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. Go to pblewebinar.com pbwebinar.com and we've got a webinar there for a lot of different emphasis. We've got a long-term planning one three years. We've got CTE, we've got STEM, we've got if you were part of a PBL network in the past or if you're a title one school. So somewhere in there you fit. There's a webinar that walks you through in about 20 minutes or so what we see as the big benefits of to per project. based learning and whatever it is your emphasis is as a school. Maybe you're a STEM school, go watch the STEM program, the webinar, go watch the CTE program if you're a CTE or if you know somebody like pass that on, right? There's usually a recorded one that you can watch or if you catch the live one, you can ask your questions. That's the benefit. So, if you want to hear me talk about PBL, but you want me to be on like two times speed so you can bust through it, cool. Great, right? Like listen to the replay. If you want to ask your questions live, like even better, right? So, you want your questions live, join the live webinar. You can put them in during the the webinar and then I answer those questions either during it or sometimes towards the end because sometimes it's hard to see those while I'm presenting. But either way, we're going to answer your questions, right? So, go to pbwebinar.com and find a webinar that that fits you. Today, we're going to talk about 21st century skills. uh sometimes we call them soft skills. I like the term employability skills because it's really the skills that employers and industry part partners are are talking about. So, there's a lot of different names for them, but they're all pretty much the same thing. We talked two weeks about two weeks ago about how PBL increases engagement and helps kids pass standardized tests. That's totally true. Like, we see that again and again and again. Uh Dixie Elementary Lexington went from a D on their standardized tests as a as a school in being judged by the state to an A. Right? It took them two years of bringing project-based learning in And when kids are more engaged and teachers are more engaged, they tend to learn more and they tend to try harder on those tests, too. Honestly, they see the big picture. So, it works, right? We see this in title one elementaryaries often making that switch, showing excellence on standardized test scores and engagement. But what about the 21st century skills? Are they getting 21st century skills? Yes, they're getting those, too. They're really getting the whole package. And why are they so important? Like this is actually a place that I love to to talk about. Like I know we've got some friends in in our PBL sphere that that love content and they want us to go super deep in content. I came from the business world. I worked for a Fortune50 company as an industrial engineer. And I see the power of employability skills in the workplace. Like I saw it. I saw people at the company I was working for that had probably done better than I did in industrial engineering. in college and they knew some really highlevel equations, ideas, strategies, but it didn't do them any good when it actually came to their job because they couldn't talk to people. They couldn't collaborate or problem solve. It wasn't in a really nice formula because suddenly there was technology involved that broke down. There were people involved that were not expertly efficient, right? And people trying really hard, but they're still not 100% efficient. That's impossible, right? They're not theoretical beings. We're we're people. So, how do you work with people to institute something new? Gosh. Especially when you're straight out of college and you're in your early 20s and they've been doing this job for 20 years. I had uh I tried to I was trying to a really good job. So, I'm like, I've got this idea. It's going to be more efficient. I can prove it. It's going to work. And a gentleman stood up and he said, I've spent more time in the bathrooms around here than you've been here at all. Okay, sir. C copy that. Like, you probably know more about this than I do, but I think I've got some things to add. And I found ways to connect with people, right? I don't smoke, but I would go on smoke breaks so I could go and and talk with people just informally. And that same gentleman, I went and talked informally. I talked about a few things, some ideas I had, and he's like, "Yeah, that that could actually work. Maybe we'll try that." All right. Well, would you like me to measure it? He's like, "Yeah, I want to see if that does work." And suddenly we're working together, right? And the There were other industrial engineers that again were technically smarter than me, got better grades than me, knew more of the theoretical than me, but they couldn't connect. They would just say, "But this is how the theory works, and it's going to work, guys." And nobody heard them. Nobody cared. They didn't have the employability skills. And I watched them flounder. So, these employability skills are so important to me because if you go and ask an industry partner, "What are the important skills that our kids need to be successful?" I've never heard anybody say, slope intercept form or compound complex sentences, which is what I taught, right? I used to teach those compound complex sentences and I I feel like I crushed it. They could figure it out, but when they get to industry, they get to their job, writing will matter, reading will matter, math will, those things will matter, but not those specifics. Those things can be taught in the job force. What's harder to teach is