Curriculum Studies and Teacher Education

Curriculum Studies and Teacher Education offers two pathways for developing, examining, implementing, and assessing curriculum.

Curriculum Studies, which employs theory and research in curriculum as a broadly construed discipline, and Teacher Education, which engages school curriculum issues, especially the teaching of particular subject areas in classroom settings.

This Ph.D. concentration provides students with a general introduction to the study of curriculum, while allowing students to specialize in either Curriculum Studies or Teacher Education in ways that are flexible for meeting their needs.

Curriculum Studies

Curriculum Studies aims to make sense of the teaching and learning by inquiring into the purposes of curriculum, questioning whose interests are served by curriculum, and considering research in successful teaching approaches.

To do so, Curriculum Studies is not narrowly technical in application; rather, it employs a historically-informed and critical theoretical perspective.

Moreover, it views curriculum as more than just a list of content to be taught by also taking into account the sociopolitical contexts of education, the organization of the school, and the hidden or unintended implications of what is taught and learned in schools.

Curriculum Studies is interdisciplinary in nature, bringing together work in the foundations of education (including the history, philosophy, anthropology, and sociology of education) and educational policy analysis.

Teacher Education

The teacher education emphasis develops candidate’s knowledge of teacher development across the life and learning span of teachers, including pre-service teacher preparation, the induction years, and teacher professional development.

Within this wide construct, individual candidates may choose to focus on areas such as:

  • Policies that impact teachers’ work
  • The development of teachers’ content knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors
  • The role of student knowledge and learning in a content area
  • The social and political environment in which teachers work
Headshot of Chris L Atchison

Chris L Atchison

Professor, Geoscience Education, CECH Curriculum & Instruction

600E Teachers College

513-556-3613

Dr. Atchison specializes in Geoscience Education. His research involves creating full access to the Earth Science disciplines for students and scientists with physical, sensory, and developmental disabilities, and evaluation of the instructional strategies that promote inclusive communities of learning in field settings. He is the Founder of the International Association for Geoscience Diversity (www.TheIAGD.org), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization charged with advocating for students and geoscientists with disabilities, while developing accessible pathways into the Geoscience workforce through innovative and inclusive instructional strategies and research opportunities.

Atchison served as Program Director in the Directorate for STEM Education, Division of Equity for Excellence in STEM, at the U.S. National Science Foundation from 2022-2025. 
 
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Joanna Batt

Asst Professor (F2), CECH Secondary Education

Teachers College

513-556-3600

Dr. Joanna Batt is an Assistant Professor of Secondary Education in Social Studies at University of Cincinnati. Informed and inspired by her time as a high school teacher in Buffalo, NY, Dr. Batt is deeply passionate about the relationship of history teaching and social justice. She studies secondary social studies education with an emphasis on race, gender and sexuality. Through arts-based qualitative research and feminist methodology, Dr. Batt explores how critical history teaching and multimodal curricula centered in students' lives can support educational equity and student agency. Her work can be found in peer-reviewed journals such as Social Education, Middle Level Learning, and Critical Education; books such as Mindful Social Studies: Frameworks for Social Emotional Learning and Critically Engaged Citizens; and in popular media on the intersections of history, teaching and culture such as Not Even Past. Dr. Batt received her B.A. in history from the University of Notre Dame, and her M.Ed. in language and literacy from Harvard Graduate School of Education. She taught U.S. History for seven years, was a Donald D. Harrington Fellow at University of Texas at Austin’s College of Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and has moderated racial literacy book clubs for middle schoolers in Buffalo, NY and Austin, TX for over twelve years. Her research has been awarded the University of Texas at Austin's 2022 Graduate Student Small Grant Research Award, the 2023 Curriculum Inquiry Writing Fellowship, and the 2023 Larry Metcalf Exemplary Dissertation Award from the National Council for the Social Studies. 
Dr. Batt's Google scholar page
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Lauren Marie Colley

Assoc Professor, CECH Secondary Education

Teachers College

Lauren M. Colley is an educator, self-taught baker, and solo mother to three equally amazing, demanding, and unique children. She is an advocate for social justice, national paid parental and family leave, and happier and healthier earth and world. Since 2019, she has been an Assistant Professor of Secondary Social Studies Education at the University of Cincinnati where her research focuses primarily on how students and teachers use and think about gender and feminism in the social studies curriculum and classroom. From 2015-2019, she worked as an Assistant Professor of Secondary Social Science Education at the University of Alabama. She earned her PhD in 2015 from the University of Kentucky (UK) where she worked as a Graduate Assistant to the C3 Framework and the New York Social Studies Toolkit Project. Prior to pursuing her doctorate, she earned a Master of Arts in History (2007, UK), a Master of Arts in Education (2008, UK), and taught high school social studies in Central Kentucky. 
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Anna Fricano DeJarnette

