In the 1997 Ontario Provincial budget, the Treasurer of the Province announced the establishment of the Learning Opportunities Task Force to develop and administer a series of pilot projects to enhance the transition of students with specific learning disabilities into post-secondary education and to identify what supports, services and accommodations will assist these students best in meeting their educational goals. After a period of research and review, the Learning Opportunities Task Force has established 8 pilot projects in 13 post-secondary educational institutions, 9 community colleges and 4 universities, in the Province of Ontario. Students first entered these pilot projects in September, 1998. During the elapsed time close to 1000 students have participated in these pilot projects. The pilot projects are diverse in their content, specific program offerings, location and language of instruction.

However, they all utilize the Task Force's student success indicators as an evaluation measure and they all determine student eligibility through the strict and rigorous diagnostic validation criteria introduced by the Task Force. The Task Force closely tracks and evaluates the activities of the pilot projects, with the students themselves providing much of the research information. This presentation will share some of the findings to date and focus on the challenges faced by the pilot institutions, their participating students and the researchers. *Please note that the criteria for determining the presence of a specific learning disability for the purposes of this project calls for at least average level of intelligence, in accordance with the North American definition of learning disabilities.

Learning Opportunities Project

CONESTOGA COLLEGE

FINAL REPORT, June 2002

Executive Summary

This report describes the programming activities and summative evaluation results from the four years of the Learning Opportunities Project (LOP) at Conestoga College. The main body of the report is divided into two parts: (A) the "Program Component Summaries" prepared by individual LOP staff and (B) the "Summative Outcome and Component Program Evaluation" prepared by the Program Evaluation Consultant. The following points are highlights from the evaluation portion of the report:

Community awareness

The Transition Counsellor has raised community awareness of LOP, especially among high school educators and guidance counsellors. The LOP program is highly regarded in the community.

Student Transitions to College

The PASS summer transition program:

• increased knowledge of LOP and College services, intent to use them, and awareness of how to access them;
• increased knowledge of appropriate accommodations and comfort level in accessing them;
• increased knowledge of student´s own learning disability and effective study strategies to help compensate for learning difficulties.

Adaptive Technology Support:

Qualitative feedback and student ratings of the ATS component indicated that the computer lab has helped students learn about and use adaptive technology software and that this has helped them overcome certain deficits associated with their learning disabilities.

Employment Transitions:

• Students who took the "Employment Perspectives" course reported having more employment knowledge (as it relates to learning disabilities) than did students who did not take the course. An interaction approached significance, suggesting that in-course students gained more knowledge over time than non-course students.
• Job competence, a self-concept measure was related to the acquisition of key employment knowledge.
• In-course students displayed increases in "vocational identity" (an indicator of workplace readiness) while non-course students did not.
• Workplace readiness may be alternatively defined as having specific knowledge about how one´s learning disability (and learning disabilities in general) impacts employment, along with other relevant information about learning disabilities and employment. Given this definition, project students displayed increases in "workplace readiness."
• In-course students achieved greater gains in confidence in self-advocating with employers than did non-course students.
• Qualitative feedback demonstrated that, while in-course students increased confidence in self-advocating, many did not wish to disclose their learning disabilities to employers.

Self-awareness and knowledge of study strategies:

• Students enrolled in the "LD Strategies" credit course made significant gains in general knowledge and self-knowledge of learning disabilities, knowledge of study strategies and self-advocacy; these students were higher in the knowledge acquired in these domains than non-course students.
• Learning Strategies Training (LST) users experienced gains (though non-significant) in the above knowledge domains and in key LST outcomes, such as understanding one´s own learning strengths and weaknesses and their impact on school work, knowledge of when and why to use certain strategies, and attitudes towards the use of study strategies (i.e. belief in benefits).

Self-concept:

• Increased knowledge of one"s own learning disability and knowledge of study strategies was related to high self-concept in a number of domains, including global self-worth, intellectual ability, and scholastic competence.

Self-advocacy:

• After completion of the LD Strategies credit course, the acquisition of key knowledge was related to confidence in self-advocating. This pattern was not seen for non-course students measured during the same time periods.
• In-course students (LD Strategies course) made significant gains in confidence in self-advocating over time and were significantly higher than non-course students at post-test. Confidence in self-advocating was related to success in the "mock self-advocacy" assignment in the course.
• The majority of students expressed positive attitudes towards self-advocating and expressed self-confidence in doing so.
• Positive interactions with professors when self-advocating were the norm while negative experiences were the exception.

Greater academic success through programming:

Increases in confidence in self-advocating were associated with higher grades.

Overall, high knowledge of study strategies was significantly related to grades. The cumulative average of students who reported high knowledge of study strategies was 7% higher than students who reported low knowledge. Further, high strategy users were significantly higher than non-Project LD students and comparable to non-LD matches.

When reporting high knowledge and use of study strategies, Project students who experienced high learning difficulties in many learning domains achieved academic success on par with other students. Students who experienced high learning difficulties, but did not use study strategies, performed poorly in comparison.

Learning Strategy Training outcomes at post-test were significantly related to higher grades.

Greater accommodation use was related to lower grades and lower knowledge of study strategies. LOP programming, by increasing knowledge and use of study strategies, increased grades while decreasing dependence on accommodation.

In conclusion, the Learning Opportunities Project (LOP) at Conestoga College provided students with learning disabilities with enhanced support services that had a direct positive impact on their success at College. LOTF and the Ministry has acknowledged the value of two of our LOP components, the learning strategies training and adaptive technology training, and these initiatives will continue through the Enhanced Services Funding. As part of the LOP legacy, Conestoga College has committed to picking up the financial support for the clerical support person (who is now largely responsible for processing BSWD requests, maintaining the student data base and evaluation information, and providing back-up to the Test Proctoring Administrator. The College has also agreed to pick up the funding for the Employment Transition Advisor so that, for the first time, we will be able to provide workplace transition support for all students with disabilities. The College has also agreed to maintain the office space renovated for LOP staff and the Adaptive Technology Resource Lab as well as continually upgrading the technology in the Lab.

We will continue to seek out financial support for other services, identified through our evaluation as being essential to student success. We are hoping that some of these services, such as the secondary school transition and LD Strategies course, can continue through the LD Summer Insititute project scheduled for implementation in the summer of 2003.

We thank the Learning Opportunities Task Force, the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities; and Conestoga College for their support of this successful initiative.

Marian Mainland, Coordinator, Disability Services
Jason Newberry, Program Evaluation Consultant
June 2002

It seems that, as parents and educators, we mold children's values and morals. We teach them valuable lessons related to honesty, courage, integrity, loyalty and so on. Yet it seems that we allow children to dictate to us the concept of 'fairness.' When asked to define 'fairness,' most children respond: "Fairness means everybody gets the same." Unfortunately, we often allow children to convince us that this indeed is the definition of that concept. As a result, we attempt to deal with all children in an identical manner. When a teacher modifies a lesson for an LD child or adjusts the course requirements for him, his classmates charge that the situation is 'unfair.' Rather than respond to their complaints, the teacher should explain that the mature conceptualization of 'fairness' is not equal, identical treatment; rather, 'fairness' means that every student receives what he needs. Because each individual's needs are different, 'fairness' dictates that their programs and expectations will be different. Children are capable of understanding this concept if it is explained clearly and if it is observed daily in the teacher's modeling behavior.

Rick Lavoie