self-concept, students must have a realistic view of

the strengths and weaknesses in their unique learning profiles so they can capitalize on

their areas of strength and develop effective strategies to assist them in their areas of

weakness (Butler in Wong, 2004).

I was pleased to see that most of the students involved in my pilot project

demonstrated a high level of self-awareness about their LDs. This showed me that our

yearly IEP review is working, and has enabled our students to discuss their strengths and

weaknesses openly both individually with me and as a group. I have always included

frank discussions of this kind in my classroom, and find it is one of the most valuable

ways for students to “normalize” their LD by showing them that everyone in the class

struggles with some form of learning. Adding the goal-setting piece to this discussion in

the class was valuable; I observed students having conversations about their goals and

what strategies were working for them, and also making recommendations to each other

about trying particular strategies. I observed more confidence and self-efficacy arise from

these conversations as the students were able to take on the role of expert and advise each

other. This was a great result and I will definitely incorporate this into the class culture I

create through these frank discussions next year.

RESILIENCE 35

When I reviewed the goal assessments I saw many comments that

demonstrated a positive tone that I associated with more self-confidence. One example

from the general population was a middle school student who had a goal to learn three

new vocabulary words every week and to include them in his written work. This student

was enthusiastic about meeting his goal, seemed to make a connection between how

applying his goal had a positive effect on his English mark, and wanted to continue with

the goal in term three of his own volition. Another student from my pilot group had a

goal to improve his English mark by expanding his writing with more detail, analysis and

examples. I observed a change in the way he tackled his writing as we started our unit on

producing a 1500 word research paper, a task that he did not think he could accomplish. I

was pleased to see that he raised his English mark by 10% (which was independently

marked to avoid bias). I also observed a change in this student’s behaviour in class. He

is usually very quiet and shy about speaking in class, and he volunteered to read a large

part in the Shakespeare unit we just started, something he would not have done before. Is

it possible that these two things are related? My feeling is that the confidence he gained

through his success made him more confident in contributing to the class. This is another

area to monitor next year.

These two students stood out for me as examples of how the goal setting process

could possibly contribute to feelings of self-efficacy. If we can help students to link their

goal directed behaviour to positive outcomes in achievement, it could result in a more

positive self-concept, both in academics and in other areas. These examples also give me

RESILIENCE 36

confidence to recommend to the school as a whole that we incorporate this into

our practice going forward.

On the other hand, I observed that some students who did not achieve their goal

seemed to be able to use the metacognitive aspect of assessment to enhance their self-

knowledge. For example, a student had a goal to improve her mark in science, and had

chosen the strategies of going to flex block for extra support from the teacher, creating

study materials and reviewing them more before tests and quizzes. Barriers to achieving

her goal revolved around being unable to do those things as often as she had intended due

to being involved in the school play. She was unable to attend flex block as much as she

had hoped to, and time for review was eaten up with learning her lines. She transferred

her goal to term three, when the play is finished. I felt that her assessment showed a step

towards understanding what she was able to accomplish in a certain time frame, thus

improving her self-knowledge. If she can learn from this experience she may be more

aware of outside factors that impact her achievement and take this into account when

setting goals in the future. This reinforced for me how important reflection is in the

attainment of resilience.

Another student had created a goal to focus for at least half of the day. I observed

that he partially achieved this, and his reflection revealed that he had not put as much

effort into it as he could have. My interpretation of this is that he became more aware

that focusing is a choice and that he doesn’t always make that choice. I noted that he had

added a strategy to his original goal to use headphones during work times so his

classmates do not distract him, which led me to believe that he had gained more insight

RESILIENCE 37

into why he lost focus at certain times. I felt that this was a crucial step for

him. If he can use this self-knowledge to first identify what kinds of choices he is

making and then to alter them, he will be able to self-monitor and self-regulate his

attention more.

