PBL Simplified by Magnify Learning
PBL Simplified Podcast helps innovative principals and teachers like you bring Project Based Learning to your classrooms. PBL Simplified is in the top 5% of over 2 million global podcasts.
Hosted by Ryan Steuer, of Magnify Learning, we strive to empower school leaders and teachers with examples from Project Based Learning classrooms, leadership inspiration, and practical PBL resources.
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3rd Wednesday: PBL Leadership Episode
4th Wednesday: PBL Interview.
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PBL Simplified by Magnify Learning
3 Moves to Start PBL at Your School | E203
Ever wondered how Project Based Learning can transform your school? Join me, Ryan Steuer, on the PBL Simplified Podcast as we unlock the secrets to transforming educational environments with innovative methodologies. This episode will guide you through the essential steps to get started with PBL, emphasizing the unique experiences that can be found at a PBL conference. With an upcoming virtual conference on October 16th, you'll have the chance to immerse yourself in PBL concepts and join a vibrant community dedicated to redefining education for students, educators, and entire communities. Our mission is ambitious—bringing PBL to 51% of schools by 2051—and you can be a part of this journey.
In the world of Project Based Learning, community partners are the cornerstone of success. I'll share my experiences on how active involvement in educational communities, like our online PBL network, can keep the learning atmosphere dynamic and responsive. Discover the power of networking at conferences and see how engaging with passionate presenters can lead to lasting connections and invaluable learning resources. Together, we'll explore how traditional teaching methods have evolved, fostering essential skills in students through PBL. This episode is a call to action—let's embrace collaboration and transform our educational landscape with project-based learning.
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Welcome to the PBL Simplified Podcast. I'm your host, ryan Stoyer, and we talk all things project-based learning. It's simplified, not watered down. We want it to be super authentic. We want it to change the lives of children. We want it to change the lives of adults Really. We want it to change the community and the world and we think it can happen because we've already seen it happen. We've got model schools all around the country that are using project-based learning to change the way we do school. We are transforming school. That's our obsession. If you're in on that, if you're a PBL movement maker, you're in the right place.
Ryan Steuer:Today we're going to be talking about three ways to get started with PBL. Now, if you follow the series that we've been in with asset-based school development, you're waiting for our movement maker, jeff Spencer, from Perry Township, or our movement maker, jeff Spencer from Perry Township, and that is a large school district using project-based learning to change a lot of their systems. When I say large school district, a school of 20,000 plus students, how do you bring that in? It's not just a top-down mandate. It's not say, hey, on Monday we're going to start this thing. Here's all the books. It looks different, so go back an episode to get the preview for that. We're going to bring Jeff in next week. I want to give you these three ways to get started with PBL, because we have an opportunity for you to start on one of them. So, coming up here on October 16th, we have a virtual conference that you can jump into and it's an all day affair, and we're going to have different sessions that you can choose. It will be live. We're going to give you resources throughout. You're going to get the recorded sessions afterwards, so just make sure that you register and what we're doing that's unique is actually going to hit.
Ryan Steuer:Two of the three ways that you can get into PBL is you get the conference for the day. You get all the sessions, but you also get access to the online community for an entire year. For an entire year, you get on-demand courses beyond the conference. You get PBL resources and you get the most active Facebook community on the planet when it comes to project-based learning. So I don't know how you can pass it up. I'm super excited about it. I wish this would have been a thing when we were starting PBL a decade ago. So now that we're in this position of bringing PBL to 51% of schools by 2051, we thought we've got to do it this way. We've got to do it in a way that's most accessible. So let's jump into the three ways to get started with PBL, and I think these work, whether you're an administrator or a teacher. The three ways to get started with PBL Number one the first move is to go to a conference.
Ryan Steuer:I went to a PBL conference many, many moons ago, decade ago, and it was different. It was different than other conferences I've been to, like the English teacher conference, right. I've been to the middle level education conference, which are great, right, they're great. You go, you hear speakers that are experts and they tell you things because they know what's what's works and what doesn't work. They've tried them, you take them and you go do them in your classroom. A PBL conference is different. A PBL conference are there experts? I think you could use that word. We tend to shy away from it because we want to be students all the time. We want to be learners all the time. So, rather than saying this is what you have to do it, we're asking a lot of questions around how would you do it? Have you thought about doing this this way? Have you seen this model school. Have you thought about this idea or this protocol that you could use tomorrow? So we're going to give you a bunch of just-in-time tools. That's what we do in our conference.
