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.
Subscribe to the weekly podcast and visit WhatisPBL.com to get started on your Project Based Learning journey!
Whether you are a teacher or school leader, there is something for you on PBL Simplified:
1st Wednesday: PBL Leadership Episode
2nd Wednesday: PBL Showcase - a PBL facilitator shares a PBL Unit
3rd Wednesday: PBL Leadership Episode
4th Wednesday: PBL Interview.
Subscribe and listen to real educators like yourself, who are innovating in the classroom to help their learners become part of an inspiring story. For more Project Based Learning resources, visit www.magnifypbl.com
PBL Simplified by Magnify Learning
7 Steps to Implementing PBL at Your School | E204
Transform education by mastering the art of Project Based Learning (PBL) with us. Discover how to effectively integrate PBL into your school's educational framework by addressing critical questions every leader should consider. We will unveil the power of community support through the PBL Movement online community, offering you access to virtual and in-person conferences, on-demand courses, and an expansive project library. Learn how principals can nurture passionate teachers by embedding them into a supportive community that fosters collaboration and continuous learning. Together, we'll explore the key considerations: should you start with grade-level, individual classroom, or content area PBL?
In a world where the job market and technology are evolving at lightning speed, equipping students with essential skills like problem-solving and critical thinking is no longer optional—it's crucial. Our discussion highlights the urgency of PBL, sharing narratives that underline the risks of not implementing such transformative approaches. With a focus on early career exploration and a strategic three-year plan for sustainable PBL implementation, we guide you on how to ensure lasting educational impact. Be part of something larger and inspire long-term change by fostering a culture of continuous learning in your school. Join us as we chart a revolutionary path in education, preparing students for the uncertainties of the future.
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Welcome to the PBL Simplified Podcast. Today, we're talking about seven questions. Every leader should be asking about plan implementation. And I've got a bonus question for you. We're going to go through what we've been working on for the last decade with leaders. We're going to go through these seven questions and I added a bonus one just for you that PBL leader wondering how in the world do I get started? I get it. I should be doing it. I'm exploring. What do I need to be thinking about? Well, one thing that will help you is what's going on today.
Ryan Steuer:Actually, we've got a virtual conference. We call it the PBL Gathering. It's happening right now. It's a virtual. We do two of these a year. We do one in the fall, we do one in the spring and then we actually do an in-person over the summer. And if you join the PBL Movement online community you and your teachers you get all three of these, plus on-demand courses, plus PBL resources, plus a project library, plus an online community, facebook community the most active PBL Facebook community in the world. All for the price of one conference, a one-day conference. So for $275, you get a year's access to three different conferences, one of them in person. You get all the recordings from those conferences and all the other benefits are listed. We want you to be fully equipped to bring project-based learning to your school. We want your teachers to bring it to their classroom, and we've seen enough people try to do it on their own to see that we need help. We all need help.
Ryan Steuer:When I started a decade ago in an eighth grade classroom in an urban school in Indianapolis, I needed help and I got help. It wasn't formal, it was very grassroots. It was these other PBL pockets around Indiana and we would meet together and say, hey, like what's working, what are you using? What's not working? And we would present kind of like an unconference style and we'd say like, hey, this driving question seems to really work. This rotation of workshops was awesome. Hey, did you know there's data driven need to knows we can give quizzes and then create need to knows out of that, and then workshops from that that are not voluntary. In fact, you have to go. No, I didn't. I hadn't thought of that. That makes a lot of sense, right, that's how we figured it out. But we did not go alone, we didn't just make it up, and I can tell you a decade later, we have so many more resources, so many more things we've learned organized trainings, like things that just didn't exist 10 years ago.
Ryan Steuer:Please don't go alone. Get your teachers into this online community. Get them started and supported. So, like, if you're a principal, you got a principal out missouri and he's awesome. He's got 100 teachers in his intermediate school and he's got three teachers that are fired up about pbl. Came to the conference last year and he's got 100 teachers in his intermediate school and he's got three teachers that are fired up about pbl. Came to the conference last year and he's like, how do I support him now? Right, because you've got a hundred staff. They're not all doing pbl, so it's not like it's a requirement for the school, like what do we do? And it's like, well, why don't you give them to us? Like, put them in the community. We're going to support them. It's's what we do. We love it. If that's you, this is the place for you.
Ryan Steuer:The online community makes a ton of sense. We've got resources for leaders, for sure. We've got a ton of resources for teachers. It's a great place to be. So that's happening today. If you missed it, you can actually still get in, get all the recordings If you're watching this, like as this podcast comes out, and if you way missed it, you're listening to this podcast like three months later. You can still jump in and make sure that you get ready for the spring conference and the in person in in the summer, and there's so many opportunities, so don't go alone. A lot of people have gone and left a really great trail for you, and we just want to help you.
