Cynthia Griffin, Ph.D.

Professor of Special Education

College of Education

2011 Awardee

Cynthia Griffin’s recent research has focused on teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge for teaching mathematics, their classroom practices, and the influence of these factors on students’ mathematics learning.

Griffin is building an impressive track record for winning highly-competitive federal grant funding for her studies. She currently holds a research grant from the prestigious Institute for Education Sciences (IES).

Griffin received a doctoral leadership training grant in 2008 from the U.S. Education Department’s office of special education programs to prepare four doctoral students in special education and mathematics instruction. That same year, the College of Education awarded Griffin with a three-year, B.O. Smith Research Professorship to study how teachers’ content knowledge and classroom practices in mathematics influenced their students’ learning.

She and co-researchers last year received a grant from the IES to develop and refine an online professional development program targeting practicing general and special education elementary school teachers who teach math to students with learning disabilities.

Griffin became a full-time UF education faculty member in 1990 and is the associate director for research and graduate studies in SESPECS.

She is co-author of a text on inclusive instruction due to be published in 2012 by Guilford Press. Since 2006, Griffin has published 18 research articles in leading scholarly journals including the Journal of Educational Research, Journal of Educational Psychology, and Teacher Education and Special Education.