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Cecil D. Mercer, a giant in his field during his 31 years (1974-2005) on the College of Education’s special education faculty, passed away at home on Nov. 21, 2014, after a long battle with Lyme disease. He was 71.
In 1998, Dr. Mercer became the first College of Education faculty member to be promoted to the rank of Distinguished Professor at UF. His nationwide studies of how various states were defining the term “learning disability”—and how their educators were using the term to identify and place students—led to improvements in many states and to more stringent oversight at the federal level. His research in mathematics yielded evidence to support systematic and explicit instruction for students with learning disabilities. He was a three-time recipient of the college’s Teacher of the Year Award and was named Doctoral Adviser/Mentor of the Year in 2001.
Dr. Mercer was the type of versatile, forward-thinking scholar that a university program needs to forge an enduring national reputation. That may explain why UF typically commanded a top 15 spot among special education programs in the yearly U.S. News national rankings during his tenure at UF.
He retired in 2005 after 31 years of teaching and research in a number of areas, including learning disabilities, mathematics, reading and effective teaching principles.
Perhaps the best measure of a scholar is the impact he’s had on both his students and his profession. Dr. Mercer is a three-time recipient of the college’s Teacher of the Year Award. He also was one of the most widely recognized names in the field of learning disabilities. His nationwide studies of how various states were defining the term “learning disability”—and how their educators were using the term to identify and place students—led to improvements in many states and to more stringent oversight at the federal level.
His research in mathematics yielded evidence to support systematic and explicit instruction for students with learning disabilities. He has published seven editions of his best selling text, Teaching Students with Learning Problems, considered one of the leading texts on instructing students with mild disabilities.
The Story Behind the Strategic Math Series
Many students with learning problems lack proficiency in basic number facts and are unable to acquire and maintain math facts at fluency levels. Given the problems that many students with learning problems exhibit with lower-level math skills and the importance of these skills to overall math achievement, the need existed for comprehensive programming to teach basic math facts. Susan Miller, one of my doctoral students at the University of Florida, also was interested in determining effective ways to teach mathematics. For her dissertation, we designed a study that involved the use of the Concrete-Representational-Abstract (CRA) teaching sequence to help students acquire an understanding of place value. Because the CRA sequence is appropriate for teaching the understanding of math throughout the span of math concepts, skills, and word problems, we conducted a series of studies and field tests related to teaching basic math facts using the CRA sequence with integrated strategy instruction, a graduated word problem sequence, math timings, and numerous Pig Dice Games for enjoyable practice. Due to the research results, the success and excitement of students in the program, and the enthusiasm of teachers using the CRA teaching sequence, Don Deshler and Jean Schumaker encouraged and supported the creation of the Strategic Math Series.
My Thoughts about the Strategic Math Series
The Strategic Math Series is based on research on effective teaching, learning strategies, memory, mastery learning, applied behavior analysis, generalization, and student motivation. Many students who have struggled with learning their basic math facts have used the program and now can understand, acquire, remember, and apply math concepts and skills. Students participating in the program manipulate concrete objects and create drawings to develop conceptual understanding, learn to use a learning strategy to solve problems abstractly, and participate in timings to develop fluency related to the basic math facts. Students also learn to create their own story problems, and they enjoy practice activities involving the Pig Games. All lessons include scripts to guide the teacher through the instructional components. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics highlights the need for students to understand basic facts and operations. Failure to acquire mastery of math facts and to understand basic concepts in beginning math instruction contributes heavily to later learning problems because fluent recall of basic math facts makes it easier to solve more complex problems in which these basic operations are embedded. The Strategies Math Series is designed to help students develop fluency in basic math facts.
Teacher and Student Feedback on the Strategic Math Series
Teachers report that the math strategies instruction is easy to implement and that the students really understand addition, subtraction, place value, multiplication, and division when they finish the instructional lessons. Teachers who use comprehensive math programs indicate that the Strategic Math Series provides students with needed supplemental instruction and practice to be successful in math. During field testing for the development of the Strategic Math Series, teachers were overwhelmingly positive and indicated they would continue to use the program after the field tests were completed. Moreover, students involved the field testing also provided positive written feedback concerning the program.
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