Product reviews for Catalyst

The Catalyst set is just what the name suggests, a catalyst for meaningful dialogue that starts conversations for action. Having used the set in a variety of settings, I now regularly have requests for a set of the cards and am happy that I ordered extras to be able to share it with school and district leaders.  

In the last two school years, we have made use of the cards in our work with teacher leaders who are in a temporary school leadership role (acting vice principals). This group meets five times throughout the year and we look in depth at each of the four areas and then apply our learning along the way and in a cumulative session. In the years prior to using Catalyst, our conversations in this same series of sessions were valuable but not in depth. In the last two years, we have noticed increased engagement, deeper conversations about the practice of leadership in their schools, and connections between their leadership work, building school culture and student success.  

In another instance, we used the Catalyst set to guide a review of the principal and vice principal evaluation process. The four sets of cards and the scenarios helped the committee to look deeply at the purposes which then helped us arrive at a process that will be meaningful for school leaders and those working with them in that process.