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. Thank you for joining me at PBL Simplified for Teachers, the PBL podcast devoted specifically for you, the classroom teacher. And today we've got a PBL showcase episode. We've got Ashley Cirten who's from Calvert County, Maryland, larger district, and she's actually a district coach. So she works with a bunch of PBL teachers across their district. Their movement started in social studies. So they started in a content area rather than grade level or a specific school. So it's got a K12 social studies initiative. really looking to increase engagement. And since then, through the efforts of Ashley and a lot of really great teachers, uh it's spread to different subject areas. It's in all their different schools. It's in their CTE program. She's going to talk about that a little bit today. She's going to talk about how she's going to give you some very concrete examples of PBL units right off the bat that are doing amazing things. They're looking at local context and local culture to determine the right PBL unit. They're looking at authenticity. They're utilizing their CTE program. program, even if they're in, you know, just a classroom teacher, they're com they're working those together in order to make things happen. And she also talks about the very end, make sure that you tune in, she talks about how when she's using PBL and talking about PBL with her teachers that it's bringing hope and joy to their classrooms in a way that they haven't seen in years, and they're really fired up about it, like super authentically. So, it's such a fun conversation. Ashley's been on the podcast before. Uh, if you haven't heard her before, you'd have to go back to PBL Simplified for administrators podcast. Actually, you got to go back to episode 196 where we highlighted their district. But I wanted you to hear Ashley who's working with PBL teachers every single day. I wanted you to hear what are the the wins. We did roses, buds, and thorns. What are the things that are really great? Those roses. What are some some buds, some promising practices? And what are some thorns? Because she still has some challenges. Even though their movement is doing just that, it is moving and it's sweeping through their district. Really exciting work. And what you're going to hear in Ashley's story is a lot of community that she's building, a lot of culture. And if you find yourself out on your own or you're in a small group of teachers trying to do PBL, you need some community as well. So, I'm talking about the PBL movement, online community. You can jump in. You're probably not going to go to Calvert County, Maryland, and go work in that district so you can be a part of that PBL movement. You want to do it right where you're at. So, I did have a teacher reach out and he said, "Convince me why I should join the POC." So, oh, okay, that's bold. But I said, "I can't really do that. Like, I'm not I can't convince you cuz I don't know your situation." If you're on your own or maybe you're in a small group trying to learn PBL and you're creating and learning and you're learning from failure after failure after failure and you're learning through the school of hard knocks, awesome. Like, you can continue to do that. But it also might be really helpful for you to jump into the PMOC. We've got those on demand courses. We've got a ton of resources that you can download and edit and use in your classroom. You could as soon as you join the very first day, you could have group contracts on your drive and they could be edited and customized for you. And so I kind of went through that with them and it really was like, hey, I don't think I can convince you. But here's here's where I think it helps people. I think it helps that if you've been using a lot of free content to get by or teachers, pay teachers, and some of those things to get by. If you really want to accelerate your PBL learning or you want to jump start it, you want to move forward, if you want to go to the next level, then I think the PMC is for you because you can and again immediately consume those on demand courses. We have some people that come through and just bust through them because you can see it on the back end like they go through the entry event, the end the end products, they go through the group contract workshop, they bust through all those on demand workshops just on their own. They use the resources and some people will jump into the private Facebook community and start asking questions. Some people will do the challenges that we put out and some people just lurk and that's cool too, right? Like wherever you're at, you know, I think there's something for you if you're in that spot where you know you're ready to move, right? ready to have that community and you this gentleman he seemed okay with the answer. He did end up joining because he wanted the additional support. So whether you are jumping from free resources to that accelerated learning I think that's a great reason uh to jump into the POC. I mean we can accelerate years on your journey um by being in this paid community. So take a look uh at the in the show notes for the POC. You're going to see it's $275 for the year. You can pay monthly. We've got some resources to try to convince your principal to pay for it. as well. Uh cuz we think that it's a great deal for the price of a one-day conference. You get three conferences and you get support for the entire year so that this work doesn't just end up in a folder in your conference I wish I could someday pile. You know that pile or you go to a conference, you get fired up, you're excited, but you come back and you can't really implement it. We want to help you throughout the year to make sure you actually implement. That's another reason that we share these PBL showcase episodes on this podcast. I think you're really going to enjoy some of the real world PBL units that are being implemented right now by teachers in the classroom. So, here's my interview with Ashley.2
Hey Ashley, thanks for being on the podcast today. Uh, thanks for making time.
