Dr. Carol Ann Tomlinson taught in public schools for 21 years and was later a faculty member at the University of Virginia for 30 years. Her two “lives” as an educator have enabled her to develop, pilot, research, refine, and share a model for “differentiating instruction” in today’s diverse classrooms. The model supports teachers in recognizing and addressing students’ varied strengths, needs, interests, cultures, and school experiences to maximize each learner’s possibilities. Tomlinson was Virginia’s Teacher of the Year in 1974 and received an All-University teaching award at the University of Virginia in 2008. Since 2013, she has been ranked in the top 20 of Education Week’s Edu-Scholar Public Presence Rankings of the 200 “University-based academics who are contributing most substantially to public debates about schools and schooling,” and in the top 5 voices in Curriculum. Her books include: The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners, So Each May Soar: The Principles & Practices of Learner-Centered Classrooms, and Everybody’s Classroom: Differentiating for the Shared and Unique Needs of Diverse Learners.
