EduBlog
Coaching Strategies for Teachers: 7 Smart Tips for Success
Research consistently shows that teachers, particularly new teachers, who work with instructional coaches are more likely to remain with their schools.1,2 Many schools and districts continue to be challenged with hiring and retaining qualified teachers, making it important to employ strategies to both retain and develop teachers. Coaches are increasingly [...]
How Social-Emotional Learning Can Inspire a Successful School Year
For students and teachers alike, back-to-school time can be an overwhelming experience during a typical school year – and this year is anything but typical. With new safety measures, including masks and social distancing – to keep students and teachers safe, the upcoming return to school will look and feel [...]
Back-to-School Tips for K-12 Educators
Welcome to the 2019-20 school year! Whether you're finishing your preparation for students to return or already a few weeks into instruction, right now is an exciting and busy time. We support over 300,000 students through 500 district partners across the country each year, and we've compiled a set [...]
Back-to-School Tips for Principals (Part 2)
The new school year is well underway – and hopefully off to a great start. As the principal of your school, the tone you set in these early days serves as the foundation for the months to come. You have likely already established habits that promote an open and [...]
Back-to-School Tips for Superintendents (Part 2)
The new school year is well underway. As superintendent of your district, your leadership sets the tone for how the months to come will unfold. You likely have already visited your schools and made contact with all of your principals and teachers. They know you are there to help, [...]
Back-to-School Tips for Principals (Part 1)
It’s August at last and that means students across the country are back in the classroom. It’s a time when students anticipate new clothes, school supplies, lessons and experiences. Your faculty and staff spent a portion of their summer preparing for a great 2019-20 school year. As principal, you [...]
Back-to-School Tips for Superintendents (Part 1)
School is in session across the country and that means communities are coming together for the 2019-2020 academic year. Your principals, teachers and staff have already welcomed students back into the classroom. Students are reconnecting with one another and anticipating many new and exciting lessons and experiences. As superintendent, [...]
[Webinar] Leverage Research and Partnerships to Succeed with Every Student!
Partnering with the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, Catapult Learning and Legacy Traditional Schools presented a set of actionable strategies for accessing and leveraging research and partnerships to provide high-quality special education and behavior modification to students most in need. About the Presenters Catapult Learning helps [...]
When your child’s education calls for a holistic approach
All students have dynamic needs, but when traditional education isn’t working for your child, it may be time to consider alternatives. Often educators look to add academic or behavioral interventions but fail to program strategies that support students’ holistic needs. When educators take a holistic approach that [...]
It’s Time to Reflect on Inclusion
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 59 children in the U.S. are on the autism spectrum. Two years earlier, that statistic was at 1 in 88 children. Despite autism spectrum disorder touching so many families, a large percentage of people don’t realize they’ve [...]
Year-End Solutions to Support Students and Build Instructor Capacity
Year-End Solutions to Support Students and Build Instructor Capacity According to recent ESSA guidelines, “funds must be obligated for the fiscal year in which they were allocated.” At Catapult Learning, we’re here to help ensure you get the most from your funding. Allocate your school’s year-end funds on turnkey solutions [...]
National Pi Day Classroom Activity Incorporating STEM and the Engineering Design Process
Pi Day is celebrated each year on March 14 (3/14) as a fun way to commemorate pi (π). March 14th is also Albert Einstein’s birthday. The date represents the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter — the number that begins with 3.14. The holiday’s official website describes [...]
[Webinar] Using the Engineering Design Process to Engage Students
Explore STEM and examine how to provide students with authentic opportunities to engage in meaningful problem solving. In this recent webinar, provided in partnership between Catapult Learning and the National Catholics Educational Association (NCEA), you will also examine how to facilitate inquiry-based lessons that hone key skills, including habits [...]
The Importance of Empathy in Our Work with Students with Special Needs
A debate currently rages about the nature of autism. Within this debate are two important questions: Is autism a disorder to be treated? Or should society be treated to fit the needs of everyone? Like other writers who try to avoid falling into the pit of political despair, [...]
When Your Child’s Behavior Becomes Extreme
When children refuse to clean up their toys or eat their vegetables, most parents know how to best handle the situation. But what if a child’s reaction to appropriate consequences is extreme, escalating to physical aggression and even property damage and making the home unsafe? This type of conduct [...]