Yeah, it's always great to chat with you and anybody who wants to talk about PBL. I'm always I'm always game for that,
right? Like you're all in. So, like this podcast episode will actually come out in the spring, but we're recording like right at the beginning of the year. So, you just had like a rush to finish 2024 and you're like already in it in 2025. Like tell us a little bit. Let's just start like right there. Like how was the end of your 2024? Because you said you had a ton of PBL units going. You know, you're a district coach so you've got your hands in a little bit of everything across the district. You know, all things PBL there. So, what were some of the things that were happening there?3
Yeah. Um so, it it was a really cool way to go into my holiday break um with some of the culminating things and then I have one more project that one big huge thematic project that's uh finishing up next week because our semester actually ends next week for high schools. Um but one of the really cool things this year uh came out of my new location. I'm now under our um CTE or career technical education funding which means I'm housed at our career technical academy which is cool because now I'm starting to build relationships with a lot of the uh instructors in our CT programs in our buildings but also at our academy here. Um, so, uh, it kind of came organically. I had a teacher who actually went through our level one training in August who's an eighth grade science teacher. Um, and this is the beauty of being in my role is I I see what I have my ear to the ground all the time about what my PBL teachers are doing and then I just make little suggestions, little nudges like, "Oh, you know what? You should probably talk to so and so. They'd be interested." That's what happened. I had a um a that teacher came up with uh the eighth grade science project she came up with in August. She really wanted to take her invasive species curriculum work uh the content standards they have around invasive species and human environmental interaction that sort of thing. And at first she wanted to do a cookbook because she really wanted to help students present, hey let's solve this problem by encouraging the community to eat the problem. Uh which is actually uh mimics a statewide initiative through our department of agriculture out here in Maryland to mitigate invasive species. So, it was a great fit. However, we quickly realized that like the cookbook route might just be a little bit too big of a bite to take. You know, we'll just keep with the food metaphor here. Um to really take her first year, her first time ever trying PBL. Now, she did have a collaborative partner who went through uh my cohort the year before to support the work. So, the whole eighth grade at this particular middle school in this their science classes um took on this this project. But anyway, we shifted it a little bit to creating um uh educating the public about invasive species, especially invasive fish because we are um our whole district is bordered by the Chesapeake Bay and then a a river, the Puxen River on the other side. So, our waterways are really important to the culture out here, to the economy and everything. So, we focused on um some of the invasive fish that are damaging the ecosystems in in those waterways. And um we decided okay let's educate the community on this and then let's give them one recipe to you know maybe give them a method at home to eat their problems. Well the really cool connection with this is yes we did all the work to help them uh set upformational projects uh products um posters social media posts and ultimately um that QR code to websites that the students created about invasives and um So, you know, there were a lot of different benchmarks built within that project. Anyway, but the cool part was the recipe part. Well, I am next door to the culinary program now.4
There we go. This is good.
So, I had an organic connection with my neighbor, my class, literal office neighbor, um, and brought chef chef Hilly's uh, seniors in his culinary program on board. And so, he sort of did, um, his PBL piece of this was challenging his students to come up with recipes that we could give the public for the invasive fish um which they're actually really yummy, the catfish that are um damaging the bay out here. So, helping people understand changing public perception about eating them and then here's an easy recipe to try. Um so, his students uh worked and developed recipes in teams and then they did like a a a chopped tasting with uh chefs and um the eighth grade science teacher came up as one of the judges and then myself. Um so some of the other uh folks involved in the project. Uh they had to present it. They had to talk about you know the qualities of the recipe, why they felt it'd be a good fit for the eighth graders to promote. Uh and we recorded those. We took pictures and then they had to write a formal recipe which is part of their culinary curriculum. It's not just hey this go try this. No, they have to actually you know give the grams and measure everything out. So all of that content that the seniors created was then given to the eighth graders for them to feature on their websites and then also um do a little mini snapshot feature on the poster or social media post that they were using to educate the community and you know direct them to the website. Um so it was and then for the eighth graders they had their culminating events right before our holiday break. Um and because we did all sections they actually had a round in the classroom where the best team out of each section got voted out of the classroom to go present in front of the community partners. And um so we had people from the state department of agriculture here to hear these ideas from the eighth graders. We had um uh local restaurant owners. Um I believe they even invited uh local produce stands, places where people could purchase the fish. And the idea was in theirformational resource, they had actually a blank spot that basically said you could go here, your restaurant could go here on what we promote to the community. So that was kind of the take the pitch um to those community partners for the eighth graders. But then they talked about these recipes that the CTA students of the seniors here in the culinary program had developed. So that was a really really awesome project to be a part of because now you're talking crosscurricular talking crossrade level you're talking cross program like um cross skill level right so it was just like everything we want PBL to be. So that was super revitalizing. And then I got to end the week with um I had a uh twothirds of a third grade team go through my training this August and they convinced the rest of their collaborative partners to do um a grade levelwide project that they um did. They created uh story books to help uh children their age and the public library was on board for featuring these books as well um to learn about the different regions of the United States which is part of their um both their really their science and their social studies curriculum because you know you talk about climate weather that sort of thing but then it's the regions that you study in social studies so it's already crosscurricular from that regard and then because it was a storybook project it ended up bringing in a bunch of ELA standards5
and yeah and so and then they did the work to find um and I can't remember the name of the company plug them. Not that I would have permission to anyway, I guess. But um they found a company online that was able to uh print the books like they could send in the artwork and everything and the stories. They printed the books as hard copies. Um the other cool feature of these books is the kids could record themselves reading it and then it was a QR code in the front cover.
