Craig A. Mertler is currently an Associate Professor of Action Research and Quantitative Methods at Barry University in Miami, Florida. He began his career as a high school biology teacher. He has been an educator for 39 years--29 of those in higher education at Bowling Green State University, the University of West Georgia, Lynn University, Arizona State University, and Barry University, and 12 years as an administrator (department chair, doctoral program director, and education dean). Over his career, he has taught courses focused on the application of action research to promote educator empowerment, school improvement, and job-embedded professional development, as well as classroom assessment, research methods, and statistical analyses. He has served as the research methodology expert and/or chair on more than 140 doctoral dissertations and master''s theses. He is the author of 30 books, 9 invited book chapters, and 25 refereed journal articles. He has also presented more than 40 research papers at professional meetings around the country, as well as internationally.
He conducts workshops for in-service educational professionals (at all levels) on classroom-based action research and on the topics of classroom assessment and assessment literacy, as well as data-driven educational decision making. His primary research and consulting interests include classroom-based action research, data-driven educational decision making, professional learning communities, and classroom teachers'' assessment literacy. In his leisure time, he enjoys traveling with his family to the beach and sometimes writing a little fiction. Dr. Mertler can be reached at craig.mertler@gmail.com for consulting, professional development, and speaking engagements. Additionally, you can visit his website at www.
craigmertler.com. Beth M. Schwartz is the Provost and Professor of Psychology at Endicott College. Previously she served as Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost and Professor of Psychology at Heidelberg University, in Tiffin, Ohio. Dr. Schwartz started her career on the faculty at Randolph College (founded as Randolph-Macon Womans College) in Lynchburg, VA, where she served for 24 years. At Randolph she was the William E.
and Catherine Ehrman Thoresen ''23 Professor of Psychology and Assistant Dean of the College. She received a BA at Colby College (Maine) and a PhD in cognitive psychology at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Her scholarship focuses on the scholarship of teaching and learning/pedagogical research, in particular the issues surrounding academic integrity and honor systems. In addition to numerous professional presentations at conferences, she has published many book chapters and articles in a variety of scholarly journals, including the Journal of Higher Education , Ethics and Behavior , Law and Human Behavior , and Applied Developmental Science. She has also edited and coauthored books, including Child Abuse: A Global View (Schwartz, McCauley, & Epstein, 2001), Optimizing Teaching and Learning (Gurung & Schwartz, 2012), and Evidence-Based Teaching for Higher Education (Schwartz & Gurung, 2012). She is a member of the American Psychological Association (APA) and the American Psychological Society and is a Fellow of Division 2 of APA (Society for the Teaching of Psychology). She was an award-winning teacher at Randolph College, where she taught Introduction to Psychology, Research Methods, Cognitive Psychology, and the capstone course. She received the Award for Outstanding Teaching and Mentoring from the American Psych-Law Society, the Gillie A.
Larew Award for Distinguished Teaching at Randolph College, the Katherine Graves Davidson Excellence in Scholarship Award from Randolph College, and the Distinguished Faculty Achievement Certificate from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.