3 Tips for Effective STEM Instruction
STEM is an engaging, hands-on learning experience driven by inquiry-based learning. Students develop their skills in collaboration, problem solving, and critical thinking to tackle challenges and objectives. With growing career opportunities in STEM-related fields, and the applicability of those 21st Century skills across academic and career disciplines, there is [...]
How to Foster a Growth Mindset in the Classroom
Teaching isn’t simply about getting students ready for tests. As educators, we know our work goes way beyond that to prepare them for a successful life. In every classroom, teachers have the power and platform to become positive influences, even role models and mentors – especially for students who [...]
Strategies for Developing Core Values at Your School
Every school has its own culture that expresses shared values and expectations for students, faculty and staff. As the principal, you to set a positive example for others as they contribute to a productive learning and teaching environment. Core values help communicate your school’s story – its mission, standards [...]
Create a Culturally Responsive Classroom (Monthly Steps)
In May 2018 I wrote about Culturally Responsive Teaching. To be a culturally responsive teachers we ourselves must be culturally competent. According to The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, “cultural competence means to be respectful and responsive to the health beliefs and practices—and cultural and linguistic needs—of diverse population groups. Developing cultural competence is also an [...]
Catapult Learning Launched a Back to School Sweepstakes to Recognize and Appreciate Teachers
In September, Catapult Learning held the inaugural Back to School Sweepstakes. We asked teachers and supervisors from across the organization to tell us why they were excited to start the 2018 – 19 school year. The responses were overwhelming. Some teachers shared the thoughtful and creative prep work they [...]
Capitalizing on Structures that Invite Teachers to Invest in Instructional Coaching
If you’ve ever coached a sport’s team, you may have noticed how the process of coaching baseball players and teachers is so much alike. Contemplate the chorus in John Fogerty’s 1985 song, Centerfield: Oh, put me in coach, I’m ready to play today. Put me in coach, [...]
First Openly Autistic School Board Member visits High Road Academy
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 1 in 59 children in the United States have autism. Autism is not a predictable or uniform disability – it presents differently in every child – so there’s no “one size fits all” approach to autism education. To show special education students [...]
Cultural Competence – Part I: First Steps
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to the change the world.”—Nelson Mandela As educators, we must work to meet the needs of all learners in our classrooms. To do this, we must participate in continuous professional learning and self-reflection. We are obliged to study [...]
Better Hearing & Speech Month – Part 2: Safe Hearing & Listening
By Janelle Paul, M.S., CCC-SLP, Supervisor of Specialized Services, Catapult Learning Earlier in the month, I wrote about caring for your teacher voice in Part I of my blog highlighting National Better Hearing & Speech Month. But it wouldn’t be Better Hearing and Speech Month without some tips about hearing [...]
Better Hearing & Speech Month – Part I: Caring for Your Teacher Voice
By Janelle Paul, M.S., CCC-SLP, Supervisor of Specialized Services, Catapult Learning I am excited to inform you that May is National Better Hearing and Speech Month! As a speech-language pathologist (SLP), I often use this month as an opportunity to provide knowledge and tips about good vocal hygiene and good listening [...]
In-Service Days Complement Professional Development Activities
A rich knowledge base exists on the benefits of thoughtful, multi-year professional development activities for schools, districts, and dioceses, inspired in large part by federally funded research on school improvement, organizational change, and adult learning styles. Effective educational leaders are familiar with insights gleaned from this knowledge base, and typically [...]
From Knowledge to Action: How Instructional Leaders Can Create Positive Change
“Act or accept.” —Anonymous “Knowing about the ‘knowing-doing gap’ is different from doing something about it.” —Jeffery Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton, authors How do we turn knowledge into measurable action? How do we address the knowing-doing gap within education. As an educator, I try to live by the words, [...]
How STEM & the Engineering Design Process Develop Problem-Solving & Critical-Thinking Skills
STEM certainly is a hot topic in education right now, and for good reason. A strong STEM curriculum does more than just focus on skill instruction; it provides learners with an integrated approach that brings together their knowledge from different core areas and allows them opportunities for tangible problem-solving that [...]
The Eyes Have It . . . Or Do They? What the Eyes Can Tell Us About Learning
“Eyes on me!” I demanded decades ago as a young, inexperienced teacher. I assumed that if students’ eyes were on me, they were with me—they were learning. That was then. And this is now. Data scientists have recently come to a conclusion that contradicts such human intuition. In referring to [...]
