8 with 8

Welcome back to our 8th season, which was inspired by Ohio’s Special Education Profile, a tool that helps districts know how their students are faring on key indicators - these indicators are aligned to six essential questions that we ALL should be asking about special education. If you missed last week’s episode, you may want to go back and take a listen so you can get an overview of the profile...

This week we're kicking off a new season where we dig into some critical questions about how students with disabilities are really doing - questions that come from Ohio’s Special Education Profile. But our goal is to go much bigger than just the monitoring compliance implications of the Profile, and really get into what our goals are for students with disabilities, and what are some key considerat...

We’re bringing our season on PBIS connections to a close… but not before we talk about what is most important of all: the people who do this work. How do we build a sense of collective responsibility and shared ownership across all educators in a building, so that everyone is contributing to a safe, predictable, and positive learning environment? Join us as we spend a few minutes summarizing some...

We're gearing up for our great-8th season of 8 with 8 ! In the weeks to come, we’re going to be taking a closer look at the state of special education in Ohio - what we know from the data, what the research is pointing us to, and some examples of outstanding practices that allow districts to help students with disabilities reach their fullest potential. SST8’s special education team is going to ta...

Expectations for today’s youngest students are higher and more rigorous than ever, but these little learners are also just learning how to be safe, respectful, and responsible as they interact with each other. With so much to teach in such little time, where do we start? SST8 Early Childhood consultants Michelle Smith and Stacey Smith are back this week to talk about one particularly critical skil...

Did you know that PBIS can give you a major leg-up when it comes to preschool licensing and Step Up to Quality? Today we discuss some ways in which the PBIS framework not only creates safe and secure learning environments for our youngest students, but sets preschool programs up for success with their regulatory and quality programming requirements. Two birds - one stone... or rather, one highly e...

The last two years have been trying for educators: Staffing shortages, limited access to substitute teachers, students whose learning, development, or behavior is off-track due to the pandemic, financial shortfalls... Every corner of the educational system is feeling the strain. In a recent survey 78% of educators feel physically and emotionally exhausted at the end of the day. Is there hope for a...

Did you know that the US Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murphy, issued an urgent advisory statement on youth mental health? Increases in youth mental health needs were observed even prior to the pandemic, with 1 in 3high school students and half of female students reporting in 2019 that they experienced. persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness. This was an overall increase of 40% from 2009. And...

The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration defines trauma as the response to an “event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful, or life threatening, and that has lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being.” Trauma can res...

We're continuing our focus on the many connections PBIS has - or should have - with the rest of educational practice. This week, we’re hitting another pretty obvious connection: social emotional learning (SEL). Join us as SST8’s own Rachel Undercoffer discusses practical considerations for aligning social emotional learning with the PBIS framework, why that matters for our students, and how that c...

Welcome to the first episode of our new season, where we’ll focus on the many ways that PBIS - AKA Positive Behavior Interventions and Support - connect to and strengthen the rest of educational practice. This week, SST8 consultants Frank Gant and Mike Kaschak are going to kick us off with one of the most obvious - but also one of the most consequential - connections: school discipline.  More...

PBIS is everywhere and in everything! That’s what’s on our minds and in the research, in our seventh season of 8 with 8 . You might think that SST8 would have nothing new to say about PBIS. After all, we have been aggressively supporting PBIS for over a decade! But once you see the power of this framework, you can’t help but see all of the ways that it strengthens or supports other educational pri...

We are wrapping up a fascinating season exploring why it is that some educational practices continue to hang on, despite empirical evidence showing that they aren’t effective - or even do harm. This week, we talk to Drs. Persida and William Himmele, the authors of the great little book that inspired this season, Why Are We Still Doing That ? What led them to write this book? What practices did the...

As we close in on the end of this podcast season, and the end of another busy school year, we’re continuing to challenge ourselves with the question: Why are we still doing that? (Also the title of a great little book by Persida and William Himmele!) In this episode, we’re looking at social studies - why do we continue to short-change it as an instructional priority? In this episode, SST8’s Sarah...

The issue has been debated for decades. A TIME cover in 1999 read: “Too much homework! Yet, you can also go back to the 1970s, when we were concerned about our global competitiveness, and find there were concerns that there was too little homework. How much homework is too much? Not enough? Who should get it? What value does homework add? These are just a few of the questions that have been debate...

We’re continuing this season’s exploration of educational practices that are mainstays in many schools - even though research may be saying it’s time to let them go. This week, we’re tackling a big one - behavior charts. You know... if you're having a good day, you're on green... if you've made some bad choices, you're on red. Different classrooms use different approaches, including colors, clips,...

We’re continuing our exploration of educational practices that lack empirical support - yet continue to be mainstays in our profession. If you haven’t already, we encourage you to check out the book Why Are We Still Doing That? by Persida and William Himmele, which inspired this season’s focus. It’s a quick and thought-provoking read! One of the chapters focuses on formative assessment. Now, we de...

As we continue this season's focus on enduring educational practices that really don't have the research support we might think. Today, Mike Kaschak and Michelle Smith from SST8 have a quick but powerful conversation about recess and play time. Should we be taking it away from students when they misbehave? We know some educators consider this to be a tried and true consequence for challenging beha...

Literacy has been one of the most talked-about aspects of education over the last few years, due to a statewide focus on the science of reading, several grant opportunities, and now the dyslexia legislation going into effect next school year. And now, as our podcast delves into ineffective teaching practices this season, we are thrilled to welcome Dr. Tim Shanahan to the podcast. Dr. Shanahan is a...

Welcome back to this season’s discussion about some of the “sticky” practices in our profession that have persisted, despite lack of research evidence. Today’s topic is a very polarizing one: retention. Education researcher John Hattie has been quoted as saying, “No single intervention by schools is worse than retention.” That’s a pretty serious condemnation! Yet it continues to be something that...

This season, we are diving into the research to practice gap, exploring why it is that ineffective teaching practices continue to hang on despite growing evidence that it’s time to let them go. We are so excited to welcome to the podcast Dr. Judy Willis - a board-certified neurologist who made a dramatic switch into classroom teaching, where she taught in elementary middle school for 10 years. Tod...

8 with 8 is back with a sixth season! This time, we are taking a really different approach and focusing on a range of educational practices all with one common theme: they LACK research support. Why is it that ineffective instructional practices continue to be used in schools, when we have ample research showing us that they don’t work - or even do harm? We landed on this topic after reading a 202...

It's a bonus episode! We're following up on our 8 Great Literacy Learnings season because we know that here in Ohio, dyslexia is on the minds of many, many educators these days. Our new dyslexia support laws establish a variety of requirements for screening, professional development, certification to provide multi-sensory structured literacy instruction, and the Ohio Dyslexia Committee. There is s...

We’re wrapping up our season called 8 Great Literacy Learnings, and today we want to step back from the specific frameworks, strategies, and research on teaching kids how to read and instead, lean into considerations for how to make our literacy instruction more equitable and accessible for all. Listen as some of our SST8 literacy team members share some great ways to ensure that our literacy inst...

Literacy instruction does not end in the elementary grades! It is still very much a need for our adolescent learners - but it can be hard to figure out how best to integrate that with all of the other content area instruction that secondary education demands. Well, if you are looking for ways to break down the barriers of Adolescent Literacy, you are in the right place. Today, we are joined by Rog...