Ryan Steuer (00:10.126)
Welcome back to the PBL simplified podcast for administrators. I'm your host Ryan Stoyer. And today we're digging into a question that's at the heart of transforming school culture. What makes project-based learning sustainable? In other words, how do we make it stick? So it doesn't just vanish when a vendor or a consultant leaves or your PD budget dries up. How do you make sure that it stays and sticks in your school as a true culture? If you're a school leader, a district leader,
You're looking to build a culture where learners thrive with purpose. In this episode, it's really going to be your playbook. I'm going to walk you through what the three years can look like, the why, the how, and the what, of building a sustainable project-based learning system. Before we jump in, I want to give you this URL. It's pblmasterclass.com, pblmasterclass.com, and I'm going to teach this class in depth.
And at the end, you get to ask questions. There's a Q &A portion at the end, so you can ask all of your selfish questions specifically about your school or your district. And I encourage you to. I'll actually encourage you on the masterclass. I'm gonna say it exactly the same, because I want you to be selfish. Don't ask the question and be like, well, this might not apply to anybody else. Who cares? Your job is to take care of your school and your vision. Ask the selfish question. So go to pblmasterclass.com.
pblmasterclass.com. Of course, you can sign up and get the replay and watch me on two times speed. But if you want to ask the questions, show up live. All right, let's walk through this. The first one, and you know that I'm big on the why. I it makes a big difference. Every time I interview a guest, we start with what's your why. So why PBL? The idea, what I want you to understand is that it's more than a method. It's more than an instructional model. It's really a culture shift. So maybe you've heard it before, this idea of why would we change what's working?
But the real question is, is it working for all of our learners? Is it working for learners in the future as skill sets have to change for the workforce? Does something need to change in school? And I'm assuming that if you made it to this podcast, you believe that something does need to change. So now you're trying to figure out is project-based learning that method of change that you want? Obviously, I'm gonna say yes, right? I've written a book on it. I've devoted my life to it, but let me show you why. So I'm gonna tell you about
Ryan Steuer (02:35.406)
a student that I had in eighth grade, his name is Skyler. He was the classic underachiever, sharp kid, full of potential, but completely checked out. Education was not important to his family. In our 75 % free and reduced lunch school, he was part of that 75 % free and reduced lunch. And then he got project-based learning, right? And so he comes to this unit with the Haemophilia Society, and he actually creates real resources for real families that found out their kid has a genetic disease. And it's like, oh,
Well, this work actually matters. I do this. So now he starts to actually learn. He learns how to collaborate. He learns how to teach himself things and it lights a fire on them. So in high school, he starts taking pictures at the bus stop, puts them on Instagram. He gets a DM from Time Magazine that says, Hey, can we use some of your photos? And at first he says, Ricky, is this you? One of his buddies, he thought he was getting pranked.
No, sir. This is this is actually time magazine. He said, well, of course you can. So they do. They announced that he is the top Instagram account in the state of Indiana as a 17 year old kid. He ends up getting 48000 followers on Instagram. And now he's living his dream out in Los Angeles. He's a full time creative freelancer. He's doing work with Nike, Monster Energy Drink, a bunch of local rappers that are way cooler than I am. And
He never would have dreamed that when he was in sixth grade. Maybe even eighth grade, I would say. That's when he started to open up his eyes. But he found something he's passionate about that he loves. He's monetized it, and he's making a really good living. And maybe the cooler part is that his brother sees that. Right? His brother can see that way out. And if you ask Skyler, even today, he's going to tell you that project-based learning made that transformation for him. It's such a big deal.
So that's why I get passionate about it. You've got Skylars. You know you have a bunch of Skylars. You could think of one right now who's that underachiever that you know could be amazing that just needs that switch to go off. This is where we've seen it happen. But the key is is we're talking about sustainable PBL, right? Because we don't want to just deliver content. We want to deliver culture. And if you ask Skylar in those old days back in eighth grade, why does PBL work? Why is this so effective for you?
Ryan Steuer (04:59.437)
Why do you even put your head up? He would say, in his own words, he'd say, it feels like family. Because he knew that his teachers were listening to him, that it mattered, and people cared about him. Therefore, he was willing to learn and do the hard things we asked him to do. So that's what we're talking about. We're talking about project-based learning. We're talking about game-changing PBL. We're talking about authentic PBL that solves real-world problems. We're not talking about scenarios. We're not talking about PBL curriculum.
