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The SIM Leadership Award recognizes individuals who have shown exceptional leadership and excellent service to the Strategic Instruction Model(TM) by helping educators become strategic teachers and, as a result, students become strategic learners. Recipients are standout leaders in the SIM International Professional Development Network, sharing their energy and knowledge and inspiring their colleagues to greater achievements. We recognize their achievements, their courage despite adversity, and their unwavering belief in the power of individuals to join together to make a difference in the lives of students. This year's recipients, Barbara Ehren and Joyce Rademacher, have each played vital roles in shaping the direction of research at the Center for Research on Learning and in leading the SIM Network toward ever-greater achievements.
Joyce Rademacher's brand of leadership is quiet, but persistent. She insists on the importance of quality in education, she believes in the power of students and teachers to build learning communities together, and she steadfastly seeks effective ways to ensure that classroom teachers have access to the best instructional practices identified in research.
The Center for Research on Learning and the SIM Network have benefited greatly from her insights.
Joyce came to the Center in 1988, after years of experience as a teacher and principal. She first worked with Keith Lenz on a grant to bring Learning Strategies to the attention of university faculty throughout the country. During that time, she decided to pursue her doctorate at KU, and in her dissertation research, she looked at assignments through the eyes of both students and teachers.
"I had done focus groups with students and with teachers to look at the characteristics of what kids perceived to be really good assignments and what teachers thought were good motivating assignments," she says.
The result was the Quality Assignment Routine, which not only helps teachers plan assignments based on characteristics her research identified but also incorporates two strategies: one to help students obtain the information they need to do a good job on the assignment, and the other to prompt students to check their work.
"Joyce called our attention to the importance of quality," says Don Deshler, director of the Center. "While it is important to have students move up on their progress chart and reach certain quantitative goals, she reminded us of the importance of having that journey be a quality journey."
Another SIM product--Focusing Together, part of the Community Building Series--grew out of Joyce's interest in helping teachers and students work together to build a learning community. She believes that involving students in creating a learning environment rather than imposing a very controlling situation on them, benefits everyone.
"She's identified a need in the area of behavior management, how to help organize a classroom so you can do strategy instruction and so it's a little bit less chaotic," says Barb Duchardt, associate professor at Northwestern State University. "I've seen that as filling a piece of the puzzle."
Another concern Joyce shares with many in education involves communication and effective teaching practices.
"We need to really bridge the gap between what happens at the university and what happens in the schools," she says.
As professor of special education at Texas Woman's University, she takes steps to close that gap every day through her teaching and collaboration with other faculty members. She also continues to lead--along with Barb Duchardt--the preservice institutes she originally helped develop in the late 1980s and to take on additional assignments from the Center when needed.
"She's right there when you ask her to share her knowledge, to work with people," says Patty, director of professional development. "She teaches me something every time I get to work with her."
Joyce's extensive knowledge, sensitivity to the needs of students, and deep concern for individuals and education combine to make her a respected and vital member of the SIM Network.
"In all of the years I've known her, she has been my model for a leader," says Barb. "She respects the people that she works with, she encourages people to be their best and to do their best, and she wants people to be successful."
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