Linda R. Kroll Mills College

Linda R. Kroll, Ph.D. is a professor in the Department of Education at Mills College.  She has taught at Mills since 1988 and served for two years as Dean and Chair of the department.  She co-directs the Early Childhood portion of the Teachers for Tomorrow’s Schools program known as Developmental Perspectives in Teaching.  Her research interests focus on applying developmental and constructivist theory to understanding and facilitating children’s and teachers’ learning. She has been a preschool teacher for emotionally disturbed children, and an elementary school teacher in Vallejo, California where she taught combined classes of kindergarteners through third graders for 9 years.  She has been a teacher educator since 1979, where she helped found the UC Berkeley Developmental Teacher Education Program.  Her work with children focused on urban settings with children with special needs, English Language Learners and children of color who are traditionally underserved.  Her work with teachers has focused on urban school settings and in the Mills College Laboratory School.  She is a contributing author to Reframing Teacher Education:  Dimensions of a Constructivist Approach edited by Julie Rainer and to How Students Learn:  Reforming Schools Through Learner-Centered Education edited by Lambert and McCombs. She is currently president of the Association for Constructivist Teaching.