Tina L. Heafner, Ph.D. serves as a professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNC Charlotte) Department of Middle, Secondary, and K-12 Education. She also directs the Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction and the M.Ed. in Secondary Education at UNC Charlotte. She has over 28 years of experience as a social studies educator in K-12 schools and a social studies methodologist in higher education. Her teaching and research is focused on effective practices in social studies education with particular emphasis in online learning and disciplinary literacy as well as curriculum and policy issues in social studies, which is coupled with two decades of work documenting the national trend of the marginalization of social studies in elementary schools.