Welcome to the PBL Simplified podcast for teachers brought to you by Magnified Learning, your customized PBL partner. From over a decade of experience with you in the trenches, we are bringing you the top rated educational podcast designed for inspired classroom teachers seeking to transform their classrooms with project-based learning. Live your why, transform your classroom, teach inspired. Here's your host, Ryan Steuer. Are you using project-based learning in your classroom? Are you looking to teach the way you've always wanted to with passion, purpose? Are you tired of the constant overwhelm and anxiety, feeling like you're misunderstood and knowing there's more to teaching? Well, there is. Do you want to hear from other teachers in the classroom just like you? How did they get started with PBL? How are they still doing PBL in today's educational climate? Are you ready to teach inspired? Let's go. Welcome to the PBL Simplified podcast for teachers. I am your host Ryan Stoyer. I'm the CEO of Magnify Learning and we're fired up about this podcast. This podcast is specifically for you, the classroom teacher. We've been podcasting for about 6 years or so, depending on when you're listening to this. And we've had a podcast of the top 5% of all podcasts worldwide. But we've never had a podcast specifically for teachers. You want to hear from other PBL teachers. You want PBL moves that you can implement. in your classroom tomorrow. You want resources and support for your PBL journey and you want to hear the positive stories that are in education right now so that you can teach inspired. In the opening questions of this episode, I asked you if you're using PBL in your classroom, like this really is it's a it's a podcast specifically for teachers in the classroom using project-based learning. If you are, you're going to love hearing from the guests that we have lined up. They're going to be current teachers using PBL in their classroom. It's going to outside leaders to that can help you. Again, specifically speaking to your classroom. Now, if you're not using PBL in your classroom yet, obviously you are welcome to tune in, but you also might really get some benefit from another podcast that we have. It's called Binge PBL for Teachers. Binge PBL for Teachers is a podcast of 20 episodes giving you an overview of project-based learning. No episode is longer than 15 minutes, and each episode comes with a resource for your PBL journey. journey. We've got a link in the show notes for Binge PBL for Teachers that can take you directly there or you can subscribe wherever you consume your podcasts. Just search Binge PBL for Teachers. Now, if you're ready to go though, if this is it, if you are the PBL teacher, wherever you are on that journey, again, maybe you just started, maybe you've been doing this for years or even decade, I think you're in the right spot because we're going to have some guests on today. I'm going to tee everything up again, but as we go throughout the year, we're going to have teachers just like you in the classroom and then we're going to address those need to knows that keep coming up in trainings or in our convenings or the online community things that teachers keep asking about. So we want to stay super current and we're not going to talk about those principal ideas of our own PBL like right like some of the administrative pieces the systemic structural pieces for your school. Again totally great concept we've got another podcast for that. So if your administrator needs to get in this probably isn't the podcast for them either. They need to be either at Binge PBL for administrators or or PBL Simplified for administrators. This one's specifically for you. You've asked for it and we're we're going to give that to you. And so, we're going to keep talking to you. We're going to give you different avenues to to list need to know so you can get your need to knows on the podcast. Uh but every time we're talking on this uh podcast, we want it to be for you, the classroom teacher. So, here we go. We believe that every PBL teacher should bring project-based learning to their classroom for these three reasons. Number one, It's good for kids. And so when I was in the classroom teaching eighth grade English at a high at a middle school on the southwest side of Indianapolis, you know, I had about a thousand kids, seventh and eighth grades. It was a large urban school. And I had this kid named Skyler. And Skyler's story goes like this. He was that kid that did really well at the beginning of school. And then he realized that he could just skate through literally cuz he loved to skateboard. He would skate through the end of elementary school. And that was his playing for middle school. So, he failed every one of his classes on purpose. He was the kid that could correct your test but then would fail that same test, right? Like halfway through he'd raise his hand, you're like, "Oh, Skyler's raising his hand. Here we go." Well, technically, Mr. Stoyer, uh, number 13 is logically incorrect. And you go and look at it, you're like, "He's right. He's right, everybody. I'll give you the points for number 13." And you're just saying, "Hey, Skyler, why don't you try on that same test, bro? Because you could do amazing things." So, absolutely underperforming. ing for his potential. But he grew up in generational poverty. He didn't his family didn't see the value in education. He didn't see the value in education. He didn't see it as a pathway out of anything. In Skyler's case, there were drugs in the home, but he didn't bring them there. Right? So, it's a it's a tough situation. Like, you get that you're in the classroom, you know, these situations. Well, we gave Skyler the why behind the learning with project- based learning and service learning combined. So, it was like, hey, he's going to have to learn the punit square in eighth grade. And I, you know, outside of the science teachers like nobody really sees the inherent value of the pun square or gets really excited about it. So what are we going to do? Like okay well we know Mike from the hemophilia society. So Mike came in and he said hey eighth graders there are parents that will find out that their kid has a genetic disease today and they want to know two things. They want to know is my child going to be okay and then they want to know everything there is to know about that genetic disease. Would