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 Stoyer. Welcome to the PBL Simplified podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Stoyer. Today we take on the daunting question, is projectbased learning too hard? Before we jump into that, because it might turn into a rant, you never know. Uh, let me tell you about a free resource. You go to whatispbl.com. That's whatispbl.com. Get you free resources for your teachers or for administrators. Go jump in. Today, today we're talking about this topic. I had an article pop up in Google.
I was searching for something and he was talking about um you know is project based learning taking over and I was like gosh I hope so because we want 51% of schools using project-based learning by 201 that's our big hairy audacious goal we call it 51 by 51 and that's what drives us right. It drives us it lets us know that we can't train the whole world. We have to train and create sustainable systems schools and districts that can sustain innovation on their own and then we will go and help the next school and the next school in the next district and it's changed our thinking pretty dramatically. We've always believed that but now it's kind of dramatically gives it a point of emphasis. So, and it's happening like we have schools that are in year four and in year four they've got their own leadership team that knows how to create structures is reflective uh creates internal innovation within teams.
They've got teachers that are PBL certified so the work's growing and continuing and they don't need us to go in and train their teachers. They're doing it on their own. We've got one one model school. They're actually training and certifying their own facilitators. So, they're at such a deep level of understanding of PBL. We as Magnify Learning as the training organization, we're not saying, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, you don't certify people. We certify people.". They're actually so good at this. They get the mindset that we're like, "Yes, you can certify people under our name.". I don't know if you've thought through that, but that's crazy. As the CEO and founder of Magnify Learning, like I never would have thought thought we'd have a partner that was so deep entrenched in the work with us that they could certify their own people. I love it.
And it all came from this idea that if we want the majority of schools to use project-based learning by 201, right, 51% of schools by by 201, then we can't be the ones we'll be a bottleneck, right, of certification. So, we actually need partners that are so deep and so entrenched in in our ideals and values of learner centered class. classrooms that they can train and certify their own teachers. They can train their own leadership teams in both the mindset and the structures and processes. That's exciting. That's super exciting. So, that's what we're doing. We're doing it schools all over the country. And it's working. So, is PBL too hard is the question of the day. And that's what came out of this this article that I was reading. And it's not an isolated article, right? It's not like a clickbait article kind of thing.
Um I just saw a presentation with um some big players in the PBL space that said that project based learning is too hard for the majority of teachers and they're moving more towards uh like curriculum based pieces of hey go run this curriculum go use this software so you don't have to learn the hard parts of project-based learning. You don't have to change your mindset basically the mindset part was probably my wording but the other stuff is their wording of saying it's too hard for the average teacher and gosh we don't believe that. I think we believe the average teacher wants to teach like this and can teach like this and probably need some supports that are not traditional that will push against our old structures of school and how we've always done things. And we've seen this in small, medium, large schools, same small, medium, large districts. We've seen it in rural, suburban, and urban. We've seen it work.
What we think the key is is is the training of leadership teams and teachers at the same time. So we usually do leader leaders go first but then the teachers get trained and then the next year leaders go first the teachers get trained. Third year leaders are trained in sustainability. How do you keep this work going here coaching us deeply, training us deeply? They're here to partner with us. They've got coaching cadres but it's going to be on us. So what do we do? What do we need? And then they create those sustainable structures in that third year along with us coaching them. So year four they're ready to go. Teachers in year three are getting PBL certified so they can train new hires and we don't need to train them for them. We're happy to we don't need to. So I think that's the disconnect that I see. Like I don't want to tell you that every PBL training we've ever done is sustainable and keeps going. Like there are systems for sure where this didn't work.
But I think what I would point to First, at Magnify Learning, we always point to ourselves first. Like, we're super reflective and and we've been changing things over over the last decade. And but what we found where we've landed and what we will not change is this training of administrators and teachers simultaneously along with coaching throughout the year. If you're doing PBL trainings, if you're doing a one-day, it's never going to work. If you're doing a three-day but not doing coaching throughout the year, we found it also doesn't work. It can if you have a ridiculously awesome culture, but for the average school culture, and I would even say above average, above average and below, uh, it's not going to work without coaching because your teachers hit a roadblock and they say, "Well, what do I do?". And they don't know. They don't have anyone to turn to. So, they stop. And that totally makes sense. Like, that's what you should do.
But if you hit a roadblock and you have a coach, oh, well, coaching's coming up or I can just email or call my coach or text my coach. Now, they can get an answer. And once they get an answer, they're happy. happy to move forward, but if they don't get another if they get trained in June and they don't get the answer to their questions till next June, of course they quit. Like, why wouldn't they quit? And yes, PBL seems too hard because you haven't had adequate supports for it. It' be the same thing like giving your your learners, hey, go do this thing. I'm not going to train you or coach you or teach you at all and then I'm going to test you. Like, they're going to fail. Like, we have scaffolds in the classroom, but then we forget about scaffolding for the adults in the schoolroom, right? They they need scaffolding too. It's brand new. So the coaching is absolutely crucial. So is PBL too hard without coaching? Yeah, it probably is.
Is PBL too hard if you don't change the traditional structures of school? Yeah, it probably is. But both of those things can be fixed, right? You can add coaching throughout the year, which we've done with every one of our trainings, and you can change structures in schools almost every time, right? That schedule that seems immovable and impossible and only one person knows how to hit the button like yeah it is really dependent on that person but if you can shift that mindset of that person and bring it to a team mentality and collaborate there are a lot of really creative solutions out there that are not crazy to make work right? Like I understand everything remove revolves around you right choir and band and the bus schedule like I get it all of our innovation has to fit within those parameters but there's a lot of there's a lot of flexibility within those parameters that can really make some things work work.
