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Office Number:
Education 3145
Phone Number:
(805) 893-4439
E-mail:
education.ucsb.edu mgerber
Michael Gerber
Professor, Ph.D. (University of Virginia)
Emphasis:
Educational Leadership and Organizations, Special Education, Disabilities & Risk Studies
Research Interests:
Risk in reading acquisition for young English learners; Cognitive factors/individual differences in teaching/learning; Policy analysis research in special education; Media-assisted, problem-based learning; Learning disabilities/behavior disorders
Biography:
I am currently Professor of Education and contribute to the Special Education, Disabilities, and Risk Emphasis as well as to the Educational Leadership and Organizations Emphasis both in the Education Department of the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education. Since 1994, I have been the director of a Center for Advanced Studies of Individual Differences in the Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research (ISBER). I am also a founding member of UCSB's Interdisciplinary Graduate Emphasis in Cognitive Science. In 2009, I became the President-elect for the Division for Learning Disabilities in the Council for Exceptional Children.
Before my Ph.D., I was an elementary school teacher in Oakland, California, where I taught 6th grade, coordinated a compensatory education program, and eventually taught students with learning and behavior problems. In 1972-73, I went to Africa to teach clinical laboratory skills to nurses and orderlies at St. Luke's Hospital in Malawi. I was awarded my Ph.D. in special education from the University of Virginia in 1981.
In June 2005, faculty from across the University of California system convened in Santa Barbara to form a steering committee to plan for a new UC-wide Center for Research on Special Education, Disabilities, & Developmental Risk. The new Center aims to stimulate and conduct research of state, national, and international significance and to support doctoral research training across the 10-campus system. In January, the Steering Committee holds one of its annual meetings in Santa Barbara while, simultaneously, doctoral and postdoctoral students from the various campuses hold a parallel research conference.
Research:
I have continuing interest in information processing barriers to acquisition and performance of basic skills by individuals with cognitive disabilities. My research has included studies of spelling and phonemic awareness, automaticity of basic arithmetic, and written composition. I also have contributed a theory of "tolerance" to explain how schools accommodate extreme individual differences associated with disabilities and risk for school failure. Tolerance Theory posits complex economic and cognitive processes to explain how teachers make instructionally relevant decisions about students and how schools, as organizations, respond to and constrain this decision-making. My students and I have most recently applied this perspective to research on Response to Instruction for English learners and developed a Core Intervention Model (CIM) for Tier 2 (supplementary) instruction that draws on various theoretical and empirical literatures (e.g., cognitive load theory, direct instruction, system of least prompts). The CIM is also taught to undergraduates who participate in tutoring of high-risk students in local schools.
In 2009, in collaboration with Drs. Lee Swanson and Michael Orosco at UC Riverside, and with support from the Institute of Education Sciences, we are beginning a new four-year longitudinal reading risk assessment study with a sample of approximately 400 English learners, using a cohort-sequential design, beginning with samples of first, second, and third graders. The Growth in Literacy Study will assess and model cognitive as well reading-specific growth differences in reading-disabled and non-disabled samples of students. Also, we will assess the effects on growth of an array of classroom instructional and environmental variables. In part, the purpose of the study is to examine empirically competing hypotheses, i.e., that growth in literacy is better accounted for by oral language and/or a phonological system rather than any specific memory (e.g., working memory) system. We also hope to learn what growth characteristics differentiate those who are responsive from those who are relatively unresponsive to variations in instruction.
Recent Publications:
Gerber, M. M. Foreword. In T. C. Jiménez, & V. L. Graf (Eds.), Education for all. Preparing for the next 30 years of special education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 2008. [Foreword]
Matera, C., & Gerber, M. M. Effects of a literacy curriculum that supports writing development of Spanish-speaking English learners in Head Start. NHSA Dialog, 11, 25–43. 2008. [Refereed Journal Article]
Gerber, M. M., & Solari, E. Future challenges to Cognitive-Behavioral Interventions in practice and policy. In M. J. Mayer, R. Van Acker, J. E. Lochman,& F. M. Gresham, (Eds.), Cognitive Behavioral Interventions for Students with Emotional/Behavioral Disorders. NY, NY: Guildford Press. 2008. [Book Chapter]
Solari, E. J., & Gerber, M. M. Early comprehension instruction for Spanish-speaking English language learners: teaching text-level reading skills while maintaining effects on word level skills. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 23, 155-168. 2008. [Refereed Journal Article]
Swanson, H. L., Rosston, K., Gerber, M. M., & Solari, E. Influence of oral language and phonological awareness on children’s bilingual reading. Journal of School Psychology, 46, 413–429. 2008. [Refereed Journal Article]
Affiliations:
American Educational Research Association
Council for Exceptional Children (Research, Learning Disabilities, and Teacher Education divisions)
Society for the Scientific Study of Reading