collaboration, communication, agency. Those are the things our learners need in a K12 environment where they can fail and learn and be picked up and get better at them and especially get better at them incrementally. If you could start in kindergarten, by the time those kids are a senior in a PBL environment from K12, it's amazing the things that they can do. And those industry partners, the managers, they notice, they can tell a difference. So, here's what I know that no company is hiring for. No company is hiring for a room full of people that can fill in bubbles for the right answers. or listen to information and then regurgitate it back. Nobody's hiring for that. Today's workforce needs problem solvers. They need communicators. They need collaborators. They actually need independent thinkers. So that's why we stopped asking how do we prepare learners for the test and started asking how do we prepare learners for the world? And when you ask that question, it starts to change some of your ideas. In fact, one of our PBL units asked how can we improve access to healthy food in our community. That's a big messy problem, right? So, so the structures of PBL allow that to be less messy and to have some structure. We identify which portion of that idea we can actually tackle and make a dent in. And then learners get to interview the directors of food banks. They get to design a school garden. They build a business plan. They pitch their plan to a panel of local leaders. And some of those leaders like Wow, that's a that's a really great idea. We should try that. And some critics would say, "Okay, the school garden, but like who weeds that when you're done?" Like, I've seen those school gardens and they can't feed the whole city, so it's it's a failure. I would contend that it's not. Even if that garden doesn't last more than two years, the thinking that goes into that for those learners and the importance that they place on it is absolutely worth the the cedar planks that build it or the the cinder blocks that you make that garden out of. and the plants that you put in there, the skills that they learn, the the thoughts that they have to think through that they would never have thought of otherwise unless they're actually building those things, those matter because along the way, they're practicing all of those 21st century skills that employers say they want. They're practicing teamwork. They're practicing critical thinking. They're practicing communication. They have to be adaptable. They have to take initiative. And there's no multiple choice quiz that can teach that. And I'm not against multiple choice quizzes. I remember one textbook adoption, I actually advocated that we get one of those scan trauma machines because if you're looking at formative assessments and you want to turn those around really quickly, they actually work really well, right? So, it's it's why are you using those? What are you expecting from them? If we're using multiple choice quizzes to expect kids to have more initiative or do critical thinking, I think we're going to miss it. Let's talk about the world our learners are stepping into because it's different. It's different. in the world that that we were used to that we stepped into after college or that we were involved in in our K12 experience is different. Things are fast. Things are connected. Things are unpredictable. Information is not the prize anymore. I remember a kid in my class that had memorized all 50 presidents and we just thought it was the most amazing thing that we'd ever heard of. And now I think why would you do that? Like you can just look it up. Like that's everybody in the class can now know who the 23rd president is. Information is not the prize anymore. It's how can you apply that information and employers are not hiring based on who can bubble the best answers or or give the most information, have the most information in their head. They're asking, can our learners solve problems? Can they work on a team? Can they lead with empathy? That's at the heart of 21st century skills is how can our learners be most effective to have the best opportunities that they can have? In most traditional classrooms, we are trying to sprinkle those things in like because we know they're important. And I've done this, right? I've been in teaching in traditional classroom trying to get these things to come through. It's really difficult. Doesn't always fit. But with PBL, those skills are the work. Like it it's how we do things. So imagine this. I'll give you another example. Instead of worksheets on ecosystems, which is a standard, your learners are designing solutions to restore a polluted river in your town. Instead of a test on persuasive writing, They're pitching a campaign to reduce food waste in your local school cafeteria. That's a great PBL, by the way. They're not just consuming knowledge. They're creating. They're applying. They're leading or they're following, but they've got to figure it out because along the way, they're trying to manage deadlines. What an important skill. They're navigating conflict. How awesome would it be if our learners as they graduate, they actually know how to manage healthy conflict in the workplace? They're asking real questions. They're presenting real solutions. That's not fluff. That's the stuff that industry partners are looking for. That's college and career ready learning on full display. Let me tell you about Eliia. Eliia's quiet, artistic, always turned in her work, but never went beyond the bare minimum because she never had a reason to. Though, she had one PBL unit that flipped a switch. So, what was that project? She