Global Gurus

Diane Ravitch is Research Professor of Education at New York University and a historian of education. She is also president and co-founder of the Network for Public Education, with 350,000 followers. She blogs at dianeravitch.net, Her blog has had more than 32 million page views since she started it April 26, 2012. From 1991 to 1993, she was Assistant Secretary of Education and Counselor to Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. She was responsible for the Office of Educational Research and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education. As Assistant Secretary, she led the federal effort to promote the creation of voluntary state and national academic standards. From 1997 to 2004, she was a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federal testing program. She was appointed by the Clinton administration’s Secretary of Education Richard Riley in 1997 and reappointed by him in 2001. From 1995 until 2005, she held the Brown Chair in Education Studies at the Brookings Institution and edited Brookings Papers on Education Policy. Before entering government service, she was Adjunct Professor of History and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. In 2011, She was honored to receive the Daniel Patrick Moynihan award from the merican Academy of Political and Social Sciences. Her last two books were national bestsellers. And she received the Grawemeyer Prize in 2014 for “The Death and Life of the Great American School System. She has received 12 honorary degrees.

Dr. Eric Jensen is a former teacher with a specialty in the applied cognitive science of learning. His M.A. is in Organizational Development and Ph.D. is in Human Development. Jensen is currently a member of the invitation-only Society for Neuroscience and the New York Academy of Sciences. He has worked with three universities and co-founded three multimillion dollar educational companies. Jensen cofounded the first and largest brain-compatible enrichment program, now with more than 70,000 graduates, held in 16 countries. He has written Teaching with the Brain in Mind, Brain-Based Learning, Teaching with Poverty in Mind and 29 other books on learning and the brain. He was the founder of the Learning Brain EXPO and has trained educators and trainers worldwide in this field for 25 years. He is deeply committed to making a positive, lasting difference in the way we learn.

Dr. Otto Scharmer is a Senior Lecturer at MIT, Boston, a Thousand Talents Program Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing, and co-founder of the Presencing Institute. He chairs the MIT IDEAS program for cross-sector innovation that helps leaders from business, government, civil society to innovate at the level of the whole system. He is author of Theory U and co-author of Presence and Leading from the Emerging Future. In 2015 he co-founded the MITx u.lab, a massive open online course for leading profound change that has since activated a global platform and eco-system of societal and personal renewal involving more than 100,000 users from 185 countries. With his colleagues he delivered award winning programs for companies including Alibaba, Daimler, Eileen Fisher and Google and co-facilitated innovation labs on reinventing education, health, business, government, and well-being. Otto received the Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching at MIT (2015) and the EU Leonardo Corporate Learning Award for the contributions of Theory U to the future of management and learning (2016).

Deborah Meier has been working in public education as a teacher, principal, writer, advocate since the early 1960s, and ranks among the most acclaimed leaders of the school reform movement in the U.S. She started her work as an early childhood teacher in Chicago after graduating from the U of Chicago. Her family moved to NYC in the late 1960s where she worked as a kindergarten teacher in Central Harlem. For the next 20 years, Meier helped revitalize public schools in New York City’s East Harlem District 4. In 1974, she founded Central Park East Elementary School (CPE I), a highly successful public school of choice that served predominantly local African American and Hispanic families. During the next dozen years, Meier opened two other Central Park East elementary schools in District 4 as well as an acclaimed secondary school (CPESS), while also supporting and directing the development of similar schools throughout NYC. She  helped found the Coalition of Essential Schools, in the 1980s, under the leadership of Ted Sizer.  In 1987 she received a MacArthur “genius” Award for her work in public education. During the 1990s she also served as an Urban Fellow at the Annenberg Institute. In 1995 she moved to Boston to start Mission Hill, a K-8 school in Roxbury. These schools were part of a network Meier created that helped initiate new small schools, both elementary and secondary, both in NYC and Boston. At Coalition schools, Meier helped foster democratic communities, giving teachers greater autonomy in the running of a school, giving parents a voice in what happens to their children in schools, and promoting intergenerational connections. She has always been a proponent of active, project-based learning, and of graduation through a series of exhibitions of high quality work. She is the author of many books and articles, including The Power of Their Ideas, Lessons to America from a Small School in Harlem, and In Schools we Trust. She is an outspoken critic of state-mandated curriculum and high stakes standardized testing and has written extensively on their unreliability and class/race biases. She is on the board of  FairTest, Save Our Schools, Center for Collaborative Education and the Association for Union Democracy. She is also on the editorial board of The Nation, The Harvard Education Letter, and Dissent magazines.

