Welcome to the Binge PBL for Teachers podcast brought to you by Magnify Learning, your customized PBL partner. From over a decade of experience with you in the trenches, we are bringing you 20 episodes for inspired classroom teachers exploring project-based learning. Learn the lingo, develop your skills, teach inspired. Here's your host, Ryan steuer.
Episode 15. Feedback in a project-based learning classroom. Feedback is the compass of collaboration. I said in the last episode that it's the lifeblood, but it's so important. So, we do a lot of outdoor activities in my family. I love to hike. Love to be up in Glacier National Park, like just lost almost up there in the mountains. It is absolutely amazing. Love to hike Big Ben National Park. Like, love these places where we can get out and hike and just be out in God's creation and there's just nothing around. You can't see anything that's man-made out there and it's quiet and it's awesome. So, a compass comes into play, right? The problem with a compass though sometimes is that you have to know where you're at on a map before you can go anywhere. And I would claim that at this point in episode 15, like you've you've set the map pretty well. If you go through the six steps of project-based learning in the book PBL Simplified, you know, in step two, you're going to set success criteria. You're going to have rubrics out there. You're going to have said like this is where we're going. You've launched your entry event. So, that part's actually really clear. The map's there. So now you do need the compass. Now it's time for the compass to come into play because if you are out hiking and you know where you're at and you've got a group and you get to a point where there's a left and a right and some people say left, some people say right. Well, you get the compass out and the compass doesn't lie, right? The compass says this is north and it says this is north for everybody. So it makes the right really really simple like you have to go right in this case, right? And that can happen in group work too, or anyone in your PBL unit is, hey, we've got the success criteria laid out. We know where we're supposed to go. Where are we at now? Because things things can get a little tricky because you are trying to get teenagers or elementary school kids to collaborate. And let's be honest, most adults don't know how to collaborate and work together. So, you've got a lot of work to do. Know it's worth it. So, there's going to be this point where they're like, "What do we do next?" And feedback is so key.
We've got tuning protocols for this. We've got rubrics to help us with this. And I'm going to call feedback the compass of collaboration because I think every teacher can use feedback to help themselves and their learners reach a goal with these three PBL moves. So, what are the three PBL moves? Number one, you're going to use protocols to scaffold the feedback. Because when I say it's the compass, it's going to be we know where we're supposed to go. Feedback is going to be I'm giving you this tuning protocol to give you feedback to say, "Well, I think you're off just a little bit here." And I'm also going to say, "Hey, I think you're spot on here." Right? So, between I think you're spot on the likes and the I wonder if you want to go this direction, we can get going where we're supposed to go. So, feedback is meant to be super helpful, not attacking. It's not like, "Oh, Ryan, you're wrong." And the way we do that with a tuning protocol, this first move, is that we put the feedback on the product, the thing that you're creating, and not you. And it makes a huge difference. We're all trying to make this product better, not you. And it feels like sometimes in peer editing scenarios where there really aren't any rules uh or structures set up, I feel like I can get personally attacked on something like, "Hey, Ryan, you did this wrong." That's not what we're saying at all. We're saying, "I really like what you did here, and I wonder if something could happen over here." So, the benefits of a tuning protocol are that you have timing involved. So, we've got these three set uh rounds or four rounds that are set up. You're going to share, we're going to give you likes, we're going to give you wonders, and you're going to give us, you know, kind of your overall feedback and and what worked well. So, we're going to time each one of those. So, it's not a free-for-all of I get to talk the most because I'm extroverted and I like to talk. Um it's more of you've got two minutes, so you need to organize your thoughts and I better pay attention because I know next is my turn to talk and we're gonna sit in one minute of silence if I don't have anything to say and that's uncomfortable. So, I'm gonna say something.
And I also want you to get better, right? So, I'm going to be I'm going to partake in this compass of feedback. The second thing that happens in a scheduled like protocol like a tuning protocol is that we give you wording, right? So, we start with, you know, you're going to share and then I'm going to give you likes and I'm going to give you wonders. So, we have the sentence starter already started. It's just all the things that I like. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And then all the wonders I have. And it's I wonder, not I think you should or I think you're wrong or gosh, what did what were you thinking? thinking. It's none of those things. It's just an I wonder. So, it gets off of that personal attack. We're just trying to improve your product. The next thing is that the main idea of these protocols is just to continually bring kids back to it's feedback on the product, not the person. Especi especially our our young learners that are new to this. Well, and honestly adults, too. Like, we get offended. So, just saying out loud, hey, this tuning protocol is to improve the product, not the person. It makes a big difference. The second idea for feedback. The second PBL move is that we're going to give feedback every day, all the time. Every day, all the time. Go for a walk every day. I try to get in 10,000 steps. I'm recording them right now. I'm 5,665 steps in today at this point. And I do that every day because it's building muscles, right? My body just knows, hey, it's one, it's like right away it's time to go for a walk. We're going to go do it. And then I'm building those muscles, but I have to do it every day. Same thing with feedback. We've got to build those muscles. Again and again and again. Building those muscles, saying the same words. We're talking about the product, not the person. It should probably be up on your wall somewhere. Tuning protocol. Remember, it's about the product, not the person. And you're talking to the group that's giving feedback, but you're also talking to the person getting feedback, reminding them every single time that it's like, "Oh, right. It's not about me. I'm not offended. This is just the product. Let's make the product better.
