Celebrating 200 Episodes! Top 10 Teacher Project Based Learning Moves | E200

Join us as we celebrate the 200th episode of the PBL Simplified Podcast, marking a significant milestone in our journey. Thank you for helping this podcast be in the top 5% of all podcasts worldwide. We reflect on our growth and dedication to revolutionizing classrooms with practical insights from educators and leaders. Plus, don't miss out on our upcoming virtual conference on October 16th and the treasure trove of resources available through the PBL Movement online community.

In this special episode, we pivot from celebration to action by sharing 20 essential PBL tips and tricks, starting with 10 invaluable tips for teachers. We crafted a list of 200 tips but honed in on the most impactful ones to elevate your teaching strategies. To show our gratitude for your support over the past six years, we announce an exciting book giveaway. Participate by visiting pblshare.com and sharing your wins or challenges in PBL.

We delve into the nuts and bolts of effective PBL teaching strategies, emphasizing the importance of aligning with key standards, crafting clear driving questions, and using entry events to engage students from the get-go. Learn why community partners are crucial for authentic learning experiences and how giving students voice and choice can enhance their educational journey. We also discuss the creation of end products and the value of practice presentations, ensuring your PBL implementation is both intentional and impactful. Tune in for a wealth of insights that will transform your approach to Project Based Learning!

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Chapters

• 0:00 Celebrating 200 Episodes and PBL Movement
• 3:05 PBL Tips and Tricks Celebratory Giveaway
• 6:08 Effective PBL Teaching Strategies
• 12:53 Importance of Community Partners in PBL

Transcript

Ryan Steuer: 0:00

200 episodes, get the fireworks out and the party favors. We've been doing this a while, folks. Thanks for joining me. Welcome to the PBL Simplified Podcast, where we add value to you, the movement maker, because we know that when you lead inspired, everybody wins. So we've been doing this for about a decade and we've been doing 200 episodes now happening today and we just want you to know that we're obsessed with helping you transform your classroom, whatever we need to do. That's why we've got a YouTube channel, we've got a bunch of social media stuff, we've got this podcast and why we've been doing it consistently for a very long time.

Ryan Steuer: 0:39

And as we do that, I think there's a good lesson in here, because it hasn't always been exactly the same right. If you go back to episode 197, I actually interviewed Josh Giebel, who's a principal of one of our model schools, and he was actually one of the original hosts, along with Andrea Bailey, another great PBLer, and we've done a lot of different things. If you've been with us for all 200 episodes, you remember when this was actually called the PBL Playbook and there was kind of a sports theme to it. And if you really have been here the whole time, you remember when the whistle was just a little too loud for those breaks. We did like a PBL break kind of thing and it was awesome. But what's always been the same is the boots on the ground. Take, for project-based learning, the idea that when we have guests on the podcast, that we're interviewing boots on the ground, leaders and teachers in the classroom doing the work. We don't want to get stuck in the theory. We don't want to even get stuck in the research, even though it's all there the theory and the research is there. We want to be boots on the ground. Why? Because we want to know what's working right now in your classroom and in your schools so that we can share that with others across the country, which is why we're having a virtual conference October 16th. October 16th Look in the show notes.

Ryan Steuer: 1:54

You can sign up for the PBL Movement online community and when you get into the community for a full year, you get any virtual conference free year. You get any virtual conference free. So we're also going to give you a one pager with five reasons why your principal should put you in the PBL movement online community for the price of one day at a live conference. You're going to get a whole year of resources. It is the most active PBL online community in the world. We've got courses, we've got resources. We've got a Facebook community that is super active. We actually have paid moderators in there to make sure that things are moving and make sure that you're getting the resources that you need.

Ryan Steuer: 2:35

Your questions are answered. It's awesome. And now we're adding this virtual conference, so you can actually go to our virtual conference and you get a whole year's worth of resources free, along with that paid ticket. Isn't that awesome? I think that's awesome. I think you're going to love it. I think you should jump in. There's actually a free boot camp for that. Stay tuned to the email sequences we send out those kind of things so that you can get more info. Well, of course, we'll put it in the show notes for the podcast.

Ryan Steuer: 3:05

Now what's our episode today? What do you do in the 200th episode, right? Do you go back and look at the top guests, the best episodes? That didn't feel quite right. I think we did that at 100. Actually, I think it was actually really well received, but we got a little different idea. So what if we did 200 tips and tricks for project based learning? Yeah, you're right, that would take like 20 episodes to get done. So what if we did 10% of that idea? So instead of 200 PBL tips and tricks, let's try 20. And even as we plan that out, that's probably too many for one episode, so let's split that in two. So what we're going to do is we're going to do 10 PBL tips and tricks for teachers today and then next week we'll do 10 PBL tips and tricks for administrators. But before we jump in, let's give away some books.

