This year's annual conference will feature presenters Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe who will hold sessions based on their Understanding by Design workshops and the overall impact of instruction as it relates to student achievement and school improvement.

Grant Wiggins is the President of Grant Wiggins & Associates in Pennington, New Jersey, and a Scholar in Residence at the College of New Jersey in Ewing. He earned his Ed. D. from Harvard University and his B. A. from St. John's College in Annapolis. Grant consults with schools, districts and state education departments on a variety of reform matters; organizes conferences and workshops; and develops print materials and Web-based resources on curricular change. Grant's work has been supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the Education Commission of the States.

Over the past fifteen years, Grant has worked on some of the most influential reform initiatives in the country, including Vermont's portfolio system and the Coalition of Essential Schools. He has established a statewide Consortium devoted to assessment reform, and designed a performance-based and teacher-run portfolio assessment prototype for the states of North Carolina and New Jersey.

Perhaps best known for being the co-author, with Jay McTighe, of Understanding By Design and The Understanding By Design Handbook, the award-winning and highly successful materials on curriculum published by ASCD, Grant is also 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.

Grant's work is grounded in 14 years of secondary school teaching and coaching. Grant taught English and electives in Philosophy, coached Varsity soccer, Cross-Country, JV Baseball, and Track & Field. More recently Grant has been coaching his two sons in soccer and baseball. He also plays guitar and sings in a rock band called the Hazbins.

Mr. McTighe is well known for his work on "thinking skills", having coordinated statewide efforts to develop instructional strategies, curriculum models, and assessment procedures for improving the quality of student thinking. As the former Director of the Maryland Assessment Consortium, he brings a wealth of knowledge about the assessment program in Maryland to MAG.

We are looking forward to when Dr. Wiggins and Mr. McTighe will hold several group sessions at MAG this year on the latest insights of educational change.