SLO Guidance for Special Educators

What standards should I use for my objective statement? Colorado State Academic and Health Standards

How do I choose standards? Consider the needs of the students with whom you are working. A guiding question is “What are the common needs of all of your students?” For certain centers, the common needs are clear.

 AN- Social wellness standards and academic standards

 MIA/PLEX- Social skill from social wellness standards and communication from literacy standards

 DHH- Listening, language and speaking from literacy standards

 MI/MIS- Adaptive functioning with focus on communication from literacy standards

 SPED Generalist- Literacy skills from literacy standards (unless only teaching math then consider math standards)

I have students at many grade levels. How do I choose the grade level standard? Start with the highest grade level and work from that standard. That standard has a strand that is woven though all grade levels. You can differentiate for the different grade levels within your performance criteria, baselines of function and the body of evidence to build your rubrics.

Can I piggy back onto the SLO’s developed by general education? Yes. This might make the most sense. Our job in special education is to support students in accessing the core instruction. The core instruction is already aligned with standards. By taking the general education SLO’s, you can tweak them to meet your needs. You can also take their rubrics and expand them to meet the various grade level needs.

I am concerned about the statement, “All students will…” My student’s needs are too diverse. This is why they are on an IEP. Every single teacher, including general education, must deal with this issue and every single case load has vastly different needs. The objective statement is related to the standard and the standard is designed for all students. You have opportunities to differentiate for each individual student with your performance criteria, baselines of function, individual targets and evaluation rubrics.

There will be times when you have a group with a specific need. Then ‘All students will’ refers to the students within that group.

Can I still teach basic skills like math facts and spelling under a broad problem solving goal or comprehension goals? Yes. These are skills needed to improve problem solving skills. If the basic skills have been mastered you will see growth in the overall expectation. This works for literacy skills as well. Isn’t an SLO the same as an IEP goal? No these are vastly different. An SLO is developed by an individual to address common expectations for their case load during a school year. An IEP goal is developed by a team and mostly likely span’s over a chronological year (not a school year) and may have multiple providers support the goal.

Can I see some sample objective statements?

Remember you are answering this simple question with your objective statement: “What will students know or do at the end of your course?”

Sample objective statement for emotional and social wellness that might work in an affective need setting

 All students will be able to orally and in writing, analyze the interrelationship of physical, mental, emotional, and social health for self and others. (Based on 12th grade social emotional wellness standard)

Sample objective statement for foundational reading and writing skills

 All students will be able to orally and in writing, determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words by choosing flexibly from a range of strategies (based on 8th grade reading standard)

How do I differentiate the SLO for the various age groups that I serve?

The evaluation rubric is designed to support this differentiation. While the rubric in the example from the SLO office has four points, you can expand the rubric to include 5-6 points. Then you set what is mastery for the individual students based on the column you would expected your different grade levels to achieve.

You can also differentiate by the various preparedness levels.

Content-Specific Guidance

Interventionists

It is recommended that interventionists utilize the “other” profile in the SLO application. This profile allows interventionists to either set SLOs that are based on learning progression rubrics, just like general classroom teachers, or, alternatively, they can set SLOs based on specific targets that they want to meet (this involves differentiated scoring and still uses baseline preparedness levels). The first option is strongly recommended for interventionists who have set caseloads of students that they support all year, while the latter option works well for interventionists who support entire schools or have a more truncated timeline with their students (e.g. 6 weeks). Intervention teachers may also find the latter option more appropriate if they work with students to reach specific skill goals or if their work as an interventionist centers on exiting students from the intervention program. Interventionists who do not have access to the “other” profile in the SLO Application should email [email protected].

Special Education Teachers

When selecting standards as the base for your objective statement, consider the collective needs of your population of students you serve. Start with the highest grade level and work from that standard. That standard has a strand that is woven though all grade levels. You can differentiate for the different grade levels within your performance criteria, baselines of function, preparedness groups and the body of evidence to build your rubrics. Here are suggestions of standards to use for your objective statements.

 AN- Social wellness standards and academic standards

 MIA/PLEX- Social skill from social wellness standards and communication from literacy standards

 DHH- Listening, language and speaking from literacy standards

 MI/MIS- Adaptive functioning with focus on communication from literacy standards

 SPED Generalist- Literacy skills from literacy standards (unless only teaching math then consider math standards)

 DHH Itinerate and Audiology- Listening, language and speaking from literacy standards and expanded core curriculum

 Vision- Literacy modality from the literacy standards and mobility from the movement standards and the expanded core curriculum

Specialized Service Providers (School Nurse, Occupational Therapist, Physical Therapist, Speech Language Pathologist, Educational Psychologist, Social Worker, Teacher of the Visually Impaired, Orientation and Mobility Specialist, Teacher of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, and Audiologist)

Specialized Service Provider groups are provided with a predetermined set of SLO’s that have already been aligned to standards. If you are not choosing one of these predetermined set of SLO’s then consider using standards that are aligned with your work. For example, a speech language pathologist might consider communication standards under literacy or a social worker might choose from the social emotional wellness standards under health and pe.