Dr. Sarah Kavanagh is a leading expert in teacher education, instructional coaching, and professional development. A former middle and high school teacher, her work aims to make public the intricacies, complexities, and nuances of teachers’ practice and designs for teacher learning. She is at the forefront of efforts to reimagine infrastructures for teacher professional learning across the career span.

Professional Biography

Dr. Kavanagh is an associate professor of teacher education in the Learning, Teaching, and Literacies Division. She is also the Director of the Collaboratory for Teaching and Teacher Education and a Co-Principal Investigator of several large research grants investigating designs for K–12 teacher learning. Prior to joining Penn GSE, Dr. Kavanagh was a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University’s Center to Support Excellence in Teaching and a research scientist at the University of Washington’s College of Education where she also received her Ph.D. She began her career as a middle and high school teacher, first in California’s Bay Area and then in the Baltimore area.

Her research has been funded by the Spencer Foundation, the James S. McDonnell Foundation, and Lucas Education Research, among other organizations, and she has served on the editorial boards of leading educational research journals including the American Educational Research Journal and Reading Research Quarterly. Among other notable academic journals, her research has appeared in the American Educational Research Journal, Educational Researcher, Cognition & Instruction, Teachers College Record, the Journal of Teacher Education, and Teaching and Teacher Education. She also co-authored the book Core Practices for Project-Based Learning: A Guide for Teachers and Leaders (Harvard Education Press, 2021).

Research Interests and Current Projects

Dr. Kavanagh’s research focuses on understanding how to elevate and sustain a thriving teaching profession. She sees teaching as complex, highly skilled, relational, moral, intellectual, and fundamentally human work. With her research, therefore, she aims to understand the policies and practices that will best sustain and elevate the teaching profession. To this end, her current research focuses on two domains: the first is how educational technologies are transforming the practice of teaching, and the second is how schools, districts, and states are responding to teacher shortages. Both lines of research are focused on understanding how various stakeholders are (and are not) investing in the long-term health of the teaching profession.

Publications

Featured

Core Practices for Project-Based Learning: A Guide for Teachers and Leaders

Selected Publications

Kavanagh, S. S., & Bernhard, T. (2023, January 9). Managing tech integration in your classroom: It’s important for technology-influenced learning environments to encourage students to be active, collaborative, and engaged. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/managing-tech-integration-classroom

Kavanagh, S. S., Feiman-Nemser, S., Hammerness, K., Matsko, K. K., & Wallace, J. (2023). Stepping in or stepping on: Mentor teachers’ preferences for mentoring inside and outside of interactive teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 74(3), 274–287. https://doi.org/10.1177/00224871221142843

Kavanagh, S. S., Gotwalt, E. S., & Farrow, J. (2023). Practice-based coaching for project-based teaching: Understanding relationships between coaching practice and teaching practice. Teaching and Teacher Education, 132, Article 104255. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2023.104255

Pupik Dean, C. G., Grossman, P., Enumah, L., Herrmann, Z., & Kavanagh, S. S. (2023). Core practices for project-based learning: Learning from experienced practitioners in the United States. Teaching and Teacher Education, 133, Article 104275. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2023.104275

Farrow, J., Kavanagh, S. S., Samudra, P., (2022) Exploring relationships between professional development and teachers’ enactments of project-based learning. Education Sciences, 12(282), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12040282

Kavanagh, S. S., Danielson, K. A., & Schiavone Gotwalt, E. (2022). Preparing in advance to respond in-the-moment: Investigating parallel changes in planning and enactment in teacher professional development. Journal of Teacher Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/00224871221121767

Kavanagh, S. S., Resnick, A. F., Ghousseini, H., Gotwalt, E. S., Siy, E., Kazemi, E., & Dutro, E. (2022). Breaking the Fourth Wall in Collaborative Research: Beyond the Observer/Performer Binary in Research on Teacher Learning and Practice. Cognition & Instruction, 40(1), 126–147. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370008.2021.2010209

Potvin, A, Miller, E., Kuck, R., Berland, L, Boardman, A G., Kavanagh, S. S., Clark, T., Cheng, B. (2022). Mapping enabling conditions for high-quality PBL: A collaboratory approach. Education Sciences, 12(222), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12030222

Ghousseini, H., Kavanagh, S. S., Kazemi, E., & Dutro, E. (2021). The fourth wall of professional learning and cultures of collaboration. Educational Researcher, 51(3), 216–222. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X211058751

Grossman P., Herrmann, Z., Kavanagh, S. S., & Pupik Dean, C. G. (2021). Core practices for project-based learning: A guide for teachers and leaders. Harvard Education Press.

Herrmann, Z., & Kavanagh, S. S. (2021, October 19). Using classroom video to improve your teaching: Reflecting on and learning from captured moments in the classroom can be a powerful form of professional learning. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/using-classroom-video-improve-your-teaching

Kavanagh, S. S. (2021). Toward non-binary theories of practice in teacher education. Educational Researcher, 51(1), 66–71. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X211052058

Rangu, S., Danielson, K., Kavanagh, S. S., Catanoso, L., Magee, L., & Castelo-Soccio, L. (2021). Effects of a pilot educational intervention on perceptions of visible skin diseases in the pediatric population. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, 85(5), 1329–1331. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaad.2020.10.068

Kavanagh, S. S., Conrad, J., & Dagogo-Jack, S. (2020). From rote to reasoned: Examining the role of pedagogical reasoning in practice-based teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 89, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2019.102991

Kavanagh, S. S. & Danielson, K. (2020). Practicing justice, justifying practice: Towards critical practice teacher education. American Educational Research Journal, 57(1), 69–105. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831219848691

Kavanagh, S. S., Metz, M., Hauser, M., Fogo, B., Carlson, J., & Taylor, M. (2020). Practicing responsiveness: Using approximations of teaching to build teachers’ instructional judgment. Journal of Teacher Education, 71(1), 94–107. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487119841884

Metz, M., Kavanagh, S. S., & Hauser, M. (2020). Developing adaptive expertise in facilitating text-based discussions: Attending to generalities and novelty. English Education, 52(4), 310–334.

