WORK BASED LEARNING
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NEXT FALL SESSION: SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 2022
We’re proud to feature a list of dynamic speakers who are true Industry Thought Leaders at the forefront of their fields. These professionals are always eager to share their knowledge and inspire others.
Don’t miss out - register your institution today.

Coming Soon
Catapult coaching sessions will be facilitated by a representative from The Mike Rowe foundation.
MIKE ROWE
TV host, writer, narrator,
producer, actor and spokesman
Lessons from the dirt
From the Baltimore Opera to QVC shopping channel, executive producer, host, best-selling author, and chart-topping recording artist Mike Rowe has had hundreds of jobs and relished his role as a chronic freelancer. He's best known as the "dirtiest man on TV," a title he earned on the iconic TV series Dirty Jobs. Today, you can join Mike for a romp through history on the discovery+ series Six Degrees as he uncovers the surprising connections between two disparate things and shows how everything in our crazy world is connected. You can also listen to him on The Way I Heard It, where he tells short stories you don’t know about people you do know and shares intimate conversations with fascinating folks from his own life and career; read his New York Times best-selling book The Way I Heard It, a mix of biography and auto-biography based on his popular podcast; or watch him
on the show Somebody's Gotta Do It on TBN or Pure Flix. In what can only be described as an envelope mix-up, Mike won an Emmy for his work on Facebook's groundbreaking series Returning
the Favor. As the country's leading advocate for skilled labor and the CEO of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, a 501(c)(3) public charity that debunks myths and misperceptions about the trades and helps close the skills gap, his foundation has granted millions of dollars in work ethic scholarships. In his spare time, Mike keeps a lively conversation with more than 8 million friends on social media, where he talks about everything from the musings of his persnickety terrier named Freddy to the merits and pitfalls of blind patriotism.
BRANDON BUSTEED
Chief Partnership Officer and Global Head, Learn-Work Innovation Kaplan
The Merger of Learning and Work
The most effective educational pedagogy involves project-based learning, hands-on application, teamwork, and opportunities to connect learning to work such as internships, co-ops, or apprenticeships. And the demands of the modern workplace require rapid and constantly learning and skilling - whether learning to use new collaboration software tools, data analysis tools, or more involved, formal training, 'learning' is becoming a critical aspect of work success. We are rapidly headed toward a world where will see a merger of learning and work - where you may not be able to tell the difference between a 'school' and a 'workplace.' Let's imagine what this world will look like!

Coming Soon

CHRISTINE CRUZVERGARA
Chief Education Strategy Officer, Handshake
Leading Change and Creating Buy-In
Good ideas don't matter if you can't convince those around you to follow. As you accumulate inspiration from the speakers before, don't forget to devise a strategy for how you'll implement these new ideas. Your success and your students' success relies on your ability to effectively lead change. Come learn 5 principles for creating the necessary buy-in across your campus or organization. Using behavioral psychology as a foundation, Christine will leave you with memorable stories and concrete techniques to use with your team, your colleagues, and even your children!
Coming Soon
Catapult coaching sessions
will be facilitated by Dr. Kevin Fleming.
JOSH DAVIES
CEO, The Center for Work Ethic Development
Building Foundational Skills in a Post-Pandemic World
The COVID pandemic has forever changed the workplace as we know it. Millions of jobs are being lost as others have been radically transformed. While technical skills are still important, the biggest concern employers have are the diminishing soft skills of the emerging workforce.
Nearly 9 out of 10 hiring managers in the U.S. report that the lack of these soft skills are THE most important factor in their hiring, and yet less than 20% of today’s employees demonstrate these crucial work ethic behaviors on a consistent basis. As we prepare our students for work-based learning opportunities, these are the skills they need to develop before they leave our classrooms. The good news is that there is a viable solution to the growing work ethic gap that can improve the employment outcomes for our students.
In this workshop Josh Davies, the CEO of The Center for Work Ethic Development, will provide 5 key strategies for developing the essential work ethic skills that employers demand. These proven strategies are already being used by leading schools and organizations to improve performance, retention, and job satisfaction of their graduates. Discover how you can build work ethic and set your students up for success as we transition to a post-pandemic world.

Coming Soon

Coming Soon
VINZ KOLLER
Apprenticeship Evangelist
The Future of Learning is Work: The Promise of Apprenticeships
There is a belief out there, that education has to prepare young people for a job – or even the world of work itself. And though educators, at great expense, try to design work-like environments in their schools, employers still lament that education falls short of their needs. This is, at least in part, because the faster an economy changes, the harder it is to predict what skills individuals will need in a future workplace. Even the best-designed career academy is outdated very quickly.
Which leads us to this great paradox: At a time when many young people are looking for work - employers say they simply can’t find the talent they need. We all wonder what has gone wrong.
What if our premise had been wrong all along? What if it is not education’s job to teach work?
What if only work can teach work? And what if we had a way to solve the talent paradox and the skills gap all at once – and even make a profit while doing it? In this session, we get reacquainted with the timeless method of connecting work and learning: the apprenticeship, which by its very nature eliminates the need to predict the future of work.