They did all this ahead of time so that they could send out that information to purchase the books to family members, which was great. Time coming right before the holidays. And so this culminating event was truly just a celebration event and it was an author signing. So all the third6
all the third graders are officially published offers. They all had little pins that a mom had made that said published author and then you know they had all the pre-orders there to sign to give to the family members who had purchased them. So it was just amazing amazing. There were over a hundred probably over 150 parents and grandparents who came to the little gym to and you know they had the whole gym set up and oh there was like a photo op for the author I mean it was just so good so good and that was third grade so you know I went from one end of the spectrum to the other and it's7
so yeah so I really went into the holiday break rejuvenated just
you know for the some of those projects it was a long thematic thing which can be hard to sustain and maintain that energy on a PBL right when you do one that long Um, but you know, it was well well worth it.
Well, I think the authenticity of those projects you talked about too helps. Like it's true like those are
those they're hard but I think you have to pick your hard, right? Because you're going to go through these standards anyway and you're getting kids to engage in them. So you have to pick your hard like8
and and they picked hard of like authenticity and then I think you actually get more engagement and empowerment out of your kids to I mean you just talked about the end of the school year, right? Where people could be like just hanging on showing those holiday videos, right? Just right, just to make it through. And instead, they're powering through, right? Like, hey, like you guys are published authors, third graders, which is amazing, by the way. And so, they're fired up at the end of the year, right? The seniors and the high schoolers, they're fired up at the end of the year. So, instead of just hanging on, right, it's like really looking at that time like how can we best utilize it? And no, that the stuff you just described is amazing. It's not necessarily easy,9
but again, you have to pick your hard, right? You have to pick your hard and And so so that's great. And you you kind of knocked out the first part of our podcast interview today. If I have if the mic, if I could drop it, it's kind of on his arm, so I can't drop it, but I could almost drop the mic there because we're going to do um the format we've got today, Ashley, is to just do roses, buds, and thorns. So it's a protocol that we run, you know, typically level two um of our workshops over the summer where it's like what's going really well, that's your roses, you what are the buds? What are the promising practices that you want to see grow? And then what are the thorns? What's a challenge that you have because again, none of this is perfect. We're all growing. If when you listen to uh really great PBLERS, we were just talking about this with um with Michelle, our director of training, and she coaches you and and you guys are an awesome team. U but s she's super reluctant to call herself a PBL expert.10
And it's like Michelle, I'm pretty sure that you're like top five in the country,
right? Yeah. Exactly. Right. She's the guru. But that I think that's how you truly know a PBL guru if you will, right? Because she will not say expert. you'd probably say learner, right? Because she's always learning.
Yes. Yes.
