Bruce Joyce grew up in New Jersey, was educated at Brown University and, after military service, taught in the schools of Delaware. He was a professor at the University of Delaware, the University of Chicago, and Teachers College, Columbia University. In all those settings, he directed the teacher education programs and, at Teachers College, the Agnes Russell School – the laboratory school of the college. His scholarship and practice have centered on teaching, teacher education, professional development, and school improvement. He has been a visiting scholar at the University of Hong Kong, the University of Toronto, the Western Australia Institute of Technology; and he has been an all-India Fulbright Scholar and a USAID general technical assistant to Egypt's Ministry of Education. His technical services to American, Asian, and European schools are focused on models of teaching, professional development, and school improvement.

Emily Calhoun has a B.A. in English from Georgia College in Milledgeville, and M.Ed. in early childhood education and reading from Georgia Southwestern College in Americus, and an Ed.D. from the University of Georgia in Athens. Emily has taught at the elementary, secondary, and university levels. She has worked as a consultant with intermediate service agencies, as a coordinator of the Georgia League of Professional Schools at the University of Georgia, and as a K-12 Language Arts coordinator within a school district. Since 1991, she has been director of The Phoenix Alliance in Saint Simons Island. In that position, she has partnered with districts, states, and provinces in extensive professional development and school improvement projects. These have generated considerable positive effects for teachers, administrators, and students and have included research on school improvement, especially on action research, and the teaching of reading and writing. Her international work includes professional development and/or visiting scholar positions in Canada, the United Kingdom, Finland, Columbia, Thailand, and Hong Kong.