Welcome to the PBL Simplified podcast for administrators 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 this top rated educational podcast designed for visionary school administrators seeking to transform their schools with project-based learning. Launch your vision, live your why, and lead inspired. Here's your host, Ryan Steuer.
I am your host, Ryan Steuer. Welcome to PBL Simplified for administrators. This is the podcast that talks about project-based learning from the lens of administrators. We got a couple different options for you where if you're a teacher or you want to get this podcast info to your teachers, we have PBL Simplified for teachers. If you're new to PBL or you just want the overview of project-based learning for administrators, you can go to binge PBL for administrators. That's binge like you're binge watching like you do on Netflix. Binge PBL for administrators, wherever it is that you are using to listen to this, you can just search. So, if it's Apple podcasts, um you can go right there. We'll also put in the show notes, of course. Uh but check it out. The binge episodes are 20 episodes. They're never over 15 minutes, so you can just binge through and get the big picture of what should administrator be doing in project- based learning. Today's episode is what is PBL? So, we're kind of addressing some portion of this in the binge episodes. And the binge episodes gives you that 20 episode perspective. Today I'm going to talk about every administrator can define PBL for these three audiences because I could give you, you know, the long convoluted kind of mission statementish definition of PBL, but that's not what you want. I hope cuz then you're in the wrong spot. Like there's plenty of those. I'm sure we have one on our website. But the point is is what does PBL look like for your different audiences that you're serving, right? You're a servant leader. You're trying to rock your school so that you're best serving ing your learners. So, what does project-based learning mean for them? So, the first audience, of course, is your students.
When your students are in the classroom, how are you best serving them? You still want light bulb moments. You want them opportunities they wouldn't have otherwise. You want them to excel on standardized tests because it's good for them and it's good for your school. You want them to be successful when they come to school every day. And project-based learning does that in a lot of different ways. You've got a lot of research at this point around project- based learning. It's it's not some new fangled thing at this point. We've got a some deep research that shows, especially for your learners that are underserved, that what happens with project-based learning is it gives you the context and the handles for your learners to hang on to. Now, they can get the deep content knowledge that they need. I've heard it over and over again from teachers and principles. My kids are not ready for PBL because they don't know the basics of math and reading. And it's the complete opposite, my friends. It's the complete opposite. That skill and drill is not going to get you there. They're never going to get above that skill and drill point without project-based learning. They need the context that a community partner brings. They need the context of a larger PBL unit with all the things that come along with it to show them where the core basics fit. Where does the math fit? Where does this literacy fit? They've got to see those things so that they can excel and master those and move on to more rigorous content. So, if you're waiting for them to get there, it's never going to happen. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. because the research actually shows that when we give our learners the project based learning portions all the additional context that's when they learn those basic skills. The other thing it's going to do for your students your learners is what we typically call them around here because we want to move from students that are passive apathetic to learners that are active and empowered and we think that that wording is important but it builds our 21st century skills and we're well into the 21st century at this point. We've got AI moving but it's still those same ideas of creative thinking creativity, communication.
They don't have to start with C. It could be problem solving, could be teamwork. But if you look at what do our industry partners want from our graduates, when you look at a top 10 list, at least five of those are going to be things that you can really only achieve in project-based learning, right? It's going to be those collaborative agency, uh, again, teamwork, problem solving, critical thinking, those ideas that go with the standards and beyond the standards. Those skill sets are what our employers are looking for. And And we want our kids to be employable. We want that to go well for them because it prepares them for careers, for college, for being a great citizen of the country. So when we bring project-based learning to our students, it's moving them from apathetic to engaged and from engaged to empowered. And we want them to be empowered to find something different. The second audience is going to be your teachers. Your teachers have a lot going on right now. There's a lot of anxiety. There's a lot of overwhelm. You're like, "Hey, I've got one more thing for you." And they just they run, right? The whole room just disappears. Project-based learning gets your teachers teaching the way they've always wanted to teach. Like, they want to teach inspired, but they're just not sure how. Like, is it going to be 80 times more work? Is it going to get messy? Is it going to be confusing? How do they get to the right side of your evaluation in your district? Like, how do they get to student empowerment? How do you get learners to ask questions? Are they supposed to stop in the middle of their unit and say, "Okay, you guys ask me some questions now. Well, they may try that, right? Because that would be a legitimate step based on your evaluation because that's on the right side and that's where they want to be. They want to be highly effective. Well, in project- based learning, a lot of those things are already built into the framework and the instructional model. So, it's not this messy thing. It's quite the opposite.
