CAMDEN, NJ – Beginning in January 2013, Camden NJ-based Catapult Learning has been presenting introductory Common Core workshops specifically designed for principals and school leaders across the country. As a nationwide provider of professional development and instructional services, Catapult Learning has held 10 workshops—and counting—from New Jersey to California with as many as 100 attendees per session.

Catapult Learning’s May 23^rd workshop, attracting 92 registered attendees in Anaheim CA, focused on how the new standards require teachers to transcend their current teaching algorithms and adopt new ones. School leaders know that facilitating this transformation will be challenging, but with a deeper understanding of the standards and knowledge of best practices, they will have the leverage they need to be Common Core State Standards change agents in their school or district.

Click Here to see the original press release on PRWEB.

Common Core Expert Jessica Bianculli outlined the importance of mapping out a clear trajectory of learning so that teachers can easily track what students should have learned and what they will be learning next.  However, Bianculli says that when it comes to teachers making the essential instructional shifts, the key to success is support from the top.   According to Bianculli, “As teachers re-conceptualize their approach to teaching, principals must support them and help them to push student expectations beyond skill acquisition to application.”

Dr. Andrew Ordover, Executive Director of Product Development at Catapult Learning, weighs in on how the new tests are often a wakeup call for many school leaders. “Reviewing sample PARRC and Smarter Balance questions is a real eye-opener for workshop attendees.  Looking at the assessments helps them realize how important it is to prepare students to master the rigors of more complex text and higher-level thinking skills.”

Catapult Learning has more Common Core workshops scheduled over the next few months.  Call 800-841-8730 for more information or contact us here.

About Catapult Learning

Catapult Learning has been helping schools close the achievement gap for more than three decades..  Today, Catapult Learning has over 5,000 coaches and teachers who provide quality professional development, instructional services and resources to over 2,500 schools serving over 100,000 students annually.

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Last month we talked about the six performance-related character values that Catapult Learning has selected to focus on and support in our new programs to help students become independent and successful adults. They were:

• Persisting towards solutions
• Working with precision
• Asking questions
• Working with others
• Making connections
• Monitoring progress and embracing learning

I think it’s worth taking some time to look a little more closely at the first trait on the list.

Persisting Towards Solutions

It is easy to see persistence as a moral value rather than an academic one—a sign of integrity or strength that people embody as some kind of spiritual or genetic gift.  But the willingness and ability to persist towards a goal can be taught and nourished—and it can just as easily be undermined.

Researcher Carol Dweck has written extensively about what she calls a “growth mindset” towards intelligence—a belief that a person’s intellectual ability is neither fixed nor destined, but is, instead, the result of hard work. Her studies have demonstrated that students who believe that intelligence is malleable and open to improvement do better in school than those who believe their intelligence is fixed and innate…even when those “fixed mindset” students have high IQs and have done well in school.

This becomes very clear around the middle school years, when the level of challenge tends to be raised across the board. Students who had previously thought of themselves as the “smart kids” find themselves facing challenges and expectations that can be daunting, and if they can’t handle the work, they often retreat, surrender, and then turn on themselves, feeling betrayed by their native intelligence. Students with a growth mindset, however, understand that a greater challenge simply requires greater work on their part…and that “failure,” rightly understood, is just a step along the pathway to success. What is even more interesting is that students with a fixed mindset can change—and that a change in their mindset can have profound effects on their academic outcomes (research study abstract here).

This willingness to dig in and work hard in spite of obstacles or frustration is what people used to call “grit,” and it’s a quality that University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth believes may contribute much more to academic achievement than intelligence. Dr. Duckworth has even developed a “grit quiz” to help people assess how much of the quality they possess.

Author Daniel Coyle, in The Talent Code, gives us some dramatic examples of grit and persistence in what he calls “deep practice,” which others call “deliberate practice.” He describes tennis players in Russia, soccer players in Brazil, and student musicians here in the United States who approach practice in an intensely focused way, aiming straight for their areas of weakness and using their practice sessions to work and work and work each area until it improves. It is radically different from the way, say, my 9-year-old practices the saxophone, which involves playing a song one time, straight through, and then putting the instrument away. When student athletes or student musicians engage in deep practice, they make enormous improvements in a very short time. And as Malcolm Gladwell has shown us, about ten thousand hours of this kind of practice is what separates true masters from the rest of us.

Take a look at the graph above and note the difference between the violinists who, after ten years of practice, are good enough to become teachers, and those who are good enough to be professional musicians. The difference isn’t just that the professionals have put in more hours over the same period. It’s that their trend line starts to curve. The more time they put in, the more time they want to put in. Getting better makes them practice more, which makes them get even better, and so on.