Right. And so that's that's when I think you really know, you know, if you're in the right PBL environment, the authenticity and then like even the people are doing the trainings, they have we have a stance of just learning like we do not have it mastered yet.11
Well, and I think you're also talking about, you know, the practitioners truly embracing the work are living PBL in terms of their reflection. Like you're, you know, when you talk about Michelle and her reflecting as a learner, right? I I'm the same way. It's about,
you know, when I was new to this work, I really felt like a charlatan. Like, here I am leading others and still learning this as I go. And and part of me, I still fight that, right? Because I know there's still so much to continue learning about PBL and how to implement this work. And there always will be um you know, I have more and more sort of anecdotes to draw on now, but I think that's because, you know, we see the power of reflection and that's part of what makes PBL great, right? that you're alwaysing, you're always like feeding forward. So,12
yeah, we're going to make a shift even in magnify learning. We've been doing PBL for over a decade and we we're always getting better and now we see like this direction of SEAL and literacy in PBL and and there's just a need out there and a a niche and a gap. It's like, well, we're going to go do that. It's like, well, how do you do that? I mean, that's what we do. We're going to go figure it out. We're going to reflect. We're going to do. We're going to reflect. We're going to do, you know, so it's just such an awesome process to really live.13
Can you give us Do you have rows in in your back pocket that you can give us just some of the exciting work that you're seeing and I I know you've got a ton so I don't know if you want to do like small dips or if you want to dive into one kind of whatever direction you want to go for for your rose today.
Um I would say you know I kind of talked about the shift of me coming under a career technical education funding.
Sure.
Um but that really is it's a big one but that is a a a rose for me because I see it it's a different way of coming at the PBL coaching that I've done. Whereas before uh my my previous cohorts were all traditional educators, right? Um so they were looking for that authenticity, you know, how to make what what content standards and skills that they're anchored to more meaningful and authentic and engaging for kids. Whereas um the CTE instructors that I'm I'm building relationships with now, you know, they're already doing authentic work. The kids are going through their program and getting certifications and or apprenticeships, internships, right? Or, you know, really like building changing someone's brakes in in the shop or um you know, creating a recipe or um uh you know, doing diagnostics in a a health environment. Uh so they're already doing the real authenticity piece, but many of those folks came straight from the industry. So they're not traditional educators. So some of the pedagogical foundation practices and knowledges knowledge that you know I think what we do in our work coming sorry we're we're in a school building coming to this environment from the education world um we have some presumptions about what our our practitioners are going to come in knowing and understanding uh and so it's kind of flipped that for me and and it's a new challenge because um it's now me finding a way to infuse the best protocols routines the Mark. that PBL provides for these folks who are already doing such meaningful authentic work, already working with community partners, right? So, I'm just like honing in on different elements of the PBL process than I was before. And I think that's only making all of the work that I do um you know, more robust.
Yeah. And I think that's what we find like we work with, uh with quite a few CTE programs actually, and you think, well, why do they need PBL training? And what we find is kind of the wording I use is CTL is project risk. pitch, but they're not necessarily using project-based learning as an instructional model, right? So, the structures are super helpful. You might have a master carpenter in there. That's brilliant. But now you've got 15 kids, right? That's a whole different, right? Like you said, pedagogical work. So, and then on the other end for the the classroom teachers that are listening, right, it's like if you've got, you know, a PBL unit that could connect to CTE,
reach out. Like maybe you don't have an Ashley in your district, but you can reach out. Uh, and it what I see is almost every time it's like well yeah of course right like we would love to do that because they're looking for somebody to partner with uh in the classroom level too. So yeah that is that is really an awesome rose to see where CTE and PBL combine because there is a sweet spot. What about uh what about a bud? Like what's a promising practice that you see that you're really like man I hope that this grows in our world.
Um well there's lots because we're at the point in my district where this work came out of a grant and now I'm on CTE funding which for the foreseeable future um will not change. However, um project based learning is now identified as a strategic goal for our district. So um it really needs to move out of federal funding and become systemic, right? It needs to live here. Um so seeing uh leadership get that uh you know that's what I've been working towards for the past three years. So to see that happening in pockets and growing I'm really excited. I'm doing a lot of work with um the math instructor now. Um and a lot of this parallels the the mandates coming down from our state um to kind of reimagine education um and you know how Maryland does education. And so it's just neat to really thought partner with people and create visions for how to help this work permeate every aspect. Um you know and I know it's not a silver bullet but it is a framework that is so easily adaptable. So easily adaptable and um amanable to different content levels, to different grade levels, to um you know, different skill sets for what you want to really drive home and accomplish that. Uh it's just neat to see the different ways it can take shape and finding a way to make sure that it's not just this one thing that we're imposing on all our buildings or in all our department, but uh we were just talking about, you know, having different on-ramps like what are the different ways that we could set up this work and have these simultaneous parallel structures going that are sustaining PBL. Um so it it's a lot of potential right now and it's it's cool to be on the the you know the ground level of that.
