What’s In Your Future? Robin Bills, School Psychologist West Valley High School Cottonwood, California

Special Education Transition--Robin Bills, West Valley High School What’s in Your Future? My name is Robin Bills; I am school psychologist My name is Robin Bills; I am school psychologist for West Valley High School in Cottonwood, CA. This lesson is designed to help 11th and 12th grade special education students successfully transition to the post-high school world. Students will research interests, occupations, and community resources. for West Valley High School in Cottonwood, CA. This lesson is designed to help 11th and 12th grade special education students successfully transition to the post-high school world. Students will research interests, occupations, and community resources. Y My student web site: Y My teacher web site: index.html Y My address:

Special Education Transition--Robin Bills, West Valley High School What’s in Your Future? EXPECTATIONS  Learn to create a web page and web site Y Learn to use Excel  Learn to use PowerPoint Y Become less intimidated in general by technology

Special Education Transition--Robin Bills, West Valley High School What’s in Your Future? OUTCOMES I learned more than I had expected, including but not limited to the following: Y Web page and web site construction in Netscape Composer Y PowerPoint Y Excel--graphing and charting Y Linking Pages Y Rubrics Y AND…many technological mysteries are now unlocked for me!

Special Education Transition--Robin Bills, West Valley High School What’s in Your Future? SUCCESSES Y Students had high interest. Y Students were engaged. Y Lesson meets several standards. Y Students improved computer skills. Y I am far more computer literate!

Special Education Transition--Robin Bills, West Valley High School What’s in Your Future? SHORTCOMINGS Y Classroom had shortage of student computers. Y Class sessions were too short to maximize continuity of learning. Y Learning activities did not maximally address different student learning styles. Y Grading rubric was too general.

Special Education Transition--Robin Bills, West Valley High School What’s in Your Future? STUDENT DATA Both male and female students scored higher on the post-test than the pretest. However, female students demonstrated more improvement than male students; this suggests that the girls benefited more from Internet research.

Special Education Transition--Robin Bills, West Valley High School What’s In Your Future? STUDENT DATA (cont.) Male students performed better than female students on the Occupational Analysis activities. The boys may find it easier to relate occupational data to personal goals.

Special Education Transition--Robin Bills, West Valley High School What’s In Your Future? STUDENT DATA (cont.) There is a clear negative correlation between students’ improvement on post-test and scores on the occupational analysis activity. As noted earlier, girls did better on the community resources test after Internet research; and boys did better at analyzing occupational traits on a personal level.

Special Education Transition--Robin Bills, West Valley High School What’s in Your Future? PROJECTED REVISIONS YAdd instruction and discussion about occupational analysis, especially for female students  Add discussion of community resources information gained on the Internet, especially for male students  Expand grading rubric

Special Education Transition--Robin Bills, West Valley High School What’s in Your Future? CONCLUSIONS Overall, learning with technology is effective with teenagers. However, it is important to integrate sufficient direct teacher-student interaction to maximize learning and address all students’ learning styles.