"How well we teach = how well they learn. Teach with passion. Manage with compassion."
- Anita Archer
Education:
M.A. in German Language and Literature, University of Washington
M.A. in Special Education, University of Oregon
Ph.D. in Special Education Technology, University of Oregon
Bonnie Grossen, Ph.D., taught high school German and English before beginning her career in Direct instruction in 1975 while teaching elementary Native American children. Later, as a high school special education teacher, she taught DI for 9 years before embarking on the Ph.D. program at the University of Oregon. Subsequent to graduation, she served as Head of the English Department at a black teacher-training college in South Africa. The mandate there was to raise teacher trainee competencies using DI programs and to implement DI in the homeland elementary schools.
Bonnie’s career in DI involved three different roles: researcher, author, and implementer/teacher trainer. As a researcher, she received the Award for Outstanding Research in Learning Disabilities presented by the Council for Learning Disabilities in 1989; the National Young Researcher Award presented by the Association for Computers and Educational Technology in 1989; and the American Federation of Teachers’ Contributing Researchers Award for bridging the gap between research and practice in 2002. The first two awards were for her research demonstrating that logical thinking and reasoning could be taught successfully to low-IQ individuals, a finding that contradicted the mainstream belief that logical ability is innate and cannot be taught.