Curriculum does not make it happen, but building the skill set of your leaders and your teachers, that will make all the difference. Investing in your people makes the difference. So how do we build that PBL culture of a three year model? Let me walk you through these three years and then I'll give you a couple of examples of success stories from different schools that might be just like yours. So the idea is that culture is not a one day workshop, right? So.
When people call and say, we've got this one day in October. we do, you know, a PBL PD? It's like, well, no, not really. It's not how it works. Like we're in it. We're in it for the long game. We've seen again and again that a one day PBL PD does not work. So we use a three year model that doesn't just train teachers, but it builds internal capacity and leadership as well. So we're going to train leadership and teachers at the same time. Technically the leaders just a little bit earlier. So they're ahead of head with the vision and they know how to best support the teachers.
But here's how it plays out. Year one, you're going to design and vision. All so the leaders are going to create a three year vision that's rooted in strategy, not just hope. Right? So we're going to take you to a PBL model school so you can go and see it. And when we say leadership, we mean principals, APs, coaches, lead teachers. So you might have 10 people. Probably shouldn't have 25, although we've seen 25 and it's working.
But you do want to have some teachers in there because you need grassroots buy-in. You don't want a top-down mandate. We know that they don't work. You want to have teachers that are excited about this PBL model school we've taken them to. They're excited about the three-year vision that's out there. They're pushing it just as much as you are. And maybe even better is they're going to start implementing first, and they're going have success, and their teachers are going to see that. And I would claim that really your whole early majority, if you look at innovation curve of your staff,
Ryan Steuer (07:23.258)
If you type in innovation curve, you can probably put your entire staff in the innovation curve. That whole early majority will probably buy in just from the fact that it works with some of the teachers in your building. So having teachers on that leadership team is such a big deal. So you start with two days, you build on a three year plan, you look at culture, vision, and everybody there has confidence in the plan. That's such a big deal. Even if you've never, you as the leader, you've not done PBL in the classroom, you can have confidence in this plan.
because you're building strategy, again, not just hope. And then the teachers, they're going to live through a PBL unit through our jumpstart training. So you have some kind of a jumpstart where they go through three days, they feel the PBL process from entry event to need to knows to workshops to an expo. They publicly present this work that they just started three days ago. It's actually pretty stressful on that day one, but they're going to do it. They're going to see the process. They're going to see the support through the process, the engagement, and they're going to love it.
And when you get to day three, it's a celebration of the work and you invite district leaders, you invite parents, you invite other teachers that are not involved in the training if you have them. Right, outside people come and see it and validate the work, super strong. And all the way through this, there are these workshops, but there's also coaching, coaching every month. Why coaching? And we don't offer services without coaching by the way, because the research shows that without coaching, your implementation success,
drops to 15 % or less. Would you have guessed that? Without coaching. You well, you know, we can't afford the coaching. It's an extra $3,000. No, thank you. Your implementation success rate drops to less than 15%. And here's why. We've seen it over the last decade is that your teachers will have a small question come September, October after the training.
and they won't launch their entry event because they're unsure about their community partner. Sometimes what they need is a coach to come in and literally give them five minutes of consulting and now they'll implement. Instead of waiting a whole other summer for this question where they never implement, coaching gets people to implement right away because they feel supported. And they know if it doesn't go poorly, that coach, if it does go poorly, that the coaches are going to be there to catch them, right? To help them fix it and get better.
Ryan Steuer (09:47.917)
and have that growth mindset. If it's just like, we'll see you next summer, then they don't feel supported and they're less likely to even start. So that's year one. Leaders start the three-year plan, structures, strategy. Teachers build out their first PBL unit. Year two, we call it deeper practice. Now both sides have to go deeper. The leadership team is gonna look at the roses, thorns, and buds. Roses, what went well?
We know that the Heath Brothers research shows that if you're in the middle of change process, that you need to look at bright spots and you need to magnify those bright spots. So maybe second grade is crushing it. We're to look at that and say, what's second grade doing that other grade levels aren't doing and how can we share it? Look at all the roses, thorns, what didn't go so well? Maybe there's a schedule conflict. Maybe there were some expos that didn't get launched well or didn't communicate well. Like find those.
and remove the roadblocks. That's the job of leadership. Remove the roadblocks so your people can run. And then buds, what are the things that are about to bloom? What are the things that have potential? How can we pour some water on those so they can grow? That's what leadership's gonna do. And then of course, you're gonna update your three-year plan, because now you're one year down. So now you're gonna go three years out from year two. Make sense? So that means you're looking a year.
