Dr. Andi Stix is a national educational consultant, administrator, and certified coach, who has been actively teaching for over 30 years. She addresses conferences and conventions across the country as a keynote speaker or seminar presenter. Dr. Stix earned her doctorate from Columbia University and currently owns and operates the Interactive Classroom, an educational consulting firm located in New Rochelle, New York. Through professional development, the Interactive Classroom philosophy and activities have been incorporated into the curriculum of many school systems throughout the country.

Dr. Stix, along with her co-author, Frank Hrbek have written Teachers
as Classroom Coaches and a series of simulations and hands-on investigations in history for the secondary school market. The Exploring History Series is a three-time winner of the Social Studies Program of Excellence Award from New York State as well as the Social Studies Program of Excellence Certificate from the Middle States Council for the Social Studies. Exploring History received the Outstanding Curriculum Development Award from the National Association of Gifted Children and a two time winner of the Teacher Choice Award from Learning Magazine. For her work in professional development, Dr. Stix received the Alexinia Baldwin Educator of the Year Award.

Her published articles can be found in Social Education, The Middle School Journal, Social Studies, Arithmetic Teacher, The Math Notebook, ERIC, and Gems of AGATE. In addition to the Exploring History series (2000-present), she has authored many books, including Using Literature and Simulations in Your Social Studies Classroom (2001), Integrated Cooperative Strategies for the Social Studies, Language Arts, and the Humanities (1997), Strategies for Student-Centered Assessment (1996), Teaching Strategies for Cooperative Learning (1994), Pic-Jour Math (1994), and Active Strategies for Curriculum Integration (1993).

Mr. Frank Hrbek, co-author of the Exploring History series has been a middle school social studies teacher in the New York City school system for close to 40 years. He earned a degree at New York University, with a major in English with minors in journalism and history. For his master level work, Mr. Hrbek majored in history. In recent years, he has aided Dr. Stix in workshops, conferences, and hands-on college level courses. Mr. Hrbek successfully tested many of Dr. Stix's new coaching and cooperative learning strategies, including the Exploring History in his classroom.