That wonderful feedback loop doesn’t happen on day one, though. So why are those soccer players in Brazil willing to practice one particular move over and over again, day upon day, when my son can’t manage to get through a simple scale? Part of it has to do with focused coaching and timely, specific feedback. That’s our job, as educators. It’s human nature to avoid and ignore errors and mistakes. No one likes to focus on what they’re doing wrong—but that’s exactly what deep practice requires, and it’s exactly what a good coach pushes athletes and performers to do. The question is: are we being good coaches?

There’s another piece of the puzzle, and that’s desire. If kids don’t care—if they don’t really want to be successful at [fill in the blank], they won’t put in the hard time needed to get there. Persistence requires desire, or, as Daniel Coyle calls it, “ignition.” Something’s got to light your fire. Desire isn’t everything, of course, but you can’t get very far without it. So engaging and motivating students—getting them hooked, interested, and passionately involved in what we’re teaching—is clearly important. Simply getting them to sit still, behave, and take notes is not enough. We’ve talked for years about classroom management, but the subtext of our terminology suggests that the classroom is a problem requiring control and compliance. Perhaps if we called it and thought of it as “classroom engagement,” or even “classroom ignition,” we’d all be happier and more productive.

A final aspect of persistence that’s important to note is resilience—the ability to roll with the punches, change course, and adjust to the unexpected. It doesn’t mean that students should never get frustrated. That’s a little unreasonable. But students (just like the rest of us) need to learn how to manage frustration—how to step back, take a deep breath, and try something different. Blogger and author Seth Godin writes of the importance of resilience for adults facing uncertain economic times, and it is just as important for students. If we only teach students one way to do something, and spend all of our practice time drilling that one method, are we really preparing them for the unpredictable and ambiguous world beyond the classroom? What happens when the One Way doesn’t work for a particular problem or in a particular situation? Some students will get angry at the material. Some will get angry at school in general. And some will blame themselves. How helpful are any of those responses, really?

Persistence means taking a “never say die” attitude towards a problem, but it shouldn’t have to mean bashing your head against a brick wall…especially if there’s a doorway a few feet away. Sometimes, going around can be more effective than trying to going through. But you can’t go around if you don’t take a step back, calm yourself down, and reassess both the situation and your approach to it. As the old saying reminds us, the little reed persists in the wind storm while the mighty oak cracks and falls, because the mighty oak can’t bend. Do we simply expect our students to know how to bend…and how to snap back and try again?

It again raises the interesting question about what we see as our mission. Are we teachers of math or teachers of children? Are we preparing students to be poets and mathematicians…or well-rounded adults who can enjoy poetry and fill out a tax return? If we take a whole-child approach to education, we can’t help but see these performance character values as a real and vital part of our curriculum. After all, the ultimate goal of an education isn’t simply knowing stuff. The ultimate goal is a rich and rewarding life.

Of course our students need to know their fractions. Of course they need to know how to write a good paragraph. But if they don’t know how to keep going in their learning—how to Not Give Up when challenges rise up—the fractions and paragraphs won’t matter.

The post Building Student Character in the Classroom (Part 2) appeared first on Catapult Learning.

This workshop will provide an overview of the WIDA English language proficiency (ELP) standards and Common Core State Standards, with a focus on using these standards for Supporting Your ELLs to meet college- and career-ready expectations.

Participants will learn to:

• Identify areas of alignment between WIDA ELP standards and Common Core.
• Use the Model Performance Indicators (MPIs) in the WIDA ELP standards to assist students in accessing Common Core State Standards.
• Develop practical applications to the classroom for Common Core and WIDA ELP standards.
• Gain an introduction to the updated WIDA standards to be released in the fall of 2012.
• Better understand the language expectations in the Common Core State Standards and identify other resources for assisting ELLs in accessing the Common Core.

Presented by one of Catapult Learning’s Common Core Experts:

Heather Bickley, ELL Expert and Professional Development Coach

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SIOP is a research driven, teacher supported methodology that has been proven to increase engagement and achievement.   Have you had a chance to practice and apply some of the methodology from Part 1 of this blog post?   I hope you have found it successful.  What follows is part two of the introduction to the SIOP methodology!