Ryan Steuer: 3:54

We love to give away books. A lot of us have all you know. You just start with a book study, start with a school tour. This is a great way to start your movement. Start with a school tour, start with a book study. So you're starting with a small group of passionate people that believe that things could look different. That's how all movements start, right? So that's how all movements start.

Ryan Steuer: 4:17

So let's give away some books. We've got Inquiry Mindset from Trevor McKenzie. We've got PBL Simplified from yours truly. You've got Life's a Project by Andrew Larson, pbl Stories and Structures, which is my first book. Some people still love that one. It's a little shorter and some people like that right, like you can just bust through it in an hour and a half or two hours, depending how fast you read, but it's got again a quick hit of that book study. Some people really like that idea.

Ryan Steuer: 4:46

So how do you get the book? Here's what you do you go to pblsharecom, pblsharecom, and you can do one of two things. You can share a win or you can share a need to know. Share a win or share a need to know. It puts you into a raffle, if you will, but we're going to give away a lot of books. I'm you into a raffle if you will, but we're going to give away a lot of books. I want to give away five of each of these. So I want you to have these books. I want you to start a book study Again.

Ryan Steuer: 5:10

We've been doing this a long time. 200 episodes, that's a long time. That's like six years. It's a lot of seasons. It's a lot of seasons. My friends and you've been listening and we appreciate it and we want to appreciate you. So go to pblsharecom. Anda Google form will pop up, or you can leave a message on our voicemail and you can leave a win or a need to know. Either way, we're going to send you out a book. All right, I think it's going to be great. We're trying to celebrate here 200 episodes.

Ryan Steuer: 5:39

So what are we going to get into today? We're going to get into 10 tips and tricks for project-based learning, and let's do it. They are going to be somewhat in order, not fully in order. So the first one let's call it number 10, if you will is going to be to start with standards. Now, starting with standards in PBL, we do this for all of our trainings.

Ryan Steuer: 6:08

If you get into a jumpstart, the first thing we're going to do is we're going to ask you to find your big standards right, like argumentative writing versus haikus. Right? Haikus? Is it a standard? Yes, it is. Does it hold the same weight as argumentative writing? No, it does not. You should not spend the same amount of time on haikus as you do on argumentative writing, right? They're just different standards and you can do that for power standards, essential standards, whatever you call them in your state or your country. They're those big beefy standards we know all of our learners need to have and they get multiple skills as they're mastering these standards, and we think that every PBL unit can start with standards because they kind of have to right In today's day and age. You don't get to do a PBL unit outside of standards most of the time. So we're going to start there and most of the time I mean sometimes we feel like we're handcuffed by standards.

Ryan Steuer: 6:57

But if you are going to write down just the things you want your learners to have in their back pocket, things you want them to master, a lot of times it revolves around those same standards you come up with really about the same list. So super important step really to know your standards. And I think what happened for me personally is once I got into project-based learning, I actually learned my standards way better than before I was teaching traditionally. I did about half and half. I started traditionally because that's all I knew and I realized it wasn't working.

Ryan Steuer: 7:26

So I moved to PBL and in our school, within a school, we mix the four core areas and what we did is one of my favorite exercises we ever did was on these huge dry erase walls we just put our big beefy standards and it's an important step because you know, as a science teacher, you need to know your standards because you are the gateway between your standards and real life applicability. You are the best person to do that and even if you're stumped right now, get with other science teachers, but you are the best person to do that. So we put all these standards on the walls all the history standards, the science standards, the math standards, the English standards and then we figured out where they overlapped. And then that's how we made PBL units and it was so strong. Before that, when I was teaching traditionally, I just taught whatever came up in the book or whatever my mentor teacher did, and to do my curriculum map, we literally just copy and pasted it. I had no idea what it said, no idea what it meant, but the intentionality of project-based learning made me such a better teacher and led to such better outcomes for my learners implemented PBL and it was a small learning community in a failing school.

Ryan Steuer: 8:33

We would have been a B on standardized tests With 25% of the kids. We had 8% of the discipline and I think the school averaged like 95% as far as attendance. But we were a percent and a half higher than that. And urban school is such a big deal, such a big deal. Anyway, standards, you got to start there. Why is it number 10? It's just not as exciting. That's kind of a. It just needs to be in your system. It should be in your planning form. Any planning form we have is going to be set with standards. If you need one of those again, you can go to pblsharecom and I'll just find it for you and send it to you.

