Directory » MARGARET QUINN
Margaret F. Quinn is an Associate Professor in the department of Teaching, Learning and Culture. Her scholarship seeks to understand children’s experiences and skills in a 21st century context by developing approaches for supporting successful learners who can thrive contemporaneously and in the future in ways that are innovative and effective. Her research examines both children developing in context as well as teachers in early education and elementary settings. Her work, thus, centers on two primary foci – (1) understanding, evaluating, and supporting teachers’ instruction and instructional interventions in the areas of emergent literacy, early writing, and early STEM learning, with a particular emphasis on professional learning for in-service teachers, and (2) understanding the nature and development of 21st century skills through authentic assessment and efficacious and sound measures and patterns of interactions between academic skills and other extant factors, with particular interest in writing, reading, language, STEM, computational thinking, and self-regulation. Prior to her academic work, she taught in schools in Atlanta, Georgia and in Belfast, Northern Ireland, working with toddler-, preschool-, and prekindergarten-aged children.
***Dr. Quinn will be accepting doctoral students for Fall 2026***
***Dr. Quinn will be accepting doctoral students for Fall 2026***
Education
Ph.D., Early Childhood and Elementary Education, Georgia State University (2017)
M.S., Counseling and Therapeutic Communication, Ulster University (2009)
B.A., Interdisciplinary Studies, New York University (2006)
COURSES TAUGHT
RDNG 473. Assessment in Reading
Fall 2023
RDNG 373. Foundational Skills of Language Comprehension for Elementary Students
Fall 2024, Spriing 2025, Fall 2025
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Books and Monographs
Journal Articles
Quinn, M. F., Bingham, G. E., Rohloff, R., & Gerde, H. K. (2025). Understanding preschool educators’ writing knowledge: Insights from the Early Writing Knowledge Assessment. Reading Research Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.589
Traga Philippakos, Z. A., Quinn, M. F., & Rocconi, L. (2025). Developing multisyllabic decoding and encoding skills with upper elementary learners: Reporting two cycles of design-based research. Reading and Writing Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1080/10573569.2024.2406005
Traga Philippakos, Z. A., Quinn, M. F., & Rocconi, L. (2025). Multisyllabic instruction for upper elementary learners: A pilot study exploring feasibility and effectiveness. Journal of Research in Childhood Education. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02568543.2025.2465585
Caudle, L. A., Quinn, M. F., Harper, F. K., Thompson, H.+, Rainwater, T. R.+, Flowers, C.+, & The CRRAFT Partnership (2024). “Any other thoughts?”: Establishing third space in
a family-school-university STEM partnership to center voices of parents and teachers. Peabody Journal of Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/0161956X.2024.2357010 [published with student]
a family-school-university STEM partnership to center voices of parents and teachers. Peabody Journal of Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/0161956X.2024.2357010 [published with student]
Gerde, H. K., Seymour, T., Bingham, G. E., & Quinn, M. F. (2024). Promoting early writing during routines & transitions. The Reading Teacher. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.2277
Harper, F. K., Larsen, J.A., Quinn, M., Caudle, L., Parker, B.+, & Sadovnik, A. (2024). An unplugged remix of culturally responsive computing for early childhood education. Future in Education. [published with student]
Quinn, M. F., & Rohloff, R. (2024). Understanding young children’s composition across three key components: Transcription, connection, and discourse. Journal of Research in Childhood Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/02568543.2024.2326139
Rohloff, R., Ridley, J., Quinn, M. F., & Zhang, X. Y. (2024). Young children’s composing processes: Idea transformations in verbalizations from pre-writing to post-writing. Early Childhood Education Journal. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-024-01800-y
Harper, F. K., Caudle, L. A., Flowers, C. E.+, Rainwater, T.+, Quinn, M., & the CRRAFT Partnership (2023). Centering teacher and parent voice through university-school-family partnership to realize culturally relevant computational thinking in early childhood. Early Childhood Research Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2023.05.001 [published with student]
Quinn, M. F., Caudle, L. A., & Harper, F. K. (2023). Embracing culturally relevant robotics in the preschool classroom: Leveraging familiar contexts for new learning. Early Childhood Education Journal
Quinn, M. F., & Rohloff, R. (2023). Not just handwriting and spelling: Assessing the early composition skills of young children. Young Children. https://www.proquest.com/openview/c98049fd60874afbc37972d5d31368ac/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=27755
Quinn, M. F., & Traga Philippakos, Z. A. (2023). Building a bridge: Writing and reading connections in early childhood. The Reading Teacher. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.2235
Bingham, G. E., Gerde H. K., Pikus, A. E., Rohloff, R., Quinn, M. F., Bowles, R. P., & Zhang, X. (2022). Examining teachers’ early writing knowledge and practices. Reading and Writing. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-022-10299-x
Quinn, M.F., & Bingham, G. E. (2022). Examining early composing: Children’s differential writing performance based on task context and scoring conceptualization. Early Education and Development . https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2020.1857167
Quinn, M. F., Rohloff, R., & Mathis, S.+ (2022). Young children’s writing in traditional and digital contexts. Early Years: An International Research Journal https://doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2022.2087054 [published with student]
Quinn, M. F., Bingham, G. E., & Gerde, H. K. (2021). Who writes what when?: Examining children’s early composing. Reading and Writing https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-020-10063-z
Quinn, M. F. & Bliss, M.+ (2021). Moving beyond tracing: The nature, availability, and quality of digital apps to support children’s writing. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy . https://doi.org/10.1177/1468798419838598 [published with student]
Quinn, M. F., Gerde, H. K., & Bingham, G. E. (2021). Who, what, and where: Classroom contexts for preschool writing experiences. Early Education and Development . https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2021.1979834
RESEARCH PROJECTS
Big Words: Building Words and Making Meanings
It is critical that students in the upper elementary grades have access to high quality, evidence-based instruction to read and write Big Words in order to be skilled readers and writers as they progress through school and as they prepare for their careers. Utilizing Design-Based Research methodologies and through a collaboration with upper elementary learners, teachers, and community experts, the project will develop and evaluate the effects of specific instructional components on students’ decoding, encoding, sentence production, fluency and their confidence to read, spell, and compose.
Big Words Website
Big Words Website
Culturally Relevant Robotics: A Family-Teacher Partnership for Computational Thinking in Early Childhood
This project seeks to promote computational thinking and a sense of belonging in computer science through a culturally relevant robotics program (CRR Program) developed through a research-practice-partnership with university teacher educators and researchers, administrators, teachers, coaches, and Black and Latinx children and their families.
CRRAFT Website
CRRAFT Website
TexCS: Differentiated Teacher Supports for Early Childhood Computer Science
The TexCS project seeks to a (1) overcome prevalent challenges in early childhood education by developing educative, leveled, supplemental CS resources to accommodate educators’ varied skills and knowledge and (2) evaluate the feasibility and usability of these resources, involving a representative sample of teachers across various Texas contexts. Teachers will engage with an established, impactful CS curriculum allowing us to determine whether such supplemental materials enhance experiences, boost confidence, and facilitate implementation of CS content and concepts.
TexCS Website
TexCS Website