Meet CEC's 2009 Professional Award Winners
CEC was proud to present the 2009 Professional and Student Awards at
its Convention & Expo in Seattle. These recipients represent the
highest standards in special education. Through their efforts they have
helped thousands of children with disabilities, and those who work on
their behalf, succeed.
J.E. Wallace Wallin
Special Education Lifetime Achievement Award
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James Ysseldyke |
Over the last 40 years, Dr. James Ysseldyke has transformed the
instruction and assessment of students with disabilities. His
multidisciplinary work has focused on improving the validity of
psychoeducational decision making, minimizing assessment bias, and
building system capacity to meet the needs of exceptional students. His
research is often required reading for today’s undergraduate and
graduate students. One of his most famous studies drew similarities
between low-achieving students and those who are learning disabled,
which led to a systemic shift toward measuring student response to
evidence-based interventions. A professor of educational leadership at
the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, he is currently exploring
the effect of charter schools, alternative schools, and other settings
on the education of students with disabilities.
Dr. Ysseldyke has authored or co-authored numerous textbooks,
including Assessment in Special and Inclusive Education, now in its 11th
edition. He was instrumental in developing three editions of School
Psychology: A Blueprint for Training and Practices, thus establishing
standards for training and practice in school psychology. He has
conducted training workshops in all 50 states and mentored more than 75
doctoral students.
Dr. Ysseldyke directed the Minnesota Institute for Research on
Learning Disabilities from 1983 to 1989 and in 1990 helped establish the
National Center on Educational Outcomes at the University of Minnesota,
which he directed for nine years. NCEO’s research findings on the
exclusion of students with disabilities from statewide assessments
contributed to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (1995 and
2004) and the No Child Left Behind Act (2005). Ysseldyke has also
personally advocated on behalf of students the profession, working with
Congress and government agencies to develop education policy.
Within CEC, Dr. Ysseldyke’s involvement spans more than 30
years. As the first formal editor of Exceptional Children, he helped the
publication become the premier special education research journal. He
was presented with the CEC Special Education Research Award in 1995. He
is a member of CEC’s Division for Research and Division for
Learning Disabilities.
Dr. Ysseldyke has worked tirelessly – and successfully –
to bridge the gap between special education research and practice.
Because of his work, today’s assessments for identifying and
articulating outcomes of students with disabilities are more reliable
and evidence-based. In addition, he has changed the way the field
conceptualizes and categorizes learning disabilities.
Clarissa Hug National
Teacher of the Year
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Gayle Solis Zavala |
Gayle Solis Zavala believes strongly in collaboration between general
and special education teachers. She also believes in involving parents
in the education process and using meaningful activities to augment
instruction. But above all, Zavala believes in literacy and its vital
role in education.
A teacher of trainable and educable mentally handicapped at Gove
Elementary in Belle Glade, Fla., Zavala is constantly finding ways to
improve her students’ receptive and expressive language through
multisensory activities. Her lessons have been described as creative,
innovative, stimulating, and engaging. Under her care, students improve
both academically and personally.
To appeal to both children with physical and cognitive disabilities
and their nondisabled peers, Zavala draws on board games, gardens,
Polaroid cameras, and puppetry. For 12 years, her students have
performed in a local arts festival, which helps them embrace different
cultures and languages. Zavala has also developed school-wide projects
to teach her students entrepreneurship, respect, and other important
life skills; these projects have included a pickle sale and an indoor
plant care service.
She brings general and special education together with her
“Knowledge through Friendship” project. Information about
the brain, cognitive disabilities, and assistive technology is presented
so general education students become more comfortable interacting with
their classmates in special education.
In her 24 years of teaching at Gove Elementary, a Title I school,
Zavala has worked with a variety of students, further enhancing her
big-picture perspective of special education. She regularly shares this
knowledge at conferences and workshops. She is a National Board
Certified Teacher and is state-certified in Reading, Speech Correction,
and Varying Exceptionalities. In addition to many other honors, she was
one of 20 teachers chosen for the USA Today All-USA Teacher Team in
2007.
Zavala is not only an advocate for the students with exceptionalities
at Gove Elementary, but for those in Florida and beyond. She has served
as a CEC Children and Youth Action Network Coordinator for four years,
voicing the needs of special education at the local, state, and federal
level. She is a member of CEC’s Division on Developmental
Disabilities and was Florida CEC’s 2007 Teacher of the Year.
Zavala describes her own teaching experiences as
“priceless” and her classroom as “a home away from
home.” Undoubtedly, her students, their parents, and her
colleagues would say the same.
Special Education Research
Award
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Joseph R. Jenkins |
For more than four decades, Dr. Joseph R. Jenkins has contributed to
the evidence base for literacy instruction and the education of children
with learning disabilities. A professor of special education at the
University of Washington in Seattle, his areas of research include
curriculum-based assessments, oral reading fluency, early intervention,
and effective practices for organizing special education services. In
addition, Dr. Jenkins has devised ways to help children acquire
phonological, decoding, word identification, vocabulary, reading
fluency, and comprehension skills. His methods are now widely used
throughout the country.
Dr. Jenkins’ work has had lasting impact on special education
practice, most notably contributing to the shift from once-dominant
models such as the Differential Diagnosis-Prescriptive Teaching approach
to more direct measures of academic performance. His research reoriented
special educators toward teaching academic skills, monitoring progress
directly, and relying on data for instructional decision
making—all precursors to the contemporary concept of response to
intervention.
As Associate Director of the Southwest Regional Resource Center at
New Mexico State University, Dr. Jenkins developed and disseminated a
comprehensive, research-based special education model across a
three-state region, transforming services in dozens of schools. As a
university professor, he continued this work on peer- and cross-age
tutoring in Illinois and Washington State. And in a major 19-year-long
study, Jenkins and colleagues designed, implemented, and documented the
effects of two approaches to preschool special education, concluding
that early intervention influenced the subjects’ academic progress
well into their high school years.
Dr. Jenkins has improved the education of countless students both
directly and indirectly. In addition to teaching future educators, he
provides technical assistance to special education teachers in
classrooms across the Pacific Northwest region. He uses this real-life
work to inform his research and his research to inform his teaching. He
has headed the University of Washington’s preparation program for
teachers of students with high-incidence disabilities since 1988.
Dr. Jenkins has published or co-published more than 130 articles in
peer-reviewed special education and general education journals. He is a
member of CEC’s Division for Learning Disabilities and has served
on the editorial board for CEC’s Exceptional Children and many
other professional publications.
Read
about CEC's 2009 Student Award and Scholarship winners.
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