Self-Determination in Teacher Education

Although best practices recommend that transition plans from school to adult life for students with disabilities be developed based on student preferences and interests, evidence from student transition planning meetings has demonstrated that students are not involved in or even present for many of these meetings. One hypothesis for this occurrence was that teacher preparation programs had not included instruction in this area for the majority of special educators. Results of a survey of faculty members at institutions of higher education supported this hypothesis. The authors developed a course on transition planning that uses best-practice recommendations from teacher preparation literature to ensure that special educators obtain the skills, knowledge, and dispositions necessary to support the development of self-determination skills in the students they teach.