NEW BOOK! Life's a Project: The 6A's of Project Based Learning {Author Interview} | E181

Life's a Project is the latest PBL book written by seasoned PBL educator Andrew Larson from a Magnify Learning National PBL Model School. Imagine an educational philosophy that not only emphasizes academic rigor but also  weaves in vital employability skills – that's the essence of the PBL that Andrew brings to life in our latest episode. His new book, "Life's a Project: The 6 A's of Project Based Learning" serves as a guide, sharing his personal transition from traditional teaching methods to a decade-long PBL adventure. The conversation promises to dismantle myths surrounding the perceived chaos of PBL, instead highlighting how it supports a structured, innovative classroom environment.

Venture with us through the 6 A's framework, a vital part of PBL that marries soft skills with academic rigor. We also discuss a newly introduced seventh A – aspiration – pondering its role in PBL. The discussion reinforces the notion that chasing perfection in education may well be a fool's errand, advocating instead for a more accommodating, practical approach to teaching that embraces the iterative nature of learning.

Finally, we tackle the often-overlooked but crucial aspect of PBL – assessment. By unraveling the creation of versatile rubrics, we demonstrate how standardized tools can enhance the learning experience. We shed light on the role of educators as facilitators, providing the structure necessary to scaffold student learning. If you're an educator seeking to enrich your teaching practice with authentic learning experiences, this episode will not only offer valuable insights but may very well shorten your learning curve into the world of PBL.

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Transcript

Ryan Steuer: 0:00

Welcome to the PBL Simplified Podcast, where we think 51% of schools should be using PBL by 2051. That only gives us 37 years to get project-based learning to the majority of schools. So we've got to move. Speaking of that, you're a movement maker. That's why you're here. You were involved in PBL in some form, or maybe you're just trying to figure things out. Whether you're a school leader or a teacher in the classroom, you're in the right place. You might be in the wrong place if you aren't geeky or at least interested or curious about project-based learning, because we're going to talk about assessment, we're going to talk about project-based learning, we're going to talk about authenticity of those PBL units. We're not really looking for those scenarios where we want to get deep into the work with our learners so that they're developing these employability skills they need for the next level. Now, if you again school leader or teacher, today's just a great day to tune in, because on the second Wednesday we do a PBL showcase. So we're talking to a teacher who is in a PBL classroom, and today we've got Andrew Larson on, who is in a special place. He's in CSA New Tech in Columbus, indiana. It's one of our national PBL model schools. It's where we send you to go do design days. It's where we send you to go see PBL. That is amazing they have. The school was built for PBL, so they've got clear walls, they have collaborators, they've got a common planning area for teachers, which, by the way, is one quick change that you can make, probably wherever you're at, that gets adults collaborating and then just spills down into classrooms, because your student culture will never arise above your adult culture, so we've got the right person in the seat, and this. What we're going to talk about today, though, is Andrew's new book is coming out. Life's a Project, and we get to look at Andrew's life through the lens of PBL and how it's changed as a 25-year veteran of teaching, what it looked like when he was teaching traditionally, what it looks like now that he's been doing PBL for over a decade, and we get a ton of insights to the author's head.

Ryan Steuer: 1:58

Now, if you want to go get a copy of this book which you should do, and if you're listening to this right, when this episode drops it's going to be in pre-order book, which you should do, and if you're listening to this right, when this episode drops it's going to be a pre-order. So if you go to pblpresscom, pblpresscom, you can pre-order the book and when you do, you get a whole bunch of freebies that come along with it. You're going to get a book study. You're going to get all the resources that come along with it. So as you go through the book, you journey through each chapter and they're each lined out with the six A's, with a seventh one which we'll talk about in the episode here. In just a second we're going to walk you through the six A's of how you go deeper with your project-based learning practice. So if you've been doing PBL for a while, this book is right on for you and you're going to love this conversation.

Ryan Steuer: 2:36

If you've been in the classroom for a long time but you haven't jumped into PBL, you've been a little hesitant. I think this book is for you as well, because it's so conversational. It's written in first person from Andrew's point of view and you get to hear him talk through what it looks like in his classroom and I think it's one of my later questions, it's one that's really going to surprise you. So if you're that teacher that really likes structure in your classroom, we want to let you know you're. You don't have to give that up when you go to PBL. Right, there's a structured process that comes along with PBL. It shouldn't be chaos in your classroom and there's a right and a wrong way to do this, and what we want to do is we want to build an innovation within your school. I don't want you to innovate the same way that Andrew does, necessarily, but I want you to be inspired by that. I want you to use some of the tools that he uses so that you become the innovator in your classroom and in your school. So I hope you enjoy this conversation.

