Faculty

Department of Special Education Project Faculty

 

Adelle Renzaglia, Professor and Head, Director of Project PLAD 

Adelle Renzaglia (Project PI) is a Professor and Head of the Department of Special Education. She coordinated the teacher education program to prepare teachers of students with moderate and severe disabilities for 12 years and became department Head in 1996. She continues to teach and advise in the teacher education program. Dr. Renzaglia has directed or co-directed research and demonstration projects funded by the U.S. Department of Education. These projects have included preparing special educators and general educators to collaborate to provide inclusive education, vocational training and transition for persons with moderate and severe disabilities, research and development of innovative programs utilizing assistive technology to provide community opportunities to youth with severe multiple disabilities, curriculum development, and the development of model educational programs for all students in inclusive settings. Most recently, Dr. Renzaglia with Dr. Stacy Dymond, received funding to conduct research on the use of universal design for learning to provide access to the general curriculum to students with significant cognitive disabilities in general education high school classes. This is a three year research program in which the impact of UDL strategies on the learning and behavior of students with and without disabilities in general education science and social studies classes is evaluated, and research related to the definition of and practice related to providing access to the general curriculum for students with disabilities is assessed. Additionally, Dr. Renzaglia with Dr. Dymond have conducted research on the critical elements of effective high school service learning programs that include students with disabilities. Dr. Renzaglia also serves as a consultant to school districts, state departments of education and other university preparation programs in the field. She has authored a number of professional publications. She will serve as Project Director and will devote 20% of her time during the academic year to the Project PLAD and two summer months. (read more)

 

Stacy Dymond, Ph.D., Assistant Professor

Stacy Dymond, Ph.D. (Project Co-PI) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Special Education. Dr. Dymond teaches curriculum and instruction courses in the teacher education program in special education and teaches courses to preservice elementary education students focused on instructional methods for educating students with learning and behavioral challenges in general education settings. Dr. Dymond’s interests, background, and experience relate to serving children and youth with disabilities in inclusive school and community settings. One of her primary areas of research is in the area of evaluating inclusive school programs using a participatory action research approach. She developed a model for evaluating inclusive schools. Recently, Dr. Dymond received grant funding to conduct research (with Renzaglia) on access to the general curriculum for students with significant disabilities in high school general education settings (see above). Additionally, Dr. Dymond has a growing interest in the use of service learning in school settings to provide students with access to the general curriculum in authentic contexts. She is currently conducting research on the critical elements of service learning, and the methods and barriers to providing effective service learning experiences to students with and without disabilities in inclusive settings. Additionally, service learning has been one component of Dr. Dymond’s research related to UDL in high school general education settings. Other research interest is in exploring curriculum and instructional issues for students with severe disabilities, particularly with regards to teaching functional skills in inclusive settings, alternate assessment, and the use of instruction in the community for students both with and without disabilities. She will devote 20% of her time to the Project PLAD.  (read more)

 

Janet Gaffney, Ph.D., Professor 

Janet Gaffney, Ph.D. (Project Co-PI) is a Professor in the Department of Special Education. She currently holds an appointment as an Associate in the Center for Advanced Study at the University. Dr. Gaffney teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in special education focused on students with mild disabilities, and has co-taught a class on Diagnosis and Remediation of Reading Difficulties with C&I faculty. She is particularly interested in improving teachers' capacity to provide students with disabilities access to the general education curriculum in and through literacy. In 1998-1999, she was an Illinois Service Learning Fellow and completed a research study of a multi-year service-learning project in which three cohorts of freshmen helped young children in reading and writing. Her research interests focus on developing teachers' expertise to facilitate the literacy learning of students who are not making adequate progress. She has published 2 books, 8 chapters, and over 20 articles, including "Assisting Older Students to Read Expository Text in a Tutorial Setting: A Case for a High-Impact Intervention" (2002) and "Prevention of Reading and Writing Failure: Teach Reading and Writing" in Literacy for All (Osborn & Lehr, 1998). She has recently completed a national study of grade retention of students with disabilities. She has collaborated with numerous school districts in the design of long-term professional development to implement preventive literacy interventions promoting systemic change at child, teacher, class, school, and district levels. For 9 years, as Director of a University reading intervention program, Dr. Gaffney coordinated the initial and ongoing professional development of teacher leaders across 10 states, collaborated with district administrators on implementation issues, and monitored the program's effectiveness with outcome data on the progress of the 10,000 children who were tutored annually by teachers associated with the University. She will devote 20% of her time to PLAD. (read more)

 

