Mastering Collaboration in Project-Based Learning | E165

Unlock the transformative power of collaboration with a listen to our latest PBL Simplified episode, where we celebrate the victories and collective wisdom achieved through teamwork. Imagine a classroom where ideas soar and growth is inevitable; that's the reality we're forging as we dissect the four keys to effective collaboration in Project-Based Learning. With my guests, we'll illuminate how prioritizing teamwork not only enhances group dynamics but also ensures every voice is heard, every idea is valued, and our collective reach extends beyond the stars. Expect to be inspired by tales from the trenches, including a project that saw students creating marketing materials for local nonprofits, proving that true collaboration is about partnership and shared responsibility.

Dive into the heart of collaborative success within PBL units, where we discuss the subtle yet impactful shift from task delegation to a symphony of interconnected roles. This episode peels back the layers of group dynamics, highlighting how tools like the Compass Points activity can dramatically improve how teams work together. As I guide you through the nuances of understanding oneself and one's teammates, you'll see why embedding these skills early on is vital for learners to excel in teamwork throughout their educational journey. Prepare to walk away with actionable insights that will anchor collaboration at the very foundation of your learning environment, paving the way for a future where collective achievement isn't just an aspiration, but a palpable reality.


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Transcript

Ryan Steuer: 0:00

Hey, movement Makers, welcome to the PBL Simplified Podcast, where we talk about how to lead with integrity, vision and inspiration so that you can start a PBL movement worth fighting for. When I started PBL school, we did not have a roadmap. We've spent the last decade now with magnify learning creating a PBL movement roadmap for you to start your PBL movement. Thank you for joining me today. I'm your host, ryan Stoyer, and today we're talking about collaboration, because every movement maker can create a culture of collaboration which, in turn, creates a solid foundation for PBL. And the way you do this is what we're going to investigate the four keys to collaboration. Hence my prop, but four keys to collaboration. The first key to collaboration is to make collaboration a priority for you and your learners. So I'm kind of calling this big. My truck key fob is kind of the this first key because it's a big one. Like if you don't have collaboration as a priority, like it's a non starter, you are not collaborating, your kids are not collaborating. It's going to work. So it's a big key fob that gets things moving. We have three other keys that we're going to talk about in the keys of collaboration, but we're starting with the big one. Big one. First, the foundation of the foundation, if you will.

Ryan Steuer: 1:22

Helen Keller said alone we can do so little, together we can do so much. Isaac Newton, if I have seen further, it's by standing on the shoulders of giants. That's one of my favorites, because when we watch, magnifier and grow, when you watch things in your school, grow as a humble, visionary leader, like we understand that we're not doing these things, like it is getting people together and it is the momentum and the movement of many people that creates great things. Many ideas grow better when transplanted in another mine than the one where they sprang up. I like that one quite a bit too. We need to share ideas with each other. Ken Blanchard said none of us is as smart as all of us. And Michael Jordan says talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships. And we give you one more, one more quote collaboration allows us to know more than we are capable of knowing by ourselves. So collaboration and this is just really setting the stage for collaboration this first key that creates this foundation of a culture of collaboration. If you're going to be doing project based learning which, if you're listening to this, I assume you're moving in that direction, like you want to be a part of the PBL movement. You're a movement maker. The foundation that you're building on is really a collaborative culture, a collaborative, safe culture.

Ryan Steuer: 2:41

So we're starting with collaboration the quote that I really like around collaboration and that helps me kind of slow down and make sure that I'm collaborating. And you might be like this too If you're like a three in the enneagram, you're a mover, you're a shaker, you just want to do things like, let's make it happen. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. And when I think about the dreams and visions that I have to fulfill, like they're really far Now, I want to get there fast, because I can get impatient, because I want to make things happen. But I know that I need collaborators in order to create the change that I want to see.

Ryan Steuer: 3:18

If we're going to have 51% of schools using project based learning by 2051, there's no way that Ryan does that on his own right. Like that's that's not even close, it's not even really on the table for discussion. Like that is a collaborative effort of educators across the country. So I know that there's going to be collaboration in this journey. So that lets me pause and set my priorities. And that's really what that quote does for me. Like sure, ryan, if you want to go fast, go ahead. You're just going to do it by yourself and I can give very far. But you want to go far, go together. So you have to take a moment and set your priorities. That's the first key to collaboration Set your priorities. When I think about my values and priorities, I know that I need to collaborate, because that's where kind of the magic happens. And those first quotes from you know these famous people, whether it's Michael Jordan or Isaac Newton in history, it's like they understand that it's not them themselves. There's a team effort involved. And when we say collaborations more than just dividing tasks and let me give you a great classroom example that kind of defines this that it's not just it really, if you're doing true delegation, like you're not just giving tasks, there's a lot of teaching that's happening in that too, and responsibility giving and some autonomy. So I don't want to call it delegation, but collaboration is more than just the dividing of tasks.