These examples were very helpful to me because they reinforced my idea that a

positive framing of the goal assessments was crucial when dealing with students who had

not achieved their goal to ensure they were not discouraged by it. The questions we

developed for the tutors to guide them in helping their students to evaluate the process

were crucial to ensure that students became more self aware in a positive way, and to

keep the students from attaching negative attributions when they did not attain their

goal. I will use these guiding questions to develop more in depth training materials for

next year’s goal setting.

Motivation

Goal setting and motivation go hand in hand. As the literature indicates, goal

setting can help students develop a growth, or incremental mindset (Dweck,

2000). People with a growth mindset believe that intelligence is malleable and can be

increased through effort; working hard to attain a goal can reinforce this mindset. When I

first learned about this theory I thought it was far too simplistic, but applying it in this

project really highlighted for me the power mindsets can have. My student who

increased his English mark by ten percent consciously put more effort into adding detail

and examples into his written work. It was amazing to watch his growth. It will be

RESILIENCE 38

interesting to track his progress next year to see if by working together we can

ingrain a mindset shift that not only applies to his writing but can also be generalized to

other situations.

Another example of the power of mindsets at work was a student whose goal was

to hand in homework on time. She chose two strategies; going to flex block with her

teachers on a rotating basis each week, and finishing her homework when she got home

before watching TV. She seemed to associate the effort she expended with a better

homework record and a better understanding of the material to be learned, which then

resulted in a higher grade. The exciting thing for me about her reflection was the insight

she gained about how to improve her understanding and confidence with the course

content. Her focus was not on the improved grade (fixed mindset), but on how her effort

resulted in a growth in her knowledge.

These student examples also demonstrated to me that my ideas about the

connections between mindsets, attributional style and self-efficacy are important to

highlight as we move forward. I observed that these students learned that their success

did not depend on their lack of ability, but in fact could be attributed to how much effort

they expended. These adaptive attributional shifts could help them to reinforce a growth

mindset and give them motivation to continue with this level of effort. If we can help

these students to continue in this positive cycle, I believe that their feelings of self-

efficacy will continue to increase. Once I finish my degree I envision creating a series of

professional development seminars to introduce these motivational concepts to our staff

RESILIENCE 39

and to support them in modeling and teaching growth mindsets and adaptive

attributions in all areas of school life.

Adopting a growth mindset and changing attributions are initial steps in creating

the internalization of motivation that is central to self-determination theory (Deci &

Ryan, 2000, 2009). In order for people to associate with and internalize motivation to

complete tasks, such as schoolwork, that do not hold intrinsic motivation for them, three

basic psychological needs must be met: relatedness, competence and autonomy. A good

example of this theory manifesting in practice was illustrated by a severely dyslexic grade

five student who set a goal to read a chapter book. Reading is a very difficult task for

her, but I observed from her reflection that she had support from her tutor and her parents

that led to a successful outcome. She read three pages a day with her tutor in class and

three pages at home with her mother, alternating turns to read. It is possible that the

value placed on this behaviour created a feeling of relatedness with her tutor and her

family when reading, which motivated her to continue with it.

It seemed to me that this also helped her with her feelings of competence. Instead

of reading one book, she continued on to finish three more, which could be interpreted as

a growing self-confidence and increased internalization of the goal. The student chose

the books she wanted to read, which ensured she experienced autonomy and agency. By

going through the goal setting process she progressed from being primarily externally

motivated to read because she had to for school to becoming intrinsically motivated to

read for the joy of it.

RESILIENCE 40

The need for relatedness is often the spur for people to internalize

behaviours they are not intrinsically motivated to do, because individuals, peers, or

societal groups they want to be connected with value these behaviours. Upon reflection, I

feel that creating a goal oriented culture within the school and valuing it by having the

goal boards prominently displayed contributed to feelings of relatedness, as did openly

discussing goals with students. I feel that this will grow as we continue with student goal

setting an it becomes part of what we do every semester. A note for future growth in this

area would be to engage parents in the value of supporting this at home. I could include

relevant articles and items in the school newsletter and offer a parent presentation on

what we are doing and how they can increase motivation and goal setting at home.

