Laura Billings Author

Eleanor Dougherty is a consultant with education foundations and agencies on curriculum and professional development. Her graduate degree is in literacy education with an emphasis on the teaching of writing. She has assisted districts and organizations with diverse student populations across the country, and her work over the last two decades has focused on literacy and its role in the larger curriculum, particularly in the core subjects. Dougherty is the author of books and articles on education, including the ASCD book Assignments Matter: Making the Connections That Help Students Meet Standards. She is currently involved in developing a national literacy strategy through the Literacy Design Collaborative.

Terry Roberts and Laura Billings are the director and associate director of the National Paideia Center (NPC), which provides transformative professional development across the United States and abroad. The NPC is widely celebrated as a primary source for materials and training on classroom dialogue at all levels and in all subjects. Roberts and Billings have written extensively about the relationship between seminar discussion and critical thinking, most recently in their book Teaching Critical Thinking: Using Seminars for 21st Century Literacy.