How Educators Can Support the Emotional Needs of Their Students & Themselves
This week I was supposed to start a blog series on Culturally Responsive Teaching. I’ve started writing the blog three times and can’t get past the first line. My first writing attempt was last Wednesday, the same day of the most recent school shooting in our nation. More students lost [...]
How Strong Instructional Leaders Can Bring Out the Best in Educators
Great leaders and managers recognize the importance of maximizing their resources, including recruiting and retaining the right people for their organizations. In the book, First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently, authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman state, “Select a person, set expectations, motivate the [...]
More than an Extracurricular: Integrating Service Learning into the Curriculum
If your school is anything like the schools where I work or the schools where my children attend, parents organize service learning opportunities throughout the school year. There are food drives at Thanksgiving, coat and gift collections during the holidays, a full day of service on Martin Luther King, Jr. [...]
Investing in Self-Reflection: A Resolution for the New Year
“Happy New Year!” This time of year, and specifically those words, often lead one through a customary self-reflection of the previous year—personally and professionally—with recollections of the good, the bad, and the indifferent in hopes of setting new goals. January 1st brings optimism for a new beginning, the perspective of [...]
Investing in Self-Reflection: A Resolution for the New Year
“Happy New Year!” This time of year, and specifically those words, often lead one through a customary self-reflection of the previous year—personally and professionally—with recollections of the good, the bad, and the indifferent in hopes of setting new goals. January 1st brings optimism for a new beginning, the perspective of [...]
Happy New Year! Resolving to be the Very Best We Can Be as We Ring in 2018
Ring in 2018! Hard to believe, but we are beginning yet another new year. And while there may be some question about the real astronomical significance of New Year’s Day, the New Year certainly can signal an opportunity for us to resolve to explore and grow as professionals in areas [...]
Student Agency: The Heart of Personalized Learning
During a visit to our school’s eucalyptus grove this year, I was amazed to watch a group of our kindergartners demonstrating the student agency inherent to this age group. Watching these young people interact in natural surroundings was witnessing student agency at its finest. Without prompting or instruction, [...]
A Holiday Gift to Teachers: The 2017–18 Top 10 Free Educational Technology Tools
Many educators are intrigued with the idea of using educational technology in their classrooms and with their students. And they want to move past the productivity stage to the point of truly enhancing their own teaching and their students’ learning through educational tools. However, there are so many [...]
Getting Started with STEAM: A Mini Toolkit
STEM is an acronym referring to the academic disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The term STEM is typically used when addressing education policy and curriculum choices in schools to competitiveness in science and technology development. STEAM is designed to integrate STEM subjects into various relevant disciplines in education [...]
Another Look at What Is Special About Special Education
Two years ago, I wrote my first blog for Catapult’s EduBlog, titled “Back to the Future of Special Education.” That blog post explored the question, “What is special about special education?” from the perspective of the importance in taking a diagnostic and prescriptive approach to special education. Two [...]
Honoring Background Knowledge
"Education is all a matter of building bridges.” —Ralph Ellison One of my favorite television shows is Modern Family, and a favorite character on the show is Cam, the self-proclaimed farm boy from “Missoura” who often refers to his upbringing with tales that often include hog raising and [...]
Learning Objectives: Creating “Maps” to Improve Student Learning
In my years in education, no single statement from a teacher ever shook me more than from a struggling individual who—in a stressful moment—proclaimed to me, “I don’t know what’s going wrong! I’m up there teaching, they’re just not learning!” Awful as that is, it was a good [...]
Increasing Critical Thinking & Cognitive Demand in Your Classroom
Can you imagine a classroom where all students think and learn at high levels and demonstrate clear depth of understanding? The classroom described above does exist beyond the limits of our imagination and can become a reality when teachers use instructional strategies that engage students and both encourage [...]
Student Questions & Creating a Culture of Inquiry
Ask any builder and they will tell you the most essential part of creating a home that will stand the test of time and endure the elements is a strong foundation. A focus on 21st Century Learning and Innovation Skills has prompted schools to identify opportunities for students [...]
Making Your Classroom Lessons Breathable
Let me start out by saying that I appreciate the attention to “best practices” that goes into the creation of the professional development (PD) sessions that consultants like myself deliver to teachers. The work of a consultant is challenging, time consuming, and sometimes grueling. To do what we [...]
“Who Cares?”: How to Reach Challenging Adult Learners Using Your Head & Your Heart
“Show respect even to people who don’t deserve it; not as a reflection of their character, but as a reflection of yours.” —Dave Willis “Who cares?” is a question sometimes posed by apathetic students in the classroom, but it’s not a question that I expect to hear from [...]
