Ryan Steuer (00:04.566)
Welcome to the PBL simplified podcast for administrators. I'm your host, Ryan Stoyer, CEO of magnify learning. Super excited to be with you today. Before we get started, I want to tell you about this free PBL trading we have coming up. It's a webinar, the proven three-year plan for authentic project-based learning. If you're doing one-offs or you're just giving permission to your teachers to do PBL, I just want to break the news to you that does not work long-term. If you're just looking to check a box, that'll do it, right?
have the science team do it, that's fine. But if you want it to be sustainable and to become a, like a hub of innovation, then there's a process to that, right? And it's a process of training leaders and teachers simultaneously. And I walk you through that process. So if you want to get away from the one-off projects or the initiative that eventually fizzles and you want this to be long-term and you want it to be sustainable, if you want it be legacy work, if I really was going to boil it down, if you want PBL to be part of your legacy as a leader,
in the current building that you're at, because you're really only going to be there for five, seven years is what the research shows us, maybe less. So you're have so much time at a building before you move on to another building or maybe go to central office. And those things are fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But you want the work that you have that you've done to be sustainable. And that's what we're talking about in the webinar. So you can go to pblmasterclass.com, pblmasterclass.com, and you can register for that webinar. If you miss it, of course, we'll send you the recording.
But if you're really looking for sustainable PBL, that's the process. So I'm going to walk you through that. Today is like the day of threes. Today we're talking about the three mistakes that PBL leaders make. if you registered for the webinar just now, awesome, do that. Now tune into these three mistakes because these happen often. We see them and obviously we don't want to see them. So we want you to avoid them. So the three mistakes that every PBL leader should avoid.
Mistake number one, not starting with the why of the work. And is this Simon Sinekke? Yes, it's very much entrenched in Simon Sinekke's work for sure. We've been talking about this for over a decade now, this idea of starting with why. We actually have a protocol now, we're gonna run with the district next week that we've been working with for three plus years. And we're actually got a protocol now called Beyond the Why. So they get it, they understand their why. We're gonna go beyond their why.
Ryan Steuer (02:32.399)
They've been doing this work for a while. They've read all of Simon Sinek's stuff. They get the work. I swear to go beyond it. And even if you've read Simon Sinek's book, The Power of Why, start with why. You've been through the YouTube videos. What I want to encourage you here in this first mistake is that your team might not have. Your team might not have dipped down into their why. They might not fully understand their why for education. They might fully not understand their why for this new initiative that you're bringing when you're bringing project-based learning.
you have to go back to the why, even if you're steeped in it. Even if you've been doing this protocol for the last decade and you understand your why, maybe you've done it at different schools, you've done it at different PD sessions, at your faculty meetings. When you present something new like project-based learning, you still want to go back to why are we doing this work. And that starts with an educator's personal why, because this work is personal. I don't know, I've never been an accountant, I've been an engineer.
we were pretty excited about getting packages to the right place, to the right people at the right time. I remember there was a Christmas where we found a package that was obviously a Christmas gift and it had missed the sort, so it was going to be late. And the manager actually jumped in his car and delivered that one individual package to make sure it made it by Christmas. So you can have your why in other spaces, but I feel like an education just seems super personal. Why are we in this work? We wanna see light bulb moments. We want kids to have great opportunities.
You need have a protocol that gets your teachers back into this why state so that they can be open to this new instructional model that you're bringing, this new culture that you're bringing. Because if you don't have a shared why, you don't really have full buy-in. You don't have sustainability because everybody's looking at this new initiative as why should I do this? And you need to build a collective why. So it might be test scores, but that's not super engaging.
It might be engagement numbers and attendance numbers. It might be like, this is how you've always wanted to teach. That's my favorite one, by the way. When we get to project-based learning, this is the way you've always wanted to teach. Your learners are engaged, it's real world, it's authentic. Your content matters so that we can solve this real world problem. That's where I like to keep that why. This is how you've always wanted to teach. And yeah, you're gonna have to learn some new things. And yep, it's gonna be difficult, but it's gonna be so worth it.