Yeah, I think so. And you know I said it in your your intro but you guys are part of a larger district, right? And we've got some other larger districts that are doing this work um in in similar way. case where it's a little bit different. It's not the top down mandate that says, "Hey, we must do PBL, right?" And because those rarely work. I mean, we're we were part of some of those, and I should say some of them do, but it it takes some some extra oiling of the of the gears, but when you can really create kind of more of a grassroots movement like you guys have where it's really an internal piece and you're trying to reach engagement truly, um, and you're allowing
you're allowing it to grow pretty organically, right? It kind of started in social studies and it's grown to other other areas and It really is. It's a super neat piece. I I do hope to see that bud grow. Uh I'm sure there's a thorn or two though. Do you have a thorn? What's one challenge that you're facing right now that maybe we can just coach through right now?
Uh well, maybe maybe you can, but um part of
or maybe we might even have somebody call in like because they can always people can always go to pblshare.com like pblshare.com. So if you have like a need to know or you want to share a win or even right now this is kind of a new format for this PBL Simplified for teachers where we're just kind of putting out a problem a practice of some kind. And you're right, maybe we won't like crush it here in in, you know, three minutes, but maybe somebody can can write in and and give us an answer. So, what what have you got?
Well, two, one that I'm going to set up for that, you know, we'll see what happens if you can figure it out. Um, you're you know, you may have all the answers, Ryan, but um, uh, really that my program is grassroots and it is growing that my problem now is capacity, my own capacity to support the work and how I can set that up. So, it's kind of the same problem I've always had of, you know, how do I convince uh more decision makers to sign on to the work in ways that matter through resources. Um, you know, ideally, I'd love people. I'd love core leads to be able to do this work at, you know, every one of my buildings or across every grade level or content level, right? Um, so that piece I'm not sure you can actually solve for me without having, you know, a million dollar budget to hire all the people that I all all the people what I need to go out there and do the work. But um the other piece of that is um I think it it's part of my success, but it's also a challenge and it it gets to your other point about us doing this organically. And I think one of the reasons it's been successful is I meet people where they're at, right? Where their mindset is on PBL. Um where their comfort level is with, you know, adopting it themselves, but also implementing uh what, you know, I have some folks who went through my training and never once asked me into the classroom which um I have other folks on the other hand who I've been a thought partner. I've been in the classroom um regularly throughout the semester either providing feedback or as um a thought partner for their kids or uh doing some sort of uh professional skills development uh workshop with folks. So I have people at both ends of the spectrum and that's part of the reason this work is because I'm not not like you said, there's no no force thing here. I'm not evaluating them, which is
really the beauty of my role, right? Um, so they are a lot more comfortable. But even those folks who haven't asked me in, I've heard from like their classroom neighbors that when you walk by their classroom just sounds different or looks a little bit different, it feels a little bit different. So, I know the work is still happening.
Um, but I think one of my challenges is because I am such an empath and I like the connections I do build, you know, how can I encourage folks who, you know, they obviously signed on to my cohort, so they were interested. Nobody forced them to do that, right? Um, but it seems like they're reluctant to truly embrace the mindset, the work, the implementation. So, you know, how do I move those folks
along the spectrum without them feeling uh like I'm I'm dragging them, you know?
Yeah. No, it's it's it's a great question. And again, I I'm super open to this idea. of of let's like let's crowd share this answer. So if you go to pblshare.com like if if you've got thoughts on either of Ashley's questions there like go ahead and put them in there and we'll do like a follow-up episode like in another episode we'll we'll kind of tag that answer in there but to get other people on board that aren't hesitant I think somewhat there is part of just on our part as we're training people to just trust people in the process.
Some people do just take longer you know to get on board. Sometimes they need a little more evidence or they need a little more support. But when you say like people get it right away, it's typically the transparency that we get, right? In project- based learning, there's just a transparency of like we're we're presenting publicly. We're having our kids present publicly. But that also means that us as teachers like we're presenting like what they know publicly and sometimes it's like ah like sometimes they don't know a lot or they mess it up, right? Like what does that mean on me? And sometimes we can freak out on that.