Student Learning Conferences: Continuing the Transition to Student-Directed Learning
This blog is the second of a two-part series on Learner Voice. In my last blog post, I discussed how teachers can use the Spectrum of Student Voice Oriented Activity to reflect on how they can start moving their classroom activities from being teacher-directed to more student-directed. In [...]
Boosting the Power of Presentations to Enhance Learning
Think about the many PowerPoint presentations you have sat through. Add the PowerPoint presentations that you yourself have given. I am pretty sure the total is quite high. Now try and remember the most recent presentation you attended—and the key concepts that were presented. In most cases, you [...]
Developing Learner Voice: The Transition to Student-Directed Learning
Research has shown that developing learner voice may be the most powerful lever available to improve student learning in schools. Students learn better when they are engaged partners throughout the educational process.1 When students plan educational activities, their investment, ownership, and consequent learning is greatly increased.2 At Catapult [...]
Using Social Stories to Support Autism Students’ Learning
Navigating the autism community and differentiating between what may be “the buzz” and what is an evidenced-based strategy is often difficult for teachers and parents alike. Further compounding this navigation is that the media often covers only fads, or “quick fixes,” rather than those strategies that have been [...]
The Power of Reflection for Teaching & Leading
“Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.” —Peter Drucker, author and founder of Drucker Business Institute A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to interview a superintendent and a school board member for a graduate school assignment on [...]
Leadership Development Aligned to Mission and Vision of Excellence
Leadership Development: Start with the mission and a vision for your organization Excellent schools need excellent leaders whose principles and practices align with the school’s educational mission and vision. They are inspired and motivated by the vision of excellence and possess the desire and skills necessary for making [...]
Literacy Instruction: Casting a Wider Net
Over the course of 40+ years in Special Education, my enduring passion has been dedicated to individuals with significant reading disabilities (Dyslexia). Historically, professionals working with this population have largely targeted individuals of average or above average intellectual ability who had an unexpected difficulty learning to read relative [...]
Lifelong Learning and Innovation Skills
The partnership for 21st Century Learning, or “P21,” was founded in 2002, intending to bring together the business community, education leaders, and policy makers in order to, “position 21st century readiness at the center of US K-12 education and to kick-start a national conversation on the importance of [...]
How to Create Opportunities for Students to Experience Applied Science: 4 Tips
As an educator married to an entomologist–a scientist who studies insects–I think it is safe to say I know far more about the six-legged creatures that inhabit this earth than the average person. After sitting in multiple study sessions with graduate students and doing field work for my [...]
Why All Students Should Learn How to Code in Elementary School
Maybe you are wondering why I stated that ALL students should learn to code. Well, besides the fact that coding, also called programming, is a skill set that students could use for a future career in a world that has a shortage of skilled coders and programmers, coding [...]
Building Classroom Walls That Teach
As educators, we know that environment influences learning, and in particular, that classroom environments influence literacy development. We also know this to be true for grades Pre-K−12.While the start of school is still a week away for some of us, I wanted to write about a topic that [...]
The Special Education Teacher Identity Crisis: Prescriptive or Pragmatic? Part II
In The Special Education Teacher Identity Crisis: Prescriptive or Pragmatic? Part I, I discussed the special education teacher “identity crisis” as it relates to taking a more diagnostic/prescriptive role to planning instruction versus a more pragmatic role. I also described my observations of two special education teachers at [...]
Top 10 EduBlogs of 2015−16
As we look back at the blogs posted by our EduExperts over the last eleven months, we notice several topics popular with our blogs readers throughout the 2015−16 school year. These topics range from the Every Student Succeeds Acts (ESSA) to differentiated instruction to special education and more. Following is a list of [...]
Creating Authentic Learning Experiences in Your Local Community
Preparing students for the real world is central to current education pedagogy. To do this, educators create problem- and project-based learning assignments, encourage students to work collaboratively, develop engaging lessons, and produce a myriad of learning opportunities and assessments. Whether we are talking about project-based learning, inquiry learning, [...]
Support Students’ Summer Learning with Interactive, Web-Based Resources
Ahh . . . summer is here and for most students that means vacation, free time, swimming, and no more school work. For parents and teachers, though, there are concerns that students, while enjoying their summer freedom, will lose some of the academic gains made during the school [...]