Ryan Steuer (04:57.826)
This is why you got into education. That's my favorite why. So then as you're getting your teachers to talk about their why, you want to talk about your why. And you don't want to just leave it there. I think you have to turn it into a story. So you have to pull a story out and then you want your teachers to pull stories out. Right? I tell Skylar story. Skylar was that kid that was super disengaged. You knew that he had potential. You knew he could do the work, but education wasn't important to him. Wasn't important to his family. He didn't see the purpose. We brought in project-based learning.
And suddenly he saw the why. We put someone from the hemophilia society in front of them and said, Hey, Skylar, we're going to have parents that find out their child has a genetic disease. It's going to happen today. They're going to want to two things. They're going want to know is my child is to be okay. And they're going to want to know everything there is to know about that genetic disease. Hey Skylar, Ian classmates, would you help those parents find out everything there is to know about that disease and put that information in doctor's offices? And what we saw is that Skylar put his head up.
He said, well, yeah, I'd actually do that. Yeah, that makes sense. And he hadn't done work in a long time. He was one those kids that I had before I was teaching PBL, using PBL's instructional model that would get like a 20 % for the entire nine weeks. And suddenly his head was up and suddenly he was interested in learning the Punnett Square because he wanted to explain it to these parents to help them help their kids. And Skyler from there became a lifelong learner. He's now a photographer out in Los Angeles.
living his dream with sponsors like Nike and Monster Energy Drink and a bunch of cool rappers that I don't really know anything about, but he does. And he'll trace it all the way back to the year that he got project-based learning in middle school. And that's a game changer for me. Like every time I tell that story, I tell it often when I'm giving talks, you may have heard it before, it's in my book, right? Because it gets me fired up. And I hear other teachers come up, other principals come up and say,
It's not Skylar for me, it's Malik. Everybody's got that Skylar story and when we tell it, we get fired up. We're excited about this new thing that you're bringing because that's why we got into education. We got into education to change kids' lives and that's why you're bringing project-based learning to your school. I don't know why else you would bring it. I guess it does have attendance numbers go up, discipline goes down, state test scores go up, but those things are...
Ryan Steuer (07:23.811)
Honestly, a lot of times they're insular. Like we're trying to do the best thing we can for our kids so they've got the employability skills so they can be successful after K-12 education, whatever it is they want to do. So you still want to be rooted in that why. So don't forget the why of what we're doing. And again, that's rooted in Simon Sinek's work. I love just about any Simon Sinek YouTube video you can find out there. There's one with the golden circle that's like five minutes. I like to tell that one because he's got like the why, the how, and the what that he lines out.
it follows up really well. So as you start to bring project-based learning in, don't skip the why. That's mistake number one. And we do see that happen all too often because sometimes it's, it's, I mean, we're not trying to circumvent the process, but as leaders, it's like, we understand the why so deeply. Sometimes we forget to go back and let our teachers and our team go through that process too. We need to let them do it too. So that's the call to action is to have your team go through that why process both personally and then for this new work.
Mistake number two is underestimating the work of cultural change. This is change process. People are involved. It's complicated. If people were not involved, it'd be easy. Right? It just be structures, but people are involved. So there's a cultural shift that's happening from a teacher-centered classroom to a student-centered classroom to students doing whatever I ask them to do, and they do it generally passively.
even if they're being compliant, it's still passive. It's not the same as being engaged. And now we're going to move it to where there's like true collaboration. And that's a big deal. That's a huge change. That is not, Hey guys, we've got some new curriculum, which is difficult too. Or we've got a new, new literature book, right? That's not as difficult. This is a huge shift that adults have to go through. Your teacher practice is going to change assessment, collaboration. The adults have to collaborate differently so that the kids can
collaborate differently. And sometimes we forget that. Sometimes we think it's a process. Like my book is, PBL Simplified, Six Steps from Bringing PBL from Idea to Reality. And yes, there are six steps. And yes, there is a structure and a process for both the leadership side of PBL and the teacher side of PBL. But that is a process that's there to help you create a culture and
Ryan Steuer (09:47.471)
a feeling, you will, not a feeling, that's not right, but the cultural piece, the mindset shift, that's what I'm looking for, the mindset shift of project-based learning and student-centered outcomes. So it's way more than six steps and it's way more than a structure, I think it's even more than an instructional model, like that's the, the instructional model is what we're following to create this culture. So if you look at a leadership tie-in here is John Maxwell's Law of Process.