And I I think once you understand that transparency that then we can all get better, right? That nobody's trying to give a tuning protocol or say like, "Hey, you should do it this way because you're a bad person, right? There's just this thing because teaching is such a personal passionate endeavor. It feels like when we're getting a critique that it's on us and it's really not. What we I think we really do well in PBL is we put it on the practice,
right? Once you can get the idea like, hey, we're tuning this project and not you as a person,
that's when things really move quickly." And I think I think that's different in a lot of other educational initiatives, right? It's like we're trying to fix things or fix people with things and so people are hesitant. So I
So to answer your question with a few ideas, it's just inviting them in to see things I think is a great way like
hey down the hall we're going to do an entry event next week. Can I cover your third period so you can go watch? Right? And just let them see.
Or even inviting them into a tuning protocol on somebody else's PBL unit, right? Like, hey, Ashley's going to present. Would you come in and give like and wonders and they just start hearing the practice. They become a part of the process, you know? I mean, you know this whenever we go to a workshop and we run a tuning protocol, people just love it whether they're getting the feedback or giving it because it's just being a part of the process of growing. So, I think there's just some patience on our part and then just inviting people in in different ways that that maybe don't seem like a big step for us.
Um, but for some people it is a big step to go to a tuning protocol or to go watch. What do you think? What are your thoughts on that? What what's that trigger for you?
Yeah. I think that validates some of the things I've already thought about doing in terms of just creating those observational opportunities um because we have some phenomenal PBL teachers now in our district and so just giving them a chance
uh one to get feedback from colleagues but also to um you know share their approach with others. Um you know one of the things that worked well when we first started this work um we had the funding through the grant to pull people from the classroom once a month to collaborate, to share best practices, to share problems of practice.
And now we've uh that you know because of funding changes and things like that that happens um in a virtual session um
and you know it's more condensed. It's I still pro protect that collaborative time but um if there are other micro ways that I can create those opportunities for that that type of um collaborative support and reflection through, you know, pairing observations or things like that. Um, one thing I do want to do is, um, to help sustain the work is, uh, I send out an update of like just PBL happenings.
I share that with I've started I was just sending that to leadership to keep the buy in there and grow the buyin, right? And now I've started sending it to my cohorts so that they can see what their colleagues are doing and maybe get an idea. And it's not super detailed, but I think I'm going to um level it up a little bit more and actually make it like a PBL newsletter that goes out to all my cohorts that still does the same thing, updating them of the great work that's happening, but then also maybe feature one of the protocols, uh one of the things that works well, you know, link to some of the resources that, you know, they already have access to through Magnify from going through the training. Um just to keep that work in the forefront of their minds. It's something that, like you said, we're meeting them where they're at. They can choose to click or not, right? And engage in whatever way makes sense for them. So,
but the the trick to that, right, is always like uh as you're highlighting people because then you also want to highlight people, right? Like not just processes, right? But find that teacher that seems a little hesitant and when you find that one thing that they're doing, right? Like just blow that up. Like, man, Mrs. Smith
brought in a community partner and just crushed it. Or, hey, Mrs. Smith didn't need to know this for the very first time and her learners were super engaged. And you just let Mrs. Smith know like, hey, the newsletter's coming out. You're in it this week.
Right?
And Man, we just love that as humans, right? There's something about that affirmation that's just like, oh, I am doing a good job, right? Like, I am making some progress. Sometimes we don't see it. I think that's a great way to do it. That makes a lot of sense to me.
Can I give you and and the listeners a little bit on your first question of like how do you get other administrators to buy in and how do you get more of that support, right, of like, hey, we're going to move some budget dollars towards this PBL work and you have sometimes we have to think a little bit differently and it's like what's the currency of administrators, right, of principles of central office. Sometimes a little bit different than a classroom teacher and it's okay, right? It's just a different position. So, what what I like to lean on is obviously there's state testing, like that's a thing, right? So, like tracking data, right, that kids are more engaged. Maybe it's attendance data. Attendance and discipline data are really strong and we see the engagement really moves those numbers. We see that a lot. And state testing scores move, too. It's just a little trickier to track those. especially if it's not a full school implementation, but attracting attendance and discipline. And then also what's community perception of your school and it's a big deal for principles, right? Like we want our school to be seen as something positive in the community.