Ryan Steuer: 9:08

So number nine tips and tricks for teachers driving question. Tips and tricks for teachers have a driving question. Why? Because if you don't know, then you probably aren't ready to launch your PBL unit. So for you, in planning PBL units, if you can't have a driving question that defines what it is your learners are going to be doing for the next four to six weeks, you're probably not ready to launch that. Say, well, I've got a couple, I'm not sure. Yep, you probably need to refine that. And what's it do for your learners? For your learners it's going to help them understand why you're doing all the things you're doing for those four weeks. They all come back to this driving question. Do you have to call it a driving question? I suppose you don't have to, but a lot of times essential question means something different in your district. So driving question just adopting that vocabulary sometimes just lets kids know and lets parents know, lets everybody know you're doing something different and that's positive, because then your next one is going to be an entry event, and that's not a normal term either.

Ryan Steuer: 10:08

So we got number eight is entry event, and this is where you're going to launch your PBL unit. You're going to bring excitement, you're going to bring engagement, and if you're not bringing excitement and engagement on day one, how do you think days two, three, four, five or like day 14, what's that going to look like? So does it take extra time to have an entry event? It does, it does. It's probably not in your traditional unit, but when extra time to have an entry event, it does, it does. It's probably not in your traditional unit, but when you're starting a traditional unit, wouldn't you want your learners to lean in just a little closer with inquiry and engagement, to know what they're going to be doing over the next four weeks? They know why everything fits. They stop asking that question of why are we doing this? Because they actually know. So. Entry events are super powerful, great way to introduce a community partner. Got to have them in there.

Ryan Steuer: 10:55

Group contracts Group contracts will make your life better instantly. If you don't have them, I think you can go to our website and download them. You can get in the PBL movement online community. We've got the resources there. Grouping is tricky, it's hard Most of the time. We don't like it because things become unfair because of workloads and really what happens is nobody knows how to work in a group kids or adults right? We've never been trained. That's what group contracts help us do. If you can get a consistent group contract, especially if you're a school system, if you can get a consistent group contract across grade levels or content areas, then everybody knows the expectations when they get into groups and you'd be surprised 85%, 90% of your learners are going to follow those expectations. Once they're clear and they've agreed to them, are they going to be perfect? No, of course not. But what if you got rid of 85% of your grouping issues? Would your life be better? 100%. Would your learner outcomes be better? 110%. So group contracts All right.

Ryan Steuer: 11:58

Next one bring in a community partner. We are starting to build up to number one for teacher PBL tips and tricks. This is one that you can actually do before you go to PBL, before you switch to the instructional model of project based learning, which, again, I recommend that you get training. Obviously, I've devoted my life to project-based learning and the training of such instructional models. So I'm a big believer in this. But when you do this on your own, a lot of times you're not sure if you're doing it right. You're starting to define PBL for others. And if you're asking other people if you're a leader, listening to the teacher PBL tips and tricks one, that's a good idea so that you can communicate them. But two, asking your teachers to do PBL without training is like testing learners without giving them any kind of education on it. Right, without teaching them something, but you're going to test them on it. It doesn't make sense. It's not congruent. That felt like a rabbit trail.

Ryan Steuer: 12:53

Community partners are incredibly important because they bring authenticity to your PBL. This is where we get a little snobby. This is and when I say snobby it's just because it's a core value for us. We do not bend on this. You need to have authentic PBLs where your learners are solving real world problems so that they're authentically getting the employability skills. You can't do critical thinking. You can't fake an interaction with a community partner. There's no way to do that authentically because even if you pretend to be the community partner, we know you're not. There is an aura, a mystery, a nervousness that happens when someone walks in in a suit and we don't know who they are, and that's the same nervousness that happens when one of your learners goes to an interview. And we want the nervousness to be less. We want them to be comfortable, we want them to know what to do. We want them to know how to give a good handshake, which is one of my favorite workshops. We want them to know how to give eye contact when they give that handshake, because most interviews are over like 20 seconds in the people hiring have made that decision on how you carry yourself and how you're going to interact in a work environment. So we've got to have community partners to help us do that All right.

