Peering Into the Past to Get a Glimpse of the Future:
Related UW-Whitewater and UW-Eau Claire Early Childhood Special Education Teacher Preparation Initiatives
During this 30-plus year time frame (1973-2006), as we implemented our teacher education programs at the University of Wisconsin campuses in Whitewater (1973-1980) and Eau Claire (1981-2006), I had the privilege of working with colleagues and practicing professionals in a number of highly worthwhile projects and activities. Our students were also involved in these activities. It was our belief that this student involvement provided them with “can do experiences” that would be useful during their teaching careers.
These activities brought our faculty and students into collaborative interactions with local ECSE practitioners to strengthen early intervention/education teacher preparation and improve local services:
Participating in the development and sharing in the implementation of WDEC activities. These activities often involved the sharing of human and financial resources. For example in the 1980’s, we co-mingled our program financial resources with WDEC to sponsor speakers for state conferences and the State’s Birth-to-3 Coordinating Council to initiate what became the highly successful Jolyn Beeman Memorial Lecture Series.
Organizing teacher advisory committees that consisted of all UW-Whitewater and UW-Eau Claire pre-student and student teaching cooperating teachers. These teachers were involved in monitoring and revising our programs, sharing with us and helping each other improve intervention/education practices.
Developing an innovative training program titled Project Progress in the late 70’s. This project sent a trained teacher into classrooms for 12 weeks to co-teach and mentor non-trained teachers and provide a weekly orientation session for the school district’s related service personnel and administrators. This project was staffed by Kathy Kress (Director), Carol Rudebeck and Nancy Bielke-Amacher (Teachers) and Jolynn Beeman (Graduate Assistant).
Co-sponsoring a state conference and a course to develop a manual about the transdisciplinary use of art, music, literature and movement activities. A large group of ECSE teachers were invited to study, develop and test activities that became part of a manual on across-disciplinary use of developmentally appropriate activities. These activities encouraged across-discipline functioning by occupational, physical and speech therapists and teachers. Dr. Mary Margaret Woods, Dr. David Lilly, Francis Brock-Starms and an occupational therapist, physical therapist and speech and language therapists served as consultants to this project. Joan Rothrock, Graduate Assistant, served as Co-coordinator and assistant editor.
Extending our work with national demonstration models by working with the staffs of Developmental Therapy (DT) project and the Portage Project to offer highly specialized training experiences on our campus. Tony Beardsley, DT’s National Outreach Director, helped us bring Barbara Reid and other DT specialists to Whitewater to operate an on-campus demonstration classroom serving severely involved young children with emotional and behavioral disorders. On occasion, the Portage Project staff, Richard Boyd and Jean Hilliard, taught a workshop that focused on behavioral based instructional practices and working with parents in homes prior to student teaching experiences.
Sponsoring several topical conferences related to early intervention/education practices. These conferences featured prominent authorities and were made possible by co-mingling financial resources from our federal grants, State monies and CESA and/or local school districts budgets.
Encouraging faculty from departments that taught related studies to participate in our Introduction to Early Childhood Special Education course. We offered stipends to faculty in adaptive physical education, art and music education, and children’s literature to encourage their participation in our course and to support efforts to make their course content more relevant to the students enrolled in ECSE
Working with Nancy Sweet, CESA #5, and Elmwood, WI to develop a proposal to provide coordinated services for children ages birth-to-8 across public school and county programs. This proposal was developed cooperatively between personnel from CESA #5 and me. The proposal was approved for submission by CESA 5’s Director, Mr. Hoffman, and every Director of Special Education, Superintendent of Schools and County Health and Social Service Director in the west central Wisconsin region served by the CESA. The Great Rivers Intervention Project (GRIP) proposed a comprehensive service delivery model for children with mild-single to severe-multiple handicapping conditions and was designed to provide seamless services for children, Birth-to-8, and their families across county and school services in west central Wisconsin. We were disappointed that this project was not submitted for funding because of regional institution of higher learning disagreement.