All those things you're asking them to do, the components, the the PBIS components, the relational pieces, and the the deep content work, the rigorous content that you want them to engage in, it's in the framework of project learning. It's not an extra thing. In fact, I think PBL is the best vehicle to get you to all those to get you to the place where you want your learners to be. So, your teachers need the right vehicle. Right now, they're on a bicycle and they could be in a big semi-truck pulling all these things along. So, they just feel overwhelmed because they're trying to get kids to ask questions and be empowered, but they've got the wrong instruct instructional model. They've got an instructional model that's passive. Even if they do all the fun, engaging things to get their kids involved, olved. It's still a basic instructional model that breeds passivity and compliance. Like at best, they're getting kids to do what they're asking them to do, which is just compliance, which is not engaged and or empowered. So, they're not going to get to teach the way they've always wanted to teach. It's a big deal. I would say PBL also helps your teachers build stronger relationships with your students, right? So, because it's empowered, because you know, we've got these collaborative tuning protocols, we've got these group contracts, Because the structures are there, your teachers have some freedom to go around and build relationships with your learners in the content and around the content and outside of the content. And if they're giving lectures so that the kids get all the information they need, and then if the kids study enough, they do well on the quiz and the test, there's very little time to build relationships. So then you have to add on this advocacy class. And I love advocacy classes, by the way. Uh but that's where you're trying to build relationships, which means that relationships are not built into the classroom, right? Because there some place different. I love the idea of an advocacy class. I think it makes a lot of sense and there should be relationship building throughout classroom day as well. And project based learning lets us do that. In fact, it kind of moves us in that direction.
And the third audience is going to be you, right? There's always a what's in it for me. Like you want to know like how does this make your job better? Because you have goals, aspirations, visions. Like how does PBL help you reach those? If you look at your school improvement goals or your your strategic plan for your district. You're going to see that a lot of it again is is rooted in project- based learning. Even if it's not explicitly stated, there's going to be an equity piece, an SEAL piece, an engagement piece, you know, your core standards as far as your standardized test scores. All those things need to be wrapped up in something. And you can make each one a separate initiative, but that's where your teachers are rightfully claiming like, hey, you can't add something else to my plate, right? Like, but what if you had one thing that was the plate, right? Like what if PBL is the plate? And we actually do this protocol with schools. Um be happy to run it with you. Uh and what we do is we put all the initiatives and if you're brave, you have your teachers put them all on there, but you could put them all on this page with your admin team. Put it all in big dry erase board. And then take a look at PBL and where does where do all these niches fit? Make PBL the plate. Yep. It's going to go right in there. Your PBS? Yep. Yep. Yep. You're you're workshopping and you're personalized learning. Yep. That goes there and they all start to fit within the vehicle of of PBL or the plate of PBL in this analogy. Uh the things that you want to accomplish are in PBL. You have a vision. If you didn't have a vision, you would have stayed in the classroom and you I'm not sure you would have been there either, but you had a vision when you took the step from classroom teacher to AP or AP to principal, whatever that step was for you, however you got to this leadership position, you did it for a reason. And it wasn't because things were easier, like things didn't get easier when you got in that seat. It's quite the opposite. You understand that the seat is different, right? When you sit there, it's different than when you're looking at it from, you know, the classroom. You suddenly have the vision.
You are suddenly the one that's going to dictate, you know, how the faculty meetings are run, how what the processes are for the schedule, what are these outcomes, how does the community see your school, like those are all things that are suddenly in your lap and when you start looking around I want you the same thing like all those things that you want if PBL's the plate do they fit on there almost every time when we run this with a school or a district the all the initiatives fit on that PBL plate somewhere I think we had one where like one didn't quite fit right but but most of them are going to fit there like community perception you want to bring in community partners into the classroom to showcase the amazing work that your teachers and students are doing how do you do that you can do it through career day that's one day pay out of the year. But that's really community partners talking at your kids doesn't really fulfill that. But what if they're in there as an authentic audience? And after four weeks, your learners have done some amazing work that's real world and solves a real world problem. They've also learned a ton of content knowledge and now they're going to display that through a presentation to your community partners. When those community partners leave, they go to Rotary and Chamber of Commerce and they go to soccer games and they talk about the things that are happening in your school and they're amazing. things, right? You probably you have amazing things happening right now, but nobody knows. So, PBL is that vehicle that brings your community partners in in a positive way, a positive controlled way that your teachers can handle and appreciate. And now you start to build that community perception. When you're doing PBL well with assessment practices that are tight, and that's what we advocate for, right? There's a structure around all of this. It is not loosey goosey. Then your standardized test scores go up like Cynthia who who was a new principal and she came into a school that had a D as their state testing score and two years later it was an A. How did she do that? She used PBL, she used PLC's. She did a lot of really neat work.