After these three years like you're starting to look at sustainability and you're getting that in your your windshield So that you can start to see like we're moving towards structures and sustainability We're not quite there yet, but we're starting to look at it Your teachers are gonna go through a PBL advanced workshop. They're gonna look at the six A's They're gonna start to study their PBL practice now their PBL unit has had learners in the seats whole different ballgame So they're gonna revamp that first PBL unit that they did they're gonna make a couple more they typically go through curriculum mapping
through their power standards to say, this is what it could look like for the rest of the year. Community partners 2.0 and they go deeper. You're also looking at systems as leaders. Remember you're looking at systems, not personalities to start to shape consistency of the work. That's really looking at years three and four, but you want to start looking at them in year two. What are the systems that might be in the way of making this successful? Okay, that's year two, year three.
Ryan Steuer (12:11.853)
Now you're going to sustain and scale the work. Teachers are going to start becoming PBL certified. That means your high flyers that are absolutely crushing it, we're going to take them through certification process. And we're going to make sure that they're hitting the rubric on all cylinders and they know why. They're reflecting on their PBL practice. They know it's good. They know why it's good. They know how it could get better. We're also going to coach them in how to coach their peers. They're going to be the ones that are going to train your new hires come year four.
just in case you have some turnover, you might. Some of our schools don't, by the way, because the culture's so amazing. But if you do have turnover, you're gonna want to your own staff that trains them. The rest of your staff, if they're not getting PBL certified, they're still working on moving from the sage on the stage model of a teacher up front to giving up some of that control and they're facilitating the learning in a different way that empowers their learners. So everybody's participating as teachers in year three. Your leadership team, you're looking at
internal coaching systems. Who's going to be coaching new hires? When are they going to do it? How are they going to do it? You're going to bring in a couple of your PBL certified teachers over the summer before your initial PBL days or your PD days at the beginning of year, and you're going to run your own jumpstart. You're actually going to use our materials is what our partners do. They use our PBL jumpstart with your PBL certified teachers. But the leadership team's whole job now is to say, what if someone leaves? How do we keep this going?
What if the principal leaves? Let's have that conversation because principals, the data shows that you're probably going to leave, right? Most principals are not there beyond five years. Seven's huge. 10 is like unheard of, right? You're becoming a unicorn. Now we know that we've got some of those folks that do that, but you move on for a lot of different reasons and that's okay. You might go to central office. You might go to a new building. You might move cities. That's fine, but you don't want the work to stop.
And it will stop if you do not figure out the systems and structures. We see it again and again. PBL is suddenly gone. Teachers love it, but it's gone and it happens. So the leadership team's job is to look at the systems and structures. You might look at coaches, APs, who are the integral people to this project-based learning culture and how could we replace them? What are the systems and structures we need to make this last? So that's your three years. And if you look at it, it's leadership and teachers growing together.
Ryan Steuer (14:39.129)
If the teachers grow and they're on fire, but there are structures that are in the way, they will continually butt heads. Eventually it'll fizzle, right? So you need both sides learning together. It's super strong. All right. Your PBL is becoming a culture, not just a strategy, not just an instructional model. It's something you do. It's something your school is known for. Let me give you a couple of examples because let's talk about proof. Like does this work? So title one elementary school in Lexington, Kentucky,
They went from a D to an A and their standardized test scores and their state test in just two years. They had, they did leadership team days, just like we talked about and they did teacher day. So both were on fire. They were super excited. In fact, they actually started during COVID. So they actually saw me talking on a webinar style deal and they actually muted the rest of the webinar and just started planning their PBL plan. They were so fired up, the leadership team was.
So leadership teams fired up, teachers are fired up, fifth graders are hosting etiquette lunches at fancy restaurants. Those are massive employability skills. It's an amazing leg up for our kids. Third graders redesigned their playground for real. Like they end up buying that playground, they knew they were gonna buy it. The third graders are the that designed it based on the needs of different learners. So they looked at different learners around the school, or different learners that could be enrolled, and said how can we make the playground most effective and safe for all learners?
The empathy in that PBL unit is amazing. Kindergartners were the ones that created the emergency plans and redid them. So everybody's empowered to change something from the leadership team to teachers to students, parents got on board, community partners are involved. You can feel the difference in the school. I've got two more examples for you. The next one is a larger district, 16,000 students.