Barbara Blackburn, Ph.D has dedicated her life to raising the level of rigor and motivation for professional educators and students alike. Barbara’s 24 books, including Rigor is NOT a Four-Letter Word, Rigor and Differentiation in the Classroom, Rigor and Assessment in the Classroom, and Rigor in Your School: A Toolkit for Leaders, provide easy-to-implement concrete examples based on decades of experience as a teacher, professor, and consultant. She received her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Teaching from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. In 2006, she received the award for Outstanding Junior Professor at Winthrop University. She left her position at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte to write and speak full-time. In addition to speaking at state and national conferences, she also regularly presents lively, engaging, and practical on-site and technology-based workshops for teachers and administrators in elementary, middle, and high schools. Her current emphasis also includes providing “Rigor Checks”, which are evaluations of tasks, assignments, and assessments, as well as training teachers and leaders to implement “Rigor Checks” in their schools.

Professor John Hattie is a researcher in education. His research interests include performance indicators, models of measurement and evaluation of teaching and learning. John Hattie became known to a wider public with his two books Visible Learning and Visible Learning for teachers. Visible Learning is a synthesis of more than 800 meta-studies covering more than 80 million students.  According to John Hattie Visible Learning is the result of 15 years of research about what works best for learning in schools. TES once called him “possibly the world’s most influential education academic”.

John Hattie has been Director of the Melbourne Educational Research Institute at the University of Melbourne, Australia, since March 2011. Before, he was Project Director of asTTle and Professor of Education at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He holds a PhD from the University of Toronto, Canada. You can find a full CV of Professor John Hattie (PDF) at the website of the University of Auckland.

Salman Khan is a Bangladeshi Indian American educator entrepreneur and former hedge fund analyst. He is founder of Khan Academy which is a free online platform for education worldwide. It is mainly focused on sciences and mathematical field and those subjects are presented through more than 4000 videos which is having more than 1 million subscribers. As the discoverer of this new kind of education world TIME and Forbes recognize him as one of the 100 Most influential People in the World and $1 Trillion Opportunity

Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez is the world’s champion in project management. He has transformed a tactical topic such as project management into one of the central issues in CEO’s 2030 agenda. He argues that projects are the lingua franca of the business and personal worlds from the C-suite to managing your career or relationships.

Antonio’s research and global impact in modern management been recognized by Thinkers50 with the prestigious award “Ideas into Practice”. He has influenced CEOs of leading organizations; preeminent business media such as Harvard Business Review and The Economist; top business schools like Instituto de Empresa and Duke CE; renowned thought leader conclaves, such as Thinkers50 and the Peter Drucker Forum. His vision has impacted thousands of organizations leaders and MBA students.

He is a visiting professor at some of the world leading businesses schools (including Duke CE, Skolkovo, IE, Solvay, Vlerick); and a much in demand keynote speaker at events worldwide. Author of the bestselling “The Focused Organization” (Gower 2012) and contributor to four other business books. His next book, “The Project Revolution” (LID 2019) has been just published.

Global Chairman of the Project Management Institute in 2016, his work focuses on advising senior leaders on  ; prioritize and implement strategic initiatives; build high-performing teams; work across silos and become a learning organization; all essential elements to create a culture that strives for execution, excellence, and collaboration.

Sir Ken Robinson is a professor emeritus and a great thinker in education and business revolution through his thoughts on creativity innovation and human potential. His speech at the prestigious TED conference in 2006 and 2010 has a highest number of viewers in TED history with 25 million viewers from 150 countries worldwide. He was also honored as one of the Worlds Elite Thinkers on Creativity and Innovation in 2011 by Fast Company Magazine and also as one of the Top 50 Thinkers in the business world. He is also the author of best selling book The Element How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything which he composed in 2009 and was translated into 20 languages.

Robert j Marzano PhD, is cofounder and CEO of Marzano Research Laboratory in Colorado. A leading researcher in education, he is a speaker, trainer, and author of more than 30 books and 150 articles on topics such as instruction, assessment, writing and implementing standards, cognition, effective leadership, and school intervention. His books include The Art and Science of Teaching and Effective Supervision. His practical translations of the most current research and theory into classroom strategies are internationally known and widely practiced by both teachers and administrators. Dr. Marzano received a bachelor’s degree from Iona College in New York, a master’s degree from Seattle University, and a doctorate from the University of Washington.

