About

Catherine Brighton serves on the dean's leadership team at the UVA School of Education and Human Development, where she oversees academic programs, student affairs, admissions, and enrollment. She is also the co-director of the University of Virginia Institutes on Academic Diversity. Her research interests include teacher change and school reform initiatives, differentiating curriculum, instruction, and assessment, and qualitative methodologies. Brighton is currently a co-principal Investigator on a U.S. Department of Education-funded grant focused on talent development through literacy. She has led multi-year projects for the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, specifically on differentiating instruction in middle-grade classrooms with diverse student populations.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Mathematics education
• Pedagogy
• Computer science
• Sociology

Selected publications

• Project-Based Assessments

  2022-05-21 · 2 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Project-based tasks and rubrics, including performance assessments, are alternatives to traditional types of assessments, which offer opportunities for students to engage in the application of their learning instead of passive recitation of knowledge and skills. In classrooms employing project-based tasks, students investigate issues, problems or opportunities embedded within contexts that have relevance to their interests and are appropriate for their age. “Non-traditional” assessments of these types have potential benefits for student learning, if designed and implemented correctly, including: (a) demonstrating developing expertise of a discipline; (b) increasing student motivation in both the learning and assessment contexts; (c) developing students’ critical, creative, and metacognitive skills; and (d) offering opportunities for increased access to post-secondary careers. Despite these benefits, there are also potential liabilities, particularly surrounding issues of equity and access for all groups of students and diverse classroom contexts. Examples of various approaches to non-traditional assessments will be examined from a practical lens, including considerations for employing these tools within schools and programs.

  PublisherDOI

• Where’s the data to support educators’ data use for instructional practice?

  Theory Into Practice · 2022-06-30 · 2 citations

  article

  Data use has gained policy traction at the federal, state, and local levels in the United States and internationally, and is now embedded in teacher, principal, and district leader standards in the U.S. However, many decisions implemented in policy and practice are being made on insufficient evidence and assume a relatively straightforward, intuitive, and coherent data use process in which educators have access to data; the data are appropriate for the task at hand; and that they have the skills to retrieve, analyze, and respond appropriately to directly or indirectly change instruction for the better. Yet, research indicates that in actuality the practice of educator data use is complicated and heavily influenced by both organizational and individual factors such as school leaders’ influence on teachers’ data use, and teachers’ beliefs about, capacity for, and use of data for instructional decisions. Because we and many others in the field of education have come to see the potential value and utility of data use by educators, we offer the five recommendations to improve educators’ data use for instructional practice.

  PublisherDOI

• Data use processes in rural schools: management structures undermining leadership opportunities and instructional change

  School Effectiveness and School Improvement · 2021 · 10 citations

  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Mathematics education

  Data use has become a priority in educational systems throughout the world under the belief that rational instructional decisions can be tailored to individual learner needs. Despite increasing expectations for school principals to be instructional leaders, there is little evidence that they – or other system or school leaders – are responsible for anything more than ensuring structures are in place for teachers to work with data. In this study, we analyze interview and observational data collected over the period of 1 academic year in four elementary schools in one rural school district in the United States. We consider results through a conceptual framing of collective leadership to understand how leaders across district, school, and classroom levels do or do not support data use in the school system. Among our findings, data use is espoused and portrayed but generally unsupported. Data team meetings and structures are embedded in school cultures, but they are mostly managed and routine, prioritizing expediency and process over instructional adaptation or response. As a result, we conclude that the establishment of data team meetings and related structures is critical but insufficient to improve instruction and increase student learning.

  PublisherDOI

• General Curriculum Design

  2021-09-03 · 2 citations

  book-chapterSenior author

  In many ways, curriculum is the raison d'etre of gifted education. This chapter examines principles and best practices for designing such curricula. It uses three categories to discuss curriculum: the source and organization of curriculum; the goals and priorities of curriculum; and the tailoring of curriculum. The chapter delineates principles for curriculum design for all students based on consensus among professional organizations, standards documents, and curriculum experts in general and gifted education. Curriculum that is discipline-based needn't be the educational equivalent of limp broccoli or a painful shot. High-quality curriculum should include such problems, products, and performances in the form of substantive tasks and assessments. Flexibility in curriculum allows students to simultaneously strengthen high skill areas and develop areas of weakness.

  PublisherDOI

• Designing and Implementing Interactive, Collaborative Family Literacy Events

  Gifted Child Today · 2021 · 5 citations

  Senior author
  • Sociology
  • Psychology
  • Pedagogy

  Shared experiences through school-hosted events, such as family literacy events, can afford opportunities to support and extend academic learning while fostering positive home–school relationships. This article describes the importance of developing primary-grade students’ literacy skills through a talent development lens and explains several ways to nurture students’ literacy skills and recognize potential, gifts, and talents during family literacy events. This article features one of the activities from the family literacy events, Environmental Print Bingo, a modification of I-Spy and Bingo which uses rich and varied environmental print resources. A description of this activity, necessary resources, and implementation tips are provided. Options for differentiating this learning activity to provide more challenge for gifted learners are suggested. Throughout the article, the application of a pedagogy for early childhood gifted education and Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence as a framework are discussed; these approaches informed the design of all family literacy activities. A brief overview of nine additional family literacy event activities is also shared. Welcoming and involving families of English learners is an important consideration in many communities, and therefore, preparation tips and considerations for facilitators that will help maximize the participation of all families are included. Finally, reflections and helpful advice for implementing family literacy events in your school communities are presented, including advice for implementing online family literacy events. Ultimately, this article should help readers conceptualize, plan, and implement family literacy events in their school communities.

  PublisherDOI

• Differentiated Formative Assessment

  2020-05-11

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• Using Differentiated Classroom Assessment to Enhance Student Learning

  Routledge eBooks · 2020 · 16 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Mathematics education
  • Computer Science

  Using Differentiated Classroom Assessment to Enhance Student Learning introduces pre- and in-service teachers to the foundations, data use, and best practices of the DCA framework. As differentiated instruction practices increasingly enable K-12 educators to individualize learning in their classrooms, it is important that this framework be extended to assessment as well. This concise yet comprehensive book explains the science and rationale behind DCA as well as principles and strategies for both formative and summative assessments. Replete with vignettes, sample outputs, and recommendations, this is a lively and much-needed guide to understanding, enacting, and analyzing grouped and individualized assessments.

  PublisherDOI

• Bringing Differentiated Assessment Data Use Full Circle

  2020-05-11

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• The Science behind Differentiated Classroom Assessment

  2020-05-11

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• Planning for and Using Data from Differentiated Performance Assessments

  2020-05-11

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Tonya R. Moon

  University of Virginia

  33 shared

• Carol Ann Tomlinson

  University of Virginia

  9 shared

• Carolyn M. Callahan

  University of Louisville

  7 shared

• Jane M. Jarvis

  Flinders University

  6 shared

• Holly L. Hertberg

  5 shared

• Carolyn M. Callahan

  University of Virginia

  5 shared

• Jessica A. Hockett

  3 shared

• Kerrigan Mahoney

  Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System

  3 shared