Ryan Steuer: 3:35

Welcome to the PBL Simplified Podcast. I'm your host, ryan Stoyer, and we've got a PBL showcase today, of course, because it's the second Wednesday of the month, and I would say the part that's not of course is we've got a published author on the podcast today, and that's Andrew Larson. He published a book called Life's a Project the Six A's of Project-Based Learning and it's going to come out through PBL Press right here at Magnify Learning. So we're super excited to have Andrew on the podcast today to talk about his new book. Andrew, thanks for being on the podcast.

Andrew Larson: 4:06

Yeah, thank you, ryan, happy to be here. Yeah, we're going to talk about his new book. Andrew, thanks for being on the podcast. Yeah, thank you, ryan, happy to be here.

Ryan Steuer: 4:08

Yeah, we're going to talk through, we're going to give some teasers, we're going to tease some things up so that people can right now, if you're listening live, like as it comes out, you can pre-order. The book will be out May 14th Super excited. It's going to have a book study along with it. If you pre-order, you can get all the goodies along with it. So the book's teed up. Now let's dive into talking to Andrew here a little bit, because you're on the podcast. Everybody gets the same first question and that is what is your why for the work that you do.

Andrew Larson: 4:38

Okay, well, thank you for that. I became a teacher originally, you know. So I went to college to teach biology and you know, back then my original why was I wanted everyone to care about the environment. That's kind of where I started. And then that's not changed but it's broadened a lot and I think that, if you you know so, from my perspective today, I care a lot about, I care a lot about literacy and making sure that students are capable of digesting and processing and analyzing information.

Andrew Larson: 5:27

So you know, just information, literacy and in its pure sense, and you know, ultimately, I think what I care about most is that we have an informed citizenry. Informed citizenry, I think that you know the kind of information that kids or that people encounter and digest and you know make decisions with have to be. You've got to have the tools to, to parse that out with fidelity. So, you know, at the end of the day and I've kind of been teaching language arts for a few years now it's not where I started, but I've been heavily influenced by my peers that do that kind of work and so, yeah, yeah, why don't you?

Ryan Steuer: 6:21

I should have done more of that in your introduction, but why don't you tell us where you teach, kind of what you teach, and you teach a lot of different things, so maybe kind of talk about that and how they even fit together?

Andrew Larson: 6:32

I, like I said, my background is in science and life science. Currently I facilitate a botany class, which is awesome. It's kind of I mean not to sound cliche, but it's kind of a dream come true. I went to Purdue and ended up with a botany degree. So you know, first time in my career really, that I'm doing that. And then I teach, I co-facilitate a class called Global Science Perspectives. It's ninth grade English and environmental studies. So I have a co-facilitator who happens to be a good friend of mine and, yeah, in any given year I do advanced or AP biology. Of course we have an advisory course which is life skills and career exploration Tons of fun skills and career exploration, tons of fun. And you know, I've done, I've been an advisor for senior internships and a smattering of other science electives over the years.

Ryan Steuer: 7:36

Yeah, and you're teaching at CSA New Tech in Columbus, indiana, which is one of our national PBL model schools. If you want to see amazing project-based learning, that's where you go. So you did hear like ninth grade, ninth graders doing PBL, ap biology doing PBL Like. One of the reasons that I'm super excited about the book coming out is I've kind of couched it this way is that it's like if somebody wanted to sit down and have a cup of coffee with you, andrew, this is how they do it Right and say well, what do you know about PBL? Well, that's actually going to be like 24 cups of coffee. Is it what that's going to take for us to like?

Ryan Steuer: 8:12

kind of you know figure that out. So I fear I like it here, like in 200 pages. You can. You can do that because you give us kind of your story, along with this teaching saga that you've had of really being on the forefront of project-based learning and the forefront of assessment and doing this work in a really deliberate way. So again, the title of the book is Life's a Project the Six A's of Project-Based Learning. But you and I cannot take claim of the six A's. Where do the six A's come from?

Andrew Larson: 8:48

six A's. Like. Where did the six A's come from? A woman named Adria Steinberg coined the term the six A's, and so so Adria was an educator in Rhode Island, I believe, and so she wrote this book, and the focus was on a sort of a vocational education program. I got to talk to Adria on Zoom a few years ago. I was really starstruck, you know, she's incredibly approachable person, but I still, I just couldn't believe that I was speaking with her.

Andrew Larson: 9:19

When I first started doing PBL, this six A's rubric cropped up somewhere with her name on it, and I don't, I don't know, I can't remember if it was through the New Tech Network or if it was through, you know, one of our original, you know, pbl training programs, but but it was there, and so this framework of hers, you know, she really felt like it was. It was the way that you holistically educated kids to, you know, to embrace the all, the, the, the myriad of challenges that adult life presents. It's a really beautifully well-balanced approach which combines the so-called soft skills and and academic rigor that that school is all about in a in a way that just really I don't know. It speaks to me, you know. And so when I don't know.

