Are you a skilled Direct Instruction practitioner with at least four years of DI teaching experience? The National Institute for Direct Instruction is looking for qualified applicants to work as Implementation Managers in our partner schools. An Implementation Manager (IM) is the primary on-site NIFDI representative for implementing the comprehensive DI model. The IM is assigned to a small number of schools, provides the bulk of on-site coaching and deals mostly with the technical aspects of classroom instruction, such as student placement and grouping, instructional delivery, and correction procedures. Experience coaching others in DI delivery techniques and analyzing DI program student performance data is preferred, but not required.

If you would like to take the first steps in exploring an IM position, please forward your resume to Christine Wlaschin, Director of Human Resources for NIFDI, to christine@nifdi.org. Please consider applying for this exciting and vital role!

On April 13, 2019, over 400 family members, friends, admirers and colleagues of Siegfried "Zig" Engelmann gathered for a memorial to his life and professional career. The memorial, hosted by Randy Sprick, featured speakers representing various facets of Engelmann's career in education. Speakers about the early years of DI included Carl Bereiter, Cookie Bruner, and a letter from Jean Osborn, read by Leslie Zoref. Doug Carnine, Hill Walker and Geoff Colvin spoke of Zig's work at the University of Oregon. Evan Haney, Jerry Silbert and Susie Hanner reflected on Engelmann's contributions as the senior author of the Direct Instruction programs. Gary Davis and Mary Gleason talked about his contributions to teacher training and implementation. Finally, Tom Torkelson appeared via video, and Owen Engelmann and Kurt Engelmann made compelling remarks about the legacy Zig left. The memorial closed with Zig's grandson, Nathan Engelmann, reading an excerpt from Engelmann and Carnine's landmark book, Theory of Instruction.

A unique feature of the memorial was the inclusion of excerpts from a 2005 interview with Zig. Each segment of the memorial included comments from Zig himself about the aspect being addressed. People commented that it was as if he were telling his own story.

NIFDI has created a webpage designed to be a central resource to house information and tributes to Zig. Currently this page has Zig's obituary, a full video of the memorial, all of the speaker's notes, some key videos about Zig, and many links to tributes from the field and press coverage. You can view this page at www.nifdi.org/zig. We will update the page as new items come in. If you would like to submit your own tribute or some other news item related to Zig's work, please send it on to bwickman@nifdi.org.