Cynthia Carson

Academic Program Coordinator
Center for Professional Development & Education Reform

Education

Ph.D., University of Rochester

M.Ed., Virginia Commonwealth University

B.S., Houghton University

Biography

Dr. Cynthia Carson serves in the Warner School’s Center for Professional Development and Education Reform, where she supports teachers and coaches in their efforts to provide research-based mathematics instruction and coaching. Her elementary mathematics methods course challenges students’ conceptions of mathematics and the teaching of mathematics at the elementary level. She brings her classroom and professional development experience as an elementary teacher and coach, as well as her background in educational research and online teaching and learning, to her work in designing and facilitating professional learning for teachers.

Carson currently serves as the project director of a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded project, titled Synchronous Online Video-Based Development for Rural Mathematics Coaches (2020-24), which focuses on how a three-part online professional development for coaches can support their efforts to engage in robust content-based coaching with rural classroom teachers. She previously served as the project coordinator for two NSF-funded projects: the first, titled Synchronous Online Professional Learning Experiences for Middle Grades Mathematics Teachers in Rural Contexts (2016-20), was related to online professional learning for rural teachers; and the second, titled Developing Principles for Mathematics Curriculum Design and Use in the Common Core Era (2012-16), was related to teachers’ perceptions and uses of curriculum materials in the context of enacting the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics.

Carson currently serves in the Learning in the Digital Age Center to support teachers and coaches in mathematics and technology instruction. Carson also serves as a Research Subjects Review Board (RSRB) specialist, supporting Warner faculty, staff, and students with their research applications.