Ryan Steuer: 10:57

It speaks to me. And so when I first got serious about sort of to this of, oh, assessment practices, adult relationships, and Andrew, it looks like you threw in one extra one, a seventh A, if you will, and aspirations which we'll get to in our conversation, and it's really just this way that I found in the classroom of like why was this PBL so awesome, why did this one work? Or why did this one flop, why did this one not work? And it seems like if you go back to the six A's, you can usually kind of use some detective work to figure that out. Do you think that's fair?

Andrew Larson: 11:33

Yep, I do, and I think that there's a caveat, which is that it's really rare that you have a project that really hits in all of those categories, like, if you do, then I got dogs coming in.

Andrew Larson: 11:49

If you do, then you've really struggled, like you've really come on to something. And so I think that instead, you know the way I tend to approach it is is that, if you think of it in terms of a whole year, that you know maintaining balance in those sort of six directions is is is a really surefire way to make you know, to to make sure that your, your course is going to be high quality. You know, and I think you know the reason I say that is because you know the work is hard, and and if you're new at it, you know, and I think you know the reason I say that is because you know the work is hard and and if you're new at it, you know if you, if you try to hit all six A's perfectly, then it's, it's, it's gonna be hard and you're gonna end up frustrated. And so I, you know, throughout the book I encourage people to kind of cut themselves a break and, and you know, throughout the book I encourage people to kind of cut themselves a break, and perfection is overrated.

Ryan Steuer: 12:48

Let's stay there for a second, because you and I are both big fans of John Acuff. I bring him up on the podcast all the time. So that idea of perfection is overrated. I feel like sometimes teachers get stuck in there of trying to be perfect.

Andrew Larson: 13:08

So I think you do a great job throughout the book, but can you give us kind of a a blurb on that too? This perfection's overrated.

Ryan Steuer: 13:14

How do you?

Andrew Larson: 13:14

apply that. Yeah, perfection is the opposite of done Right, and so that's an ACUF. You know euphemism, and so you know, I know, so I can think of, I can think of colleagues that I have, and I mean my own experience too. But, like you have this idea for a project and it's like, oh man, this is perfect. And there's just paralysis with starting because it's like this is going to take so much work to make this all happen. Make this all happen.

Andrew Larson: 13:48

And historically I've had projects like that that just never got off the ground because of the insurmountable amount of preparation it would take. And so what I found was that if I just, you know, take the essential pieces and do those first and just kind of give myself permission to, you know, improve it the next year and the year after that, then they always improve, they never get worse. So, yeah, I have, in the chapter there on aspirations, there's probably my favorite example, which is from a colleague of mine, gail Nowles, who teaches physics, and and she, she really loves electricity, that's her thing. And and so you know she, she had told me long ago she's like when I, when I'm done teaching, I'm gonna go become a licensed electrician, I'm like that's, that's an awesome idea. And so she, um, one year, built, she built like these wooden frames with a couple of outlets and switches, and she would have her kids wire them up and she would have these lab practical exams where they had to, you know, take a circuit diagram and replicate it in real life in this, in this thing.

Andrew Larson: 15:01

And so that was like one year, and then the next year she's like, you know, wouldn't it be cool if we could take this and like, go work on some Habitat for Humanity house somewhere in town? And so she did, you know, they found one and she got some certified electric licensed electricians to help and they rewired their house. And then then she thought, well, man, if I can do this, then why don't we just go to the lower ninth ward in new orleans and and find some houses that have been devastated by the, you know, hurricane katrina and and work on those? So she did it incrementally, you know, and all of that all took, you know, every bit of six years to get to that point. She didn't just jump in and say I'm taking kids to New Orleans and here we go. That would have been crazy.

Ryan Steuer: 15:57

Yeah, that's such a good progression. I think when people move into PBL year one, year two, or even when they come to CSA, they come to see you, you guys are doing your thing, and they hear about the New Orleans project and these different things. It's like, yes, and it's awesome, and kids still talk about it. But that wasn't day one, right, like there's still a progression. You aspire to these things and you work towards them. Yep, I love the idea that projects don't get worse, they just get better. So, like, keep at it right. Like, keep, keep going.

Andrew Larson: 16:25

Absolutely, yeah, super good.

Ryan Steuer: 16:27

Well, we're going to come back to aspirations again. Great place to start right. So when you're looking at one of the reasons I do, I still like life's a project. I love this book. I think it's important to get it in people's hands is just that, because you give kind of your career progression throughout this so we can see kind of where you started.