The high schoolers present to the school board that they think, this is totally student generated, that we need to install vape detectors in the bathroom. That came from students. And the teacher said, okay, let's run with it. Elementary learners launched an invasive species campaign. They were out on the East Coast, so one of their bays had invasive species in it. Amazing PBL unit. Their work, the structure of it, highly driven by a PBL district coach.
Ryan Steuer (17:04.293)
So in their grant, they wrote in this PBL district coach and we coached the coach who then coached the teachers and the different schools. It's an amazing model because a local district coach knows the nuances of the district, knows the political aspects of different districts, and she did amazing work. The third model is a charter school in the first solar town in America, Babcock Ranch, fully solar. And so innovative.
town had to be an innovative school. helped launch with them. They're using project based learning in everything they do. They started out in elementary. Now they're K-12 amazingly, just even awesome environments. Like the buildings are worth visiting. You need to go down there to Babcock Ranch down in Florida. And from day one, PBL was a part of their DNA. So their teachers are all PBL certified. They have a PBL coach that we coach and
Now they're part of the coaching cadre, but their coach is holding all of their PBL jumpstarts and PBL advanced and even their PBL certifications, which is amazing. So that district is running like fully sustainable and running forward. Their learners are co-designing homes. They're running wildlife campaigns. They're honoring veterans. They're doing amazing, amazing things at a super high level. And these aren't outliers. Like these are blueprints. Like they did all those same things. It's about training your leadership team.
and your teachers in parallel tracks, right? So you're going together. You're kind of intertwining as well, right? So you're having these growth mindset conversations and everybody knows that we're growing and moving towards this goal of a PBL culture that's amazing for kids and empowers them, takes away the passivity, but empowers them. So that's what we're talking about when we're talking about fully sustainable PBL. It's not gonna happen in one day. I'm gonna push back. It probably can't even happen in one year.
I really think you need three years. Like that is my full on belief is that you need your teachers to create some things theoretically over the summer in PBL. It needs to be an authentic real world project based learning unit. It can't be curriculum based. It's not gonna come off of teachers pay teachers. It's not gonna be a scenario that does not engage kids in the longterm, but that's year one. Now they're gonna implement. now year two, they're gonna have a whole other set of need to knows. And now they need to implement again. And year three,
Ryan Steuer (19:28.517)
you've got to put some kind of capstone on it where we know that we know that we know what really great PBL looks like. So that's three years. But after three years, you should be sustainable and you should be able to run your own PBL indefinitely and have what I like to call internal innovation, internal innovation. So you have processes and teams that create innovation and make things live beyond the time that you have with a PBL partner.
Final thoughts is that this is the culture that you've been waiting for as a leader. It's the way that your teachers have been waiting to teach their entire lives. It's why they got into teaching to passionately change the lives of their learners and do amazing things. So you need some kind of framework that pulls it together though, right? So that's where project-based learning comes in. So it pulls in your SEL, your STEM, your UDL, academic learning, your leadership team. It all becomes aligned in this one system of PBL. So all the initiatives that you have that you've
believe are important and they are, you can't have a separate curriculum for them. That's when your teachers say there's too much on their plate because now they have all these different curriculums they have to open up and somehow fit into a 48 minute period. But if it comes into a structure and a system, that's different. Now it's not these different curriculum books. We're building their skill sets to be able to intertwine these ideas and that's when it really works. So whether you're a small school, a mission-driven charter or a large district, your journey starts right here.
You need a clear why. Why are you investigating PBL? A proven how? I feel like I've given that to you. You've got this three year plan that is absolutely doable. And as you build that powerful vision, you begin to see what's possible. Because we circle back to the beginning, you know you have Skylars in your building. You know you've got them. You also have those honors kids that know how to put, that know how to get points, but are not gonna know how to get a job. They're not gonna know how to be effective in an engineering room.
but they know how to get points. We're doing them a disservice too, it's on both ends. You know that something has to change and we need to help them find their spark and understand their purpose. So if this episode resonated with you, I want you to hit the subscribe button. It'd be awesome if you would leave a review, but where I'd really love to see you show up is in that master class. So pblmasterclass.com. pblmasterclass.com. We're gonna run through some of the same material. We'll get in deeper in several areas.
Ryan Steuer (21:54.876)
but then you're also gonna get to ask you a very specific questions like is this gonna work in a rural school? Is this gonna work in urban school? You're gonna have all those questions which are totally legitimate and we've got great answers for, right? So I look forward to having that conversation with you. So go to pblmasterclass.com as your next step. Thank you for changing the world one relationship at a time in your schools. Go lead inspired.