Ryan Steuer: 14:09

Next one is voice and choice. Voice and choice they get lumped together because they rhyme, but you want your learners to have a voice. So now this could be a voice team that comes in during lunch to give you some feedback. It could be as simple as likes and wonders after a PBL unit, and then you act on that. You're listening to their voice and you're acting on it. Most teenagers do not believe that adults listen to them and act on that. You're listening to their voice and you're acting on it. Most teenagers do not believe that adults listen to them and act on that, probably because most adults don't. You want to be the adult that does. You listen and then you act on that. That's giving your learners a voice.

Ryan Steuer: 14:46

And then what about choice? There's a lot of different ways to give choice. It does not have to be willy-nilly. You're giving choice, not the keys, to your learners, right? You're not giving the keys to your car. That's a bad idea. If you've ever had that happen in your district, it's not good. The car ends up in the ditch most of the time. So same thing happens. If you just give up full control of your classroom without any kind of instruction or helps or build up or training. You're going to end up in the ditch. So, give some choice. Give appropriate choice. Well, how do you know it's appropriate? Well, it's based on your experience level as a PBL facilitator. It's based on your learner's experience level as being learners in a PBL environment. You know, if you go to one of our model schools that's K-12 and you get to sophomore or junior year, there's a ton of choice in there. That choice looks different than it does for the first graders who have just been in the system. So there's a lot of factors that go into voice and choice. But every time you increase voice and choice, you increase autonomy and you increase engagement levels. So the more the better, but make sure it's appropriate so you don't end up in a ditch.

Ryan Steuer: 15:57

So number seven is going to be end products. End products are what your learners maybe are creating, making they're presenting at the end of a PBL unit. They've maybe been creating this thing for four weeks now, right? They've been doing that throughout. They're learning things so that they can create the best authentic end product. And it might be a prototype, right? It might be a five paragraph essay. It might be a PSA, it might be some marketing materials for a local nonprofit. It might be the presentation itself to authentic community partners.

Ryan Steuer: 16:33

There's a lot of different ways to create an end product. You know we've got a course on that in the online community because there are so many different variations, but it is a place where we get stuck sometimes, right, you've got a great idea. I'm like well, what are my learners going to create and make that makes sense in my timeframe, right? So there are a lot of variables. Again, I'm going to continue to pitch the online community because it's been so awesome and so active. But you just ask in the online community or in your local group, like your local PLN. You ask them hey, here are my standards. Here's my entry event. I'm really fired up about this community partner. What could be my end product? And just start to brainstorm with people. Brainstorm with people that are not in your normal circle, too. If you're an elementary teacher, go to middle school, high school and vice versa. Get some different viewpoints. It works every time. Okay. Next one when are we at? This is number three. We're on top three right now.

Ryan Steuer: 17:28

Practice presentations. Practice presentations they're a must-have. They are a must-have for you because you should know what your learners are going to say when it comes to real presentations. It's a must-have for your because you should know what your learners are going to say when it comes to real presentations. It's a must-have for your learners because they need a high-stakes event to practice that same idea. They need something that's got a little bit of nervousness, but not 100% nervousness. Don't put them in front of a community partner without them having practiced. They need that extra event. Them having practiced right, they need that extra event.

Ryan Steuer: 18:00

If you've read any of my books, you know the story where I messed this up. This is where I learned this. I had to apologize to a learner. I put Chris in a position where he was not ready and he kind of freaked out and I felt like I was gently pushing him. I was trying to be encouraging why don't you try again? And I felt like I was gently pushing him, I was trying to be encouraging why don't you try again? Why don't you try again? And then Chris kind of melted a bit and he flipped the bird with both hands to the entire class and said I'm out. Okay, that's an awkward one, right, but totally my fault, totally my fault. It was not Chris's fault. Totally my fault. It was not Chris's fault. I should have had a practice presentation in there for him to get some of that out, for me to know where his struggle point was. It was beyond like he got into fight or flight and I didn't know that. I didn't realize that at the time.

Ryan Steuer: 18:52

So practice presentations are an opportunity to do that. They've got to be in there. And bonus tip here this is 3.5, is you've got to have a day in between to revise. Otherwise what's the point of the practice presentation? By the way I've been in this ditch too Practice presentation and then presentation. Guess what? They're all exactly the same. They don't have time to fix it, so you have to have a revision day in between practice presentations and actual presentations. That just saved you a bunch of heartache right there, just number three, and technically, 3.5. What is number two? I've kind of touched on it, but it's because I talk about it a lot.

