Grant Wiggins is the president of Authentic Education in Hopewell, New Jersey, a consulting, research, and publishing organization. He earned an Ed.D. from Harvard University and a B.A. from St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. Wiggins consults with schools, districts, and state education departments on a variety of reform matters; organizes conferences and workshops; and develops print materials and Web resources on curricular change. He is perhaps best known for being the coauthor, with Jay McTighe, of Understanding by Design, the award-winning and highly successful series of materials on curriculum published by ASCD. His work has been supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and the National Science Foundation.

For 20 years, Wiggins has worked on some of the most influential reform initiatives in the country, including Vermont's portfolio system and Ted Sizer's Coalition of Essential Schools. He has established statewide consortia devoted to assessment reform for North Carolina, and headed standards clarification work for the state education departments in Delaware, New Jersey, and Mississippi. Wiggins is the author of Educative Assessment and Assessing Student Performance, both published by Jossey-Bass. His many articles have appeared in such journals as Educational Leadership and Phi Delta Kappan.

Wiggins's work is grounded in 14 years of secondary school teaching and coaching. He has taught English and electives in philosophy; coached soccer, cross country, baseball, and track and field; and has coached his own children in soccer and baseball. Wiggins plays guitar and sings in the Hazbins, a rock band. He can be reached at grant@authenticeducation.org. Resources in support of Understanding by Design and Schooling by Design can be found at www.bigideas.org.

Jay McTighe has a wealth of experience developed during a rich and varied career in education. He served as director of the Maryland Assessment Consortium, a state collaboration of school districts working together to develop and share formative performance assessments. Prior to this position, McTighe was involved with school improvement projects at Maryland State Department of Education. He is well known for work with “thinking skills,” having coordinated statewide efforts to develop instructional strategies, curriculum models, and assessment procedures for improving the quality of student thinking. McTighe also directed the development of the Instructional Framework, a multimedia database on teaching. In addition to his work at the state level, McTighe has experience at the district level in Prince George's County, Maryland, as a classroom teacher, resource specialist, and program coordinator. He also served as director of the Maryland Summer Center for Gifted and Talented Students, a statewide residential enrichment program held at St. Mary's College.

McTighe has published articles in a number of leading journals and books, including Educational Leadership, Developing Minds, Thinking Skills: Concepts and Techniques, and The Developer. He has coauthored three books on assessment: Assessing Learning in the Classroom, Assessing Outcomes: Performance Assessment Using the Dimensions of Learning Model, and Evaluation Tools to Improve as Well as Evaluate Student Performance. He is coauthor, with Grant Wiggins, of the best-selling Understanding by Design series and the newly released Connecting Content and Kids: Integrating Differentiation and Understanding by Design, coauthored with Carol Ann Tomlinson.

McTighe has an extensive background in staff development and is a regular speaker at national, state, and district conferences and workshops. He is also a featured presenter in four videotape programs, Performance Assessment in the Classroom, Developing Performance Assessments, Understanding Understanding, and Using Backward Design.

McTighe earned an undergraduate degree from the College of William and Mary and a master's degree from the University of Maryland, and has completed post-graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University. He was selected to participate in the Educational Policy Fellowship Program through the Institute for Educational Leadership in Washington, D.C. McTighe served as a member of the National Assessment Forum, a coalition of education and civil rights organizations advocating reforms in national, state, and local assessment policies and practices. He served a three-year term on the ASCD Publications Committee, serving as committee chair from 1994 to 1995. McTighe may be reached at 6581 River Run, Columbia, MD 21044-6066. Phone: (410) 531-1610. E-mail: jmctighe@comcast.net.