1. Dr. Claudia Otto Oklahoma State University October 5, 2016
Transition Cultures: Empowering Students with Disabilities for Employment
Dr. Claudia Otto
Oklahoma State University
October 5, 2016

2. Respectable Job?
Dead End Job?

3. What is your motive of action? What is it that drives you today?

4. Attendance Research shows that…
Students who decide early in life to pursue higher education get there more often
Students who have a confident goal will seek steady employment more often
Schools that create a “Postsecondary Transition Culture” send more students to higher education and/or employment.

5. Today’s Take Aways To explore where you are today, So you can
Reflect on what you can do to contribute more
Not only understand your students more but appreciate them more to help create connections that will help them with the obstacles and stop some of the challenges that they may face in society today.

6. My Method vs. Current Efforts
Currently: Resources My Method: Resourcefulness

7. The Green Tail Example
If someone says you have a green tail, that person is crazy.
If two people say you have a green tail, it is a conspiracy.
If seven people say you have a green tail, you turn around and look.

8. Practice makes perfect
Time to get there and
time to get back

9. Flip It!
Show students that… A weakness or struggle is simply a “Strength in Training”.

10. “Resourcefulness” begins with a student’s self-awareness.

11. Understand Your Disability
Know the functional limitations that result
Understand strengths and weaknesses
Be able to explain your disability and its characteristics
Be able to explain where you had difficulty in the past and what had helped
Be able to collaborate

12. Accept Responsibility for You
Take primary responsibility for success or failure
Move from a state where parents and school staff usually advocate on your behalf to a reality where you will advocate
Understand that, while federal disability laws guarantee an equal opportunity to participate, these laws do not guarantee that you will obtain employment

13. Create Advocacy assignments to use as nonverbal tools
One Pager
Marketing Ad

14. Flip It!
Show students that… A weakness or struggle is simply a “Strength in Training”.

15. Can you list the weaknesses of a disability?
Can you list the strengths of a disability?

16. Messages Stylize Edit Animate

17. “Resourcefulness” continues with a teacher’s interactive communication.

18. Attitude creates a culture. A culture creates opportunities
Attitude creates a culture. A culture creates opportunities. Students become what we show them.

19. An employability culture begins with a message, and becomes a reality, with a pathway of micro-messages.

20. Micro-messages
Signals we send to one another through our behavior and communication efforts
Ultimately convey the meaning of the message
Reveal our own biases and preconceived notions
Messages are small, but the Impact can be large
Often semi-conscious; just below the surface
Built into an environmental culture
Can change lives

21. Historical Intent
Micro-messaging was originally known as a paradigm for diversity and leadership
Designed to drive rapid behavior change and raise business diversity performance
Focuses on one of the most hidden barriers to success – subconscious messages that devalue, discourage, and ultimately impair performance
So…FLIP IT!

22. Key Micro-Messaging Elements
Verbal – what is said
Para Verbal – how it is said
Non Verbal – body language
Contextual – who or what else is present
Omission – what is not said or not done
Praise and Criticism – feedback messages

23. Micro-Messages Create New Realities

24. Self Esteem Through Micro-Messages
Praise
“Your science lesson is correct; good job!”
Reinforcement
“Your science lesson is correct; you must have worked hard on it!”
Micro-Message
“You must have worked hard on your science lesson! I see medical
technician in your future.”

25. If you work hard you can go to college.
A Message
If you work hard you can go to college.
You should make good grades in your classes because that will help you get there.

26. A Micro-Message
Community College has an emphasis on teaching not research so teachers who work there prefer and like to teach.

27. Why a Culture?
Immersion is how people learn, not by following principles but because they get in it and do it.
They do it so often that it becomes their reality.
Take the abstract and make it visible.

28. Many students are unprepared for the Postsecondary Life settings.
They do not think past graduation typically.
Micro-Messages fostering independence can help make this transition viable. 37

29. Self-Determination
Decision making of issues regarding academic, career, and home life
Linking goals to decision making
Managing goals
Determining needed supports
Knowing when and how to make adjustments

30. Give students societal examples as reinforcements
Allow students to practice with real life examples
Give pros and cons 37

31. Self-Advocacy Trial and error Adaptive perceptions of control
Knowledge of communication styles

32. self-determination skills
Embed
self-determination skills
&
self advocacy skills

33. “Resourcefulness” changes perspectives and realities.

34. The defining answer is not resources but “Resourcefulness”.

35. The end result is a “Resourceful” attitude enabling ability.

36. Thank you !
Claudia Otto, Ph.D. Clinical Assistant Professor