Research Areas and Interests- Cognitive factors/individual differences in teaching/learning, policy analysis research in special education; CAI/hypermedia/distance education.

I am currently Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education and 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 (http://pollux.geog.ucsb.edu/cogsci/). Beginning July 1999, I am past president of the Division for Research, Council for Exceptional Children. The URL for the Division’s new website will soon be available here.

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 (http://www.malawi.net/govt) . I was awarded my Ph.D. in special education from the University of Virginia (http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/cise/sped/) in 1981.

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. My colleague, Mel Semmel, and I developed the idea of “policy analysis research” in special education here at UCSB. I believe my major contribution has been 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 applied this perspective to research on referral processes, microcomputer-based instructional technology, high stakes testing, charter schools, inclusion, class size reduction, and interventions for teachers.

Currently I am Co-Principal Investigator for CASELINK (http://caselink.education.ucsb.edu), a three year national project to develop, evaluate, and disseminate a Web package that includes both problem-based and interactive multimedia components to support multidisciplinary training in special education. The development of CASELINK will be supported by a national consortium of 22 universities. This exciting new project will lay a foundation for research on interesting theoretical and applied issues in special education, cognitive science, and professiona training.

References:

B. Cook, M. I. Semmel, & Gerber, M.. (1997). Are effective schools reforms  effective for all students. The implications of joint outcome production for school reform, Exceptionality, 7(2),77-96.

Parrish, T., Kaleba, D., Gerber, M., & McLaughlin, M. (1998). Study of incidence and cost of disabilities in California. Palo Alto, CA:. American Institutes for Research. (The Final Report can be downloaded at http://www.lao.ca.gov/special_education_0998/special_ed_incidence_by_air.pdf).

B. G. Cook, M. I. Semmel, & Gerber, M. (1999). Attitudes of principals and special education teachers . toward the inclusion of students with mild disabilities: Critical differences of opinion,. Remedial and Special Education, 20(4), 199-207.

Gerber, M., J. English, & G. S. Singer ((1999). Bridging between craft and academic knowledge A computer supported problem based learning model for professional preparation in special education, Teacher Education and Special Education, 22(2), 100-113.

Evans J, & Gerber, M. (1999, In press) The changing governance of education and its comparative impact on special education in the United Kingdom and, the United States. In M. McLaughlin & M. Rouse (Eds.), Special education and school reform in the United States and Britain(pp. 147-166) London: Routledge. (1999).

Gerber, M. (1999, In press).  An appreciation of learning disabilities: The value of blue-green algae. To appear in the inaugural issue of the new Exceptionality.