Ryan Steuer: 16:47

One of my favorite chapters is an assessment. I think people are gonna love the assessment chapter. It's like here's the rubric that I used to use and we've used it, I've used it right. It's like, hey, kids do more, you get a better grade. But then you give us an example where we go deeper right and you start using surface deep and transfer language right To create rubrics that are more than just do more, get better grade. It's more, go deeper right. You're using depth of knowledge type verbs in here. Let's jump to that A if we can, that assessment A, because I think it's one of those. I don't know, I like all the A's, but I think when I think Andrew Larson, I also think like thought leader and assessment, along with project-based learning. So I want to give you a chance to talk about that a little bit. So, wherever you want to go with it, like maybe the progression of, of kind of the original do more, do, do better rubric to a deeper one. What do you think?

Andrew Larson: 17:45

Yeah, I remember being in a workshop one year and somebody had made a rubric and I'm not picking on anybody, but they had a rubric where the advanced column there was sort of a reference to it was some project about cars and I can't remember. It might've been middle school math or something. But, um, you know, in the advanced column there was something like you know, if the student goes and spends a day at a car deal, car dealership, you know shadowing a, a car dealer, then that's advanced. And I thought, well, first of all, that's so unfair. You know, it's like you have to have the ways and means to get to a car dealership and you have somebody to take you there and you have to have the time and whatever else.

Andrew Larson: 18:36

But you know, I think it's just so, and not that that wouldn't be an awesome experience, because it would, but I think that it's so sort of second nature for teachers to just think about more instead of deeper. And you know, do these three things and you'll do well, but if it's five, you'll do better. And so I was really inspired by Michael McDowell. He's a hero of mine and a friend he's. He wrote the forward for the book and so he's written lots and lots of books, including rigorous P, rigorous PBL by design, which is where I first learned about surface deep and transfer. I mean I I don't know if those are his terms, but that's, that's where I learned it from.

Ryan Steuer: 19:29

The project habits another great one by Michael as well. You know developing his habits for PBLs. So yeah, he's a great place to grab some of this knowledge.

Andrew Larson: 19:40

Yep. He wrote another one called teaching for Transfer, which is whoa. It is not light reading. I read it and it's just kind of like every page you have to read it and then your mind wanders for five minutes about all the things you should have done differently or whatever.

Andrew Larson: 19:58

Surface level learning is exactly what it sounds like. You've scratched the surface, You've learned the basic facts associated with a topic. It's the vocabulary, it's the lists and some categories, and so it's important information. And one of the things that Michael makes a real point and left a big impression on me is that the three categories are equally important. It's not like deep is more important and transfer is yet more important. They're all equally important and they all deserve equal time, but nonetheless.

Andrew Larson: 20:40

So, yeah, you know, you do the basic building, you have the basic building, you have the foundational knowledge, and then, with deep level, what you're doing is kind of connecting dots. So you're taking various surface level bits, combining them so that what you're getting at is analyzing and explaining and comparing and contrasting and and those kinds of you know describing those kinds of uh, of action verbs, and then, with transfer, you're really creating, you're really taking all of that and you're doing something new with it. And he even goes so far as to talk about near transfer and far transfer, uh, which is even, you know, more interesting, like, yeah, it kind of like man, I mean, yeah, I would say that everything I've learned about surface deepened transfer level started with that book about surface deep and transfer levels started with that book and um, and then you know, in he he has said to me many times is that you're going to go and take this and make it your own and there's going to be tons of trial and error. And that was completely true, you know, yeah, so I've been working at it for about 10 years and and I I feel pretty good about it now, but I still, I still feel like there's there's there's black holes.

Ryan Steuer: 22:11

Yeah, and and let's try to figure out the balance maybe here a little bit, cause I know, like what it is that you're trying to grasp in here is cause I've had, you know we've had participants in a workshop and they're creating this rubric, and you know they even worked on it like between it's a three day workshop, so they worked on it between days two and three. They spent four hours on it and most of the conversation was around like well, if it's a good presentation versus a great presentation, like what does that mean? And you know we're trying to find the right adjective here to communicate, which I think is part of a rubric. But what is it that you're trying to grasp? As you're working through assessment? You know, as you're progressing through this continuum that you're on, what are you trying to grasp from maybe what you were doing 10 years ago to what you're getting into now?

Andrew Larson: 22:56

Well, I can tell you that the thing that I every anyone who will listen, I'll tell them to make these rubrics, which are purely about content and they have no, almost almost no context that is specific to a project you know. And so, in other words, you know you're not every time you create a new project you might be so inclined to think, well, I need to go write a rubric for that project, and that's certainly what I used to do. I would write, you know, to have a gardening project, and I was like, all right, well, I'm going to think about all the standards related gardening and, you know, turn that into this context specific thing. But then if that project didn't context specific thing, but then if that project didn't pan out and I never wanted to do it again because I hated it, then I was just out of luck and that that time was gone. And so now, you know, now what I do is and I just do this every time I some new course comes along is I will and this is summer work, you know I will write, I'll write a rubric for every standard, or for every clump of standards, and it's just purely the science or it's purely the literacy skills, and it's interchangeable.

