Carol A. Tomlinson

William Clay Parrish Jr. Professor Emeritus

  • Ed.D., University of Virginia, 1991
  • M.Ed., University of Virginia, 1972
  • B.A., University of South Carolina, 1965

Carol A. Tomlinson, Ed.D., is William Clay Parrish, Jr. Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia’s School of Education where she served as Chair of Educational Leadership, Foundations, and Policy, and Co-Director of the University’s Institutes on Academic Diversity. Prior to joining the faculty at UVa, she was a public school teacher for 21 years. She was Virginia’s Teacher of the Year in 1974. At UVa, she was named Outstanding Professor in 2004 and received an All-University Teaching Award in 2008. In 2019, she was ranked #8 in the Education Week Edu-Scholar Public Presence Rankings of 200 “University-based academics who are contributing most substantially to public debates about schools and schooling,” and as the #3 voice in Educational Psychology. Her books on differentiation have been translated into 14 languages. Among those books is Assessment in a Differentiated Classroom: A Guide for Student Success, which she co-authored with Tonya R. Moon.

 

 

Research Interests

Major research interests include differentiation of instruction for academically diverse learners including teacher and administrator attitudes and practices related to academic diversity, impacts of initial teacher preparation on novice teacher readiness to teach in academically diverse settings, impacts of varied school and teaching practices on low income and minority learners, and the change process in schools moving toward more academically responsive classrooms. More recently, she has also begun studying differentiation at the university level in teacher education as well as other disciplines.

Resources