Maya Kaul is Ph.D. candidate in Education Policy at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. At Penn, she is an Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Predoctoral Fellow and William B. and Roberta V. Castetter Fellow. As an IES Predoctoral Fellow, Kaul is currently working with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction Educator Recruitment and Support team to support statewide teacher licensure reform in North Carolina . Prior to coming to Penn, she served as a Research and Policy Assistant at the Learning Policy Institute, where she was a key member of the California Performance Assessment Collaborative team. She also studied Finnish teacher education and development at the University of Helsinki as a Fulbright Scholar. Kaul has a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) from Pomona College.

My research is driven by the question of how to uplift the teaching profession through investing in high-quality teacher education and development. Drawing on organizational sociology and research on teaching and teacher education, I seek to understand how the institutional environment of teacher education shapes teacher education program design and the professional identity formation of teachers. Additionally, I study how the professional status of teachers shapes, and is shaped by, the organizational and institutional contexts of their work. Given the exclusionary history of the professions, I am committed to thinking about teacher professionalization in a way that centers teachers of color, and invests in meaningful pipelines and in-service supports to train and retain a diverse teacher workforce .

Peer-reviewed

Kaul, M., Comstock, M., Simon, N.S. (2022). Leading from the Middle: How Principals Rely on District Guidance and Organizational Conditions in Times of Crisis. AERA Open, 8(1), 1-17.

Comstock, M., Supovitz, J., Kaul, M. (2021). Exchange Quality in Teacher Leadership Ties: Examining Relational Quality Using Social Network and Leader-Member Exchange Theories. Journal of Professional Capital and Capacity, 6(4), 395-409.

Kaul, M., Supovitz, J.; Comstock, M. (2021). Investigating Instructional Influence in Teachers Social Networks. Journal of Professional Capital and Capacity, 6(4), 378-394.

Herranen, J., Aksela, M., Kaul, M., Lehto, S. (2021). Teachers Expectations and Perceptions of the Relevance of Professional Development MOOCs. Education Sciences, 11(5).

Kaul, M., Aksela, M., Wu, X. (2018). Dynamics of a Community of Inquiry (CoI) within a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) for In-Service Educators in Environmental Education. Education Sciences, 8(2).


Policy Briefs and Reports

Kaul, M., and Bodnar, M. (2020). A Nation State: The Context of California. In T.K. Odle, & J.E. Finney (Eds.), "Faultlines" Shaping Higher Education Policy and Opportunity in California (pp. 9-26). Philadelphia, PA: Institute for Research on Higher Education, University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.

Dunens, E., and Kaul, M. (2020). Surveying Fragmentation in Californias Higher Education Policy Landscape. In T.K. Odle and J.E. Finney (Eds.), "Faultlines" Shaping Higher Education Policy and Opportunity in California (pp. 46-60). Philadelphia, PA: Institute for Research on Higher Education, University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.

Kaul, M., VanGronigen, B., Simon, N. (2020). Calm During Crisis: Principal Approaches to Crisis Management during the COVID-19 Pandemic. CPRE Policy Briefs.

Adams, J., & Kaul, M. (2020). California Performance Assessment Collaborative: Pasadena Unified School District Case Study. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute.

Saunders, M., Kaul, M., Thompson, C. (2020). California Performance Assessment Collaborative: Los Angeles Unified School District Case Study. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute.

Maier, A., Adams, J., Burns, D., Kaul, M., Saunders, M., Thompson, C. (2020). District Initiatives to Meaningfully Assess Student Learning: Lessons from the California Performance Assessment Collaborative (research brief). Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute.

Maier, A., Adams, J., Burns, D., Kaul, M., Saunders, M., Thompson, C. (2020). District Initiatives to Meaningfully Assess Student Learning: Lessons from the California Performance Assessment Collaborative. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute.


Practitioner Resources

Kaul, M. (2019). Performance Assessment Profile: Pasadena Unified School District. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute.

Kaul M., Thompson, C., Chase, K., Kessler, J., Wei, R. W. (2019). Best Practices for Designing Accessible Performance Assessments. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute.

Kaul, M. (2018). Performance Assessment Profile: Los Angeles Unified School District. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute.


Editorial

Kaul, M. (2019). Keeping Students at the Center with Culturally Relevant Performance Assessments. Education Week. Next Gen Learning in Action Blog. (Cross-published by Next Gen Learning Challenges, Learning Policy Institute, and CompetencyWorks.)