But PBL is that core instructional model that empowered her teachers, that empowered her staff. It's awesome. We got one of our other model elementary schools in Indianapolis had the highest growth of any school in the state around their testing. How do they do that? They did it with project- based learning and really tight assessment practices because they were challenging their top learners as well as those learners that were not doing as well. So, everybody's being challenged and everyone's growing in that system. How do you do that? You don't do that through skill and drill. You don't have and if you try to personalize that without PBL, like how do you do that? Because now your teachers are creating lessons for these different personalized tiers in their classroom and now they're teaching three classes. is for every class that they have and it starts to feel impossible and that's why they're overwhelmed and why they have anxiety because they can't figure out the personalization, the differentiation in a traditional classroom. That's right, wrong vehicle. PBL starts to give you the wording for your teachers to hit all those things on the right side of the rubric that you want them to and they're going to love you for it. They become empowered just like the learners do. Now, there's a right and a wrong way to start for sure. Uh, you know, you just go top down mandate. Hey, let's do this. Like we've got leaderships or learning teams that you can start with. We've got design days that we can help you do. My favorite way to start is free and you just go to a school that's using PBL at a high level and go check it out. You might scout it out yourself, but then go again and bring more people. Bring your leadership team. Bring those lead teachers. Bring a key parent to this. Start to build some momentum. As you build that momentum, it's more people asking for PBL than just you. You might see that vision. You're like, "Yes, I want to have that inspired school that's just clicking on all cylinders." That's awesome. I'm glad you're filled with energy and passion. That's important. You're going to have to say these things over and over again, but you need help. You need support, right?
Sometimes when uh one of our all-star principles like crushes it, but then she say she gets promoted or goes to a different school, now she's she's still fired up. She knows how to do it now and she's starting from scratch because her teacher haven't been through the same things as their other teachers. It's going to take patience. You've got to build momentum. Don't do this work without momentum, right? You want to start building a grassroots movement of your teachers and your students that are asking for it and parents that are asking for it. And as you do that, it's pushing all of this forward and you're leading instead of managing. Wouldn't that be awesome? You might be really great at setting out fires, but what if you didn't have to set out fires? Like what if the emergencies and the fires took care of themselves because you have an instru model where you you've got a building of empowered people that can figure some of these things out and you're leading or you're having leadership meetings, not just management meetings. Oh, that's exciting, isn't it? I think that's exciting. If you're fired up, you're in the right place. We're going to continue with this series uh for PBL Simplified for administrators is specifically talking to you. Next week, we're going to bring in a leadership guest, David Griff, that's going to talk to us about social media. So, we're talking about this community perception idea. It's like, well, how do you get the awesome things that are happening in your in your school? How do you get those out to the world? And how do you do that? Well, so we wanted to bring you in somebody like, so we're going to bring in David and he's going to give you some ideas how you can use Instagram, Facebook, start using these things well so that you're portraying to the community the awesome things that you're doing. If you still want that overview of PBL, you can go to Binge PBL for administrators. PBL Binge PBL for administrators. And it's going to give you the overview of what it is you need to know as admin. administrator bringing project based learning to your school. This is exciting stuff. When you talk about PBL, these are the things I'd like you to talk about.
That's why I didn't go through the long like two paragraph definition of PBL. Nobody cares about that. They want to know how does it affect their classroom experience. Parents want to know how it affects their child, right? So, look at the audience and start to craft your wording around PBL. Students want to know how it's going to change their work. Teachers want to know how it changes their world because This is their passionate world, right? And you're talking about change. Can't get better without change. But people freak out when it comes to change. So, you want to do this well. You want to build grassroots movement. And you, my friend, are going to lead instead of manage. It's going to be incredibly exciting. In fact, we're going to have you lead inspired.
That's just what I needed to bring PBL to my school. If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing the show. It only takes 2 minutes to scroll to the bottom. Tap to rate. with five stars and select write a review. Then be sure to let us know what was most helpful about that episode. Your review helps the next inspired leader just like you find their why and lead inspired.