Ryan Steuer: 19:30

It's authentic PBL, project-based learning that actually solves a problem. It puts your learners in the driver's seat. It gives them responsibility. It puts them on the hook for communicating an important idea to important people. You're raising the level of importance of the work that's happening in your classroom. It is a big deal. It's a culture piece. Once it's established, you can feel it. That's why I suggest you go visit a model school, because you can feel the difference. You say, well, what is it? It's a lot of things, but it's authentic PBL. You do not get there with scenario projects. It will not happen.

Ryan Steuer: 20:11

It's the difference between listening to an architect online and then creating tiny houses out of cardboard so that they can serve people in the community. And maybe you do present that to an authentic audience, to an architect. Right, there are a lot of skills that can happen. You can do some collaboration, but at the end of the day, we know that those tiny houses end up in the garbage. They end up in the dumpster. You have to let the janitor know that, hey, I'm going to fill it up on Friday, right, because they're all due. I'm grading them all, I'm going to pound it out and then they're all going to be in the dumpster. So I hope there's enough room. Versus, the architect comes in, gives a talk to these third graders and you're actually going to build the tiny houses. By the way, these are both real examples. The construction general contractor comes in, looks at the ideas, picks several parts of those ideas and then builds a tiny house that military families live in when they transfer into your town until they find their permanent housing.

Ryan Steuer: 21:19

Which one has more impact? Which one has more opportunity to build employability skills? It's just hands down. The authentic PBL, authentic PBL, is number two, super important. The only one it trumps is number one, which is live your. Why, live your?

Ryan Steuer: 21:36

Why there's a reason that you got into teaching, and it is not standards, it is not busy work, it is not long meetings although we're working on fixing meetings. It is because you like to see the light bulb moments with your learners. You want to present your learners with opportunities that they have never had. You had a fantastic teacher that changed your life in your K-12 education and you want to be that teacher for these kids. Or some of you had an awful teacher in your K-12 education. You said I didn't deserve that. No kid deserves that. I'm going to make sure that kids get something different, but in somewhere you've got a why that matters to you and you've got one that you can put on a post-it note and tell your colleagues, and you've got another one inside of you. That's probably a little bit deeper than that. It's an experience. It's something that you want to share with the world and this is how you do it. This is how you do it.

Ryan Steuer: 22:36

How do I know? Because I was an engineer. I was in a job that everybody told me I should like and I didn't and I quit and I went to go teach eighth grade English in urban school in Indianapolis and I taught traditionally and I watched my learners love me and have great relationships. I loved them and I watched them fail. I watched them drop out of high school when I taught traditionally and then I switched to project-based learning and a light bulb went off. A light switch went off in me, where I am now.

Ryan Steuer: 23:08

This is why I left engineering. This is why I'm on the planet, because now I see learners lighting up Learners that have gotten 20% in other classes and then they come into a project-based learning room with me and now suddenly they're doing all of their work, they're learning, they're communicating with community partners, and now I see them right on Facebook and I see them like crushing it entrepreneurially. I see them getting raises at work. I see them having successful marriages, and it comes back to the intentionality that we had in project-based learning. They know how to define a problem. They know how to solve it. It's amazing. This is why you got into teaching. When you get into project-based learning, when you start your movement and you get more people involved, you begin to live your why, and that is so empowering. It helps you skip the snooze button, it helps you get up in the morning, it helps Monday be awesome. That is the number one reason, the number one tip and trick of project-based learning.

Ryan Steuer: 24:05

After 200 episodes of doing this, I'm telling you having all kinds of guests on, we have these guests on that are fired up about the work and all the other things fall into place. All the resources, the courses, things you need to learn they're all there. We need to ignite your why. That's what gets you fired up. Wow, thanks for tuning in to episode 200. This is exciting.

Ryan Steuer: 24:29

Don't forget, go to pblsharecom. When you do, we're going to get you a free book. Make sure in that somewhere that you put what book you want so you can get Inquiry Mindset by Trevor McKenzie. We love his work. It's inquiry that gets you to lean in. It's not a fancy bell ringer, it's more than that. You've got PBL Simplified Life's a Project or PBL Stories and Structures Any one of those books. Jump on there. Share a win, right? Share a need to know something that you're looking forward to. Hey, we've got a conference coming up. Don't forget October 16th. Look in the show notes for a link to that. You're going to join the PBL Movement online community and when you do, you get that conference free and you get all the resources and courses for an entire year lumped in with that one virtual conference. How cool is that? Fired up about that? I am fired up. I hope you're fired up. Go make it a great day. Go teach inspired.

Ryan Steuer: 25:27

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 leaving a review. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you.