Ryan Steuer:One of the beautiful things about PBL communities is they're just different, right. We want to help people, we want to reach down, pull people up and then we learn from each other. That's what we know, right. There's some selfishness to all this, like, as we have model schools and we send people to model schools, they're like, yes, bring people into tour because we love the feedback. Right, and PBL's this feedback reflection loop that you almost get addicted to because you get better as you're helping other people get better. So it's created this community, I think, across the country and globally with some of our partners, is that we want to help other people, knowing it helps us, right? So there's a synergistic piece to project-based learning that just makes a ton of sense.
Ryan Steuer:You want to be a part of your culture, so jump in If you have questions. Let me know, of course, as always. But let's talk about these seven questions that every leader should be asking when it comes to PBL implementation. The first one is should you start with grade-level PBLs or individual classroom PBLs or content area PBLs? And of course, the answer is it depends. There's no one way to do this, so you've got to get with your staff. It depends on how your school is set up.
Ryan Steuer:Sometimes Are you already in teams, because that might lean itself towards you know, kind of a STEM or humanities pairing. That might make sense in elementary schools. Sometimes it makes sense when you've got, depending on how many grade levels you have, like how many teachers at each grade level. If you can get two teachers at each grade level so that you've got someone to collaborate with at the grade level side, that makes a lot of sense, right? The second graders can come up with the PBL unit, the third graders, the fourth grade teachers, they can all come up with different PBLs and they can work together, which there's some synergies there, again right, and they've got somebody to collaborate and reflect with. And then maybe you're at a secondary level. If teaming's there, that's an easy, just awesome wonderland place for PBL to live in teams. If not, you know sometimes we're a little more siloed when you get to high school, but you can still go departmental right. So bringing PBL through your science department makes a lot of sense. They're probably really close and then they can start to bring in other subject areas. We've had some districts that start with social studies even right. So you can start anywhere. But you want to think through that ahead of time and see like what are your strengths? Where are your innovators at who would be great to start this and then help bring others into the movement.
Ryan Steuer:Question number two how will you communicate project-based learning to teachers, students, parents and community partners? And the answer is this has a definite answer. The definite answer is stories. You will tell different stories to different stakeholders. So the answer is stories, but you're going to differentiate your stories because a teacher wants to hear a different story than a parent. A parent wants to hear a student's story. That's a student like theirs. A community partner wants to hear a story about how their school is doing amazing things in their community and then they want to tell that story to others, which is what you want to happen At the soccer game or at Rotary or at Chamber of Commerce. You want people telling the amazing stories that are happening in your school, but they're never going to know if you don't tell the story. So don't just say, hey, it's great, scores are up, engagement's up, I'm excited for the future.
Ryan Steuer:Tell a story about Skylar, who's a struggling learner, who has a ton of potential but doesn't try. And now he sees the why behind his learning and he's done a complete 180. And he's not a star student, but he's an engaged student and he's doing the work and he's learning. He's a part of the culture and he's trying. Or maybe you've got a parent in front of you who's got a Dalton, who's a C student, who's a leader but only has a C because that's what he has to have in order to be on the wrestling team. But now he's engaging community partners as they come in, he's leading people, he's got A's and B's because he's engaged in the process. When mom of a C student that she can't motivate hears that story, she's like, oh okay, I don't get all of PBL, but I like that.
Ryan Steuer:So your communication is going to be around stories. That's why you want to get some things started, even if you start with a small group that you get in the online community, get them going. So then you have your local success stories so you can say hey, do you remember when Mrs Smith did this? That was PBL. Oh, okay, I liked that. I want that for my learners too. Can I get training Right? And that's the stories that you tell teachers right? So you want to get your local stories going.
Ryan Steuer:Question number three how will you support trained teachers? Let's say, you send three teachers to the summer conference. You get them in the online community. How do you support them going forward? The next question is paired with this one, because how do you support untrained teachers? Because you might, with your trained teachers, you might say, hey, you need to do one PBL unit per semester. We invested in this, we want to see if it works, so we need you to do it. You should give them some time to create those things, and they'll have done that with us as well, so that makes total sense. That's a great way to get PBL moving.
