Massachusetts Connecting Activities

 


Individual Learning Plans

 

Many schools are now using a formal "Individual Learning Plan" process to guide students in planning and preparing for steps after high school.  This process may include paper or online tools, usually maintained and updated through four years of high school, ideally through both middle school and high school.  The MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) encourages use of effective on-line tools, to simplify access for students and parents, and to facilitate the ease of access as students move fro middle to high school, and then from secondary to post-secondary.   One valuable resource to review is Your Plan for the Future, an on-line planning tool sponsored by the Msassachusetts Education Financing Authority.  Here is a link to its website:  https://www.yourplanforthefuture.org/Ext/YPFC/Home/index.html.

The planning process can provide a structure to check in periodically with each student about post-high school plans, and to identify individual strategies as well as school-wide strategies to make sure that students have the courses and experiences that they want and need to support college and career readiness. 

There are a variety of ways that youth employment programming or career development programming can be connected with the formal Individual Learning Plan (ILP) process.   

  • Students may be referred to a youth employment program as a next step based on the goals they have identified through the ILP;
  • Students may want to update their goals and next steps in their ILP after participating in career fairs, workshops and job/internship experiences;
  • Students will want to capture their job and internship experiences as accomplishments in their ILP.

Learn more about available resources, including the "Your Plan for the Future" program, on the ESE website at http://www.doe.mass.edu/ccr/related.html