Dr. David Rago

Contact Information

Dr. David Rago

College: Sanford College of Education

Department: Special Education

DRago@nu.edu

(702)531-78127812

Henderson Campus


Education

Univ of Nevada, Las Vegas - PHD - Special Education
David is an educator with 31 years of experience in the Special Education field. He has worked with culturally, linguistically, and socio-economically diverse students in grades K-12, as a Resource Teacher or as a Self-Contained classroom teacher. David has implemented mild to moderate and intensive interventions for students with academic, behavioral, and social/emotional needs. Additionally, he successfully established positive and collaborative relationships with the parents/guardians of his students, working with them to design and meet effective learning, behavioral, and social/emotional goals for their children, managed and facilitated Student Study Teams, and served as a coach and mentor for first- and second-year Special Education teachers who participated in a Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) induction program. David has built on these experiences and this research focus as a professor in an Educator Preparation Program for people preparing for careers in the Special Education field. He has had opportunities to positively impact courses, programs, and a department, through his work as a Subject Matter Expert (SME), Academic Program Director (APD), and Department Chair. In these roles, he had opportunities to write courses, work 1:1 with students, supervise teacher candidates completing their clinical practice, guide and facilitate doctoral and master’s level candidates’ research, successfully prepare documents for the purpose of national and state program accreditation, and write policies and practices related to student success and dispositions. An interest David has is preparing new teachers to identify evidence-based teaching practices and then to knowledgeably and effectively implement these practices to teach their students who have disabilities how to write. David’s belief and understanding is that a literate person is someone who can read to understand and who can write to communicate a response and a request, to express their thoughts and feelings, and who can give structure and shape to their world through the written word. David’s research focus has expanded to also include an examination of transformational teaching and learning, critical self-reflection, and the principles of equity-minded teaching and how these frameworks, separately and together, may influence the dispositions and social-emotional state of teacher candidates in a Special Education Educator Preparation Program. David has shared his research in book chapters, journal articles, and at national and international conferences.

Memberships

  • California Association of Professors of Special Education
  • California Association on Teacher Education
  • Council for Exceptional Children

Publications

  • Dr. David Rago. (January 01, 2017). ![CDATA[Teaching writing to low socio-economic students with learning disabilities and autism spectrum disorder]]. P. Dickenson & P. Keough (Eds.), Preparing preserv.

  • Dr. David Rago. (December 01, 2016). ![CDATA[Struggling writers: 3 signs and 3 supporting strategies]]. Kappa Delta Pi: New Teacher Advocate.

  • Dr. David Rago. (n.d.). ![CDATA[Using Technology to Support the Writing of Students with Learning Disabilities]]. Proceedings of Society for Information Technology.

  • Dr. David Rago. (n.d.). ![CDATA[Using a cultural lens to examine why all students are not exposed to explicit instruction in writing and learning strategy instruction]]. Proceedings of the Association of North America Hi.

  • Dr. Cristina Salinas-Grandy. (n.d.). ![CDATA[Note to self: 3 things I learned about IEPs.]]. The Teacher Advocate Magazine.

  • Dickson, Linda. (n.d.). ![CDATA[Partnering to support the success of a unique group of students]]. Southern California Professional Development Schoo.

  • Leytham, P.A., Nguyen, N.. (n.d.). ![CDATA[Curriculum programming in the general education setting for students with autism spectrum disorder]]. TEACHING Exceptional Children.

  • Dr. David Rago. (n.d.). ![CDATA[How to overcome the challenge of teaching students with learning disabilities to use technology]]. Overcoming current challenges in the P-12 teaching.