He says that leadership develops daily, not in a day. Culture change happens step by step. So it's not going to be you have one faculty meeting and then suddenly everybody's got growth mindset and everybody's ready to collaborate. have to meet multiple, multiple faculty meetings that you're going to want to change at the adult level. And if you actually go to our website, go to the very bottom, there's a free how to flip your faculty meeting.
process there you can get a one pager on how to win your faculty meeting and then a course that i walk you through all for all for free you have to go first that's what leaders do right we go first so you go first and change your faculty meeting to be more collaborative to have more choice in it to have more voice for teachers and as they start to feel that you can say that's that's what we're going to do in your classrooms that empowerment that you feel we want to give that to your learners and when you go first it's a big deal
But the second mistake is underestimating the work of cultural change. Gotta realize it's a big deal. You're gonna need teams and we're changing mindsets, not just a few protocols. So what's your call to action? The call to action is to answer this question. And if you're geeky enough, you wanna pause this and literally write this down. If you're driving, just think through this. How are you building a culture that supports PBL, not just buying a program? If you give your...
If you give your teachers 50 bucks to go buy stuff off, teachers pay teachers and they buy some PBL stuff, please don't tell people you're doing PBL, right? That will not do it. That's not going to make it happen. But how are you building a culture that supports PBL? Where are you bringing voice and choice to your adults? Where are you bringing opportunities to collaborate? How are you reflecting on classroom practice? Those are the things you want to start to build to build your culture. Mistake number three. This is our last one.
Ryan Steuer (12:15.247)
So remember number one, not starting with the why. You've got to talk to your teacher about why you're making a change. Number two, understand right off the bat that this is cultural change. Do not underestimate the work involved. You need to be planning on the leadership side and the teacher side. Mistake number three, trying to control instead of empower.
Trying to control instead of empower. And this is pretty similar to the shift that your teachers are gonna make, right? So you're gonna live all these things out first before your teachers do. If you had a teacher-centered classroom and you wanted to be student-centered, you're going to move from the control of the teacher-centered classroom to the empowerment of the student-centered classroom, because those are the outcomes that you really want. Sometimes our leaders impose these rigid models, even with project-based learnings, that you have to do it this way. Ryan said there's six steps, so there's gonna be six steps.
Now those six steps are helpful, I want you to use them. Our planning forms are there to help you build structure. But if you have some piece within your system that requires a change to those, maybe you want seven steps because you already have seven steps to inquiry. Great, do that. Empower your teachers to find the best possible tool to edit those tools. That's why if you go to the PBL Movement online community, most of those resources you can download and edit because we know that you're need to customize those, we want you.
customize those. So you want to empower your teachers. They need voice, they need agency to adapt PBL to their learners because then you want them to give learners voice and choice and that real world relevance. So you have to give your teachers voice and choice so they can give students voice and choice. Leadership tie-in, the empowerment as a core strategy. So here's a John Maxwell quote again. John's on the mind.
Leaders become great not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others. John Maxwell, the ultimate wordsmith. Leaders are great not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others. So you need to move your power to your teachers. Because what you're really asking your teachers to do in project-based learning and moving to student-centered classrooms is to move their power to the students.
Ryan Steuer (14:35.994)
So great PBL leaders empower teachers to take risks, to collaborate, to reflect. And when you do those things, you don't know exactly what your teachers are going to do. If you get a curriculum and you script it out, you know what all of your first grade teachers are doing, like check the box, right? You know what they're doing, but what are the outcomes? Are you getting the outcomes that you desire? Do you have teachers that empowered? Do you have students that are empowered? You don't, because you've taken the power away from them. You said you have to go step by step.
When you're moving towards project-based learning, risks, collaboration, reflection, you really don't know what the true outcomes are. You could have a good idea, but you don't know what the wording's gonna be. You're letting your teachers find the way, and as they find the way, they're gonna own the way, which is what we really want. When they find their way, they're gonna own the way. So what's your call to action? Here's another question for you. What structures in your school give teachers real ownership?