Associate Professor and Director | School of Education, CECH Curriculum & Instruction

615B Teachers College

513-556-4547

Anna DeJarnette is an associate professor of math education.  She earned her Ph.D. in mathematics education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She studies students' mathematics learning through problem solving, groupwork, and opportunities for mathematical discourse. More broadly, she is also interested in students' development of problem solving practices across STEM contexts including science and engineering.
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Juan Manuel T Gerardo

Asst Professor (F2), CECH Middle Childhood Education

Teachers College

513-556-3600

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Kathleen M Koenig

Professor, A&S Physics

417 Geology-Physics Building

513-556-0507

Dr. Kathy Koenig is a Professor in the Physics Department with an Affiliate Appointment in the College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services.  A former high school physics teacher, she went on to earn her PhD in Physics Education and has built her career around advancing how students learn science, from K-12 classrooms to large enrollment college courses. Before joining UC in 2011, she served on the physics faculty at Wright State University.

Her NSF-funded research focuses on improving student success and retention in introductory STEM courses through innovative teaching strategies and curriculum design. Examples of externally funded projects include developing online interactive video-enhanced tutorials that support conceptual understanding (link) as well as problem solving (link) in physics. She is also the lead developer of SR-Labs, a research-based physics lab curriculum designed to strengthen scientific reasoning. More recently, her funded research has turned toward psychological interventions,such as fostering belonging, self-efficacy, and growth mindset, and how these can be delivered through online platforms (link) to transform student experiences in challenging STEM courses. Last, she has secured internal university funding to create an AI agent to support students in the introductory physics classroom.

Since 2006, her research has been awarded over $8.1 million in NSF and NIH funding. She has published in leading journals, including Science and Physical Review: Physics Education Research, and contributed to practioner journals, including The Physics Teacher, Journal of College Science Teaching and Science Scope, and has three book chapters.  She has also secured more than $750,000 to support K-12 STEM teacher training.  She has presented over 50 invited talks worldwide and presented more than 250 conference papers. 

Teaching and research awards include: Fellow of the American Association of Physics Teachers (2021), UC's Academy of Teaching Fellows (2016), Ohio Magazine Excellence in Education Honoree (2013), three time Darwin T. Turner Breakfast of Champions Awardee (2012, 2015, 2026), Award for Innovative Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Technology at the International Conference on College Teaching and Learning (2011), and the Presidential Early Career Achievement Award (2009, Wright State University).  
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Kimberly Michele McCormick

Assoc Professor, CECH Elementary Education

2150J EDWARDS 1 Edwards Center

513-556-7461

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Helen Meyer

Associate Professor, CECH Secondary Education

600C Teachers College

Dr. Helen Meyer received her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Wisconsin - Madison, MA from Columbia University in Secondary Science Education, and BS from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.  In addition to her work in STEM education, Dr. Meyer is interested in teacher education and democratic development both locally and internnationally.
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Headshot of Evthokia Stephanie Saclarides

Evthokia Stephanie Saclarides

Associate Professor, CECH Middle Childhood Education

Teachers College

513-556-3600

Dr. Evthokia Stephanie Saclarides is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. She earned her Ph.D. in mathematics education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2018. Her research broadly centers on exploring how coaches (e.g., instructional, content, state-level, etc.) can support in-service teachers to enact high-quality mathematics instruction for all students. Dr. Saclarides's overarching research agenda can be further divided into exploring the following four themes: 1) Relationships between coaching and teachers' opportunities to learn; 2) Relationships between coaching and student achievement; 3) The politics of coaching, including the influence of policies and expectations on coaches; and 4) Coaches' learning opportunities during professional development.
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Sarah M Stitzlein

Professor, CECH Curriculum & Instruction

610F Teachers College

513-556-2439

Please view my personal website, which includes additional and more recent publications and information about current projects.

I am a Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Cincinnati.  My primary appointment is in Education and I am also an affiliate faculty member in Philosophy and in the Portman Center for Policy Solutions.  As a philosopher of education, I use political philosophy to address pressing problems in schools and democracy. Most recently, those involve matters of censorship, polarization, populism, honesty, and political dissent.  I am especially interested in issues of political agency, youth civic engagement, and educating for democracy in schools.  I craft policies and practices aimed at improving citizenship education and helping citizens navigate contentious political situations across party lines.

I am Senior Editor of the journal, Democracy & Education.  I served as President of the Ohio Valley Philosophy of Education Society and the John Dewey Society.

I have received the University of Cincinnati Distinguished Research Profesor Award, Jack Twyman Award for Service Learning, the Distinguished Teaching Award, and Golden Apple awards.  At my previous university, I earned the University of New Hampshire Outstanding Professor award.  I am also the recipient of the American Association of University Women Postdoctoral Research Fellowship and the National Endowment for the Humanities Teaching Development Fellowship. 
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