Andrew Larson: 24:21

Then it's like I can this uh rubric for any ecology project, doesn't matter if it's about invasive species or if it's, you know, about a creek restoration, it doesn't matter because, because it's all food webs and that stuff, you know so. And then I mean it's not that you only have to do it once, but you have this good foundation for a content rubric and you can refine it and improve it as as you find through experience that you need to. But it's, it's, it's. It's hard to convince people that that's the way you should do it. I mean, maybe it's because it's it seems like a daunting thing, it's like a standard. You know, a rubric for every standard or group of standards still sounds like a lot and I mean it kind of is. But it's. You know, that's the. That's what I choose to do in the summer If I'm doing school. You know, if I'm floating on the lake, that's one thing, but if I'm doing school, I'm going to make standards rubrics.

Ryan Steuer: 25:27

That's right. That's right. So if that piques somebody's interest, that's listening, it's in the book, it's on page 152. If you're watching on YouTube, we'll flash it up on the screen. If you're listening on the podcast, you got to pre-order the book and get to page 152, but kind of walk through this process and what I kind of hear you saying throughout the book is you've got a line in here where you can't assess something that you didn't teach, right. So I guess I kind of feel like maybe you're on this journey of you know, hey, I taught this. How do I, you know, fairly assess this? Is that fair? Is that kind of the journey you're on, or is it? You've also got this idea that you that I love maybe this is worth touching on too that if there's something you want in an end product, make it a checklist, right. If you want there to be a fancy background to the Google slides, make it a checklist, not a good background, great background, excellent background, kind of thing.

Andrew Larson: 26:28

Yes, absolutely. We all have specific look fors with the final product and there's no reason why you shouldn't have those specific look fors, because those are the kinds of things that the world of work demands. And, for the most part, when an employer is saying these are the things I look for, what they're doing is they're rattling off a list. I want it to be pretty, first and foremost. I want it to be easy to read. I want it to be cutting-edge technology or whatever. They're just going to rattle it off. You know, there's not, there are there, really aren't rubrics in most jobs. I mean, that is kind of an education thing. So you know this.

Andrew Larson: 27:13

And kids like checklists. I mean they're concrete, and so there's no reason why those two things can't can coexist. And it's kind of funny because I remember a colleague of mine. Um, we taught biology together and she used to give kids checklists and at first I turned up my nose. I'm like, oh, that's what is that? I mean that's just, that's just too elementary, and um, and I probably should text her and say, you know, I, I was really wrong about that. I mean, I think you have to have both, yeah, but, um, you know, like rubrics are good guides. I mean, they're not the end-all, be-all to solve all problems. They provide good clarity and that's, that's, you know, a wonderful thing for everyone involved, for a student and teacher.

Ryan Steuer: 28:06

Yeah, I do, I think you, I think you laid out in the book. That makes it a positive experience for both and even for teachers, where you know if you are taking up, like have your pool time, but when you're doing school time, like this is a tool that benefits you year after year. And then, before we move on to the next another A, if somebody does want to get some more on Michael McDowell, we actually had him on the podcast, so episode 145, we'll put it in the show notes and you can listen to my conversation with Michael McDowell. But let's jump to another A. What's that?

Andrew Larson: 28:36

I want to listen to that.

Ryan Steuer: 28:37

Yeah, you've got to get that one. He's fantastic and the more I get into his books I don't even know if this was actually in the episode or if it was pre or post, but he's just like. I like to write books, michael, I like that. You like to write books. Keep doing that, brother.

Ryan Steuer: 28:57

So in the A academic rigor and the book is page 128, you've got this idea. Here's the sentence it says. Simply put PBL goes further and deeper into the content than the standards often stipulate. You've got a graphic of depth of knowledge verbs on here. But PBL goes further and deeper into the content than the standards often stipulate. Can you pull the thread on that?

Ryan Steuer: 29:21

We'll get back to the episode in just a minute, but I want you to know about magnify learning, design days. Design days is a two day workshop held at one of our PBL model schools, to a school or a district that's operating a really high level with project based learning, and we're gonna take you and your leadership team, a group of 10 or less made up of you, assistant principals, coaches, teachers that are all starting to plan out the next three years of PBL implementation. If you just start and hope it's going to work, it's probably going to fizzle. So what about a three-year plan where you think about all the different stakeholders, we think about the values, we think about the rollout, think about which teachers on your leadership team could start to implement and start to have your own local success stories around PBL that you can share with your staff. That goes a really long way and you're going to do it at one of our model schools, so you and your team get to ask questions of that local principal, the teachers, the learners that are in the classroom. You get to go see it and then we pull you back out and one of our facilitators helps you and your team plan.

