Jessica Hagaman

Jessica Hagaman Biography

Jessica is one of SRSD Online’s star advisors. She specializes in SRSD for reading, creating her own evidence-based strategies and teaches SRSD to pre-service educators. Additionally, Jessica is an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. After working in the general education and special education classrooms at the elementary levels, she received her Ph.D. in Behavior Disorders from the University of Nebraska- Lincoln.  She teaches courses on strategy instructional methods, interventions, and assessment related to special education.

Selected Publications  

Building Comprehension in Adolescents: Powerful Strategies for Improving Reading and Writing in Content Areas May 14, 2012, with Linda Mason Ph.D. and Robert Reid Ph.D.

Strategy Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities, Second Edition (What Works for Special-Needs Learners) Sep 16, 2013, with Robert Reid Ph.D. and Torri Ortiz Lienemann Ph.D.

Selected Research

• Teacher Attrition in Special Education: Perspectives From the Field 2017
• Paraphrasing Strategy Instruction in Content Area Text 2016
• Understanding and supporting the academic needs of students with ADHD 2016
• Students’ Perceptions of an Online Graduate Program in Special Education for Emotional and Behavioral Disorders 2016
• Paraphrasing Strategy Instruction for Struggling Readers 2015
• Using self-regulated strategy development for written expression with students with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder 2014

Jessica Hagaman’s Story

My purpose in undergraduate education was actually a piano performance major and by the end of my second year I thought to myself, I think I want to be a teacher. I had already thought to myself I wanted to be a special education teacher, but in the state that I was in at the time, which was Minnesota, you couldn’t become a special education teacher without getting a master’s in special education. So I knew my first step was to get my undergrad in general education, which I did. And I took my first job teaching abroad in Costa Rica and it was hard because it was my first job, but also because I was in Costa Rica. I came back to Minnesota and taught general education and felt this sense that I was really missing something. I felt like I knew how to be a teacher, but there were some things that I just couldn’t quite figure out how to do as well as I wanted.

I started to really gravitate toward the students in my class who were on IEPs that were special education students. And so I looked into a master’s degree in special education and actually ended up enrolled in the master’s program at University of Nebraska Lincoln. I did my master’s program with Bob Reid and he was the one who taught me about strategy instruction. And I remember being in his master’s class for strategy instruction and it was like a light bulb went off: that feeling I had teaching in general education of missing something, strategy instruction for me was what was missing. And I remember talking to him after class and saying, this is everything I needed to understand why students struggle and how I could help them. It was the strategies, it was the self-regulation, that’s what they were lacking. And I worked with him to actually develop a research study that I conducted in my master’s program during my student teaching of my masters, which ended up being published. My first publication with Bob was focused on reading.

And then Bob said I did such a great job at that so he recruited me to be in the PHD program. So I went through the PHD program learning about SRSD and strategy instruction and then after that I’ve been in a college classroom ever since. And I continue to actually do research studies with SRSD in classrooms, but also teaching my students how to do it. And with Bob, I’ve actually written a couple of textbooks as well related to strategy instruction and SRSD.