Prof Sugata Mitra is Professor of Educational Technology at the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences at Newcastle University UK. He conducted the Hole in the Wall experiment in 1999 while at NIIT, Kalkaji,New Delhi with a computer embedded in the wall of a slum to observe the behavior of unsupervised children. He called this Minimally Invasive Education, MIE. He then went on to invent Self Organised Learning Environments (SOLEs) in UK schools and conducted remoter presence experiments with a ‘Granny Cloud’ that he created. He was awarded the first one million dollar TED Prize in 2013, which he used to create ‘Schools in the Cloud’ that combine SOLEs and the Granny Cloud into a facility for the future of learning.

Dr. Joseph S. Renzulli is a leader and pioneer in gifted education and applying the pedagogy of gifted education teaching strategies to all students. The American Psychological Association named him among the 25 most influential psychologists in the world. Dr. Renzulli received the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Award for Innovation in Education, considered by many to be “the Nobel” for educators, and was a consultant to the White House Task Force on Education of the Gifted and Talented.

Joseph S. Renzulli is Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut, where he also serves as director of the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. His research has focused on the identification and development of creativity and giftedness in young people and on organizational models and curricular strategies for total school improvement. A focus of his work has been on applying the strategies of gifted education to the improvement of learning for all students.

Dr. Renzulli’s work on the Three Ring Conception of Giftedness, the Enrichment Triad Model and curriculum compacting and differentiation were pioneering efforts in the 1970s, and he has contributed hundreds of books, book chapters, articles, and monographs to the professional literature, many of which have been translated to other languages. Dr. Renzulli’s enrichment-based and differentiated teaching model has been utilized by more than 35,000 teachers from around the world since 1978.

Dr. Renzulli’s work also provides the foundation for the Renzulli Creativity Program, as well as the Renzulli Learning System, which is an online personalized learning program that provides profiles of each student’s academic strengths, interests, learning styles, and preferred modes of expression. This unique program also has a search engine that matches multiple coded resources with student profiles. The Renzulli Creativity Program and schools that have embraced the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM) or Renzulli Learning System, also utilize Dr. Renzulli’s educational philosophy, which infuses high engagement enrichment activities into any and all standardized curriculum topics.

Dr. Renzulli is also the founder, along with Dr. Sally Reis, of the Joseph S. Renzulli Gifted and Talented Academy in Hartford, Connecticut which has become a model for local and national urban school reform for high potential/low income students.

Although Dr. Renzulli has obtained more than $50 million in research grants, he lists as his proudest accomplishment the professional development he has provided at the annual summer Confratute program for teachers and administrators, which has enrolled more than 35,000 participants over the past four decades.

Erik M. Francis, M.Ed., M.S. is an international author and presenter with over 20 years of experience working as a classroom teacher, a site administrator, an education program specialist with a state education agency, and a professional development trainer.   He is  the author of Now THAT’S a Good Question! How to Promote Cognitive Rigor Through Classroom Questioning published by ASCD.   His book on teaching and learning for depth of knowledge (DOK) will be published by Solution Tree International in Fall 2020.

Erik is the owner of Maverik Education LLC, providing academic professional development and consultation to K-12 schools, colleges, and universities on developing learning environments and delivering educational experiences that challenge students to demonstrate higher order thinking and communicate depth of knowledge (DOK). His areas of expertise include teaching and learning for depth of knowledge (Webb’s DOK), higher level questioning and inquiry, authentic learning, differentiated instruction, personalized learning, and talent development.   Erik also has extensive experience working with students who are academically at-risk, gifted and talented students, English language learners, and students with special needs.

Erik’s professional development seminars and workshops have been featured at national, state, and regional education conferences hosted by organizations such as ASCD, Learning Forward, the College Board, the Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE), the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC), the National Teacher Center, and the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB).   He has conducted professional trainings at K-12 schools, colleges, and universities throughout the United States and internationally in Canada, Singapore, and Malaysia.

Erik is an ASCD Author and Faculty Member, a professional development consultant for the Association for Middle Level Educators (AMLE), a presenter and consultant for First Educational Resources, a presenter for Staff Development for Educators, Inc. and a presenter and instructional coach for FACTS Management.

Erik received his Master’s in Education Leadership from Northern Arizona University and Master’s of Science in Film and Television Production and Management from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.  He also holds a Bachelor’s of Arts in Rhetoric and Communication and English from the University at Albany.

Erik lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, with his family.

Dr. David Cooperrider’s founding theoretical work in “Appreciative Inquiry” is creating a positive revolution in the leadership of change. With implications for every aspect of business, AI has experienced exponential growth as a change initiative methodology. This growth is testimony to the profound impact AI is having in business, education, healthcare, communities, non-profit and government institutions.