What structures in your school give teachers real ownership? And you likely have some. Maybe you've got a teacher voice group. Maybe you've got a time where you rotate through and take teachers to lunch. Maybe you've got a time in your faculty meeting where you're asking your teachers what is it that they want to learn? What kind of workshops do they have? What kind of PD do they want? Find those times where you're giving them voice and choice and try to magnify those. You're going to move that power structure from
this top down piece where you have all the power, you're gonna empower the teachers. They're gonna feel that. They're gonna have this modeled for them by you, and then they're gonna model that in their classroom, and they're gonna empower the learners, which is what you're looking for. Then you're gonna start getting those student empowered outcomes that you want. So, three mistakes that leaders make when they bring PBL to their schools. Number one, they don't share their why, so you're gonna do that. You're gonna define it. You're gonna share your why.
and you're gonna create a collective why. Why does RISE Elementary wanna bring project-based learning to their learners? And live that out, basically develop that mission statement for PBL, that why that you're gonna hold onto. A collective why, super strong, incredibly strong. The second mistake is that idea of not understanding the power of cultural change. The change process is a big deal, and there's a process to it. You wanna do some research, I like the Heath brothers.
Ryan Steuer (17:01.681)
Made to Stick would be a good place to start. Older book, but gosh, it's super good. This idea of finding bright spots and then magnifying the bright spots is such a winner. It's actually a through thread through a lot of their books, actually. So when you look at change process, realize you're not just bringing in new curriculum. You're creating a different mindset and a different culture. It's a big deal. And then empower, don't control. You're going to empower your teachers. You're going to let them take risks, which means they're going to make mistakes, but you're still going to talk through those.
Let them collaborate. You're let them reflect and then build build out the systems that work for your school specifically. And then PBL can work at your school. It can work at any school we've seen it work K12 P P12. We've seen it work in higher Ed, urban, suburban, rural, big schools, small schools, whole districts, right? Large districts, small districts. PBL is amazing in a lot of different contexts, but at the same time.
We've seen it fall flat. One of the principles says everybody do a PBL unit this semester and there's no real training. Maybe you get a book or maybe you have a few people that are trained and then you're asking everybody to do the work. Well, those people that were trained had a whole different experience. So you want to think through this change process in a really intentional way, really intentional way. So those are the three mistakes that you can make, but now you're going to avoid those, right? You're going to develop a strong why. You're going to understand the power of cultural change.
and you're going to empower instead of control. As you do that, you're going to find that you get people following you, right? You're a leader and that's why you're listening and we want to continue to help you. So keep listening. Listen to the next guest episode that we have coming up next week. I think it'll empower you even more. Go out and lead inspired.
keywords
Project-Based Learning, PBL, Education, Leadership, Cultural Change, Empowerment, Teaching Strategies, Professional Development, Teacher Training, Student Engagement
summary
In this episode, Ryan Steuer discusses the importance of Project-Based Learning (PBL) and outlines three common mistakes that leaders make when implementing PBL in schools. He emphasizes the need to start with the 'why' of PBL, the significance of cultural change, and the importance of empowering teachers rather than controlling them. Through personal anecdotes and practical advice, Ryan provides insights on how to create a sustainable PBL environment that fosters student engagement and ownership.
takeaways
PBL should be part of a leader's legacy.
Starting with the 'why' is crucial for buy-in.
Cultural change is a complex process that requires time.
Empowerment of teachers leads to better student outcomes.
Leaders must model the change they want to see.
Creating a collective 'why' strengthens the initiative.
Cultural change involves mindset shifts, not just protocols.
Teachers need voice and choice in their professional development.
PBL can be adapted to fit various educational contexts.
Avoid imposing rigid models; allow for customization.
titles
Avoiding Common PBL Mistakes
The Importance of 'Why' in Education
Sound Bites
"You have to go back to the why."
"Don't skip the why."
"PBL can work at any school."
Chapters
00:00
Introduction to Project-Based Learning (PBL) and Its Importance
01:59
Mistake 1: Not Starting with the Why
07:48
Mistake 2: Underestimating Cultural Change
11:39
Mistake 3: Trying to Control Instead of Empower
15:53
Conclusion and Key Takeaways