James Halle, Ph.D., Professor 

James Halle, Ph.D. (Project Co-PI) is a Professor in the Department of Special Education. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses focused on the school, classroom and individual students’ learning environments, research methods and issues in special education. For more than 20 years, Professor Halle's program of research has focused on communication and language of children and youth with severe language disabilities. He has published more than 40 articles and chapters related to communication assessment and intervention. His early work was influential in moving the location of communication assessment and intervention from therapy rooms to learners’ natural environments. He has conducted a series of studies on delayed prompting (time delay) that became part of incidental or milieu language training. These procedures have helped to pave the road to inclusion by offering a strategy of teaching language during daily routines at school and in the community. Additionally, Dr. Halle’s research provides critical information related to how students with significant language disabilities access the general curriculum. In the recent past, Professor Halle's research has concentrated on instructional strategies that promote generalized use of language. He has been awarded grant funds to investigate the potential applications of general-case instruction to language of young children , and funds to investigate strategies for promoting spontaneous communication and extending pragmatic functions of youth with severe language disabilities. He is the past Editor of The Journal of the Association of Persons with Severe Handicaps (JASH), a past Associate Editor of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA), and a current member of the Editorial Boards of JASH, JABA, Journal of Positive Behavioral Interventions, Exceptional Children, and Mental Retardation. Professor Halle will devote 20% of his time to Project PLAD. (read more)

 

Nancy Hertzog, Ph.D., Associate Professor 

Nancy Hertzog, Ph.D. (Project Co-PI) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education. She has an extensive background in gifted education and expertise on curriculum development. She directs University Primary School, which is an inclusive early childhood setting that serves children from preschool through first grade with a diverse multi-cultural staff and student population. Dr. Hertzog’s primary area of research relates to ways that teachers engage and challenge all students. With a focus on differentiation, she has examined curriculum and instructional strategies that can be implemented to meet the diverse needs of learners in inclusive classrooms. For the past three years, Dr. Hertzog studied a school-wide reform to implement the Project Approach in classrooms with both high-achieving and low-achieving students and with predominantly low income and African-American families. She has extensive experience training teachers in the project approach and has written web-based curricular guides that detail project investigations of preschool—1st grade students that have won national recognition from the National Association for Gifted Children. Dr. Hertzog teaches methods courses in differentiating the curriculum for children with diverse needs and abilities, specifically geared toward general educators at the elementary level. She will devote 20% of her time during the academic year to this project. (read more)

Lisa Monda-Amaya, Ph.D., Associate Professor 

Lisa Monda-Amaya, Ph.D. (Project Co-PI) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education. Dr. Monda-Amaya currently coordinates the graduate and undergraduate teacher preparation program (Learning and Behavior Specialist I) in the Department of Special Education. Prior to that she coordinated the graduate teacher preparation program in mild disabilities for 12 years. She currently teaches courses in the department on preparing general education teachers for working with students with disabilities in inclusive settings, collaboration and teaming, and leadership in special education. Her research interests are focused in the areas of instructional and behavioral strategies for including students with disabilities in the general classroom, teacher education, the preparation of teachers as leaders and change agents in schools, and collaboration and teaming. In the last three years she has conducted research in the areas of conflict resolution, co-teaching, effective strategies for teaching mathematical word problem solving to students with learning disabilities, and qualities and characteristics of effective teacher leaders in schools. Dr. Monda-Amaya has served on a number of key committees with the Illinois State Board of Education, influencing policy and practice in both the preparation of teachers and the provision of services to students with disabilities across the State. She has received key teaching awards in the College of Education and is currently serving as a faculty mentor in the College. (read more)

 

Collaborating Faculty

 

James Anderson, Ph.D., Professor and Head, Department of Educational Policy Studies 

James Anderson, Ph.D. is Professor and Head of the Department of Educational Policy Studies. Dr. Anderson is a nationally recognized expert in studies related to the education of African American students. His past research has focused on the history of African American education, the history of public school desegregation, institutional racism, and the representation of Blacks in secondary school history textbooks. Dr. Anderson’s current research projects include the history of African American public higher education and the development of African American school achievement in the twentieth century. Dr. Anderson will bring an African American perspective to issues related to access to the general curriculum. (read more)

 

Georgia Garcia, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction 

Georgia Garcia, Ph.D. is Professor and Interim Head of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Dr. Garcia's research projects have focused on the literacy instruction, assessment, and development of students (preschool-8) from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, with a special interest in bilingual students' reading. Currently, she is investigating cross-linguistic transfer in bilingual students' reading and writing (Spanish-English speakers and Chinese-English speakers), the literacy engagement and motivation of bilingual students, and the use of new forms of literacy assessments with students from diverse backgrounds. (read more)

 

Brad Hedrick, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Rehabilitation 

Brad Hedrick, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Rehabilitation, Director of the Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services (DRES), and has a disability himself. He has worked in the rehabilitation field for over 25 years. He is well published on a broad range of scientific and applied topics related to adapted sports and recreation for persons with disabilities. Professor Hedrick has been a recipient of the Tolland National Award for Outstanding Achievement, and the Paralyzed Veterans of America Jack Gerhardt Award, in recognition of his contributions to and accomplishments in sports and recreation for persons with disabilities. He is also an expert in UDL for individuals with disabilities and has provided his expertise in this area to faculty in Special Education in recent years. (read more)