"Illinois State University has been a great academic home for me. Working with colleagues and students at ISU has been a joy. I'm grateful to ISU for supporting my efforts to maintain an active research agenda and make what, I hope, are meaningful contributions to the field of special education. At its core, a university should be a community where everyone takes responsibility to be both a learner and a teacher. ISU has provided me with this type of community, and I've always felt as if I belonged here." — Jim Thompson, chair of the Department of Special Education
(November 13, 2006) As professor and chairperson of the Department of Special Education, Jim Thompson is committed to making a difference in the field of special education. He divides his day between performing the administrative duties of his chairperson position, teaching courses in the department, and researching issues relevant to the lives of children and adults with developmental disabilities and their families.
This semester Thompson is teaching the honors section of the introductory course in special education, SED 101: The Exceptional Learner. He enjoys working with honors students and finds his students to be very collaborative and supportive of one another. He believes that special education majors are a particularly rewarding group of undergraduate students with whom to work. He shares, "Our students tend to have a lot of heart; they want to make a difference in the world and are motivated to become outstanding teachers."
Thompson is involved in the University's Podcast Initiative this semester and uses podcasts to comprehensively review material covered in his classes. Having information available via podcasts frees up class time for in depth discussions and critical thinking activities. He feels that it is important for faculty members to try new technologies when teaching. He says, "When pre-service teachers observe their instructor trying something new, it sends the message that incorporating new teaching methods is a good thing to do. Of course, new initiatives don't always go perfectly the first time, and teachers need to be able to tolerate a few bumps in the road if they are going to grow as instructors. A desire to continually expand one's repertoire of skills is an important professional disposition for teachers to bring to their work."
Thompson is currently involved in multiple research projects related to improving school and adult services to individuals with disabilities. The Supports Intensity Scale (SIS), led by Thompson and a team of nine other experts, is a new method to evaluate the needs of adults with developmental disabilities in order to arrive at resources, strategies, and services that can optimize a person's quality of life. The SIS originated from a movement that recognizes that people with disabilities should live their lives as full-fledged members of their communities. In the past, individuals with developmental disabilities were described by their deficits, which had limited usefulness in terms of planning. With the SIS, people are evaluated by support needs to guide problem solving so that personalized supports can be tailored to the goals and preferences of each individual and his or her family.
The SIS, published by the American Association on Mental Retardation, has been translated into nine languages and is being used by numerous national and international governmental and private organizations. Thompson's work in this area has now moved into developing a parallel scale for children. Thompson reports, "Our goal is to publish a SIS for Children by the conclusion of 2008."
Another project in which Thompson is involved is called the Family Assessment Portfolio (FAP) project. He, along with fellow Illinois State colleagues Karla J. Doepke, Hedda Meaden-Kaplansky, Ken Fansler, and several ISU students, is developing methods to assist parents in communicating valuable information about their special needs child to their child's future teachers. The project focuses on creating a portfolio that includes a scrapbook, video, and Web site. Information in the portfolio goes beyond what is provided in traditional assessment reports, as it presents information from the parent's and child's perspectives. A major premise underlying the development of FAPs is that, because of time constraints during planning team meetings, parents rarely feel that they have time to provide essential information about their child to the school. The portfolio allows them to share information in an efficient and effective manner.
Thompson plans to develop a critical mass of FAPs to empirically test the results. Through surveys and focus groups, he will collect data regarding whether or not the portfolios are making a difference. Initial reactions from local teachers and parents who have used the portfolios have been overwhelmingly positive. In a recent case, after viewing the FAP video about her future student with a disability, a teacher asked if she could show the film to her class of first graders as a means to educate them about their new classmate. As the project progresses, Thompson is excited about the potential benefits the portfolios could bring to both parents and educators.
In closing, Thompson states that Illinois State is a great place to learn and teach. The University has been very supportive of him in terms of helping him achieve his professional goals. He believes that faculty members of the Department of Special Education are an outstanding group of colleagues who care about the whole program, not just their own agendas. He says, "Faculty members in our department take great pride in assuring that undergraduate and graduate programs in special education at Illinois State are second to none. Special education has its own distinctive niche at the University and its national reputation is well deserved."
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