How can you connect this new skill to the student’s priorities? How can you assure ownership by making the development of this skill the student’s goal rather than just your goal for the student?
Is the student motivated to get a job and actively seek employment? If not, does he have an interest in volunteer opportunities? Applications are necessary for a variety of other purposes including moving into an apartment, getting a credit card, and opening a bank account. Emphasize that practice completing job applications will also better prepare the student to complete other types of applications.
As you introduce this skill, how will you incorporate (visually, thematically) the student’s unique interests?
Can you make it visually clear to the student who is resistant to change that his assumption is only one way of looking at things? Can your use of visual supports and self-assessments help get agreement that there is a problem, get agreement on the solution, and create the motivation for change?
If the student is resistant to filling out an application (for practice or to apply for a job), it may help to provide examples and visual instructions illustrating how the information is arranged. For example, he may be able to use a graphic organizer he developed during previous instruction that already houses his personal, professional, and academic information. You can show how the same information is transferred to the correct sections of a sample application through color-coding, side-by-side images of the documents, or cutting out the pieces from a copy of his graphic organizer and placing the pieces in the new order on an application.
Priming is a form of negotiation that can reframe and sharpen a student’s assessment of self. Below are the self-assessment tools that align with this intervention topic:
Applying - Locating and Completing Applications
Interspersal is a proven technique involving the presentation of familiar, higher success tasks with the new, more challenging task. When it is appropriate, are you varying the activities to maintain the student’s confidence and focus?
At its core, completing an application involves handwriting or typing. As you target this skill, be sure to intersperse the writing tasks with those that do not involve written expression.
Before the student encounters a situation where he will need to perform this skill, how do you help the student prepare? How do you orient him to the materials he will use?
Use visual cues and graphic organizers from previous lessons. These organizers should already include nearly all of the student’s information required for an application. Referring to these tools can reduce a lot of the application process to a matching, fill-in activity instead of a start-from-scratch written or typed task. Given how confusing the online application process can be, it is also important to show the student examples of these websites. In some cases, you can move through the online application and not click “submit” to allow multiple practice and priming opportunities.