David speaks at large corporate and association conferences and has served as advisor to a wide variety of organizations including the Boeing Corporation, Fairmount Minerals, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, McKinsey, Parker Hannifin, Sherwin Williams, Wal-Mart, American Red Cross, American Hospital Association, Cleveland Clinic, and World Vision.

Edward L Deci is professor of psychology and Gowen Professor in the Social Sciences at the University of Rochester. Engaged in a program of research on human motivation that has led to Self Determination Theory which was applied in many contexts in order to anticipate and observe behavioral changes. He published ten books which are translated into many languages including Japanese, German and Spanish. He gives lectures and consultation to many corporations, public school systems, mental health agencies, universities and government bureaus of many nations.

Andy Hargreaves from Boston Massachusetts is theThomas More Brennan Chair in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. He is the founder and co director of the International Centre for Educational Change at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. His interest in researching includes emotions of teaching and leading and the sustainability of change and leadership in education business sports and health. He is an author of Teaching In The Knowledge Society Education in the Age of Insecurity book received the Choice Outstanding Book Award from the American Libraries Association for Teaching and the American Educational Research Association Division B Outstanding Book Award.

Michael Fullan is a Canadian researcher on education and the former Dean of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. He is one of those who reform educational system to achieve moral purposes of all children learning. As an award winning author, he also received several awards through his books including Leading in a Culture of Change, Breakthrough with Peter Hill and Carmel Crevola, Turnaround Leadership in Higher Education with Geoff Scott and Change Wars with Andy Hargreaves. Winner (with Andy Hargreaves) of the Grawemeyer Award in 2015 for the book Professional Capital of Teachers—award for “the power of a single creative idea that can impact on the world”.Latest two books ar the bestsellers : Coherence (with Joanne Quinn), and Deep Learning ; Engage the world Change the world (with Joanne Quinn, and Joanne McEachen).

Pasi Sahlberg is a global academic from Finland who analyze academic systems around the globe and reforms to education systems. He engages directly to communities and practitioners and he is recognized as an international school improvement activist. He is an active speaker who made more than 300 keynote speeches and which was published over 100 articles chapters and on books regarding education. In 2013 he won a Grawemeyer Award for his best seller book Finnish Lessons What Can the World Learn from educational Change in Finland.

Co-Founder, The Love and Logic Institute Inc., School Consultant Services. Over 30 years of experience in education, including: Teacher, Principal, Administrator. 34 years of experience as a speaker, consultant. Jim Fay has become one of America’s most sought-after presenters in the fields of parenting, positive discipline, and classroom management. With Foster W. Cline, M.D., he is the co-founder of The Love and Logic Institute and co-author of the bestseller Parenting with Love and Logic. He’s become a pied piper for parents, providing practical teaching and parenting techniques and encouraging adults to be consistent and effective in their efforts with kids. Jim Fay has over 30 years of experience in education, serving in public, private, and parochial schools in a variety of roles, including elementary education, art and music teacher, school principal, and administrator. He has been consulting and speaking about parenting and education for more than 30 years, founding School Consultant Services, the sister company to the Cline-Fay Institute, in 1977. Through working in a variety of education settings, including inner-city and suburban schools, Jim saw the need to structure the classroom, the schools, and the home in a way that would build positive relationships with children. The structure would teach children responsibility and self-discipline, while still giving kids the message that adults cared about them.

Dr. Leithwood is Emeritus Professor at OISE/University of Toronto and advisor to the Leadership Development Branch of Ontario’s Ministry of Education. His research and writing is about school leadership, educational policy and organizational change. He has published extensively on these topics. For example, he is the senior editor of both the first and second International Handbooks on Educational Leadership and Administration (Kluwer Publishers, 1996, 2003). His most recent books include Linking Leadership to Student Learning (2012, Jossey Bass), Leading School Turnaround (2010, Jossey Bass), Distributed leadership: The state of the evidence (2009, Routledge), Leading With Teachers Emotions In Mind (2008, Corwin), Making Schools Smarter (Corwin, 3rd edition, 2006) and Teaching for Deep Understanding (Corwin, 2006). With colleagues, he has recently completed one of the largest studies of its kind about how state, district and school-level leadership influences student learning. Professor Leithwood is the inaugural recipient of the University of Toronto’s Impact on Public Policy award, AERA’s 2011 Outstanding Leadership Researcher Award, and the 2012 Roald F. Campbell Lifetime Achievement Award from the University Council for Educational Administration. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Erin Gruwell was born August 15, 1969 in southern California.  Erin went and graduated from Bonita High School.  While in high school Erin tried to get involved with many different clubs and stuff.  As a senior, she ran for student body president and lost.  In an interview she says she lost to an anarchist with a mohawk.  Before Erin started college she thought she wanted to be a Lawyer but after watching the LA Riots on television her life changed dramatically. AFter watching this, Erin decided that she wanted to help children fight their battles inside the classroom.  Erin went to the University of California and received her bachelors degree in teaching.  She then went to California State University to get her masters degree.  After college, Erin taught at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California. She taught high school Language Arts.  Here one of the most remarkable stories took place between a teacher and her students.