SIOP teachers are instructing children to communicate effectively in a new language; therefore, it is not surprising that Interaction is the next component.  ELLs should be encouraged to interact with other students a minimum of two times during any class period.  I love using the  Think Ink Pair Share (TIPS) strategy.  It is one quick way to get ELLs talking and when it becomes a routine it is highly successful as a building background technique or formative assessment.   There are hundreds of cooperative learning strategies that teachers can include in their instruction;  four corners and concentric circles are two of my favorites.

After students have been exposed to the new content and skills it is time for the sixth component Practice and Application.  In this component the SIOP experts recommend that children integrate all four language domains (listening, speaking, reading and writing) into practicing and applying new information.  I find that manipulatives help ELLs make abstract concepts concrete.  Online manipulatives are a good alternative when tangible tools aren’t available.  Additionally, teachers can try to illicit a total physical response to increase engagement and learning.  For example, instead of students completing a matching worksheet.  Have them wear cards with words and definitions and walk around to find their match!  My students, even those who are college age seem to really enjoy this activity!  They tell me that they remember their friend who had the answer and it helps them remember the vocabulary word and definition!  This strategy comes with a built-in mnemonic device!

Lesson Delivery is the seventh component of SIOP.  Teachers should ideally aim for student engagement throughout 90-100% of the lesson.  You can follow this link to a list of instructional strategies aimed at increasing student engagement.  The last component is Review and Assessment.  ELLs need extra review of key vocabulary and concepts.  I use formative assessment strategies to determine how much review is necessary.  When developing summative assessments authentic assessments increase engagement and achievement.  For example, instead of asking students to take a quiz or writing a report after reading a novel, have the student pretend to be a New York Times book reviewer and write a review to be published in the New York Times.  I recently worked with a biology teacher who wanted students to complete a template on genetic disorders; instead she had them write pages for a book to be published by the local children’s hospital.

Free Webinar: Join us for a free webinar on May 15th, Supporting Your ELL’s, presented by Heather Bickley. Click here for more information!

Encourage your students to be reflective about their learning and I encourage teachers to do the same about their teaching.   Try some of the suggestions and take notes about what worked and what didn’t, what strategies kept students engaged, which did not.  You can continue to implement the strategies and techniques that are successful to create lasting engagement, increase overall achievement and hopefully have fun teaching and learning!

The post The English Language Learner in Your Classroom (Part 2) appeared first on Catapult Learning.

Catapult Learning is looking forward to attending the 57th annual Torah Umesorah National Leadership Convention at Split Rock resort in Lake Harmony, PA.  Catapult Learning will be represented by Jonathan Rapfogel, Ann Dershowitz, Malka Lebovic, Chaya Young, Leah Schwartz and Sarah Kohn.  If you plan to attend this convention please be sure to stop by our booth to ask the team how Catapult Learning can help your educators and their students Achieve Beyond Expectations!

Learn more about this event!

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The last time Congress reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001.  There have been several ESEA reauthorization attempts over the last couple of years, but none of these have had a serious chance of becoming law. Can congress get it done now?

Like that famous little engine, the education committees in the House and Senate think that they can make this happen.  The leadership of the committees—Congressman Kline (R-MN) and Senator Harkin (D-IA)—along with the ranking members of the committees have been in initial discussions.   Congressman Kline is nearing the end of his term limit as Chairman without accomplishing the ESEA reauthorization.  Senator Harkin has announced his retirement and has not accomplished the ESEA reauthorization.

Congressman Kline’s staff is working hard on a draft bill that can be considered by the Committee; the same is true of Senator Harkin’s staff.  Committee staff members are talking about a “conferenceable” bill—a bill that contains enough for everyone that it can be considered by both parties, make its way to the floor of each chamber, and be melded into a single bill for passage into law.

Of course, many issues remain to be resolved: what to do about waivers, including the work that the states have put in and the changes they have put in place for this new flexibility; the issue of teacher accountability and whether or not test results are part of that determination; common core standards or equivalent substitutes for the common core; and assessments by the states and the definition of what’s at stake with those assessments.

The other “wild card” is the politics beyond the committee members.  What will Congressional leadership and other factions in the Congress allow their members to accept?  Is compromise still possible on Capitol Hill?  Can there be a resolution to these hot button issues or are the sides simply too far apart?

In addition to the issue of passage is the issue of funding.  A little civics 101: one group of members authorize legislation, another group funds those programs.  Therefore, even if a bill passes, we have to be concerned that it will have sufficient funding for effective implementation.  Currently, the President has proposed “even” funding (the same as the 2013-14 funding with the sequestration cut) for Title I, Title IIA, and Title III, a diversion of 25% of Title IIA for a national program to fund research and development for teacher assessment instruments, an increase in funding for 21^st Century Community Learning Centers, additional discretionary grant programs (which only go to select LEAs), an increase in Race to the Top Funds, and even funding for IDEA.  There has been pushback from Democratic Senators on even funding for programs such as Title I and IDEA, but there is also pushback from House Republicans on any increase in federal spending.