you kids help put PSAs and pamphlets and resources materials together to put into doctor's offices to help these families. And Skyler looked around and said, "Well, I' yeah, I'd do that. I want to help somebody." Okay. So, we go through the rubric and say, "Hey, well, you have to learn pun squares. Do you know how to do punt squares?" He's like, "No, of course I don't." Well, in order to help these families, you have to learn that. He's like, "Okay, I'll learn that." And it almost it really was that easy. It right. That's the switch with project-based learning. And now he starts learning and things weren't perfect. And we had a school within a school and with 25% of the kids, we had 8% of the discipline. Things still happened, but we had a percent and a half higher of attendance. And in a failing school, we would have been a B on Saturday's test. So things were happening. So this guy gets this vibe and now he's learning like for real. And sophomore year of high school, we'll zoom ahead. His Instagram account, he just starts taking photos of the sunset and the sunrise each day. And he's starting to get it. He likes the artistic value of this. Gets a few followers. And then one day, Time Magazine DMs him and says, "Hey, uh, can we use one of your sunrise pictures?" And he goes, "Ricky, is that you? Are you messing with me?" And like, "No, sir. This is Time magazine." And boom, he's on the news. He's getting 5,000 followers a day. And he has started a career now as a freelance photographer. He's an Instagram influencer. And we'll put his handle for Instagram in the show notes. And you should go check it out cuz now he takes pictures for like Monster Energy Drink. He just did which is insane. Um, he's got he's doing rappers. He's doing a ton of stuff that doesn't make any sense to me, but it totally makes sense to him. He's living out his dream. He's out in Los Angeles now and absolutely loving life. He's doing a great job. And if you tap him on the shoulder, and you should, you could DM him and tell him that Mr. Stoyer says hi and like, "Hey, where does PBL fit in all of this?" And he will tell you that it helped him be a lifelong learner and started his whole journey. This is what we're talking about. What we're talking about PBL. We're not talking about little scenario projects where things are cute and kids will go with you for a little bit and they get a grade and they'll turn a few things in. We're talking about changing lives here. We're talking about making a huge difference in the world. So, it's good for kids. There's a ton of research around that, too. I'm sure we'll get into research on the podcast if you want to. Um, there's a lot of good research uh showing that project based learning gives kids these handles and context for their learning. So, then they can get to the deep, rigorous content learning that you know they need. Do not fall into the trap of, hey, my kids aren't ready for PBL yet. They have to get the basics first. It's the complete opposite. PBL is how they get the basics and then it's how they go deep and it's how they excel. The second reason that PBL should be in all classrooms is it's good for adults. Like, it's good for you as the classroom teacher. When you got into teaching, you got into teaching because you wanted to inspire. You wanted to give kids these light bulb moments. You wanted them to have opportunities that they haven't ever had before. I went from engineering to education and I was an engineer as a really good engineer and I was very geeky. I still like spreadsheets. Uh but I wanted to make a difference and the two days that I remember most in my engineering journey were when we went to go help kids at United Way. You know, we do this give back program through United Way, which is awesome. Super excited that that UPS does that. They donate a ton of money. Uh it's great program, but I was like, "Well, this is the part that I love the most. Maybe I should do more days like this, right?" And so I went into teaching not because I love nouns and verbs and compound sentences, but because I love kids and I wanted to make a difference in their lives. And I did I taught traditionally because that's what I knew. And I did not see the results that I wanted that I got into teaching for. And we flipped to project-based learning. And I'm telling you, it happened. I was suddenly teaching the way that I always dreamed of teaching. This is what I wanted. This is what I for my learners. And in fact, the first three PBL units, the kids turned in all of their work. That had never happened. Like I had kids that would get 20% for the nine weeks, right? Like that that's where we were rolling. And suddenly they were turning things in. They were learning. My kids that were growing up in generational poverty that didn't have bankers in their realm of influence were suddenly talking to the vice presidents of like Huntington Bank, like major players, and they were hanging, right? Like they could talk, they could speak, they could handshake. makes an eye contact and then and the research shows that when they can do that, they can see themselves in those positions and now suddenly they've got a job that gives them a ton of opportunities and a huge future. It's so exciting. The other reason it's good for adults is it's really intentional. There's an instructional model. It's not it's not messy. There's no mess in the middle kind of thing. Like there's a lot of intentionality to this and you can achieve all of your other goals. Like maybe you do love poetry and you do love the nouns. the verbs and the grammar. Awesome. Or you love the science of things, right? You love your content. Awesome. Like PBL allows you to get to the rigorous side. Like you're suddenly having those like real scientific conversations because the kids want to know the vocab because they want to achieve this thing. Like they're going to go with you. It's so exciting. Now, the other thing that's I would say is also one more thing that's really good for you as the classroom teacher is that we've got a community now. Like there's a movement happening and it's been bubbling. underneath the surface, but it's time for it to come up. And that's where we're at right now in the world of project-based learning is we have a community of like-minded teachers that are saying, "Yes, I do want to inspire. Yes, I still want to love my job. Yes, I want to be