Carol Ann Tomlinson is an American educator, author and speaker. She is known for her work with differentiated instruction, a means of meeting students' individual needs in education. Tomlinson is a reviewer for eight journals and has authored over 300 articles and books including The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners, which has been described as a seminal work in the field of differentiated instruction. Tomlinson also participates in several web-related professional development services, including webinars with EdWeek.org and an online Differentiated Instruction course with Knowledge Delivery Systems. Tomlinson has a background in German, English, education, technological studies in youth education and drama, reading, speech pathology, gifted education, and curriculum and instruction for creative and critical thinking.