Ryan Steuer:But let me go back 10 years with you and I would just say that the whole feel of the conference was different than other conferences I've been to, because it's run by project-based learning minds. Right, even the, the intro, the icebreakers, were different. We were up, we were moving, we were laughing, we were connecting as participants and not just as a way to make the speaker seem awesome. Right, there's just different than the other conferences I've been to. Prior to that it was. You know, we start, we get an intro from the speaker and bada boom, bada bing, we learn this thing and then we take it back and typically actually we didn't use it. I actually had a file folder in a filing cabinet that had all my conference stuff in it that I would love to do, but never PBL was different.
Ryan Steuer:We go into a project-based learning conference and suddenly we're asking these deep questions that I'd never asked before. Right, what if learners were presenting to community partners? And my first thought was that sounds crazy. And then I heard success stories about how it was awesome. I was like, oh okay, well, let's try that, let's do this. Or workshops you say, well, what if you taught workshops around what learners needed? Well, that would be a great idea. But how would I know? They got me to lean in on these different deep questions and conversations that we're having these what ifs like. What if school looked differently? What if you transformed your classroom? What if you transformed your school? And it was a totally different experience.
Ryan Steuer:So that's why I say the first move towards moving towards project based learning, a conference is a great way to do that, because it's kind of that mini step. If you're a Heath Brothers fanatic, it's that ooch, right, that ooch, that little step to test. Does this make sense for me? Because project based learning is a completely different instructional model, right? So to say, hey, I'm just going to do this tomorrow. Tomorrow might not be the best implementation strategy and, like I'm a true North, I'm a doer, but going to a conference gives you that feel. And then you know that I also advocate for school visits. I'm a huge fan of school visits. I'll put it right in here with conferences, because it's that idea of feeling the difference in project-based learning. You need to go feel the difference, and you can do that in a conference, you could do it in school visit, but somehow you need to go feel it so you know what it is that you're moving towards.
Ryan Steuer:Like, catch the vision, not just in word form, but like an emotional form, an emotional state that says, yes, this is what I want my classroom to be like and hey, there's a structure to that. Which would be my second move to getting started with PBL would be read a book. So 10 years ago there were not a ton of project-based learning books out there. Now there are a bunch. I've written one called PBL Simplified, same title as the podcast, the Six Steps of Moving PBL from Idea to Reality.
Ryan Steuer:So the first step going to the conference is getting that idea of project-based learning, that feel, the emotional piece of like, yes, that's what I want. So step two is like, how do you bring that to reality? How do you do that? Like, get a book, find somebody that you really appreciate and you're like yes, I like, I like the emotion that they bring to this, I like the stories that they have, I like the outputs, I like the way that they think right, like. So that's why I think podcasts are so great. So, like if you love this podcast, then my book would be a great step for you, right? Because that's where I bring in the nuts and bolts of how to do this. But it might be somebody else, right?
Ryan Steuer:So if there's another podcast, just because it's a great way to hear people speak, or maybe an audio book that the author reads, which I'm in the process right now of trying to get PBL simplified in the audio form, we're getting there I have to use the word soon on that, which is very ambiguous, but it's going to get there but I like the idea of listening to the book that the author reads, because then again you get to feel like, is this a person I want to follow? And once you find that person, then I think you go all in with them. Like for me, john Ankoff is one, so I like his books, I like the podcast, I like his audio book specifically, I'll get the print version and the audio just because I want to hear him read it and I just go all in. If John publishes a book, I read it, and actually I didn't do the ones that his teenage daughters wrote, but I'm going to now because he just did it on his podcast. So it's like when John puts something out, I'm going to dive into it.
Ryan Steuer:When the Heath brothers they've got a new book coming out in January, we'll talk about it on the podcast. For sure I'm going to buy that book presale, I'm going to preorder it because I go all in with the Heath brothers. It just makes a ton of sense. I love their delivery. I love the research. I love the geekiness. I love the applicability to education. I love that when I emailed Dan Heath because I'm on their newsletter, I just replied to him and said hey, dan, super excited about your book. If there's anything we can do to get it out there, just let me know. And he replied back and he's like oh thanks, ryan, I appreciate that. By the way, we love PBL. I was like what that's so cool? That's the stuff that you want to find out in somebody that you're following.