Grossman, P., Dean, C. P., Kavanagh, S. S. & Herrmann, Z. (2019). Preparing teachers for student-centered teaching: The core practices of project-based teaching. Phi Delta Kappan.

Grossman, P., Kazemi, E., Kavanagh, S. S., Franke, M., & Dutro, E. (2019). Learning to Facilitate Discussions: Collaborations in Practice-Based Teacher Education. Teaching & Teacher Education, 81, 97–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2019.02.002

Hauser, M., & Kavanagh, S. S. (2019). Practice-based teacher education. In G. W. Noblit (Ed.), Oxford research encyclopedia of education. Oxford University Press.

Kavanagh, S. S., Monte-Sano, C., Reisman, A., Fogo, B., McGrew, S., Cipparone, P., & Jay, L. (2019). Teaching content in practice: Investigating rehearsals of social studies discussions. Teaching and Teacher Education, 86, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2019.06.017

Reisman, A., Cipparone, P., Jay, L., Monte-Sano, C., Kavanagh, S. S., McGrew, S., & Fogo, B. (2019). Evidence of emergent practice: Teacher candidates facilitating historical discussions in their field placements. Teaching & Teacher Education. 80. 145–156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2018.12.014

Danielson, K., Kavanagh, S. S. , & Kazemi, E. (2018). Learning together. In P. Grossman (Ed.), Teaching core practices in teacher education. Harvard Education Press.

Grossman, P., Kavanagh, S. S. , & Dean, C. P. (2018). The turn to practice in teacher education. In P. Grossman (Ed.), Teaching core practices in teacher education. Harvard Education Press.

Kavanagh, S. S. (2018). Practicing resistance: Teacher responses to intergroup aggression in the classroom. Equity & Excellence in Education, 51(2), 146–160. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2018.1509748

Reisman, A., Kavanagh, S. S., Monte-Sano, C., Fogo, B., Simmons, E., & Cipparone, P. (2018). Facilitating whole-class discussions in history: A framework for preparing teacher candidates. Journal of Teacher Education, 69(3), 278–293. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487117707463

Von Esch, K. & Kavanagh, S. S. (2018). Preparing mainstream classroom teachers of English language learner (EL) students: Grounding practice-based designs for teacher learning in theories of expertise development. Journal of Teacher Education, 69(3), 239–251. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487117717467

Kavanagh, S. S., & Rainey, E. (2017). Learning to support adolescent literacy: Teacher educator pedagogy and novice teacher take up in secondary English language arts teacher preparation. American Educational Research Journal, 54(5), 904–937. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831217710423

News & Media

Penn GSE News

Penn GSE faculty honored with awards and grants

This spring, those honors include three Spencer Foundation grants, the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, and more.

April 14, 2025

Teaching conference discusses building a better teacher preparation pipeline

More than three dozen of the nation’s leading experts on teacher preparation tackled efforts to diversify and strengthen the teacher workforce.

September 20, 2024

Collaboratory conference tackles teacher training and support

With national data showing an extreme teacher shortage and difficulties hiring qualified candidates, the December gathering focused on actionable practices to prepare people to enter the teaching profession and succeed.

January 12, 2024

New faculty, staff appointments strengthen key Penn GSE centers

The Collaboratory for Teaching and Teacher Education, Ethnography in Education Research Forum, HEARD and PhilWP have all welcomed new leadership in recent months.

November 2, 2023

Taking small steps towards project-based learning

In an op-ed in EdWeek, Penn GSE’s Dean Pam Grossman, Zachary Herrmann, and Sarah Schneider Kavanagh write that incorporating project-based learning is just like running: start a little at a time.

October 21, 2021

How school leaders can support project-based learning

Project-based learning could change the game for students this fall. Sarah Schneider Kavanagh and Zachary Herrmann have some thoughts on what school leaders need to do to support it.

July 29, 2021

How can project-based learning prepare students for the 21st century?

In a new book, Penn GSE Dean Pam Grossman and GSE’s Zachary Herrmann, Sarah Schneider Kavanagh, and Christopher Pupik Dean say the approach can empower students to be engaged citizens and take on modern challenges.

June 22, 2021

The Educator's Playbook

Preparing a classroom for constructive dialogue

Sometimes student interactions turn contentious. Sarah Kavanagh explains how teachers can guide students in setting their own rules and norms for class discussions and enforcing those rules.

Awards & Honors

Sarah Schneider Kavanagh and a cross-institutional team of researchers have recently been awarded a $2.5 million grant from the James S. McDonnell Foundation to conduct a research study investigating how teachers learn to support disciplinary argumentation when facilitating classroom discussions. Focusing on understanding how instructional tools influence how teachers make sense of their practice as discussion facilitators, the study will be conducted across five years as a collaboration between researchers at four institutions: The University of Pennsylvania, the University of Wisconsin, The University of Colorado, and The University of Washington.

Posted on January 19, 2018

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