Ryan Steuer: 4:30

So we had this PBL unit where you can create some marketing materials for local nonprofits, which is a great PBL unit. You can grab this because you have local nonprofits in your area that need help. So the driving question is how can we, as new marketing designers, support local nonprofits? Well, we can make a website right. You can get on Wix, you can create this free website and then you can add for 20 bucks, you can add the URL and these kinds of things. If the nonprofit really likes it, then they can run with it and it can be a paid version. So great way to do this.

Ryan Steuer: 4:59

So kids are in groups of four. They're building a website around this nonprofit and things are going pretty well. Really, it seems like like the groups are, if you will, quiet. They're doing their work like they seem like they're on task and there's workshops in between. There's benchmarks probably not as much assessment in this, this one, because this is a fail story. Let's get the first. One's a fail story. So here we are, everybody's up here. We've got some nonprofit leaders in the audience and groups start to present and the first group is, just like all the other groups, that's, that's your, your, your. Spoiler alert Each one presents their section of the website, because the way they divvied it up it was like hey, there's these four different sites, I'll do the about you.

Ryan Steuer: 5:42

Do the cause right, you do the service, you do, you know the donation side and they split it up for people in the group for different sections do do, do nice and easy, but as they present it becomes very clear that they did not work together to actually complete this because the information is overlapping, right. So Mission Indie does that the executive director is that the next section of services in Mission Indie, which the executive director is, these are the services we have and everything really overlap so you can tell you just a completely separate research and made each section of the website the same. So it came together to one one, one webpage. But there was not collaboration. There was a delegation of tasks.

Ryan Steuer: 6:24

So we finally asked the question for a couple groups because obviously, as facilitators, we had messed up somewhere. It's like so what did collaboration look like for you all? Because we were using the word collaboration, but obviously it didn't sink in. What does collaboration look like for you all? So well, we got together and everybody picked the thing they wanted to do and then they did it, we brought it together and now we're presenting and that was collaboration for them. That's how we had misguidedly communicated, apparently. So fix that right, because we're getting better every year.

Ryan Steuer: 6:53

Every PBL unit and same PBL unit with not with different nonprofits and creating these web pages. And now it looks different come presentation time and there is a cohesiveness to each of the web pages. There's not this redundancy that we saw the first time we ran this PBL unit and now what we see is that each section complements the next. It's just really obvious. You can see this presentation time, can't you? Like you're sitting there, you've got the rubric in front of you, you've got some people around you, you're asking general questions, you want your learners to have to do a great job and have a great experience. But you're also like kind of thinking through, like what's been happening in these groups and we had some more benchmarks and things. But listen to their answer on this one what did collaboration look like for you all in this PBL unit?

Ryan Steuer: 7:39

So well, the tuning protocols made sure that we got feedback from everybody in the group for our individual section to make sure that it all came together. Oh, okay, great job. Like, facilitators get it, the learners get it, so that tuning protocol made the work public and then the learners themselves could say, hey, these things are overlapping. Hey, I already said that, can you say it differently? And they could figure those things out. That was true. Collaboration now the first time it was just divvying up tasks, so one person didn't have to do all the work, which is nice. But that's not really what we're looking for in collaboration. In collaboration, we're looking to work together to get a better final product. So great lesson from our learners. You can see the two PBL units, how different they are. And the same is true for us as adults is that when we look at collaboration, we need to be truly collaborating and not just giving up tasks. We also need to make sure we're defining collaboration and showing collaboration in positive ways so that our learners can figure it out.

Ryan Steuer: 8:37

One last note on this first key to collaboration because it is about priorities is it takes more time to put a tuning protocol into your unit plans. You need to have some time where you have to teach a tuning protocol. So I always recommend you do it early in the year so that you can do it multiple times throughout the year. Once your learners get it, then they get it. It moves things forward. So when you're doing this tuning protocol, you're going to say let's take time to do that. So you have to make it a priority to know that when your learners are running a tuning protocol, it's worth the time. It's worth the time because you end up with a better final product. You're also teaching collaboration. You're also teaching the employability skills throughout this tuning protocol. So those things have to be priorities set up for you the employability skills, the excellence in final deliverables. Once those are priorities, then you'll set aside the time for true collaboration and not just a delegation of tasks.