Ryan Steuer:So when you get a book, don't just grab a book, or you can grab six books. I'm actually a pretty big fan of that. Grab six books, you get a really good feel for what's out there, but then find one to go deep in. Right, don't just stop at the book, like go deep. So if you want to grab a copy of PBL simplified anywhere books are sold, you can grab one. There's a book study on the website. We'll put it in the show notes. That's another great way to get started with PBL Because, again, you're probably not just going to roll out the entire instructional model in your classroom without doing some research first and some learning.
Ryan Steuer:So what's the third move to getting started with PBL? The third move is to join a community, a community of other PBLers, and I put this one in here because it's kind of another soft step. I mean, in some ways it's like how do you go deeper? I think getting into an online community is a great way to do that, assuming it's active. Then you can ask your questions. Right, you can ask questions. You get a feel for what's out there. You can also just do a little bit of lurking, right, you get into a community and just look around, like what are people talking about? What are the discussions like? Are people positive in here? Or is it crickets? Like nobody answers any questions? Or is it like super open as far as sharing resources and things? Right, like, what does it look like? Are they generous with resources and you can go to a community and you can just kind of step in the front door and scoot over to the corner and see where you're at and then just launch a question out. It's one of my favorite things. You launch a question out If you get crickets, which unfortunately happens in a lot of different communities.
Ryan Steuer:You get crickets and I'm going to say, ah, I'm going to try again, I'll try twice. But when I get crickets twice, like, I'm pretty out right. If I'm in a community, I want community, I want people to talk to, I want to be able to ask questions, I want it to be just in time. So go find a community you can get into Now again, the PBL movement online community. We'll put a link in the show notes. If you get the conference coming up October 16th, you also get the community and we moderate it. So we have moderators in there making sure that there's interaction. Now that really gets the pot stirred, and then you can just see that people start commenting on other people's comments. But any question that goes out there we answer it. There's no question that goes unanswered. That's kind of our guarantee, right? Because I don't want our community to be that one where it's just crickets. If you ask a question, I want you to get some kind of an answer, some kind of a resource, because I think that's what communities are for.
Ryan Steuer:And I just remember back a decade ago when we were looking at project-based learning and I'd been in the classroom, I'd been an engineer and then I went to the classroom and I taught traditionally because I was good at traditional school. And then, well, actually, I got so bored at Purdue that I was not actually good at traditional school. I didn't do a great job in engineering in that regard as far as GPA, but aced high school and, like, still didn't know what I wanted to do. So here I am teaching eighth grade English and I'm teaching traditionally, trying to be super relational so I can get to know kids and I can help change their lives. And the relational part, yes, worked, but the academic piece wasn't there. It wasn't giving them the skills they needed.
Ryan Steuer:So, kids, one of my learners dropped out first semester of freshman year. I was like is that even legal? Come on, apparently, it is. And his, his response was well, they weren't you, mr Stoyer. I was like yeah, of course they're not right. I'm a different person. We have different bodies and minds and souls, so it. But but he didn't have the skillset. I wasn't able to give him the skillset that he needed. Like he got love in that one year, right, I listened to him, his voice was heard, he grew, but he didn't get the skills needed to then translate that to another environment, which is what he really needed, right? So project-based learning came along and, like I think these are the steps I went through, like the three ways to get started.
Ryan Steuer:I would say the conferences did a couple of different things. One, I could feel the difference in a project-based learning conference and in classrooms, just with the people, right, there's a different mindset that came along with that conference. I would also say it allowed me to network with people. And if you're not a great networker, can I just give you like a couple of quick tips. If you go to a conference, networking with participants is a great idea. You do want to keep in mind that sometimes it's a blind leading a blind right. Like you're all there to learn, which is great, like we all have to start somewhere. There's nothing wrong with that. But also go network with the presenter, right? You? You might not know this if you're new to conferences, but I've presented in a bazillion different places and as soon as we're done, like, I don't leave, like I just stand up there and kind of awkwardly wait for someone to talk to, and a lot of times nobody talks to me. Right, nobody talks to me. I'm just waiting for someone to come up and say, hey, here's my situation. And then I would love to give advice or consult or give resources, right, because every now and then, a group will come up and say, wow, this was great, we're getting ready to start our own PBL school. Well, cool, what's, what's one way I could help you right now? Right, and then we just start that relationship and then, a month from now, three months from now, they'll email me and I'll say, hey, here's some more advice, right, or here's some resources. How are you guys doing? Right, we'll do a zoom call.
