What Is Self-Determination? Exploring the SDLMI with Karrie Shogren & Sheida Raley ~ 907

Tim Villegas:
I’d like to read you a quote from a recent blog post on thinkinclusive.us. It’s from a post titled “Self-determination: more than just a set of skills” by Charles Walters. He is a PhD student in special education and coordinates the Carolina Life’s college access and preparation program at the University of South Carolina.
“Self-determination needs to be seen as something far more than just another educational intervention that we can add into the lives of youth as we see fit. It has to be allowed to permeate everything that we do.”
I love that. Self-determination is more than just an educational intervention. And that is the perfect setup for our conversation today with Karrie Shogren and Sheida Raley of the University of Kansas.

My name is Tim Villegas, and you are listening to the Think Inclusive Podcast presented by MCIE. This podcast exists to build bridges between families, educators, and disability rights advocates to create a shared understanding of inclusive education and what inclusion looks like in the real world. To find out more about who we are and what we do, check us out at thinkinclusive.us or on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Also, take our podcast listener survey at bit.ly/TIPodcastSurvey. We appreciate it.

Today on the podcast we discuss the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction, otherwise known as the SDLMI. Our guests, Karrie Shogren and Sheida Raley, are both from the Kansas University Center on Developmental Disabilities. We talk about what self-determination really means, what the SDLMI is, how it is implemented in inclusive classrooms, and why the SDLMI is really for everyone. Thanks so much for listening. I’m glad you’re here. And now our interview with Karrie Shogren and Sheida Raley.

Tim Villegas:
So today on the Think Inclusive Podcast, I would like to welcome Karrie Shogren and Sheida Raley from the University of Kansas. Karrie and Sheida, would you mind introducing yourselves to our listeners?

Karrie Shogren:
My name is Karrie Shogren. I direct the Kansas University Center on Developmental Disabilities and I’m a professor in the Department of Special Education at the University of Kansas.

Sheida Raley:
My name is Sheida Raley. I’m an assistant research professor at the Kansas University Center on Developmental Disabilities and assistant professor at the Department of Special Education at the University of Kansas.

Tim Villegas:
So let’s get right into it. What is self-determination?

Sheida Raley:
Being self-determined doesn’t necessarily mean doing everything independently. We all utilize supports in different ways—friends, family, technology. But being self-determined means you’re in the driver’s seat. You decide what you want in your life, how to make those things happen, and what supports to use. It’s driven by what the person wants. Self-determination came from the self-advocacy movement, where self-advocates wanted to direct their lives and decide what goals were important to them. It means having autonomy and the skills to set and work toward personally meaningful goals.

Karrie Shogren:
At its heart, self-determination is about empowering and enabling people to make things happen in their lives. Everyone, regardless of disability, wants to make things happen. It’s why we set goals and pursue them. Self-determination is about being the agent of your life, having the supports to take the steps you want to take.

Tim Villegas:
So Sheida and Karrie, this doesn’t seem just like a special education thing. It seems like it would be relevant for everyone.

Karrie Shogren:
Yes, self-determination is relevant for everyone. Skills like goal setting and problem solving are fundamental to all aspects of the curriculum—college and career readiness, academic learning. It gained attention in the disability field because people with disabilities are often marginalized and not given the same opportunities to direct their lives. Self-determination builds on the disability rights rallying cry of “nothing about us without us” and became a way to actualize that. Initially, it focused on transition planning for students with disabilities, but it continues to push for access to inclusive opportunities and equity in education.

Tim Villegas:
So let’s get to what exactly is the SDLMI—the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction.

Sheida Raley:
The SDLMI is a three-phase instructional process. In the first phase, students answer the question: What is my goal? This could be related to academic learning or transition planning. It’s a flexible model that supports a variety of goals.

In phase two, students answer: What is my plan? They create an action plan to achieve their goal, identify barriers they might face, and find solutions to remove those barriers. Supports could include technology, people, or other resources.

