Module 3: Inclusive and Competency-based Individual Education Plans

Using the TEAM Approach to Create I & CB IEP Goals, Objectives and Strategies

The following example illustrates the process of using the TEAM approach to develop meaningful IEP objectives.

Case Example: Alice

Let’s meet Alice, a Grade 9 student with complex needs:

  • Loves being with other kids her age
  • Has a good friend Keesha
  • High school student replacement goals
  • Receives essential supports
  • Loves Marvel's "The Avengers"
  • Uses a wheelchair to get around
  • Uses pointing and gestures to communicate

Transdisciplinary

The Team approach starts with knowing the student well. Getting to know Alice is a process of connecting with Alice, her family, her educational team, and reading through the assessments in Alice’s educational file. In this particular example, Alice’s interest in the Avengers will be key to developing her IEP goal and objective.

Educational

Alice’s learning support teacher connects with her socials teacher to find out about what he was teaching in order to identify the educational goals for Alice. For Grade 9 socials, he selected the Big Idea: How disparities in power alter the balance of relationships between individuals and between societies. To address this Big Idea, he chose to start with a review of “feudalism” that they had learned about in Grade 8.

Activity-Based

Knowing Alice’s interests, in particular her love of the Avengers, the teacher (also an Avengers fan) decides to study how disparities of power alter the balance of relationships by discussing hierarchies of power among the Avengers and link that to discussing power imbalances in feudalism. Alice’s replacement curricular goal and objective became:

Alice can demonstrate that she knows that people who have the most power often make the decisions…by pointing to who has the most power and who is the boss among the Avengers.

Selecting a replacement goal that is part of the Big Idea means Alice’s learning activity is curriculum based, tailored to her strengths, is worked on in her classroom, and she actively participates with her classmates to learn the same curriculum.

Meaningful

Each part of the TEAM approach must be meaningful. Just like intention is the glue for IO’s four principles of inclusion, meaningful is the glue of the TEAM approach. There are multiple ways to ensure this:

  • Knowing what interests, motivates, and engages Alice
  • Using assessments to identify Alice’s strengths and needs
  • Connecting with members of the educational team to collaborate
  • Choosing Big Ideas that will translate into meaningful replacement goals
  • Picking curriculum that can weave educational and therapy goals
  • Picking learning objectives where Alice is actively participating in the same environment as her classmates
  • Placing the learning in the context of meaningful routines
  • Providing all necessary supports to make the objective achievable
  • Evaluating the meaningfulness by checking in with Alice and the people who know her best

Alice’s Curricular Goal, including the Big Idea, the Curricular IEP Goal, the objective, and Instructional Strategies are captured in the following chart.

Curricular Goals

Learning/Subject Area Social Studies Type of Goal Replacement Teacher/Support Staff Name
Inclusive Big Idea Disparities in power alter the balance of relationships between individuals and between societies
Curricular IEP, Goal 1 Alice can demonstrate that she knows that people who have the most power often make the decisions
Objective 1A By pointing to which Avenger has the most power and is the boss among the Avengers
Instructional Strategies Watch the movie, “Captain America: Civil War.” Alice will list the Avengers and describe their power. She will identify who the boss is.