|
|
Deshler takes audience on 30-year odyssey to improve outcomes for stuggling adolescent learners
Deshler's lecture, Once Upon a Time and Now: A 30-Year Odyssey to Improve Outcomes for Struggling Adolescent Learners, provided a synopsis of major chapters during the 30-year research and development (R & D) history of the KU Center for Research on Learning. Link to watch this year's informative Budig Lecture by Deshler. The overriding mission of the CRL, which is celebrating its 30-year anniversary, has been to close the large achievement gap faced by struggling adolescents. Deshler shared how the R & D process, consisting of the following major phases, has driven the Center's work: (1) grounding research questions in theory and existing literature; (2) conducting a series of design studies to refine the targeted intervention; (3) conducting effectiveness studies; (4) developing and testing models for scaling interventions; and (5) disseminating findings to the communities of scholars and practitioners. An array of issues related to bringing about educational change in secondary school environments were presented with an emphasis on the adaptive and human sense-making dimensions of the change process. Finally, Deshler shared that the potential limitations of paradigms that are created by researchers as heuristics to explain and disseminate their findings can actually truncate future growth and learning. "Don joined the KU Department of Special Education in 1974," shared Chriss Walther-Thomas, Department chair. "Since that time, as a faculty member and as the Director of the Center for Research on Learning, Don has become internationally known as the leading scholar in the field of learning disabilities (LD)." "Conservatively, his work as a researcher, scholar, teacher, and national policy adviser has influenced the professional preparation and classroom practices across the United States. "Widely used Center for Research on Learning (CRL) research findings and classroom materials are facilitating more effective learning opportunities and better educational outcomes for adolescents and young adults with LD and other academic problems," said Walther-Thomas. |
Tools  Email Page Print Page
Contact Special Education Joseph R. Pearson Hall, Rm. 521 1122 West Campus Rd. University of Kansas Lawrence, KS 66045 3101 phone: (785) 864-0556 Related Info KU CRL receives $700,000 from Wal-Mart to create tutoring curriculum Carta and Greenwood to oversee $10 million grant for early literacy center Department honors Richard Whelan with the 2008 Field Leadership award Morningstar and Transition Coalition team honored for online short courses delivery Current and former graduate students receive national awards (2008) |
|
| Click here to return to this issue. Click here to go to the Special Education Connection homepage. Copyright © 2008 by the University of Kansas |
||
Don Deshler, 2008 Gene A. Budig Teaching Professor in Special Education and Center for Research on Learning director, presented his Budig lecture this spring to a filled-capacity auditorium of practioners, researchers, faculty, and others interested in gleaning insight from one of the leading adolescent literacy experts in the nation.