Word Up! Books That Will Accelerate Your Personal Summer Learning
Hard to believe, but yet another school year has come and gone and now it’s time to chart a course for maximizing your summer break. What a tremendous chance to decompress, devour a few good books, and engage in a little personal learning. If you’re like me, you [...]
NAEP Results: Less “Bang for Our Buck” (But Plenty of Whimpers)
“Between the idea and the reality . . . falls the shadow.” —T.S. Eliot A new report from our friends at the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the “Nation’s Report Card,” provides data on student performance in reading and mathematics across multiple [...]
Using Visual Supports for Students with Developmental Disabilities
It is true, no two learners are alike. Some learn better through reading; others through listening or doing. For students with developmental disabilities, who have difficulty communicating with others and especially difficulty understanding what people in their environment are communicating to them, it is important to present information [...]
Engaging Special Needs Students with Experience-Based Learning
Students with special needs have unique strengths, motivators, preferences, and interests in a learning environment. By identifying and addressing these elements, educators can encourage a higher level of engagement. In experience-based learning, facilitators take a step-back approach—allowing for natural discovery of consequences and problem-solving-based learning The result of [...]
Facing Hard Facts and Tough Decisions
As I looked at the calendar and considered what I wanted to write about in this blog, I started to reflect on my last few months of work-related travel and my conversations with school leaders throughout the country. I also thought about the countless conversations about education that [...]
The Special Education Teacher Identity Crisis: Prescriptive or Pragmatic? Part I
Over the course of my many classroom visits and teacher observations throughout my career, I am truly in awe of the master teacher. These teachers live and breathe all aspects of the teaching and learning process, from expert planning to delivery of engaging, differentiated lessons. They exude confidence [...]
Five Ways to Motivate the Reluctant Learner
Educators can readily identify the student who seems to lack motivation. While he or she is generally not a behavior problem in the classroom, the unmotivated student can cause a teacher many sleepless nights. There are a variety of labels used to describe a student who just doesn’t [...]
140 Characters or Less: Using Twitter to Enhance Your Personalized Learning Network
Believe it or not, Twitter joined the digital world approximately ten years ago. A decade is ancient when it comes to technology, and for many teachers, Twitter has not been a friend. How many times have you had to tell your students to get off Twitter over the [...]
The View from SXSW: Finding Innovation, Optimism, and Passion in Education
“I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.” —Annie Dillard The South by Southwest (SXSW) Education conference just wrapped up, and I thought I’d take a moment to share some notes and thoughts for [...]
Three Ways to Celebrate Women’s History Month in Your Classroom
Women’s History Month began last week. In 1980, President Carter signed documents proclaiming March 2−8 to be Women’s History Week; by 1987, Congress passed a proclamation establishing March as Women’s History Month. This year’s theme is “Working to Form a More Perfect Union: Honoring Women in Public Service [...]
Is That Your Mindset Showing? Getting in the Right Frame of Mind to Tackle Achievement Gaps
Downey, et al. (2009) described the persistent and chronic nature of achievement gaps in our educational system as “the most complex and compelling educational dilemma facing schools in the 21st century.” Since the passage of NCLB in 2001—a law at its very essence designed to erase decades of [...]
Academic Intervention: What Does It Really Mean?
Outside the classroom, the word “intervention” has pretty clear associations. Think of the literal meaning of the word—a coming between—and how it manifests itself in our culture. We all know of instances where people have had to place themselves in someone else’s pathway and make them travel in [...]
Teacher Education, Part II: What Makes an Effective Teacher Education Program
“Evidence shows that effective teachers are the most important in-school contributors to student learning.” —from “Best Practices for Evaluating Teacher Ed. Programs” How do we prepare effective teachers? What are the components of an effective teacher preparation program? To begin researching the answer, I wrote the blog “Teacher [...]
Practicing What We Preach: Is it Possible for Instruction to Reflect Research in Practice?
As we celebrate the start of a new year, we simultaneously approach the midway point of the school year. This is a great opportunity to reflect on what has been accomplished academically for our students and take stock of what might require a “reset” based on current trends. [...]
Bridging the Knowing-Doing Gap: How School Leaders Can Transfer Knowledge into Action to Impact Student and Teacher Learning
“Action expresses priorities.” —Gandhi “Action is the foundational key to all success.” —Pablo Picasso A new year has begun, and along with it come the resolutions–to eat better, exercise more, read more, stay in touch with friends, travel; the list goes on. The beginning of a new year [...]