Feeling competent when engaging in behaviours that are not intrinsically

motivated is also crucial to internalizing motivation; this links with the concept of self-

efficacy and the confidence to succeed in a task. Our school uses the Orton-Gillingham

method of language tutoring, and the key tenet in this program is to start at a place where

the student can be successful and go from there. Using the vehicle of the IEP to set and

reach achievable goals gives the students the opportunity to increase their feelings of

competence. The gains shown by my student with the research paper and my

observations of comments from other students who had reached their goal demonstrated

once again how crucial feeling competent is. I have learned that choosing to do this

through the IEP has focused the growth in competence in the areas of greatest weakness

for the students, and having success in these crucial areas should continue to be the focus

going forward.

RESILIENCE 41

Feeling autonomous is also a critical element in internalizing motivation.

Choosing to engage in an activity or behaviour means that you understand why you are

engaging in it and understand its worth to you. This project was based in the idea that

giving students autonomy to choose a goal for themselves could have a beneficial effect

in their own self-determination. Observing how students reacted to being able to choose

during this process was both enlightening and celebratory. In many cases I observed

increased motivation when working on a goal of choice as opposed to a teacher set

goal. I feel that incorporating the key tenets of self-determination theory was critical for

the success of this project. These observations have convinced myself, other faculty and

administration that this project should be implemented as policy in the school.

Self-Regulated Learning

Self-regulated learning combines self-awareness, planning and goal setting,

strategic choices, motivation and reflection in a cyclical and metacognitive process to

successfully complete academic tasks or regulate behaviours that support academic

success. When setting SMART goals, students had to engage in task analysis and

planning by breaking down their goal into smaller objectives and choosing strategies and

identifying tools they would need to achieve it. They engaged in self-observation, self-

monitoring and metacognition while implementing their strategies and working on their

goals. They reflected on the effectiveness of their tools and strategies when they assessed

their progress, came to conclusions about their effectiveness and made causal attributions

about why they had the outcomes they did.

RESILIENCE 42

One of the most crucial elements of self-regulated learning is to use

these conclusions to then inform the planning phase going forward. Due to technical

problems and time constraints I was unable to move the project into a second phase of

goal setting. Nevertheless, I was able to observe instances of students evaluating their

strategies, deciding which ones they would use again and which ones they would

abandon as not effective, and to observe that many students were continuing with their

goals of their own volition. For example, one of my pilot students chose to set reminders

for himself on his iPad to remind him to check his agenda for homework that needed to

be completed that night. I noted from his assessment that this did not work for him

because he forgot to set them or he did not always hear the alarm when it went

off. Instead he changed his strategy and set an alarm clock at home to go off at 5:30

every day. It was good to observe that this student was able to reflect on the

effectiveness of his strategy and is continuing to use it.

Another example was from an elementary student with a goal of paying attention

to instructions in class. He had a strategy of asking his teacher to put a smiley face in his

agenda. Through reading his assessment I could see that he thought he was better at

paying attention, but had lost track of his smiley faces because he kept forgetting to ask

his teacher to circle them. He changed his strategy to having a smiley face calendar on

his desk to remind him to ask the teacher daily. He is also continuing with his goal in

term three. My interpretation of these examples is that these students were taking steps

to becoming more self-regulated through using metacognition to evaluate their strategies

and replace them if needed. These examples highlighted for me the importance of

RESILIENCE 43

reflection in this process and the need to build in several check in points

throughout the year to create opportunities for evaluating strategies, building

metacognition and increasing self-regulated learning in our students. Did evaluating and

refining their strategies give them the internal motivation to continue with their goals

after the “required” time frame? Have these students moved into another cycle of

regulation autonomously? Only time will tell, and I look forward to seeing what gains

the students make next year.

