Chrystalla Mouza named director of the School of Education

Chrystalla Mouza has been named director of the School of Education (SOE) at the University of Delaware. She will be responsible for providing vision and direction for the department, leading faculty and staff, and advancing the department’s mission and visibility.

“Having had the opportunity to work with Chrystalla in her role as interim director during this past academic year, I know that she will provide strong, fair, caring, and supportive leadership to the School during her tenure as director,” said Carol Vukelich, dean of the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD).

“I am excited to serve my colleagues and the School in this new role to advance our strategic priorities and solidify our reputation as a top ranked graduate school of education,” said Mouza.

Mouza joined the university in 2003 as an assistant professor specializing in educational and instructional technologies. Her research examines how teachers learn to use digital technologies in their teaching and how technology-rich learning environments support teacher and student outcomes.

Co-written with a professor emeritus in pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, her most recent book, Thinking Skills for the Digital Generation: The Development of Thinking and Learning in the Age of Information, synthesizes research on thinking and technology and provides strategies for helping young people cultivate the critical thinking skills required to navigate our digital landscape.

With colleagues from the department of computer and information sciences, Mouza also serves as co-principal investigator in UD’s Partner4CS project. Funded by the National Science Foundation, Partner4CS seeks to broaden participation in computer science through professional development for teachers in grades 4-12, rich field experiences for UD undergraduates in education and computer science, and partnerships with educational leaders and policy-makers.

Mouza is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Distinguished Research in Teacher Education Award from the Association of Teacher Educators in 2010. She currently serves as editor-in-chief for the journal of Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education (CITE) and as series editor for Research, Innovations and Methods in Educational Technology (Information Age Publishing).

She earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education from the University of Ioannina in Greece and her master’s of arts, master’s of education, and doctorate of education in instructional technology and media in education from Columbia University’s Teachers College. She completed postdoctoral work at the Educational Testing Service.

About the SOE

The SOE within CEHD houses over 50 full-time faculty and nearly 600 undergraduate majors and minors and 360 graduate students. It offers an undergraduate major in elementary teacher education and undergraduate minors in educational studies, educational technology, and urban education. It supports several robust graduate programs at both the master’s and doctoral level including a PhD program in education, an EdD in educational leadership, and an EdS in school psychology.

Faculty in the SOE are highly active in research areas such as language and literacy, mathematics education, the science of learning, sociocultural approaches, and educational policy. Their research is externally supported from foundations and federal agencies such as the Institute for Education Sciences, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health.

Article by Jessica Henderson