Implementing a highly successful multi-disciplinary conference on children with medically fragile and chronically ill conditions. This was a joint effort with the UW-Eau Claire’s Nursing School and the Department of Special Education. The conference was co-chaired by Chris Hambuch-Boyle, a long time and highly respected Eau Claire ECSE teacher. Chris was instrumental in visioning for this conference. After the conference several participants worked with her to develop a resource manual to help teachers better serve children with medically fragile or chronically ill conditions.
Bringing teachers and related services personnel together through a federally funded project to develop training materials to enhance transdisciplinary practice in ECSE. A training team (Judy Israel, teacher; Fran Kakuska and Cathy Battles, speech and language therapists; Sue Knuth, occupational therapist; Cathy Franks, physical therapist; Sonjia Stoudt, counselor; and Craig Miller, education psychologist) worked with us to develop a team function model and training materials.
Recruiting a multidisciplinary training team consisting of local practitioners to augment course lectures and work with students in the field. Chris Hambuch-Boyle, Julie Betchkel, Susan Hintgen, ECSE teachers; Jan Melberg, Occupational Therapist; Julie Maro and Sandy Guite, Speech and Language Clinicians; Cathy Franks, Physical Therapist and other practitioners helped prepare our students to work effectively across disciplines in ECSE.
Working with Dr. Barbara Wolfe and Dr. Bill Frankenberger (Education Psychology Program) to carry out research for WDPI to ascertain the potential impact of the proposed additional category (i.e., Significant Development Delay) on enrollment in the State’s special education programs.
Assisting in the development and teaching of an on campus interdisciplinary course that involved students and faculty from UW-Eau Claire’s Departments of Communication Disorders, Social Work, Special Education and the College of Nursing in the study of collaborative practice and evidence based team decision making.
Sponsoring conferences and related summer courses that brought physical, occupational therapy and adaptive physical education personnel together to study how to work collaboratively to improve services for learners with physical disabilities. We worked with Cathy Franks, physical therapist, and Todd Teske, adaptive education specialist, to plan and implement these activities
Collaborating with Dr. Tom King, Communicative Disorders Department, to propose and develop an on-campus laboratory and offer studies to prepare speech and language clinicians and ECSE teachers for work with children with alternative communication needs. One of the technology courses was required for all students enrolled in ECSE.
Working with Dr. Keith Reece to assist Dr. Terry Dolan and others (George Jesien, Project Director) at the Waisman Center to implement the State’s Birth-to-3 Project. UW-Eau Claire's component involved recruiting, training and supporting five regional teams to implement programs designed by them and developed by our staff to orient the public to birth-to-3 interventions across the State.
Assisting Dr. Mary Ann Marchel and our students in the evaluation of the Augusta, WI Public School District’s Parent and Child Program and working with the staff of the Eau Claire Area School and our students to evaluate the school district’s ECSE intake and assessment processes.
Developing a proposal to implement an interdisciplinary training program to prepare teachers, speech and language clinicians, social workers, education psychologists and nurses to work more effectively on teams and use research based evidence to inform their practice. This collaboration was the inspiration of Dr. Leonard Gibbs from the UW-Eau Claire’s Social Work Department. It also involved my colleagues Betsy McDougall-Gibbs; Dr. William Frankenberger, School Psychology; Dr. Chris Retherford, Communication Disorders; and Marilyn Burgess, School of Nursing. The U.S. Department of Education only planned to support two major research projects that year. Ours, a forward thinking project that focused on group decision making was ranked number three in the nation. Dr. Gibbs interest, expertise and work played a major role in the conceptualization of this project. Unfortunately this proposal was not funded. Since then, evidence based practice has become a critical part of practice. While we were very disappointed, this work generated a number of practices and faculty relationships that influenced our teacher training practices for years.
