Carol A. Tomlinson

Carol Ann Tomlinson's career as an educator includes 21 years as a public school teacher, including 12 years as a program administrator of special services for struggling and advanced learners. She was Virginia’s Teacher of the Year in 1974. More recently, she has been a faculty member at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education, where she is currently Professor and Chair of Educational Leadership, Foundations and Policy. Also at U.Va., she is Co-Director of the University's Institutes on Academic Diversity. Carol was named Outstanding Professor at Curry School of Education in 2004 and received an All University Teaching Award in 2008. Special interests throughout her career have included curriculum and instruction for struggling learners and advanced learners, effective instruction in heterogeneous settings, and encouraging creative and critical thinking in the classroom.

Carol is a reviewer for eight journals and is author of over 200 articles, book chapters, books, and other professional development materials. For ASCD, she has authored How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed Ability Classrooms, The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners, Leadership for Differentiated Schools and Classrooms, the facilitator’s guide for the video staff development sets called Differentiating Instruction, and At Work in the Differentiated Classroom, as well as a professional inquiry kit on differentiation. Most recently, she co-authored a book with Jay McTighe titled Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design: Connecting Content and Kids and with Kay Brimijoin and Lane Narvaez co-authored The Differentiated School: Making Revolutionary Change or Teaching and Learning. For Corwin Press, she is co-author of The Parallel Curriculum Model: A Design to Develop High Potential and Challenge High Ability Learners. Carol’s books on differentiation have been translated into eleven languages. She works throughout the U.S. and abroad with teachers whose goal is to develop more responsive heterogeneous classrooms.