John Wood is the founder of Room to Read. An organization that believes World Change Starts with Educated Children®, Room to Read seeks to transform the lives of millions of children in developing countries by focusing on literacy and gender equality in education. At the age of 35, John left an executive career track at Microsoft to form Room to Read. The business acumen honed there, combined with his passion to change the world, makes John a unique and inspiring speaker with universal appeal. He is the author of Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, a memoir that was named by Amazon as one of the Top Ten business narratives of 2006. The book and was featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show and led to John’s lifelong dream – a television interview with Charlie Rose. At the invitation of former President Bill Clinton, John served three terms on the Advisory Board of the Clinton Global Initiative. He was chosen as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and was named by Goldman Sachs as one of the world’s 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Tribeca Film Festival, is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, and along with Malala Yousufzai was awarded the World’s Children’s Prize, often called the Children’s Nobel Prize, by the Queen of Sweden. John was chosen for the first-ever Microsoft Alumni of the Year award, given by Bill and Melinda Gates. John has been a three-time speaker at the Clinton Global Initiative and a five-time winner of Fast Company Magazine’s Social Capitalist Award. He has been honored by Time Magazine’s “Asian Heroes” Award and is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute. He was selected by Barron’s as one of the “25 Best Givers” in 2009 and 2010, ranking 11th and 9th on the list, respectively. John holds a master’s degree in business administration from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Colorado, and honorary doctorates from McGill University and the University of San Francisco.

Larry Ferlazzo teaches English, Social Studies and International Baccalaureate classes to English Language Learners and mainstream students at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California.Larry wrote six books:Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching; Self-Driven Learning: Teaching Strategies For Student Motivation; The ESL/ELL Teacher’s Survival Guide (with co-author Katie Hull Sypnieski); Helping Students Motivate Themselves: Practical Answers To Classroom Challenges; English Language Learners: Teaching Strategies That Work; and Building Parent ngagement In Schools (with co-author Lorie Hammond). Larry has won several awards, including the Leadership For A Changing World Award from the Ford Foundation and was the Grand Prize Winner of the International Reading Association Award for Technology and Reading. Larry writes a popular education blog a http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/ , aweekly teacher advice column for Education Week Teacher and a weekly post for The New York Times. My articles on education policy regularly appear in the Washington Post and the Huffington Post. In addition, my articles have appeared in publications such as ASCD Educational Leadership, Social Policy, and Language Magazine.Larry was a community organizer for nineteen years prior to becoming a public school teacher.

Bryan Goodwin is the president and CEO of McREL International, a Denver-based nonprofit education research and development organization. Goodwin, a former teacher and journalist, has been at McREL for 15 years, serving previously as Chief Operating Officer and Director of Communications and Marketing.

He has authored or co-authored several books, including Simply Better: Doing What Matters Most to Change the Odds for Student Success, The 12 Touchstones of Good Teaching: A Checklist for Staying Focused Every Day, Balanced Leadership for Powerful Learning: Tools for Achieving Success in Your School and The Future of Schooling: Educating America in 2020. Goodwin writes a monthly research column for Educational Leadership and presents research findings and insights to audiences across the United States and in Canada and Australia.