Ryan Steuer:Now, if you also tell the untrained teachers that you want them to do a PBL each semester, yeah, that's not going to go over as well. At least it shouldn't, because they'll do it right, your teachers will be compliant. They will do a thing that they will call PBL, but they haven't been trained, so I'd be very surprised if they end up actually doing PBL. But you're defining PBL with by untrained teachers, right? So be real careful with that. That's why. That's why the two questions are on there. There's gonna be two different questions you should answer what do you do with trained teachers? What do you do with untrained teachers? And how do you create a system where it's not us versus them, right, like? Training is always available. If you want it, go get it. We'll send it to you, we'll send you there, right, and then you're going to implement one a semester. However you want to do it, it's up to you, but you need to think through the questions.
Ryan Steuer:Next question is will you schedule expos to show student learning? And the answer is probably yes to this, right, and the answer is probably yes to this, right. You want to be transparent. You want to show off the good work that your learners are doing. Doesn't always have to be an expo, doesn't always have to be big, but if you've got a pbl unit and the, the presentation, the culminating event, fits well to an expo and you can invite community partners. You can let other teachers see, you can let other school board members or other principals see the good work that's happening. You're excited about this movement you're creating. That's how you get more funding. You invite the assistant superintendent to come in and say come talk to these kids, come see what it's like, and then you make sure that they rock that expo. It takes a lot of planning, so you want to make sure that you're scheduling that at the right time, the right time of year. See what else is going on, make sure that you can really do a good job with it.
Ryan Steuer:How will you change your building PD? That's question number six. How will you change your building professional development? Because if you're asking for your learners to get an engaged experience, you want them to have voice and choice. You want them to be engaged and empowered right. First they're engaged, then they're empowered. If you want that for your learners, your teachers have to get that same experience. If you give them sit and get and you talk about things that could have been in an email, then that's what they're going to give their learners. They're just going to go and talk for 45 minutes because that's what you showed them to do.
Ryan Steuer:Now if instead, before your next faculty meeting, you send out a Google form and say, hey, here are the five aspects of our portrait of a graduate. Which of these do you want some training on at our next faculty meeting? And you get a bunch of feedback and you set up five different workshops and people can go where they want. Or maybe you have to rotate to two, some form of voice and choice? At the end of faculty meeting, you give them likes and wonders what did you like about this faculty meeting? What do you wonder about for our next one? And then at the next one, you take some of those wonders. You say, hey, based on your wonders, we're doing this. Oh well, look at that, he's listening to our wonders. She's listening to our wonders. We should do more of that. And then now they're learning how to do that for their students, because otherwise they might not know. You're also saying these are the things that are important to me. They're looking. Your teachers want to know what's important to you, so they're looking all the time. It's what you do, not just what you say.
Ryan Steuer:Number seven is not actually a question, it's a statement Develop a compelling. Why, for project-based learning, say, develop a compelling why. Why PBL? Why? Now? There's your questions, but I need to sneak those two in as one, so thanks for sticking with me on that. Why PBL? Why now? I think about this every time I present. If it's not in my slides, it's something I always say.
Ryan Steuer:We have to be able to answer the question of why PBL and why now? We've got research to back that up if you want, but you need to be able to answer it for your local community. There's some global answers, right? That like, when our learners graduate some of them we don't even know what jobs they'll have or what jobs will be available. Which will be covered by AI, which will not? Which ones? Will they need AI in order to be successful, right? Do they have to know prompts? What's it going to look like? They have to be able to work virtually or in person or some mix, right? There's a lot of questions.
Ryan Steuer:The things that's not in question is what our employers have been looking for for decades somebody that can show up on time, work with other people, solve problems, think critically, right? All those things, again that are probably your portrait of a graduate are those things that your employers want. So our parents want our kids to be gainfully employed and have a successful life Okay. Well, if you want that, parents, we need to do something different. Project-based learning answers this question. This is why PBL. Why now? Because this is the time right. Our learners need to be equipped right now. Why would we wait? Are things going to be less complicated in the future? I don't think so. We need PBL and we need it now. You have to develop a compelling why. Again, I would wrap a story around this as well One of your learners that went into PBL and was super successful.
Ryan Steuer:If you don't have that story, maybe you have one. Oh well, like this one. So like Alyssa wanted to be a pharmacist or so she thought her whole high school career. Like I'm going to be a pharmacist. She goes into pre-med. She gets to be a pharmacist after about eight years and lots of money. She gets into pharmacy and realizes she hates pharmacy. That's a bummer. That's a $120,000 gamble that she took because she never explored careers. She never knew what she wanted to do.