One thing is certain for the spring and summer, however.  The education committees have the mindset of that little engine—they think they can get a bill crafted that can be voted on by the entire Congress.  Let’s hope they make it up that hill!

The post ESEA Reauthorization: Can Congress Get It Done? appeared first on Catapult Learning.

Catapult Learning is excited to attend this year’s NASDME Conference (National Association of State Directors of Migrant Education) at the Rosen Centre Hotel in Orlando, FL.  Catapult Learning will be represented by Toby Shelton, Executive Director of Educational Partnerships, as well as Shelby Dumas, Director of Educational Partnerships.  If you plan on attending this conference please stop by booth# 121 to ask Toby and Shelby how Catapult Learning can help your educators and their students Achieve Beyond Expectations!

Also, Don’t miss our Palm Beach presentation on “An Effective Summer Learning Framework for Migrant Students”!

Learn more about this event!

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Anyone who has spent time in a classroom knows that schooling involves far more than academic lessons. Many things contribute to a student’s learning and success—and just as many things can detract from it.  One can argue to what extent teachers and school districts should hold themselves responsible for factors such as adequate sleep, balanced nutrition, and safe places to sleep at night. But other elements that affect student performance are closely tied to the academic work of the classroom and can be cultivated and developed by the teacher. In fact, studies have shown that attention to certain character traits can greatly affect a student’s ability to succeed in school and in life.

When we speak of character development in education, we often think of traditional moral values—issues of ethics and interpersonal behavior. But the high-yield character traits that researchers are beginning to focus on in school settings speak more to academic behavior than interpersonal issues. The focus is less on how a student interacts with other students, and more on how a student interacts with the work.

Often called “habits of mind,” and defined and categorized variously by authors and researchers over the years, these academic performance character values, as author Paul Tough calls them in How Children Succeed, can be transmitted and learned implicitly and almost thoughtlessly as part of family culture or economic class; in many families and communities they are modeled and extolled by adults and expected of children from very early ages. Some students, however, grow up without these kinds of expectations, outside of communities or families that embody and demand performance-oriented values, or in homes where over-stressed and over-worked parents have trouble providing sufficient attention to these values.  As research is beginning to show us, teachers can make a profound difference here. Schools that serve low-income or struggling students are finding that the explicit teaching and cultivation of these habits of mind can prove to be important keys to student success.

Catapult Learning’s Performance Character Values

There are many ways to define and categorize the skills and habits of mind that help students learn and succeed in school and life, and many different skills and habits that contribute to success. At Catapult Learning, we have selected six performance-related character values to focus upon and support as we develop new programs and revise our current offerings. They are:

• Persisting towards solutions
• Working with precision
• Asking questions
• Working with others
• Making connections
• Monitoring progress and embracing learning

Some of these values will look familiar to those of you who have been working to learn and implement the Common Core State Standards; several come straight from the Standards for Mathematical Practice. Others are values highlighted by organizations such as the Partnership for 21^st Century Learning. Values like “making connections” speak to the need to help students transfer their discrete learning into a variety of new and unpredictable contexts both in and beyond school. And others, like “monitoring progress” and “asking questions,” are things that we’ve always tried to focus on and encourage in our classrooms.

Over the next few months, as we work our way towards the new school year, we’ll spend some time talking about each of these performance character values and how we think teachers can use them to help students engage more successfully in their academic work.

The post Building Student Character in the Classroom appeared first on Catapult Learning.

We are extremely excited to announce our honorees for April 2013!

The Educator Spotlight is a monthly feature on our Catapult Corner Blog. The educators that are highlighted are nominated by their Catapult colleagues in recognition of the positive impact they have on children and schools throughout the country. They are our very own shining stars!

• Jack Gesalman – Teacher – Westmoreland County, PA

• Cambra Koczkur – Teacher – Denver, CO
  

• Yehudit Plopper – Teacher – Lakewood, NJ
  

Jack Gesalman – Teacher

• Westmoreland County, PA
• Shippensburg State University, Secondary Ed. Mathematics

Why did you first become a teacher?

I became a teacher because through my work in scouting I found that I enjoyed teaching children of middle and high school age and was good at it.

What do you love most about teaching for Catapult Learning?