Finally, in phase three, students reflect by answering: What have I learned? They evaluate their goal-setting and attainment process. They consider whether the goal was right for them, if the plan needs adjustments, or if they missed any barriers. The goal of the SDLMI isn’t necessarily to achieve every goal but to build skills and attitudes related to self-determination.

Sheida Raley:
Students build abilities to set goals, make plans, self-evaluate, and develop self-awareness. They go through the SDLMI once per semester, giving them iterative opportunities to build these skills. This prepares them for life after school—employment, education, relationships, and living goals—using community supports.

Tim Villegas:
Do you have any stories of what this looks like in the classroom or how an educator would implement the SDLMI?

Sheida Raley:
Yes, one story comes from a ninth-grade math teacher in an inclusive algebra class. She supported students through the SDLMI with goals unrelated to math. Half the class chose the goal of becoming NFL players. Most weren’t on the football team or practicing regularly, but that was their goal.

The teacher, understanding the SDLMI’s purpose, guided them through the phases. In phase one, they answered questions like: What do I know about being an NFL player? How can I learn more? What can I do to make it happen?

In phase two, they created action plans. Some identified barriers like not waking up early enough to train, so they set alarms. Others planned to bring larger lunches to meet calorie needs.

In phase three, they reflected. Many realized they didn’t want to wake up at 4 AM or eat 6,000 calories daily. They adjusted their goals. Some decided football was just a hobby. One wanted to explore becoming a sportscaster. Another shifted interest to engineering and researched schools and classes.

Sheida Raley:
This process gave students their first opportunity to set personal goals, make plans, and self-evaluate. It happened in an inclusive setting, where students learned from each other. The teacher didn’t just teach math—she empowered students to be self-determined.

Tim Villegas:
Karrie, did you have anything to add?

Karrie Shogren:
Yes. The SDLMI is a model of instruction, not a set curriculum. It provides a framework for educators to shift toward student-directed goal setting and problem solving. It was introduced in the early 2000s to help teachers support students in identifying goals, creating action plans, and evaluating progress.

Often, students with and without disabilities lack structure for thinking through goals. The SDLMI can be overlaid on any subject. It doesn’t change the curriculum—it changes how students engage with it. When students feel ownership and empowerment, it transforms the classroom dynamic.

Tim Villegas:
So Sheida and Karrie, I’m really interested in how the SDLMI can fit into multi-tiered systems of support. Can you speak a little bit about that for us?

Sheida Raley:
Yes. It’s important to know that the SDLMI is an intervention—a way to systematically support and enhance self-determination. It can absolutely be integrated within multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS). Recent work has focused on how to provide self-determination interventions like the SDLMI across tiers.

As a Tier 1 intervention, it can be a universal support for all students in inclusive general education settings. For some students, with and without disabilities, more intensive support may be needed—this could be Tier 2. These students might need more time to think about goals, especially if they’ve never been asked what they want to do after high school.

Then, some students may require individualized support using the SDLMI or pairing it with another intervention—this would be Tier 3. The key is that all students should receive Tier 1 support, even if they also receive Tier 2 or Tier 3 supports. We’ve seen how SDLMI can be enhanced at all tiers, and emerging work is focusing on using it as a universal support and building from there.

Karrie Shogren:
I’ll add that the ultimate goal is to promote and enhance young people’s self-determination—to help them become causal agents, setting and pursuing goals that matter to them, their families, and communities. The SDLMI is one tool to do that.

Embedding it in tiered approaches allows us to offer different intensities of support. At Tier 1, you might do quick goal-setting sessions at the start of class. Some students may need more practice identifying preferences and interests or building self-management strategies.

Managing time and actions is hard for adolescents, so extra support can help. The SDLMI allows for flexible delivery. Different goals require different strategies. Whether it’s getting an A in math, getting into college, or exercising daily, the SDLMI framework helps students apply student questions to guide their process.

Karrie Shogren:
The goal is for these student questions to become metacognitive strategies that students use independently. Over time, with instruction and support, students build these skills and abilities.

Tim Villegas:
Can you help explain to our audience how the SDLMI is an evidence-based practice?