And I always say if you're not telling your story, somebody else is
and they're probably not doing as good a job. So if we can feed principles these really positive stories that are coming out of PBL classrooms, it's like, oh wow, everything in my newsletter came from a PBL classroom this time. Maybe there's something to that, right? And then you can invite them into this idea of, hey, if you guys had a coach, you could get this work happening in your school and like in your position, Ashley, you could train that coach, right? So, our relationship has been really neat because we've appreciated, you know, a lot of times we coach a lot of different ways where maybe we go and coach, you know, different cadres of teachers or grade levels, but with Calvert County, we've coached, you know, the district coach, we've been coaching you who's been coaching,
right,
your teachers, which is super authentic. Right? Because now it's like Calvert teaching Calvert. And it's the same thing with those visits, I think, too. Like, you could go to a model school in Missouri or Florida to go see this, but you guys don't need to do that right now. You've got the you've got the people, the practitioners are doing this and just go down the hall.
And it seems it almost seems like like it's thrown together because it's like, hey, I'm just going to watch your class for 20 minutes to go down the hall so you can see this. But it's not. It's super powerful.
It's like, wow, those are our kids. like those are the same kids I have and you got them to do that. Like it becomes way more powerful than like the big grandiose, you know, you're spending budget dollars and there's travel and all this stuff. That one little move can actually be more impactful than the big conference across the country.
Yeah,
I think you guys are crushing it. I think you're on the way to, you know, you're just going to continue to problem solve your challenges and your thorns. So, uh, super ready for you guys to continue that work. Uh, when you look out, Ashley, just the education landscape like in general. Uh I think there's room to be really optimistic, right? So what are some things that you see that that keep you optimistic about education?
Um well, what I'll say is if I go back to when I started this work, it was really a year out from CO kind of offic COVID kind of officially being over.
Um and so we were trying to return to normal in the classroom, but we know everybody who's an education knows that that wasn't possible because co just ripped wide open wounds that we had been trying to bandage over right
um for years for decades and so um
I I encountered educators sometimes you know my friends who were right on the edge of jumping out of education before they did project based and um to see um their re their own re-engagement with the in instruction and the power of the work that we do in education because they saw the power that it could have with their kids through things like projectbased, you know, um to see students who or to see teachers view students differently, you know, coming off of two years of COVID where, oh, these kids aren't doing anything. They're checked out, you know, if you were virtual, are they even on the meeting, you know, and having that sort mindset, that negative assumption um in the back of their minds coming back into the classroom and and shifting that again and just seeing I I mean I guess it really just boils down to to seeing hope or to having hope, you know, through inspiration of this work. And I know that sounds really lofty, but um you know, I' I've seen it. I've had teachers tell me like if it hadn't been for going through this professional development and doing this work, I I would already be out of education. Yeah.
Um, and so to know that there there are things out there like PPL that that help good teachers stay where they need to be, right?
Um, and then also just to see the
the change in the power it has for students and that
um,
you know, it does have the power to really transform education if we let it. And I'm not saying this as a spokesperson. I wholeheartedly believe it because I live it every day. Um, but I I do I see I see kids go, you know, a year past when their project stopped in the classroom, still doing work on on whatever their design or their their idea was, right? Still collecting data, still meeting with people, still presenting it to to to people publicly, you know? So, um, just knowing that that uh is something that is going to continue to move forward. forward. Uh, you know, that that makes me optimistic. That makes me hopeful for for what comes next because I think we still hold on so tightly to these archaic structures and systems and education. And I I don't know what it is about us digging our heels in. And sometimes it's not us as educators, it's you know the powers that be that are controlling all that. But um to know that we can move the needle towards progress that makes sense for the types of human beings we have in our classroom now, right? Um that that's promising to me.
Super good. So glad to have you on the podcast today, Ashley. You're bringing hope and joy and you know, you guys are doing awesome work. So we are we're super optimistic about the work and and
if if hope seems lofty, then we're not using the word long enough, right? Like it is hopeful. Like that's that's why we get into education, right? It's like every great person out there, everybody all these great quotes we read like they all had teachers at some point, right? And we know we've heard enough stories that it really just like one or two teachers can completely change somebody's life and and for real, right? So, it's such a big deal. It's fun to support uh teachers all over the country. Fun to support you. Ashley, thanks for coming on today. We appreciate it.
Thanks, Ryan. Always a pleasure.
All right, PBL Simplified listeners. Uh you just got a a great interview from Ashley, who's a district coach, uh who's loving PBL and bringing it to teachers that are loving PBL, right? Like we're getting teachers to teach the way they've always wanted to teach and we're bringing joy and hope back to the profession. And gosh, we think it's a big deal. Thanks for tuning in today. We'll see you in the next episode. 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.
