Teaching Students to Become Self-Determined Learners

Michael Wehmeyer, PhD, is the Ross and Marianna Beach distinguished professor and chairperson, Department of Special Education, at the University of Kansas. His scholarly work has focused on understanding and promoting self-determination and self-determined learning, creating and evaluating autonomy supportive interventions, and the application of positive psychology to the disability context. He has published extensively in these areas and is an author or editor of more than 40 books and more than 400 scholarly articles and book chapters. Wehmeyer is a member of the Phi Beta Delta Honor Society for International Scholars and an honorary alumni inductee of the Phi Beta Kappa Arts and Sciences Honor Society. He has held numerous leadership and editorial positions in the field and has been recognized for his research and service with awards from numerous associations and organizations, including the American Psychological Association Distinguished Contributions to the Advancement of Disability Issues in Psychology Award. Wehmeyer holds graduate degrees in special education and experimental psychology from the University of Tulsa and the University of Sussex in Brighton, England, respectively, and earned his PhD in Human Development and Communication Sciences from the University of Texas at Dallas, where he received a 2014 Distinguished Alumni Award. Yong Zhao is foundation distinguished professor in the School of Education at the University of Kansas. Prior to joining the University of Kansas, he served as the presidential chair, director of the Institute for Global and Online Education, and associate dean in the College of Education, University of Oregon, where he was also a professor in the Department of Educational Measurement, Policy, and Leadership. Until December 2010, Zhao was a University Distinguished Professor at the College of Education, Michigan State University, where he also served as the founding director of the Center for Teaching and Technology, executive director of the Confucius Institute and the US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence. Zhao has published more than100 articles and 30 books. He has received numerous awards, including the Early Career Award from the American Educational Research Association, Outstanding Public Educator from Horace Mann League of USA, and Distinguished Achievement Award in Professional Development from the Association of Education Publishers. He is an elected fellow of the International Academy for Education and is recognized as one of the most influential education scholars.