Ryan Steuer:Wouldn't it be great if your learners, your kids, got exposed to different careers, found out their passions and what they're good at, and were able to pick a career based on what they actually want to do, before you gamble on a college career. Well, yeah, I think that would be great. Right, that would be great. So that's part of the compelling why. So you can tell a story either way. If you've got the success story, make sure you tell it. If you don't, you can always borrow someone's, or you can talk about a story where it would have been great if that learner had that experience that you're trying to build. But you need to develop a compelling why. The bonus question is kind of a gimme question. Again. It's like do you want this to last? Do you want this to last? The answer is, I assume the answer is yes, if you're listening to this, right, like you're a movement maker.
Ryan Steuer:But I needed to get in the idea of a three-year plan. If you want it to last, you've got to think beyond this year. You've got to think three years out. You've got trained teachers. You've got untrained teachers. Three years out, you should have the majority of your teachers trained. What are you going to do with your new hires? You should have people that are PBL certified so they can train your new hires. So you need to think that far out, because your teachers want to know that you're thinking that far out, right? Otherwise they're going to wait you out, right? They're going to say, well, you know these education initiatives, they come and go and unfortunately that's right, like that's true. So they could wait you out, unless they know there's a three-year plan, then next year another three-year plan, and next year another three-year plan.
Ryan Steuer:You're always looking three years out, casting a vision. Why? Because everyone wants to be a part of something bigger than themselves. Everyone wants to be a part of something bigger than themselves. We all do. That's why we cheer for sports teams, right. It's why it's why you're in leadership, right? You want to be a part of something bigger than just you. You want to lead people into a movement that changes people's lives. That's being a part of something bigger. Your teachers are waiting for you to launch this vision. They want it. Some of them don't know that they want it.
Ryan Steuer:Some people might be too attached to the status quo. Everybody's going to be different. Few people are evil. Most people just need clarity and confidence. And that might be too attached to the status quo. Everybody's going to be different. Few people are evil. Most people just need clarity and confidence, and that might be you.
Ryan Steuer:So you need to be able to map out your three-year vision. If you can't articulate your three-year vision to yourself or draw it out, how are you going to communicate that to staff, parents, students, community partners, right? So you need to be able to map it out. You need to be able to share it with someone, maybe another administrator at different school, like here's what I'm thinking can you give me some feedback again, if you get in the community, like we're happy to do that, I'll do that even if you're not in the community. Right, that's my jam. Like I love doing this work of putting a futures protocol out there.
Ryan Steuer:What's your next three years look like? Because if you don't know and you can't communicate it clearly, then it just gets muddy and that's when things go awry. Conflict arises, people dig their heels in because they're not sure. But they want to follow you and you want to lead. That's why you're here. Otherwise, you're listening to the wrong podcast, right, like you're a PBL movement maker or you want to be, you're in a great place to discover PBL. Like that's what we do, it's what I talk about. But ultimately, you're here trying to get better, which means that you can see where there are gaps and you think you can fill them. That's why you're in leadership.
Ryan Steuer:So those are seven questions, plus one that you should be asking about PBL implementation. You should not just read a book and be like think I should do this, right, and you can't wait too long, like if you're new to a building. Yes, you should take some time, like the first 90 days. Go talk to every staff member and ask them questions and listen, listen, listen, listen. Great leaders. It's what they do. But sometimes we get confused and people will take three years and be like, well, I'm just getting to know everybody and see what's happened, and then in year four and five, you're like I think I should do something, and then you move on.
Ryan Steuer:The research on principal placement says that it's only like 11% of principals will be in a position for 10 years or more, which means you've only got so much time to really get your vision launched. Because if you just so again, if you're there for three years and you launch it for one year, it's not really launched. You need a three-year plan, like you have to launch, fix some things, sustain some things, fix some things, launch again, sustain right. Build a culture that goes beyond several hires? Right, it goes beyond several years. It has structures in there. It takes time. You need to get moving. You likely need to get moving Now.
Ryan Steuer:It doesn't mean at the next faculty meeting you should launch your vision unless you've written it down. You've got some feedback and you've launched it to your leadership team. Right, you launch small. I've got a podcast on that. Launch it in, like like concentric circles that move out. But do launch it. That's your job. Right, you won't be content, you won't be inspired, you won't be passionate. Until you launch it, you'll be frustrated because you'll just be putting out fires. Are you doing that? You're just putting out fires left and right. We have a lot of people that start there Once you start launching. Now, some of those fires kind of put themselves out because you start empowering people to solve their own problems. All right, those are your seven questions for planned implementation.
Ryan Steuer:Thanks for sticking with me, thanks for being here, thanks for the work that you do in your schools. We'd love to see you in the online community, you and your teachers. We want to support you. We want to support the work you're doing. Go out there and lead 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. Thank you so much for leaving a review. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you.