Involving several of our graduate students in the analysis of data collected as a part of our work with the State funded Preschool Options Project (POP). I collaborated with Arlene Wright (CESA 10), Lisa Maxwell (CESA 1), and Dr. Karen Stoiber, (UW-Milwaukee) in this activity. POP was designed to measure the extent that IEP objectives were addressed during activities in self-contained, co-located and fully inclusive classroom models. Carolyn Pritchett, graduate of UW-Eau Claire’s ECSE program, worked with a UW-Milwaukee graduate student to videotape activities in 24 ECSE classrooms across southeast and west central Wisconsin.
When I look back on this time and these activities, I am reminded of how very busy, excited and energized we were to be a part of something as positive as the development of our State’s early intervention/education services. All of these activities were being carried out during the same time frame that we were developing, implementing and improving our teacher education programs. I believe that our ideas were forward thinking. I am proud of all of our accomplishments. Even those projects that failed to be funded were of value because in the course of planning and proposal development we gained knowledge and established meaningful and long lasting relationships that we were able to use to strengthen our teacher training practices and use in later initiatives.
Back to the page | More below
Summary
This history is based on my memories, UW-Whitewater and UW-Eau Claire program descriptions and reports, WDPI publications, WDEC minutes, and ECSE materials. This report includes my knowledge about the State’s early history. In my opinion, the many activities, actions and accomplishments described here served as a foundation for subsequent developments in the intervention and education of young children with disabilities in Wisconsin. Some of these outcomes have influenced practice throughout the nation. These developments reflect the contributions of many people from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, teacher education programs, WDEC, and the State’s ECSE practitioners and administrators. Our achievements were products of collaborative practice. Not much was done accidentally or without purposeful thought about how people, organizations, agencies and programs could help achieve the goal of providing highly effective services for all young children (age’s birth-to-8) with disabilities and their families. In my view, the UW-Whitewater and UW-Eau Claire ECSE teacher education programs and WDEC were instrumental in making Early Childhood Special Education what it is today in Wisconsin.
Our campus programs worked to improve regional intervention practices by working closely with teachers, related service personnel and administrators. We benefited because our students observed and worked with highly effective teachers; the agencies benefited because we provided access to up-to-date information about “best practice” and well prepared student volunteers to assist in classrooms. Perry Smith, a local Director of Special Education in Eau Claire liked to describe our relationship as “symbiotic”. Focusing on the State’s efforts on behalf of young children with disabilities was consistent with the Wisconsin Idea. This idea emphasized the importance of using the University System resources to strengthen the State’s resources and solve problems.
We knew that child development and learning were complex and that teaching children at-risk or with disabilities would never be a simple task. I do believe that we demonstrated that teacher preparation could be effective. We helped our graduates understand that they were well prepared entry level teachers who should remember that professional competence is never an absolute achievement, but is rather, something in the nature of a lasting commitment. I believe that we made real progress.
Finally, it has been an honor and privilege to work with so many very skilled, responsible, and dedicated professionals in these activities. Purposeful leadership and cooperative and collaborative actions made all of this possible. The activities and outcomes I have described should inspire all current and future early childhood special education professionals to work to improve early intervention/education for all children ages birth-to-8 in Wisconsin.
A special thanks to Cathy, my wife and primary source of support during my professional career; to Louise A. Mollinger, my life partner whose encouragement and assistance helped me complete this project; my son Eric who developed a DVD that contains a video taped interview and this written document; and to Steve Betchkal, the reporter who conceived and produced the In Person interview series for Eau Claire area WQOW Channel 18 TV viewers.
References
Franks, D.J. (1976). Certification for special education early childhood teachers. WDPI Bureau Memorandum, 17, 14-15.
Franks, D.J. (1978). EC-EEN certification revisited. WDPI Bureau Memorandum, 19, 32-34.
Franks, D.J. (1980). Early childhood-handicapped, yes…, but….WDPI Bureau Memorandum, 21, 19-21.
Melcher, J.W. & Franks, D.J. (1978). Certification and training of teachers of young handicapped children-The Wisconsin Experience. WDPI Bureau Memorandum, 20, 32-34.