I enjoy the one-on-one (or one-on-small group) opportunities to work with particularly high school-age young people.  I particularly enjoy doing SAT and ACT prep as well as homework support in algebra, trig and calculus.

What is your greatest Catapult Learning teaching success story?

Since I have been teaching with Catapult Learning since it’s founding and before that with its previous companies for twenty years now, there have been lots of successes.  One of the most recent successes was a third quarter seventh grade transfer student whose previous teachers had given him a calculator and told him he would not be able to do math.  I have worked with him for over three years.  He is in now in the 10^th grade passing geometry and can do fractions, decimals, multiplication and division, find LCM and GCF, etc., faster than other students in his group.  He has math confidence now.

What have you learned from your students?

Patience! 

Cambra Koczkur – Teacher

• Denver, CO
• Lubbock Christian University, BS Social Work

Why did you first become a teacher?

I became a teacher because it is one of the most influential roles a person can play in the development of a better society.  I open up life options for every child I teach, and I give them the power to choose a life that is different from the often dysfunctional models they have seen before. I go to work with a sense of purpose everyday, and I leave with the feeling that I have made a difference.  To me, nothing is better than that.

What do you love most about teaching for Catapult Learning?

I love working with students individually and in small groups. It gives me the opportunity to specifically target a student’s needs in ways that were difficult as a classroom teacher.  I receive a daily thrill from watching high school students begin to understand concepts they have struggled with since elementary school.

What is your greatest Catapult Learning teaching success story?

Several of my students have achieved growth of two to four grade levels in their testing this year, but my greatest successes were in helping kids gain confidence in their ability to learn.  When a student learns a concept they were convinced they could never understand and then continues to move beyond that concept to increasingly complex skills, they begin to gain a sense of control over themselves and their education.  That sense of control, of power, is a lesson they can carry with them for the rest of their lives.

What have you learned from your students?

I have learned the importance of unmitigated honesty from my students.  My high school students respond better to instruction when they know that I will tell them the truth without trying to soften or skirt it.  If an eighteen-year-old comes to me with a third grade math level, as happened more than once this year, I tell them what the tests say.  Later, when I tell them they have made great growth or that they should be proud of themselves or that they will understand a concept with a little more work, they are willing to believe me.  These kids have taught me to be brave about truth telling, and that is a lesson I try to carry into the other areas of my life. 

Yehudit Plopper – Teacher

• Lakewood, NJ
• Adelphi University
• Reading Specialist

Why did you become a teacher?

I like working with children.  I wanted to be able to make a difference in a child’s world. I wanted to help give them the keys that would help them succeed in life.  As a remedial teacher I can give students skills that they are missing and won’t get from sitting through school.

What do you love most about teaching for Catapult Learning?

I love the camaraderie of working with other teachers and being able to share ideas and learn from them.  I feel one of the greatest parts of working for Catapult is having the privilege of working under my supervisor, Mrs. Faige Verschleiser.  She has taught me so much and gives me that guidance and support that I need to help me succeed with my students.

What is your greatest Catapult teaching success story?

One year I worked with a student who could not master her ABCs.  She was resistant to help, and was difficult to work with.  Throughout the year, I worked hard to find the means to get through to her.  Thank G-d, slowly but surely I succeeded and by the end of the summer she was reading.  We also developed a great relationship and I was able to help strengthen her confidence along with her academic skills.  She told me that when she grows up, she wants to teach “in a trailer” too.

What have you learned from your students?

I have learned to persevere even when situations are tough.  My students are all struggling in the classroom.  Yet, they still work hard and try to do well.  They don’t give up, and I feel empowered by them, to try different teaching methods until together we find ways to succeed.

Catapult Learning has long recognized that our teachers, coaches, specialized services professionals, and consultants are the foundation upon which our company stands. We literally wouldn’t be here without their tireless efforts to help struggling students succeed!

Thanks again to all of this month’s honorees! You can thank them too, please leave your comments for our educators below!

The post Catapult Learning Educator Spotlight: April 2013 appeared first on Catapult Learning.

Catapult Learning is very proud to attend as well as be a sponsor at this year’s Mid-Atlantic Catholic Schools Consortium which is being held at the Conference Center at the Maritime Institute.  The theme for the conference is Digital Learning for 21st Century Catholic and Private Schools.  Catapult Learning will be represented by Annemarie Hochkeppel, Director of Non-Public School Partnerships, North.  If you are planning to attend the conference please stop by our booth and ask Annemarie how Catapult Learning can help your educators and their students Achieve Beyond Expectations!

Learn more about this event

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