inspired and do these things, but I feel sometimes a little handcuffed, but I think maybe there's another way." And this is it. This is it. We just hear over and over again, Ann, who was teaching for 15 years, she says, "How come I've never heard of this? How come I've never been teaching like this. I had no idea it was going to be like this. I love it. Right. Andrew who actually just wrote a book u called life's a project. Highly recommend it. And uh it gives you a lot of stories uh that Andrew has from the classroom. Well, he taught traditionally for a real long time. And then he says he basically started over his career with project-based learning and would would never give it back. Completely changed his world. So, it's super good for you as an adult. The third reason I think you should go into project-based learning is that's the best time to start. There have never been more resources, books, planning forms, group contracts, on demand courses, online communities. Like, there's never been as many as there are right now. And they're so good. Like, they're just so good. You say, "Well, how do I do entry events?" Like, well, take the course and then talk to somebody in the private Facebook community about how you want to do it to get tuning and then you're going to crush it. Back in the day, it was like, "How do you think we should start this thing?" I don't know. Like, Let's bring in a big ship horn and get their attention. Like, by the way, that's not the best way to do it, right? And who do we bring in? I don't know. What do you think? Um, did you do groups yesterday? I did. It was awful. What do we do? Well, I've heard of group contracts. Like, that's how it was back in the day. And right now is the best time to start. Like, we've got six steps to get you started. We've got instructional model. We've got group contracts that we can just give you. You can start to edit those. Like, this is the community you want to be a part of. And it's the best. time to get started. Trainings are dialed in, right? We've got a level one, level two, level three that gets you up to being completely certified so you can train others. So now you have all the tools that you need. Like you're not just flying blind. We're not dropping you off in the wilderness to hope that you find your way out. We have a lot of really great guides and we've learned from from a lot of mistakes honestly, right, over the last decade, but we're reflective. We've changed all those things. Like the planning form keeps getting better, right? the trainings keep getting better and they're dialed in. They're so dialed in that your classroom completely transformed and you can bring somebody along with you, right? Like we've got book studies so that you can bring people in and you know you don't have to know everything before you start bringing people in. In fact, I highly recommend you do it the opposite. Find somebody to start your journey with. Be like, "Hey, give this a listen." Right? And if if if they listen to this first podcast and they're in, like those are your people. It's like, "Let's go. Let's lock arms and figure this thing out." Ryan says there's a lot of resources and a great community out there and he's going to stick with us. It's true. I am right. We're going to give you a ton of stories from the field of people that are really doing this in in the field. Like they're normal people doing this. Like you're going to hear from Richard White this week or this month and he's he's a normal guy at a country school and he's doing amazing things with his learners. He's not an Instagram influencer. He's not he doesn't have a bunch of paid ads to get followers. He he's a great follow on social media, by the way. Uh, but he's just doing amazing things with project-based learning in his little area, right? He's PBL certified. He did all the stuff and he's awesome. He's rocking it. And he's just like you. He's just like you, teaching in a place that looks like you. Like, and if it's not a country school, then you I can take you to to a Rise Elementary in Lexington, Kentucky. Large urban elementary. Like, if you if you need an example, like, reach out cuz we have an example of people that are just like you in your classroom doing amazing things with project based learning, fulfilling their why and helping their learners fulfill their why. Those are the three reasons I think you should jump into project- based learning. I probably have 194 more, but these are the three we should start with and I don't want to freak you out. So, the first three reasons is number one, it's good for kids. It's good for kids as far as employability skills, inspiration, like knowing themselves in grades, right? Like they get better grades. They go they go deeper with your content, too. All those things. Number two, it's good for you as a classroom teacher. You want to teach in inspired and this allows you to do it. It is the framework. It's the vehicle that gets you to, you know, teaching in your classroom like you want to. And number three, I don't think there's ever been a better time to start. The resources are just out there. We're so ready to support you and we're so fired up. Uh so let's give you some resources right away. So if you go to whatispbl.com, whatisp.com, uh it gives you a bunch of resources to get started. Totally free. Um start that little bit of your journey. and then when you're ready, come back and we'll have some more resources for you. I'm super excited that you're with us. Uh you've got a place here. You have a place here and I know you want to teach inspired and it's so much of what our teachers are doing right now that are in the community. You're going to love it. So, tune in to next week episode to hear how one community partner can help you out in your classroom with SEAL and real world connections. He's a martial arts. He runs a martial arts studio. Like, how cool is that? Like, I want you to be so comfortable with community partners. We're going to bring them into the podcast. You can hear them and then I think it's still by the end of the month you're you can hear from Richard and you can see what it is that teachers are doing in their classroom. Teachers just like you. Let's go out and teach inspired. That's just what I needed to bring PBL to my classroom. 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 teacher just like you find their why and teach inspired.