It'll be awesome." And there's a lot of different ways to give feedback all day, every day. Uh, and if you can create a culture where feedback is accepted and desired, right? There aren't too many things that we put out into the world that don't have some kind of feedback in Magnify Learning World, right? Whe it's a podcast or YouTube video, like somebody's going to go over even this session right here, give feedback, and we'll make some tweaks as we go, right? So, we love feedback because we know it makes a product better, which puts a better product out in the world, which changes the world. And using this wording in your classroom of the positivity of feedback is so important that That's how you start building culture. Your learners will believe you at some point. So the third PBL move for feedback is to model it, right? We have to live this process out. We've got the M. We need the mindset that we're all trying to get better. That growth mindset and that we want feedback. So asking your learners for feedback is a really great way to do that. And we've got to practice listening. Listening and not always responding right away. And that, my friends, takes some work. Because we always want because you're trying to do the right thing. You're striving for something better and for excellence. And if something comes across, you say, "Yeah, but I'm trying to." Yeah, sure you are. But let's just listen. Let's give the power to the person that's giving feedback and let's just listen. So, you're going to take their feedback. You're going to take learner feedback. You maybe at the end of a PBL unit, maybe it's just likes and wonders, but you're just going to listen. And some of them will be unfair. It's like, well, you didn't know that such and such and that's right, but you're just going to listen because you're going to model the feedback that you want them to have. So, if you have your learners help plan your classroom space like we discussed in episode 12, you know, you take their feedback and then make one change right away and let them know, let them know from your feedback. We're going to put our desks in pods instead of rows. Again, you want to speak these things out so they know what's happening.
Like, give your metacognition because they don't always know, right? They don't know that it happened because they said it. You're going to tell them, remember, you're modeling. So, I listened And then we made a change based on what you said. Thank you so much. I appreciate feedback. Now what they're seeing, what your 26 sophomores are seeing now is that, oh, I take I listen to the feedback. I take some of it. I don't have to take all of it, but wow, that's really helpful. And you're thinking, well, my sophomores probably didn't say that. Maybe not exactly like that, but after a while, they start to get the idea and it becomes a part of your culture. So, we continue to talk about how you receive feedback from your learners but also your peers, your colleagues. Ask them do a tuning protocol with your colleagues before you launch your PBL unit. We do it in the PBL movement online community all the time. We do it in workshops and every single time people just say that the tuning protocol was one of my favorite things that we did because you get feedback so quickly and it's the people that are giving feedback and the people are receiving feedback, both of them, right? It's it's nice to be able to speak into someone else's work. So if you invite your colleagues into this they'll get on board as well. So feedback can be your compass for collaboration if you're using protocols, giving feedback daily, and modeling listening to that feedback. There are a lot of ways that you can do that and it'll start to build the culture in your classroom. And another consequence that comes out of this is eventually your learners are giving each other feedback before they get to you, right? You can't look at 26 different projects every single day with a one-on-one, right? It doesn't work. So what if your learners were giving feedback in between times where they they knew how to give feedback. So if you gave them seven minutes to run this protocol, they could give feedback before it even gets to you. Now things are happening without you. And that's when things are really humming. That's when things start to get really exciting.
Well, hey, your CTA for today, your your call to action is to just remind you that generous people share good resources. If it seems really simple, but if you want to be seen as a generous person, simply share some of the resources you've gotten from us during this episodes. What you find is people often want to return the favor and soon they're sending you their favorite resources. Even if these people aren't into PBL yet, they will appreciate you wanting to share good resources with them. So share it and see what happens. And you just might find out that there are more people out there doing PBL than you think. So share, be generous, start the giving cycle. All right, you're in the home stretch. Feedback's important, but so is its twin sister, reflection. Reflection requires muscle, though. Talk to you next time. Episode.
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