BACK TO PROJECT BASED LEARNING BLOGS
By: Ryan Steuer, CEO
Magnify Learning
Dallas, TX
How do I get all of my staff on board with project-based learning? Buy-in…it’s the important component of a successful implementation of this initiative and, well, any initiative. PBL isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s innovative and requires innovators in order to do it. And let’s face it: not all of your staff members are innovators now. That’s right. They’re not. And that’s okay. If they were, you’d probably be all over the place. So, let’s take a breath and think it through.
Let’s say your district declares that you can do whatever you want on your first staff day of the year. It’s totally up to you; plan it however you want to do it. Go.
So you do, you plan out this great day, you’ve got voice and choice, you’ve got time for your staff to collaborate, they get back together time to talk. They’ve got work in their room time. You’re about to be the best building leader that’s ever been put in that position.
And then you get an email that is right from the district, it says, “Oh yeah, do whatever you want to do on the first day, just like we said. But make sure that you cover the district mission statement. Oh, and don’t forget about the new laptop norms. You also have to review CPR and the new P B I S plans. And be sure to leave room for the new insurance guy…he wants to talk to your staff too. But other than that, the first day is completely yours.”
What do you do? You go for it. Be empowered. Be like, “Wait a minute, I had this great day planned and now you inserted this and you inserted that.” While there may be more mandatory bits than you’d like, there also may be some opportunities for synergy. It’s worth a look.
Every leader can advocate for PBL by protecting three structures. Doing so will have the effect of synergizing with district initiatives, empowering teachers to innovate, and reducing or eliminating teachers’ fear of punitive actions.
1.Ensure that district initiatives don’t hinder or undermine the project-based learning work. Part of your job is to protect and support PBL work. You’re a filter. Go to this principal’s meeting with the goal of empowering teachers to effectively run project-based learning in their classroom by critically analyzing the existing initiatives.
Sometimes you might need to raise your hand and say, “Whoa, what about this initiative? How’s this going to work for me? Do you want me to stop doing project-based learning for this year?” To which the district person says, “Well, no, we don’t want you to stop that.” You respond, “I appreciate that, but how am I going to do project-based learning in my classrooms if I have to do this, this, and this?” If there is something that really rubs PBL the wrong way, you might need to step in and advocate for teachers by streamlining initiatives.
In other ways you might just need to be more creative. For instance, if your district says every teacher needs to have an essential question up on their board, say, “In our world we call that a driving question. Is it okay if our driving question fits in the essential question box?” You start to create a PBL crosswalk between this district initiative and how your people fulfill it through project-based learning.
If you can do that, you’ll find that a lot of those best practices that your district is trying to bring in hold hands with PBL. You might need to be the communicator that says, “Hey, district, we’re already doing that through this portion of project-based learning.”
2. Allow for the freedom of when and how the curriculum is taught. Look at your scope and sequence and ask, “Can some of these things move around?” Because rigid curriculum plans and keeping all of your teachers on the same implementation schedule can start to hinder the project-based learning happening in your building.
So what does that look like? In math, there are obviously a lot of things that need to be taught sequentially, of course. But maybe the geometry unit can be moved around because that’s separate from algebra; it doesn’t necessarily build on that. Maybe social studies has a specific scope and sequence. But maybe other topics and skills don’t need to be taught chronologically because they don’t clearly build on each other. Maybe you can move them around. It doesn’t mean that if you’re in elementary school you’re not going to teach long “i’s.” But what if instead of going exactly with what was in the curriculum, you took those long I words and substituted them with ones that fit your PBL unit? Can you give your teachers some flexibility within the curriculum and while ensuring that they will also engage those standards?
It’s a really important structure that can smother PBL. Sometimes, a community partner can really only come in in September, so the genetics unit needs to get moved up front. Can we figure out a way to do that? You don’t have to disrupt everybody by moving a few things around. Think about this as a leader.
3. Protect teacher evaluations. You need to look at your evaluations and ensure that they do not penalize teachers who are implementing PBL but are instead, in fact, adapted to the best practices being implemented within the PBL framework. Is it open to promoting a growth mindset? I’ve been pleasantly surprised in schools I’ve been visiting lately by the fact that the evaluation forms in a lot of ways have made a turn for the better. They are more collaborative. They are growing teachers that aren’t afraid to try something new. Teachers want to get principals in the room to evaluate them when they’re running PBL, and they can get really good feedback. I love the culture of that.
One of the aspects of evaluations that I like to lean on is engagement. What does it look like to have 75% of the kids in a classroom engaged? Does that mean they’re quiet, and does quiet equate to engaged, or compliant? They are very different. This doesn’t mean that the room is completely bonkers and the volume’s at 120, but it might mean that there’s some issues, and there also might be a healthy hum of productivity. That’s a really good thing, right? So you need to maybe talk with your leadership team and say, “Let’s look at our evaluation. Is it leaning towards and making room for project-based learning to grow?”
With many teacher evaluation rubrics, you can’t get to the far side of that rubric unless you’re doing project-based learning. Student learning outcomes, engagement, and collaboration are all implicit to PBL and requirements for the evaluation. Some of those things are really difficult to do in a traditional classroom if you don’t have PBL as your core structure.
Whether you’ve done PBL in the classroom yet or not, every leader can advocate for PBL by protecting these three structures: a) ensuring that district initiatives don’t hinder or undermine PBL; b) trying to allow for freedom of when and how curriculum is taught; and c) ensuring that your evaluations encourage the pedagogy associated with project-based learning. If you can ensure and protect those three structures, and have good conversations around those three structures with your leadership team, PBL has a chance to flourish in that environment.
Your teachers will have an opportunity to show that this is going to bring engagement, rigor, and academic success, along with the employability skills success that you want for your learners in your school. And then as you have those stories that come out of classrooms, and the scores, and things are trending in the right direction, it gives you some time and some space in those district conversations to say, “Hey, we’re crushing it right now. Are you sure we need (____________ fill-in-the blank with other district initiatives here)? I’m not sure they’re going to help us crush it.”
Your leadership is really important. We’re going to build a grassroots movement, but your leadership and your vision lead the way; they provide that north star to move towards. The three structures discussed here today will help you implement PBL in ways that hold hands with existing expectations for your district and encourage teachers to take healthy, responsible risks that will benefit learners.
Continue to hone your skills and your craft as a leader so that people are following you in the right direction. Continue to learn about PBL through the PBL Simplified podcast, blog, YouTube channel, and book. Share what you learn. Heck, shout it from the rooftops. You’ll see that we are engaging learners, tackling boredom and transforming your classrooms by bringing PBL to school districts everywhere.
I’m Ryan Steuer – author and thought leader who specializes in Project Based Learning training, coaching, community, and content to help educational leaders fulfill their vision of deeper learning in their schools. I’ve worked with leaders in school districts of all sizes, from 400 students to 100,000 students. These visionary leaders care about their students, but they are often stressed, overworked, and overwhelmed with the work ahead of them. That’s where I come in! I help leaders achieve their PBL vision, lead their staff, AND stop working weekends.
When I’m not guiding school leaders through Project Based Learning mindset shifts, I am outdoors with my wife and 5 kids – canoeing, hiking, biking, and traveling the US in our RV.
SIGN UP TO RECEIVE OUR PROJECT BASED LEARNING BLOGS & RESOURCES!