Sheida Raley:
Yes. The SDLMI is an evidence-based practice in transition. There are over 30 research articles showing that using the SDLMI with students with and without disabilities leads to better academic and transition outcomes—greater access to general education, improved academic performance, better transition planning, and more engagement in learning.

Post-school outcomes also improve. Students using the SDLMI have greater community participation, employment, and post-secondary education outcomes. The SDLMI is highly flexible and can overlay almost any curriculum or content area.

It’s been used in transition planning, career design, academic goals, and even health-related goals. Teachers can implement it semester by semester, but real change happens over time. One semester may not show big gains, but over one, two, or three years, students build the skills to be self-determined and causal agents in their lives.

Tim Villegas:
Will you walk us through some of the barriers that people might face when they are trying to implement the SDLMI?

Sheida Raley:
Sure. The number one barrier is time—teachers identifying when to provide explicit instruction on goal setting, decision making, and problem solving. Often, teachers embed opportunities for self-determination here and there, but not systematically. Without using an evidence-based practice like the SDLMI, we don’t see the positive outcomes that students and families value.

Part of the SDLMI is helping teachers embed instruction throughout their content. For example, a teacher might focus on a student question like “What can I do to learn what I don’t know?” and connect that to math or English lessons. They might ask students to consider a character’s goal in a story or explore different problem-solving strategies. This helps students see how self-determination applies to their learning and builds motivation.

Sheida Raley:
Once teachers get past the time barrier and learn how to integrate SDLMI into their teaching, they see how it fits. Another barrier is the misconception that self-determination interventions are only for some students. But all students benefit from SDLMI in inclusive settings. It should be a universal support, with more intensive supports available for those who need them—regardless of disability.

We’ve worked with amazing general and special education teachers who understand the importance of SDLMI for all students. They find ways to make time for it because they know that if students aren’t setting goals and evaluating their progress, the content alone won’t be meaningful. These teachers see their role as supporting students in becoming self-determined learners.

Tim Villegas:
Do you have anything to add, Karrie, about barriers?

Karrie Shogren:
Yes. Building on what Sheida said, buy-in from administrators and school-wide support is crucial. Effective inclusive education and self-determination require a school-wide movement. Administrators need to support teaching, planning, and resources for training and coaching.

Another barrier is the cultural shift needed to empower adolescents with disabilities to direct their lives. It’s still a change for many to see these students as capable of leading their transition from school to adulthood.

I remember a project where teachers supported students with intellectual disabilities using the SDLMI for transition planning. These students hadn’t been involved in defining their outcomes. One powerful moment was when a student said, “Why can’t I be an SDLMI facilitator?” They wanted to help other students with disabilities because they had lived experience. That moment showed how SDLMI can push boundaries and create inclusive opportunities for all students.

Tim Villegas:
So there are probably people listening who are saying, this sounds amazing. How can I bring the SDLMI to my school?

Sheida Raley:
We’d love to talk to those people. First, check out our website: https://selfdetermination.ku.edu/. You can access the SDLMI Teacher’s Guide, which includes case studies and examples. There’s also a contact page where you can share what you’re interested in and how you’d like to use SDLMI. We’re very responsive and happy to meet with you to figure out how to make it happen.

Karrie Shogren:
Yes, reach out anytime. I also want to emphasize that to fully implement the SDLMI, we offer standardized training. This helps teachers shift their practices, plan integration into their curriculum, and make time for SDLMI. We work with districts, schools, and states to provide professional development and coaching. You can access information online, but the best way to implement SDLMI as intended is through training and learning those practices.

Tim Villegas:
That will do it for this episode of the Think Inclusive Podcast. Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Have a question or comment? Email us at podcast@thinkinclusive.us. We love hearing from you.

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This podcast is a production of MCIE, where we envision a society where neighborhood schools welcome all learners and create the foundation for inclusive communities. Learn more at https://www.mcie.org/.

We’ll be back in a couple of weeks with our interview with Howard Shane, author of Unsilenced: A Teacher’s Year of Battles, Breakthroughs, and Life-Changing Lessons at Belchertown State School. Thanks for your time and attention. Until next time, remember: inclusion always works.