Ryan Steuer: 30:25

As the leader, you get to be a part of the planning process, not just driving at home or pulling people along. You're gonna leave those two days with a grassroots movement. You're gonna leave with momentum for your PBL vision. This is the way to start. We've done it a lot of different ways. We've seen other groups do it. We've been doing this for a decade. Those schools that start with design days and keep those going implement strong and a lot of times faster than you might otherwise, because you have more people moving in the right direction and they know what the goal is. So look in the description, get it. Get an overview of our magnified learning, design days, schedule a call let's jump in and partner. Now back to the episode.

Andrew Larson: 31:10

Yeah, so what we say is that PBL has so many value-added pieces. You know, I think any school can teach the standards, any school can teach the standards, and with PBL we're asking kids to learn the standards and learn them well and then apply them in authentic ways that solve real world problems and, you know, sort of shine a light on the ways where these standards are present in life and all of life's rich challenges. So I think that, all things being equal, you know, and I know you have talked on many episodes about performance on tests and things so project-based learning is, if nothing more I mean, even if scores are the same it's this value-added component where students are getting a rich insight into why school matters like the whole. Why do we have to learn this? I mean, a good, good project.

Ryan Steuer: 32:24

It should be, it should be pretty evident, self-evident, and it should be pretty obvious, um, why these things have exist in school because they exist in life right, yeah, so we're going to uncover and master the standards and, right, we're going to apply them into a real, authentic scenario, authenticity being another a that you cover. You've got this through line.

Ryan Steuer: 32:45

that goes throughout the book as well, around the importance of the teacher in a PBL classroom, the facilitator, and there's kind of this myth out there that the students kind of Lord of the Flies and somehow it ends up good right, and so you tackle that myth straight on. Can you talk about the importance of a facilitator in the classroom?

Andrew Larson: 33:03

of a facilitator in the classroom? I would love to. I mean so. I think a lot, a lot, a lot of schools, a lot of administrators, a lot of teachers have this misconception that in PBL it's students running the show. There's certainly a lot of really impressive, inspiring showcases of student work where students are running the thing. It's clear that they are, but behind the curtains the teachers either are or should be providing the very specific scaffolding to help get kids to that point.

Andrew Larson: 33:47

And you know it's the job of a professional educator to create a sequence. You know this is the obvious first step and this is the obvious next step. And it's obvious to a trained professional educator, but it's not obvious to students, or at least not most students, and there are very few students that you'll encounter that truly want teachers to get out of the way and just let them do their thing. You know that's. That's not a dig on teenagers or any, any student. That's just, it's just human nature.

Andrew Larson: 34:26

You know they're, they're just not, they're not at that point in their development where you know they can. They can manage all of all of the abstractions of of learning a thing with fidelity, unless there is a teacher that's guiding that process. And you know, these days with learning management systems you can lay things out really sequentially or less sequentially. It doesn't all have to be lockstep, you know. But yeah, we've found, you know, and I teach high school, but ninth grade nonetheless, and they thrive in the structure that we give them. And you know I would be the first to admit that. You know, at 12th grade there's less structure. You know, they're further along. Their brains are different organs at that point in their life and so developmentally appropriate facilitation is just fundamental to it working.

Ryan Steuer: 35:26

Yeah, but I think some people would maybe be surprised that you know here in the conclusion, towards the end even you're talking about have a routine right Like you, and throughout the book you mentioned word of the day, independent reading time. You know very structured journaling time, right To get kids into literacy and writing. So these routines are part of your classroom.

Andrew Larson: 35:45

Yes.

Andrew Larson: 35:47

Yes they are, and I'll be the first to admit that. You know my teaching partner, who comes from a more traditional background, you know I learned from everybody and I you know he was one of he was a big influence on me in that respect. You know he's like I've been doing these things, I know they work and you know, let's, let's try to marry them together and it's kind of funny like we have block schedule, 87 minutes and and part of that came out of. You know, he just made a comment about maybe two months or so into our co-teaching relationship where he's like I just I feel like we're like micro planning everything and it's just too much. And I'm like all right, I'm listening, you know, what do you think? And so he kind of put this forward and it's been a real challenge savior.

Andrew Larson: 36:43

You know, on the sanity end of things, you know we kind of know, we know what, what's going to happen, and I mean it. It kids benefit from the structure. There's no, there's no question. Um, and you know, and not to mention uh, these are SAT words. You know, these are serious vocabulary words. You know no joke.

