Online Professional Development

Lumos Readability Report

IRIS Center- The IRIS Center is a national center dedicated to improving education outcomes for all children, especially those with disabilities birth through age twenty-one, through the use of effective evidence-based practices and interventions. The modules below are all free, but will require you to register and create an account before you begin.

• Secondary Transition: Student-Centered Transition Planning - This module will help users to better understand the benefits of student-centered transition planning, identify ways to involve students in collecting assessment information and developing goals, and be able to prepare students to actively participate in their own IEP meetings (2 hours).
• Secondary Transition: Interagency Collaboration - This module defines and discusses the purpose of interagency collaboration and addresses the importance of partnering with agencies to improve outcomes for students with disabilities who are transitioning from high school (2 hours).
• Secondary Transition: Helping Students with Disabilities Plan for Post-High School Settings - This module focuses on the transition process from high school to post-secondary settings. Among other topics, it discusses IEP planning, engaging students in the process so as to become better advocates for their own needs, and the importance of outside agencies such as vocational rehabilitation (1 hour).

 

TransitionTN -TransitionTN is a partnership among the Tennessee Department of Education, Tennessee Department of Human Services, Vanderbilt University, and the Vanderbilt Kennedy UCEDD. The courses below are free, but will require you to register and create an account before you begin.

• Guiding Principles - This course introduces the guiding principles of transition. These core values serve as the foundation for effective transition processes and will guide assessment, planning, goal development, and implementation of services and supports to help students achieve their goals for adulthood.
• Addressing Transition in the IEP - This course introduces the topic of developing a high-quality transition plan. A meaningful transition plan serves as the cornerstone of the transition planning process, and builds the students' post school success.
• Pathways to Employment - This course introduces evidence-based techniques to increase employment outcomes for people with disabilities. It includes resources for teacher to integrate career education into the classroom or a community-based setting.
• Pathways to Community Life - This course will introduce tools and strategies to prepare students to live and navigate life after high school as independently as possible.
• Pathways to Self-determination - This course will help you learn how to help students find their own voice and forge a path to success. It will also help educators learn how to integrate practical skill-building strategies into everyday activities.

 

Transition Coalition - The Transition Coalition, located at the University of Kansas, Beach Center on Disability, has been maximizing professional development opportunities for secondary transition and college and career readiness of youth with disabilities. The modules below are free, but will require you to register and create an account before you begin.

• Best Practices in Planning for Transition - This module will provide an overview of the transition requirements of IDEA and best practices in transition planning.
• Working with Families - This module will help you explore some of the unique strengths and challenges encountered when working with families and use a framework for supporting collaboration, and increasing mutual understanding in parent-professional partnerships.
• Enhancing Employment Outcomes - This module will provide an overview of career development as a critical aspect of vocational training and employment experiences for students with disabilities.
• Secondary Transition and Cultural Diversity - This module will provide information and activities on how culture influences people and systems, and how the differences in values and perceptions of disability can affect families' access to services.
• The Essentials of Self-determination - This module will help you gain general knowledge of self-determination and a framework for providing self-determination instruction to students.
• Strategies for School Completion - This module will help you learn about the significance of completing high school and learn strategies and community-wide approaches that promote school completion.
• Work-based Learning 101 - This module will help you learn the why, what, when, and how of a quality work-based learning program.
• Interagency Collaboration: The Groundwork - This module provides you with information, examples, strategies and tools to increase interagency collaboration and to build or strengthen your interagency team.