Randi Weingarten is president of the 1.7 million-member American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, which represents teachers; paraprofessionals and school-related personnel; higher education faculty and staff; nurses and other healthcare professionals; local, state, and federal employees; and early-childhood educators. She was elected in July 2008, following 11 years of service as an AFT vice president. In the months immediately following her election, Weingarten launched major efforts to place education reform and innovation high on the nation’s agenda. In September 2008, Weingarten led the development of the AFT Innovation Fund, a groundbreaking initiative to support sustainable, innovative, and collaborative reform projects developed by members and their local unions to strengthen our public schools. Weingarten served for 12 years as president of the United Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 2, representing approximately 200,000 nonsupervisory educators in the New York City public school system, as well as home child-care providers and other workers in health, law, and education. For 10 years, Weingarten chaired New York City’s Municipal Labor Committee, an umbrella organization for the city’s 100-plus public sector unions, including those representing higher education and other public service employees. As chair of the MLC, she coordinated labor negotiations and bargaining for benefits on behalf of the MLC unions 365,000 members. Weingarten is known as a reform-minded leader who has demonstrated her commitment to improving schools, hospitals, and public institutions for children, families, and their communities. She has fought to make sure teachers and school support personnel are treated with respect and dignity, have a voice in the education of their students, and are given the support and resources they need to succeed in the classroom.

Shanna is the Co-founder and Senior Managing Partner of Global Services in Education, Ltd. 
(A registered company in USA and Australia, operating across Asia and the Middle East)

Recognized for her outstanding achievements both as an educational leader and curriculum writer, Shanna Parry brings a wealth of experience in a variety of critical areas. Having served as a director (Higher Education), headmaster (Secondary School) and consultant (K-12), Shanna excels in the areas of administrative and teacher development, curriculum writing and language programs. Shanna has consistently demonstrated exceptional achievement results for increasing and improving student achievement in all key areas, including language development, reading proficiency and writing skills.

Shanna has a strong passion for her volunteer work with schools, teachers and parents. She volunteers her time to provide trainings at no cost to local teachers in Malaysia and provides training programs for schools, also without cost, that accept refugee students. Shanna provides complimentary workshops to parents to help them better understand how to support their children through their educational journey.

Shanna has authored two books on international education, and has created a Teacher Development Program that develops teachers in a way that supports true mastery of best-practice teaching strategies. Shanna has created this program so that it fosters a school culture allowing teachers to grow with meaning and purpose.

Shanna has led curriculum design and administration of all major curriculums including American K-‐12, American AP, International Baccalaureate, UK IGCSE and A Levels. She is also a specialist in language programs (EAP, TOEFL, IELTS and General English), SAT and University preparation.

Elizabeth Ross Hubbell is an educator, author, and speaker with more than 20 years’ experience across many levels of education. She serves as Senior Program Manager for Student Affairs at Academic Impressions where designs professional learning experiences for higher ed. Her primary topics of interest include developing women leaders in education, helping marginalized students succeed, and using data in a high tech/high touch way to impact student success. Prior to joining Academic Impressions, Elizabeth served as a K12 consultant at McREL International, focusing on instructional strategies and technologies. She has presented at ASCD, ISTE, EARCOS, and ACEL conferences. Elizabeth is a former Montessori teacher.

Professor Emeritus David Hopkins from the Institute of Education University of London is a director for multi academy trust Bright Tribe. This academy brings personal learning pathway system to approach student in order to enable each one of them to reach the highest level of individual achievement through the acquisition of a range of learning skills and customized curriculum. David Hopkins is also committed in improving the quality of education for all. His professional interests are in the areas of learning and adventure teacher and school development leadership educational change and policy implementation. He believes the idea of whole school and personalized learning style could increase students reputation.

Dr. David A. Sousa is an international educational consultant and author of more than a dozen books that suggest ways that educators and parents can translate current brain research into strategies to improve learning. A member of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, he has conducted workshops in hundreds of school districts on brain research, instructional skills, and science education at the pre-K-12 and university levels. He has made presentations to more than 200,000 educators at national conventions of educational organizations and to regional and local school districts across the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia.

Dr. Sousa has edited science books and published articles in leading journals on staff development, science education, and educational research. Dr. Sousa has been interviewed by Matt Lauer on the NBC Today Show and by National Public Radio about his work with schools using brain research.

Dr. Sousa has a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts, a Master of Arts in Teaching degree in science from Harvard University, and a doctorate from Rutgers University. His teaching experience covers all levels. He has taught senior high school science and has served as a K-12 director of science, a supervisor of instruction, and a district superintendent in New Jersey schools. He was an adjunct professor of education at Seton Hall University for 10 years and a visiting lecturer at Rutgers University.

Dennis Littky is the co founder and co director of Big Picture Company, The Met School and College Unbound. Throughout the years, he challenged the conventional education and school system by introducing different ways in teaching students critically challenging real world based and entrepreneurial course of studies. He has received many recognitions including the 2002 McGraw Hill Prize in Education, The George Lucas Daring Dozen in Education Award and the 2006 Innovator of the Year Award from the Rhode Island Development Corporation.