Ryan Steuer: 9:33

So the first key to collaboration is priority. The second key to collaboration is to know yourself so that you can work with others. Know yourself to work with others. That's the second key to collaboration. So here's the second key. Remember the first one. It was the things that make things move. It's got to be a priority. The second key this is the one that gets to your house. Right, this one gets you in the door because this is you, this is you. So I like putting in personality tests here, like maybe it's the disc, maybe it's the enneagram Meyersbriggs Strength Finder right, there's one that you can do with chocolates. Have you ever seen that one? Look it up, google the chocolate personality test and run that with your staff. It's phenomenal, it works. It's nuts but it does.

Ryan Steuer: 10:12

But the one that we use in our PBL workshops is called Compass Points. And we use Compass Points in our PBL workshops to help adults figure out how their personality works and how they can work with different personalities, because that's when you start to collaborate and I ran this with a staff who had a new principal and it was running. Compass Points is always fun. It's up, you're moving around, it's always kind of a highlight in the PBL workshops for participants. It comes up in the feedback all the time. But this particular one is really important for this principal because he was brand new. So we run the Compass Points protocol and I get my phone out and I start taking pictures, just like we normally do for social media, that kind of stuff here's the North, here's the West, here's the East, here's the South and we define what those Compass Points mean and then I text those to the principal and he goes, oh, that's gold. Like I just found out so much about my staff in like a half hour. That would have normally taken me, you know, maybe half the year to figure out personalities.

Ryan Steuer: 11:10

So when we talk about collaboration, knowing yourself so you can collaborate with others is really important. So, as movement maker teachers, you know, as you're coming through these workshops, maybe you're doing Compass Points. Almost every time those engaged movement makers like yourself. They're like, oh, this would work with my learners too, and of course it will right. Like your learners need to know themselves and they need to start learning about other people, that other people have different personality styles. That person isn't lazy, they just wanna know the entire process before they really get into the details. Or maybe they're frozen with the details. You know, and the learner you're talking to is a North, so they just wanna get it all done. Right, but once you run some protocols and personality tests, now I know myself a little better and I know other people better and our groups tend to work a little better so we can collaborate.

Ryan Steuer: 11:59

So if you're gonna create a collaborative culture in your classroom, the first step is, of course, you need to make the decision that collaboration is important to you priority. I've found that you then need to know, like I need to know myself and my personality traits, like I know that I'm a doer and sometimes I'll overlook the details, so I need to actually build things in to slow down. Well, when we're collaborating. I do that. So that second key is knowing yourself so that you can know others. So taking personality tests as a team, it creates great conversations Like. I really like the disc because it's four letters, it's pretty simple. You can do that with your staff. You can do it with your team, because your adult culture of collaboration will define your student culture of collaboration. So your adults need to be collaborating well too. So the next step for me was to value collaboration. I need to value the benefits of the process.

Ryan Steuer: 12:52

In collaboration, we grow as people by interacting with others. In collaboration, we grow as people by interacting with different personalities. In collaboration, we grow. In collaboration, we find better solutions that last Remember far, not just fast. In collaboration, we find better and more options. In collaboration, we find better outcomes. As we look at collaboration, we grow and things are better. Therefore, collaboration is worth it and if it sounds like I'm trying to sell you on collaboration, I am. It needs to be a priority for you and again, I think earlier in the year the better. If it's later in the year, as you're listening to this podcast or watching on YouTube, just jump in, because now is better than later, and wherever you're at, because then you get the ongoing dividends of the collaborative environment, because now you start to create a collaborative, safe environment in your classroom. So that's the first two keys to collaboration. Priority knowing yourself so you can know others. In the PBL Simplified podcast, episode 167, I'm gonna give you the last two keys to collaboration so you can create a strong foundation for your PBL movement.

Ryan Steuer: 14:05

We also have some resources posted every single day in the PBL movement online community In January, which is when we're recording this. It's every day. It's gonna be on collaboration and they're gonna be spread out. It's gonna be for builders who are starting out their PBL movement launch. Launchers, if you've had a PBL and you're ready to launch. And then innovators, if you've been in PBL for a while and you're a veteran and you've got some expertise. We wanna collaborate with you as well and give you some learning opportunities. So in the PBL movement online community, it's a place for movement makers just like you. You can take on-demand courses, you can check out the project library and, of course, you can collaborate right. That's the whole point. We love collaboration. We try to live out these values of PBL that work in the classroom. They also work when we're working with adults. So joint educators are just like you, who are collaborating to grow and find better solutions for your classrooms, and I'll see you in the community movement maker.

Ryan Steuer: 15:06

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the PBL Simplified Podcast. I appreciate you. I'm honored 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 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.