Ryan Steuer:Presenters are presenting because they love the content and they want to share the ideas. So when you come up after the session, it honors that presenter. You're not, you're not putting them out. And I want to walk through this whole process because I used to think that, right, like they're the presenter and I'm just the learner, right, and? But it was actually a TEDx talk in Indianapolis and the speaker was somebody who I would never have access to and a friend and I went together and it was just like let's just go talk to him. And we even had the whole. We went through the whole scenario of like no, there's gonna be a ton of people up there, people are going to take his time, he won't have time for it. We went up there and literally no one was speaking to him. He was doing the awkward presenter thing just waiting for someone. Everybody ran to the back to go get a bagel and we got to talk to this gentleman who was a high flyer Like their organization gave out millions and millions of dollars for higher ed and for K-12 pathways to get into higher ed Really neat guy. And we actually got another interview afterwards. We got another meeting out of that, just because we took the initiative to go up and talk to the presenter.
Ryan Steuer:So that's your super secret tip, in addition to the first three, is whenever you're at a conference I don't care if it's zoom or in person go talk to the presenter. Say, well, how do I do that in zoom, ryan? You just email them. You just email them and say, hey, I saw you at the conference. Would you mind giving me a little bit of time via Zoom? I've got some questions. I think any presenter has to say yes to that. It's my personal rule. I should at least say that I will always say yes to that. If you say, hey, I saw you at a conference, I saw your webinar, can I get a follow-up, I always say yes to that. So I would definitely recommend trying that for Zoom conferences or in person, so that will definitely enhance your conference experience.
Ryan Steuer:And then, like I said, when you find somebody that you really like, grab their book, because then you kind of know the person, you know all the whether it's a podcast or YouTube videos or whatever their other content is you can put that into the book and it's just such a richer experience. So, grab the book, you know, maybe have somebody else grab a book with you so then you can go through it together and say like, hey, how do we apply this Right? Add some accountability to that. That always helps when you've got a team going through a book and then join a community. You know, maybe it's ideally, I'd say, in person, really right, like in the very early days.
Ryan Steuer:We just had a group that met Wednesday mornings at 630 before school and we just talked PBL. It was open to anybody, anybody could come, but there was just a core group that kept coming right. Some people would come in and out. There's always a core group. It was so awesome just to be able to bounce ideas off of each other and just to get things started.
Ryan Steuer:But that can be difficult, especially if you're by yourself, if you're kind of a movement maker and your movement hasn't started yet. That's why we have the PBL Movement online community, so that you can jump in and meet other people just like you who want to start a project-based learning movement, not just do school as normal. They want to transform the classroom and transform schools into engagement centers, empowerment centers, where learners leave empowered and passionate about what they want to do and how they're going to change the world. That's what we're all about. So those are your three ways to get started with PBL you can go to a conference, you can read a book, or you can join a community and bam, we could hit two of those three like right away. Actually, let's do all three, because you can join the conference coming October 16th if you're listening to this live and then you can read a book. I will put a link to get a free ebook. It'll be in the show notes so you can get PBL Simplified for free in ebook form and then you can join a community. If you join the conference, you get the community right. So go to the conference. It's virtual, you can do it live or you can get the playbacks and then you still have the community. So you get all the resources, all the end-of-main courses, a project library and access to amazing PBLers from around the world. That seems like a great deal. I can't wait to see you in the community. Can't wait to see you in the community. Can't wait to see you at the conference. Just like I just said, if you're listening to this message and you want to reach out, shoot me an email and I'll send you my calendar link. I leave Monday, thursdays and Fridays open so that I can talk to PBL movement makers. Just like you, I want to make sure I've got access so you can get your movement started. So if there's any way we can help, please reach out.
Ryan Steuer:This has been the PBL Simplified Podcast. I'm your host, ryan Stoyer. I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you did, would you go leave a review. It's super helpful for me, it's super helpful for the podcast and the movement. Just leave a review. It lets us know that you're listening. It lets other people know that you're listening. So then when they go to the podcast, they go to Apple or Spotify wherever they listen to podcasts and they go and say, oh look, there's reviews here, this must be a good one. And then they try it out and then we can get them all the resources they need to start their movement.
Ryan Steuer:That's how movements happen. It's movement makers helping other movement makers create movements and then at some point we all kind of come together. It converges. By 2051, we've got 51% of students in a PBL environment by 2051, it will be amazing. Go out and teach inspired. 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 leaving a review. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you.