Appendix A:
More about the Author
DAVID J. FRANKS, Ph.D. Retired as Professor Emeritus from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in 2006 after serving in multiple capacities, including Chair of the Department of Special Education from 1991-1995 and coordinating the Early Childhood-Special Education Programs beginning in 1981. Prior to his work at UW-Eau Claire he served as developer and Coordinator of Early Childhood-Handicapped Teacher Education Programs at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater from 1973-1981. Before entering the field of teacher education he served as: Early Childhood Training Specialist and Outreach Planning & Development Coordinator for the Educational Technology Satellite Demonstration Project, Rocky Mountain Federation of States, Denver, Colorado; Interim Director of the Diagnostic Learning Center, St. Paul Public Schools, St. Paul, Minnesota,; and Speech Therapist for the Head Start Program; and Speech Therapist for children classified as multi-handicapped & mentally retarded services for the St. Paul Public Schools, St. Paul, Minnesota. His educational background included earning a Bachelor of Science Degree in Speech Correction from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls in 1964, a Master of Arts Degree in Special Education from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1970 and a Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Special Education-Early Childhood Education from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1972.
He lists as important accomplishments: the development of innovative and highly effective undergraduate and graduate pre-service and continuing teacher education programs at the University of Wisconsin campuses at Whitewater and Eau Claire; his role in the State’s development of criterion-based Early Childhood Special Education (ECSE) teacher certification and training; founding member and leadership roles in the Wisconsin Division on Early Childhood (WDEC); documentation of ethnic disparity in special education programs; promotion of across-disciplinary training; and many outcomes from collaborative activities with local and state professionals, agencies and groups. As part of his active role in WDEC, he served two terms as the division’s president. He served on many committees and boards. He directed several projects and served as a consultant to local, state and national groups and agencies. In addition to his role as Coordinator of and instructor in the ECSE teacher training programs at UW-Whitewater and UW-Eau Claire, he was a member of the State’s Superintendent of the Department of Public Instruction’s Advisory Council. He served on the Eau Claire Area Development and Training Center Board and the Eau Claire School District Strategic Planning and Four Year Old Kindergarten planning committees. He was founder and principle investigator of the Wisconsin Committee on Early Childhood for the Handicapped in 1973, developer and advocate for the adoption of the State’s ECSE teacher certification in the 70’s, member of the team that developed and implemented the State’s Birth-to-3 services in the 80’s, member of the team that designed and carried out research related to the effectiveness of the preschool placement options in the 90’s, writer of several state and federal grants, and a developer of a variety of service delivery, curricular and instruction practices throughout his 30-plus year career in higher education.
He received awards for his contributions to the education of children at-risk for failure in school and children with disabilities. These include the Outstanding Service Award for contributions to ECSE in Wisconsin from the Wisconsin Federation, Council for Exceptional Children Division on Early Childhood in 1978 and its Life Time Achievement Award in 1999. He was the recipient of the first annual Victor Contrucci Service Award from the Wisconsin Council on Developmental Disabilities, the Distinguished Service Award from the Eau Claire Association for Retarded Citizens in 2003 and was recognized by the Eau Claire Area School District for 20 years of service to the education of young children who are at-risk or disabled in 2000. He was selected by his colleagues as the UW-Eau Claire’s College of Education nominee for the WDPI Outstanding Teacher Educator Award in 1986 and was a recipient of the Eau Claire Foundation’s Friends of Luther Children’s Legacy Award in 2005. Later that year he was honored by the University of Wisconsin System as one of one hundred faculty members from the System whose work best represented the Wisconsin Idea.
[1] In Wisconsin the Department of Health and Social Services and county agencies were responsible for the intervention services for children ages birth-to-3.
[2] Such as Handicapped Children’s Early Education Act, Head Start, the Milwaukee Project, and the Portage Model Demonstration Project
[3] Chapter 115 of the State’s Statutes and parent advocacy
[4] Such as the Penfield Center, Curative Workshop, Waisman Center-Dane County and Public school special education, and County Birth-to-3 programs
Back to the top | Next: Dedication & Acknowledgements >