The IEP Connection

The questions that connected resilience attributes to Individual Education Plans

revolved around research from transitions literature that showed that students who were

trained to be involved in their IEP meetings showed gains in self-determination and self

efficacy when participating in those meetings. So in an environment where there are no

IEP meetings, what could I learn from having students add their own personal goal to that

document? Once my group of seven students had reflected on and assessed their goals I

asked them about the experience of goal setting and of contributing to their own IEPs. I

conducted a brief personal interview with them to collect their feedback. I once again

asked two questions. The first was “How did you feel about the goal setting process in

general?” The feedback I received reinforced in my mind the benefits of goal setting. I

observed a positive tone in both the written reflections and the interviews. I was able to

identify a few common themes in the responses. The first was that setting goals for

themselves seemed to be useful, whether they met the goal or not. The second was that I

observed them making an association between how writing their goals down made them

RESILIENCE 44

more concrete, helped put into perspective what they wanted to achieve, and

allowed them to focus more on the steps to get there.

The second question was “How did you feel about having your goal on your

IEP?” The feedback here was also positive about setting goals themselves rather than

have others do it for them. The autonomy to choose for themselves seemed to be

associated with having more input into their own education, and with an increased sense

of ownership in their learning.

An interesting point arose from this question that I had not considered

beforehand. This revolved around having teachers being able to observe the goals. For

some, having teachers check in with them and remind them almost became a strategy in

itself to help them keep on track. There seemed to be a shift towards a feeling of

partnership, allowing more discussion and making it easier to ask for help. I also saw a

down side to this, as having the goals made public could also result in feelings of pressure

and embarrassment. This gave me pause, because this could backfire on a student who is

non-resilient and contribute to a negative self-concept if not framed correctly. It will be

important to carry on with training both staff and students in growth mindsets to avoid

any negative impact.

Other points of interest I am taking away from the interviews are

recommendations to start earlier in the year and to include more discussion between

students and teachers about both the teacher created goals and the student goals. I believe

that these will be the next crucial steps to make the process more authentic for everyone

involved. If teachers and students can discuss the outcomes they are looking for it will

RESILIENCE 45

allow students to become more involved in all of the goals, giving them more

responsibility and autonomy. Another point of interest was that I observed a growing

appreciation for how much work went into the IEPs and the value they could have when

transitioning to post secondary or employment, and an enthusiasm to continue with

contributing to their IEPs in the future.

Overall, I believe that this was a good first step to give student’s more ownership

and autonomy, but it was only a step.

Next Steps

After reviewing the results of this enquiry we started a team to work on

incorporating the feedback from the students into our plans for next year. We had

intended to have the goal setting occur earlier in the year, and will do so going

forward. We are currently working on how to incorporate an IEP day into the fall

semester where teachers can meet with their students to discuss the teacher’s goal one on

one, thereby allowing for student input about strategies that work for them and creating

more communication, partnership and self-regulation for the student. Student goal setting

will be planned immediately after this so students have had input that could help them

formulate their own goal based on their learning profile and level of skill development.

Then we will have another IEP day where students will meet with their teachers to review

their goals and discuss methods of support and strategies to attain them.

We are discussing professional development sessions for staff on motivation,

goal setting and self-regulated learning to increase staff engagement and skills in working

RESILIENCE 46

with the students on their goals. I will lead the team to create these materials

based on the feedback from this project. Parent understanding, support and partnership in

supporting and modeling these ideas have also become a priority that was sparked by the

implementation of this project. We began with a parent education night in February on

the topic of resilience that was the best-attended parent event in recent memory.

We are also discussing using this process as a platform for a student led parent

teacher conference at the end of the year; this could take the form of a portfolio

presentation where students can share their work with their parents and express what they

have learned, how their skills have developed and how they accomplished that, which

will build in more reflection and highlight competence, relatedness and autonomy.

This project has been an amazing learning experience that has helped the school

develop a large section of our strategic plan and will be the basis for implementing

professional development, parent education and initiatives to increase student

involvement and ownership in their learning. I feel that it has strengthened the

connection for all stakeholders between the IEP and resilience factors to help our students

to become successful both in school and in their future lives. It has also strengthened my

conviction that we are truly aligned with our mission statement and are “Changing

destiny by changing minds”.

RESILIENCE 47

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