Abby Reisman

Biography

Abby Reisman is an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. She studies the design and implementation of curriculum materials and teacher learning experiences that support inquiry-based history instruction, with special attention to how teachers facilitate classroom discussions about the past. Her research on how teachers learn and develop as discussion facilitators has been funded by the James S. McDonnell Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the Institute for Educational Sciences. Reisman received her Ph.D. from Stanford University, where she directed the award-winning “Reading Like a Historian” Project in San Francisco, the first extended history curriculum intervention in urban high schools. Reisman began her career in education as a classroom teacher in a small, progressive high school in New York City.

Education

Ph.D. (Curriculum & Teacher Education) Stanford University, 2011
M.A. (History) Stanford University, 2007
B.A. (History) Brown University, 1996

Areas of Expertise

History/social studies education
Classroom discourse
Curriculum
Teacher education
Professional development

More Information

Academic Programs

Learning Sciences and Technologies, M.S.Ed.
Learning Sciences and Technologies, Ph.D.
Medical Education, M.S.Ed.
Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership, Ed.D.
Principal Certification
School Leadership, M.S.Ed.
Teaching, Learning, and Leadership, M.S.Ed.
Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education, Ed.D.
Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education, Ph.D.
Urban Teaching Apprenticeship, M.S.Ed.
Urban Teaching Residency, M.S.Ed.

Research Interests and Current Projects

Dr. Reisman's recent projects focus on the design of professional development that supports teacher learning of inquiry practices in social studies classrooms. Her publications examine the role of video analysis, coaching, and curriculum co-design in teacher learning and development. Several of her research collaborations—including the Academically Productive Talk project and the DISCUSS project—have resulted in practitioner-facing resources to support classroom discussion. The latter is a repository of classroom dilemmas drawn from a longitudinal study of social studies teachers’ development as discussion facilitators. In another recent project, a collaboration with Digital Promise and funded by IES, Reisman has worked with teachers to design scaffolds to support discussions in world history classrooms.

Publications

Reisman, A., & Graham, L. (in press). Learning to coach as identity development: Examining novice history coaches through the lens of the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity. Teachers College Record.

Gholson, M., Ma, J., Penuel, W., & Reisman, A. (in press). Disciplinary and transdisciplinary learning that cultivates collective flourishing. Review of Research in Education.

Reisman, A., Jay, L., & Conrad, J. (2026). Beyond script and counterscript: Exploring teachers’ facilitation of student discourse about slavery. Harvard Educational Review, 96(1), 13–38. https://doi.org/10.17763/P2W8M4K6V

Al-Adeimi, S., Reisman, A., & Murphy, P. K. (2025). Debating the purpose of talk: Disciplinary learning and student authority in classroom discussions. Teachers College Record, 127(8), 119–127. https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681251385796

Jay, L., Reisman, A., Patterson, T., Chan, W. E., & Conrad, J. (2025). The social studies discourse instrument: Validating an observation tool for classroom discussions. Theory and Research in Social Education, 53(3), 371–402. https://doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2025.2453513

Marczyk, A., Reisman, A., & Santos, B. (2024). Teaching historiography: Testimony and study of the Holocaust. American Historical Review, 129(1), 175–197. https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhae009

Reisman, A., & Jay, L. (2024). Coaching teachers in document-based history instruction: Practices that support teacher facilitation of student discourse. Journal of Teacher Education, 75(3), 305–320. https://doi.org/10.1177/00224871231223443

Conrad, J., Reisman, A., Patterson, T., Jay, L., Kaplan, A., Eisman, J., & W. Chan. (2023). White preservice teachers facilitating African American history discussions: Tensions of identity in practice. Teaching and Teacher Education, 125, Article 104050. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2023.104050

Reisman, A., & Jay, L. (2022). Teaching racial history: Enacting curriculum in discretionary spaces. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 54(6), 751–771. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2022.2049883

Reisman, A., & Enumah, L. (2020). Using video to highlight curriculum-embedded opportunities for student discourse. Journal of Teacher Education, 71(5), 551–567. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487119895503

Reisman, A., Enumah, L., & Jay, L.(2020). Interpretive frames for responding to racially stressful moments in history discussions. Theory and Research in Social Education, 48(3), 321–345. https://doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2020.1718569

Reisman, A., Brimsek, E., & Hollywood, C. (2019). Assessment of Historical Analysis and Argumentation (AHAA): A new measure of document-based historical thinking. Cognition and Instruction, 37(4), 534–561. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370008.2019.1632861

Reisman, A., Kavanagh, S., Monte-Sano, C., Fogo, B., McGrew, S., Cipparone, P., & Simmons, E. (2018). Facilitating whole-class discussions in history: A framework for preparing teacher candidates. Journal of Teacher Education, 69(3), 278–293. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487117707463

Reisman, A. (2015). Entering the historical problem space: Whole-class, text-based discussion in history class. Teachers College Record, 117(2), 1–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811511700206

Reisman, A. (2012). Reading like a historian: A document-based history curriculum intervention in urban high schools. Cognition and Instruction, 30(1), 85–112. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370008.2011.634081

Reisman, A. (2012). The "Document-Based Lesson": Bringing disciplinary inquiry into high school history classrooms with adolescent struggling readers. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 44(2), 233–264. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2011.591436