Senior Education Researcher, SRI Education
Krystal Thomas, PhD, leads mixed-methods studies of efforts to promote teaching practices that are developmentally appropriate, contextually relevant, and aligned with strengths and needs of each student, with the ultimate goal of improving student learning. She leverages her background in developmental psychology to design tools and approaches that empower educators and foster meaningful learning experiences across a wide range of educational settings.
At SRI, Dr. Thomas’s research mostly focuses on use and development of effective instructional practices. She serves as a co-principal investigator for the Postsecondary Teaching with Technology Collaborative, a national research and development center that supports faculty in creating engaging, technology-enhanced learning environments to support students’ self directed learning skills at broad-access institutions. She has also partnered with the Gates Foundation to develop principles of ideal observation tools to support early childhood education coaching and improve high quality instructional practices. Her research portfolio also includes work on data-driven instruction, employability skills, social-emotional development, and the use of open educational resources to support instructional innovation.
Before joining SRI, Thomas was an IES Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning at the University of Virginia; a lead statistician at the Metropolitan Educational Research Consortium; and a lab manager at the Cognitive Intervention Research, Culture and Learning Environments in Schools (CIRCLES) Lab.
Thomas holds a PhD and master’s in developmental psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University. She also earned a bachelor’s in psychology from Virginia State University.
Key projects
- Postsecondary Teaching with Technology Collaborative
- Reimagining Instructional Coaching in Early Education (RICiEE)
- Hewlett Foundation K–12 OER Evaluation
- Project GOALS
Selected publications
- Re-imagining instructional quality and coaching [Audio podcast episode]
- Reimagining instructional coaching: Developing observation tools to support instructional coaching in pre-K classrooms.