So, the other piece that I I I might I might be ranting, but the other piece I think is really important to this puzzle is uh just the the mindset of administrators. I'm not blaming administrators here at all because you're you're my audience, but if you haven't been taught the skill sets and the mindsets of how to do or how to support uh project- based learning or learner centered classrooms, then yeah, it's going to be really hard. Like, you might not know the obstacles that you're going to come up against or if you hit an obstacle, what do you do? Who do you call? You might call a mentor who's been leading a traditional school and they're going to have different answers than we have, right? Over the last decade of helping learner centered schools solve problems, right? They've got different answers.
So, another piece that we found in this realm of administrators is administrators that will allow project-based learning to happen, but that's different than supporting project-based learning in class. It's not enough we've found for the administration to allow PBL to happen in a certain part of the school. It has to be supported. Let me give you a quick easy example. If you allow PBL in your school, go ahead, you guys can do it. One, it's not going to flourish because you're not saying it's important and you're not celebrating it, right? What you focus on grows. But two, let's go to super hyper specific. You get to a faculty meeting and now you're doing a training. Does this training differentiate for traditional teachers in a traditional classroom and project-based learning teachers because it's going to be different? They have very different needs. And if you're only teaching to what might be a majority of traditional classrooms, yes, PBL will eventually not work. It will fail.
So, is PBL too hard? If you don't support it, then yes. Do all plants die? If you don't feed them, if you don't give them water, if you don't give them sun, yes, they will. But if you do give them water, and you do give them sun, they will thrive. And I think the same is true with project-based learning. I think when you have project-based learning in the right environment and leadership team is supported, equipped with skills and mindsets and the teachers are supported with skills, structures, and mindsets, then they can both thrive. And they don't thrive to the point where they always need outside intervention. They can be trained to create their own innovation. Right. We've at Magnify Learning, we one of our core values is that we train people to not need us. Everything we create, we want to be able to give to a school and to a district to take it and run with it, make it their own. It's yours. We want it to want to work for you.
You might also say, because this is something that's come up, like project-based learning can't work at a larger district, say 16,000 students, but we're doing that like we're bringing project-based learning to the entire district, but we're not doing oneizefits-all because one sizefits-all PBL doesn't work. Like I agree with that. What I don't agree with is that PBL is too hard for a large district. If you have thoughtful administrators and you start at the top and you're collaborative and give people time to think and process, create purpose structures, integrate those ideas with project-based learning. Project- based learning is probably the key. to integrate uh SEAL, your evaluation system, your literacy process. How else are you going to bring these things together? Like, you need an instructional model that's open enough to do that. And project-based learning is. So, that's what we're using. We're not making PBL this extra thing teachers have to do. We're integrating it to SEAL.
For them, it's NIT and CKLA. We're going to integrate those ideas together using project-based learning as the vehicle. And once the leadership team at the top gets it, which they do because we help them do that, they ask really good hard questions and then together we solve and collaborate those, right? So that we have answers for those. And then we bring in the next group of teachers, the next group of leaders, and we do that same thing. We honor the school and the work that they've been doing for years. We honor the thought processes, the hearts, the passions of the people because they're people. And we build skill sets and mindsets. We show them how to be collaborative, how to be innovative. Sure, there are creative, innovative people out there, but a lot of times it's a skill set that you can learn. We can teach you those processes, those structures, and you keep passing them down from the top all the way down to the classroom. And it's not a top- down mandate.
It's a top- down skill set and mindset, if you will. And that's exciting. That's exciting work that keeps me going every day because I don't think PBL is too hard. I think it needs to be implemented in a collaborative, open, reflective way. I think there's a right way to do it. I think there's a wrong way to do it and we've seen the right way and we see it spreading. We see it working. We're going to keep doing it. If you want to do it with us, we'd be happy to. Um, you can check out a webinar if you want. Go to pbwebinar.com. pbwebinar.com. Or if you're ready to roll, you can go callmagnify.com. callmagnify.com. And we're going to want to hear about your story, what your what's awesome at your school? What's the vision? Where do you want to take it? And then we'll create a customized plan to bring PBL to your school.
Because if PBL doesn't work, then you have to go down to our model school in Lexington and be like, look, it that flag project that you did that was amazing that the mayor got involved in and now your city has a flag and it didn't before and it's because of sixth graders and some sixth grader gave a really touching speech and people cried. Look, that that didn't work. Wait a minute. That worked amazingly well. right? Or the conservation efforts that they're doing down in Florida or the the work that they're doing with individuals with uh intellectual disabilities here in Indianapolis. Like it's working like it's working and it's spreading and there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. If you do it the wrong way, I agree, then PBL doesn't work. But what we see is that when you do it the right way, absolutely amazing things happen. You get outcomes from your learners you never would have expected. They get opport unities they never would have had.
And teachers get to teach the way they've always wanted to teach. And leaders get to teach the way they've always wanted to lead. PBL's absolutely amazing. It can work at your school, your district. I guarantee it because we've done it one just like yours. I don't care if you're public, private, charter, micro, whatever it is. We've seen project-based learning work in that environment and can work for you for you as well because we're going to listen. We're going to customize it. It's going to be amazing. Go out and 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.