Ryan Steuer: 37:06

And so there, there, there's a lot of really good literacy that um that coexists with, uh, you know kind of outside of the project context well, I think, um, you know, as we define really great pbl environments, um, intentional innovation, I think, is super important just to figure out, you know, what's working in our ecosystem, where we're at Right. So it's like skill and drill Okay, that's, that's bad. Maybe, like, where does it have a place where it fits? Or is, you know, is there some kind of a continuum or pendulum? Like, maybe it does fit somewhere. It's. There's not a whole lot of. You know. People will say, well, what do you have to do to do PBL? Well, well, that's a do to do PBL well, well, that's a really tough question, right? There's a lot of different things that make PBL work in different scenarios and different ecosystems.

Ryan Steuer: 37:54

So, andrew, I want to skip to the seventh A that you've created, right? So six A's are what Adrian has that creates really great PBL environments, but I like this last one that you have called aspirations. Right, there's this idea of you know, you call it this. It's a simple act of asking what if. So where's the power of aspiration, the power of the what if? Question?

Andrew Larson: 38:15

Absolutely. And so you know, we, I'm lucky to be surrounded by a lot of people who just love to spitball big ideas, people who just love to spitball big ideas. And those big ideas, sometimes they might sit in a corner for years, but they're there. Somebody brought it up. You know, a really nice thing to have somewhere on your wall is a parking lot. You know, a parking lot for great ideas.

Andrew Larson: 38:43

And so some of those parking lot ideas, you walk past it every day and you glance at it and every time you think about it a little bit more and uh, yeah, and but on a more, on a more sort of everyday level, you know you might have a project where, um, uh, you know it just starts small and you just think, well, this is what I can manage for now, but what if I have momentum and these things work out and we get a little money or whatever? And you know we could go with it. So, like, my personal favorite example would be back in the pandemic. So you know I was having to sort of think of things that kids could do from home, and so I was having them gather seeds, tree seeds, and, you know, trying to grow them, and you know like none of them grew at first.

Andrew Larson: 39:40

And that was in part because we weren't together and they didn't know what they were doing and whatever. But we took that idea and each year we built it a little bit and and as it sits now, you know, four years later, we have across the street from our school a tree nursery, you know, with, oh I don't know, about 50, 53 year old trees planted in it. And here in a couple of weeks we're going to dig up one of those trees and we're going to go and plant it at one of our community partners properties, just as a sort of a token of goodwill for the help that he's given us. And across the street there's this outdoor indoor sports complex owned by the city parks and, you know, we're going to grow trees for them.

Andrew Larson: 40:29

And it all started from just a real basic iteration of I really like trees and I want kids to learn how to grow trees. Let's see, let's see where we can go from here, given a few years. So, and I honestly feel like you know, the tree nursery is like one of my absolute proudest accomplishments in terms of something that we've been able to pull off and feel like, yep, I can retire now. I mean, somebody can roll with it from here, but I mean, it was as a real milestone for me, so, so, and it was our kids, our kids, just, you know, they've really, they've really embraced the whole idea of, uh, of what it means to you know to do something big like that.

Ryan Steuer: 41:18

Well, it's, it's such a big deal and these are the things of like I think we talked earlier about going above and beyond standards right, like when you grow a tree, or like it's something that's going to be there 20 years from now. Like how many things are any of us doing where it's going to be like man 20 years from now? Like you know, getting teenagers to think 20 years ahead, it's such a big win. It's not a standard, it's not something anybody's asking us to do, but you know, kind of in your opening of your why it's like we're trying to create informed citizens that care about their environment and their world and relationships and growing a tree, I feel like that's one right Cause, it's like you know. So I just love it.

Ryan Steuer: 41:55

So, as we look at this book, life's a project and I mean you've. You've run workshops, you've done consulting with schools, you've done a lot of this work. You've been in the classroom, you know innovating, for a real long time. At this point, my friend, who do you think is going to benefit from this book? Like, who do you want to make sure like it gets into their hands? What type of teacher or how would you define that?

Andrew Larson: 42:21

Yeah it's. It's not necessarily a beginner book. I mean I think, yeah, I think it's fair.

Andrew Larson: 42:29

Yeah, you know, I think it's for teachers who have tried and they have big questions about you know well, should I have thought of this, done this, you know and like? And also it's also for somebody who is really thinking about doing project-based learning, sort of over the course of a year as opposed to a one-off. So it's like developing the routines and the mindset to do it over the longer term a year or more, a year 10, whatever, um. So I, I think those kinds of people, um, are the ones who should read the most. And I think, um, I think the administrators need to need to get, get their nose in it, because I think assessment systems are, by and large, a sort of a larger category or hierarchy, and to do assessment better, you know you can't be in a silo, you know you got to have a whole bunch of people who are trying it together, because there's going to be successes and failures, and so I think the administrators kind of create that, or at least department chairs or whatever, but somebody at the, at the next level, up from a classroom. So so those are the groups that come to mind immediately, and then, of course, anybody.