was artistic. IC, right? And this was a project to design a community space that reflects local voices. So, she took the lead. She starts storyboarding a mural that captured the neighborhood's history. How does she figure out the neighborhood's history? She interviewed elders of the neighborhood. She collaborated with city council. When she presented her final design, they actually offered to fund it. A real wall, a real mural, real impact. She didn't just find her voice. She owned it. And when she walks by 10 years from now, she can look and say, "I planned that mural. That's there because I worked on it." She's created this real thing that's in her community. We just It's really difficult to find that in a traditional classroom. And again, I've tried, not being critical, I've tried it. I know what my goal was going into education. And it's more the mural than it is showing that I taught kids a specific standard. I don't know if they learned it. I just taught it, right? It's a checkbox. That didn't feel right to me. Murals that that sounds right. That's why I'm in education. That's why you're in education. So, that's what PBL does. It's about building the skills to walk any path with confidence because we don't know what path our kids are going to be on. Some of the kids that you have at your school are going to graduate 10 years from now, some two years from now, and I don't really care what the time frame is. We really don't know the path they're going to be on, but they need to have the confidence to walk it, to know that they can learn what they need to learn to do what they need to do. PBL is effective because it brings the real world into your classroom. Your learners are experiencing the difficulties of the real world in a safe place where they're supported. They're scaffolding. It's okay to fail. I'd rather they failed in their K12 environment before they got to their first job or their second job. Learners are taking ownership of their learning and the work that they're doing. They're facing ambiguity. They have these big crazy problems that can be solved a hundred different ways. They're making decisions and they learn from those outcomes. Their decisions are not perfect and that's okay. We wouldn't expect them to be. But that's what we're setting up. That's what we're teaching with 21st century skills. That's what everybody talks about when when you're talking about 21st century skills. When you say why should we teach those That's what we're really looking for. We want our learners to be able to thrive in ambiguous environments because that's where they're going to be. Eventually, they do. They become hardwired to do real work with real purpose. And you're not adding one more thing. You're replacing passive learning with powerful empowered learning. And that shift will transform a classroom which will transform your school and in turn will do the work you've always wanted to do. It's going to transform the future of your learners. And this is exciting stuff, isn't it? This is the stuff I just love talking about. I love seeing it even more. Like going to one of our model schools and just feeling the difference, talking to learners, they have a different confidence about them. They understand the world in a different way. When they graduate, you can see that they're asking more of the world. They're asking more of their college professors. They're asking sometimes they're asking more of their high school teachers. That's how you can get some movement as well. These 21st century skills are essential. Like I talked about two weeks ago, yes, there's going to be engagement. Yes, we're going to start with the standards because yes, state standardized tests are a real thing. We we've got to tie in these 21st century skills because that's what our learners need until we can catch up with these state standardized tests where we're actually evaluating and assessing what's really important, those 21st century skills and making sure our kids are successful in the next stage of life, we've got to put it in there. You want to put it in there. That's the school you've wanted to lead where you have that reputation. When you do, it's exciting. If I can help you connect to one of our model schools, so you can go see that, feel it, hear it, uh we've actually got a free PD day coming up on November 19th. uh we're going to do a half day in Columbus, Indiana at one of our model schools. And you do you get to talk to the students, you get to talk to the teachers, you get to talk to the principal, and you get to feel. It's during a live school day and you get to feel the difference of what a model school looks like. They've been doing this for over a decade. They've had a principal succession. They've had founding teacher successions and the culture is still there. It's still an amazing place to go and feel the learning. You should bring your team. It's totally free. You go to pblnetworks.com pblnetworks.com and you can register to be a part of one of our one of our networks or you can register for that day November 19th. We'd love to have you there. If you can't be there in person, we get that. Still sign up because we're going to figure out a way to do virtual. We're going to our goal is to record the student panel, the teacher panel, and the admin panel. At least get those to you so you can get a feel for that. We've got an intern that's going to crush that. So, make sure you go to pblnetworks.com and register for that day. Whether you can be there in person or you can get that replay. Thanks for tuning in today. We'll see you next week. 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.