Andrew Larson: 44:10

You know it's called Life's a Project, because, for me, I'm in large part inspired by stuff that happens outside of the classroom, and so I think that people who are sort of education curious in general should read it, because it's there's a tremendous amount of overlap between the stuff that happens out there in the big world and the stuff that happens in a PBL classroom. It's, you know, our, our classrooms are, are are more real. I think I can say that you know they are more real than than than most, and so, uh, yeah, that's my shameless way of saying everybody should just go and read this book. But you know, it's fun to just give give people a lens into the classroom that don't otherwise have it.

Ryan Steuer: 45:02

I think so. Um, I I'm not exactly sure how to convey this to the audience, but I think you did a great job of because you give us a peek into personal and education life. Your stories overlap. There's a real accessibility to it. We maybe talked about some pretty geeky assessment practices, but it's couched in these stories that are super approachable.

Ryan Steuer: 45:26

That you are drawing this life's a project Like it's definitely applying even for teachers, right. Like you talk about how PBL is going to change your life and open things up. So so, yeah, everybody needs to get this book right. And then you also need to get one for a friend, because they need it too. So I think, if you're a veteran PBLer, I think for sure like it's a no brainer. I guess that's like a what is it? The one click on Amazon, just just one click it. And I like the idea of administrators too, because there's some structures in here that need to be that it's helpful to have them in place to support teachers.

Ryan Steuer: 46:04

And I wonder about what about Andrew? Like in year 15, when you were still kind of teaching traditionally, but you know what? What about Andrew like in year 15, when you were still kind of teaching traditionally, but you know, you had an itch, like there was something like hey, I think there's more to this whole teacher thing. Like there's, this isn't exactly how I always wanted to teach. I wonder about this book as an inspiration piece of like. Well, let me look at this PPL thing. I've heard some myths, I've heard some things, but what does somebody who's like gone into this deep what's that look like?

Andrew Larson: 46:30

Sure, yeah, I mean I, when I read McDowell's book, it was several kind of levels over my head and it really propelled me to kind of ratchet up my learning. So I think this book could be that for for some people, you know, like I was, I was 10 years in in a traditional setting and I was, I was really starting to get quite bored and um, and I didn't, I didn't know what I wanted, I just knew I wanted something more and more authentic, and so I mean I mean I think that that quite, quite assuredly, you know, this book could answer that question for people you know, to a level that I didn't have. You know, at the end of the day, I mean I want, I want this book to shorten the learning curve for people to get into, to get into authentic learning with kids.

Ryan Steuer: 47:28

Yeah, gosh, I would plus one that that gets me excited about that audience, cause I went from engineering to teaching and taught traditionally for a while and it's like this isn't what I want, right? This isn't why I moved from engineering to teaching, and I do. I feel like lifestyle project gives me that because there's such an aspirational feel that, even if some of the assessment stuff which would have been way over my head at the time, the aspiration was like yes, that's how I want to teach, those are the experiences I want my learners to have, these are experiences I want to bring, and then it would have taken me a decade to move into those. But I think the inspiration is there and then I think there's a lot of ways to grow into that and a lot of encouragement for teachers to give themselves permission to grow into that.

Andrew Larson: 48:09

So Yep, and to just embrace the idea of being imperfect and just kind of trying, trying some things and and and building on it, Yep.

Ryan Steuer: 48:21

So good, all right. So if you want to have a cup of coffee with Andrew Larson and talk about PBL 42 cups of coffee, maybe. Grab a copy of the book. Andrew, thanks for coming on to talk about the book today. Appreciate it. Yeah, it was a great chat. I appreciate you, ryan, thanks.

Ryan Steuer: 48:43

Project the six A's of project-based learning. Again, if you're listening to this podcast, you're a movement maker. You're here for a reason and you should just again, you should one-click this in Amazon, make sure you pre-order it so that you get all the freebies that come along with it, and once you do, give us some feedback on that, let's get back to Andrew on that. He can answer some questions for you. We can have him back on the podcast to answer those questions, just like we do. So you go to pblsharecom, you can put those questions in there, and then we can have another episode talking about the book once it's out, which sounds super exciting, which is an idea we just came up with, but I think it's going to be awesome. So do that, and then, as you do that, you're going to go out there and you're going to create learning environments that are absolutely spectacular, where you're uncovering and crushing standards, applying them authentically and creating awesome experiences for your kids. So go out and lead inspired.

Ryan Steuer: 49:38

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the PBL Simplified Podcast. I appreciate you and honor that you tune in each week. Would you please take two minutes to leave a rating and a review? When you leave a review, it lets the next person know that this is a podcast worth listening to. When they go into their player and search project-based learning, and PBL Simplified popped up. When they see those reviews, they know that high-quality, visionary leaders are listening, so they tune in too and they can find their way into the PBL journey. Thank you so much for leavingBL journey. Thank you so much for leaving a review. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you.