Unlocking the Power of PBL: Six Steps to Transform School Culture | E174

Join forces with me, Ryan Steuer, as I reveal the secret sauce for transforming school culture into a thriving, student-centric powerhouse. On this journey of revelation, I don't just tell you why Project-Based Learning (PBL) is essential – I arm you with six invincible steps to invigorate your institution without exhausting our passionate educators. Through the lens of Magnify Learning's experiences, we'll dissect how to harness the untapped potential within your walls, champion local victories, and turn informed optimism into your new norm.

Prepare to witness the unfolding of an educational renaissance as we navigate the delicate dance of communication with the 24-hour rule and align stakeholders to a shared vision. As your host, I'm not holding back on the strategies that will bulletproof your school's culture against the forces of stagnation. It’s time to buck the trend of despair with a plan that’s as transparent as it is transformative. Get ready to map out the path to a resilient, PBL-ready environment, where challenges fuel progress and collaboration is king.


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Transcript

Ryan Steuer: 0:00

Six steps to make sure that your school doesn't become complacent or toxic, to make sure that you're not taking the full burden of your vision and To make sure that you have a student-centered school environment that empowers your learners. Welcome to the PBL simplified podcast. I'm your host, ryan Stoyer, ceo of magnify learning, founder, and we've been doing this for about a decade, and we've done it a lot of different ways, and you shouldn't be impressed that we've been doing it for a decade, because you're not sure if we're doing the same thing 10 years, right, or if we've been growing right. That old saying it, we always say, like you know, as the teacher taught their first year 32 times, or they teach for 32 years. So I would say, though, we've done a really good job of being reflective and changing, and we first started PBL jumpstart was five days. I tell you that now. Yeah, there's no way I can give you five days, ryan. What it used to be five days, we moved it to four. We used to not have any coaching. We used to see you in the summer, and then we would check in with you in November If you came back, and then we check with you one time in the spring and then for a while Because, well, anybody that didn't do that, we didn't see him till next summer. We'd see him next summer and be like, oh, how'd it go? I didn't implement. What do you mean implement? Your PBL unit was awesome. Well, I wasn't real sure about the entry event, but what we found is we, we would fix their problem in like five minutes. They're like, oh yeah, I totally would have implemented then. So things have really evolved over ten years to where it's now.

Ryan Steuer: 1:28

You get Virtual coaching right away, as soon as you, right after your summer event. Now you get virtual coaching right away. Implementation has gone through the roof. We try to get you to implement in the very first semester and then again in second semester for all your staff. That way people are moving and you get your own success stories.

Ryan Steuer: 1:44

If you tuned into the last leadership episode when we talked about the five stages of of the change cycle, that idea, the idea that gets you out of the valley of despair into informed optimism, is really those local success stories. So building those in your own building, that's a huge deal. You want to get people doing PBL really quick so that you have your local examples, not just the research, because people always say, right, is there research to back up PBL? And yes, there is. We give you a bunch of it and say, and then at the end they say, yeah, but will it work in my school? So the research doesn't really convince people. They want to know will it work in my classroom? That's what your staff wants to hear and I think it's legitimate. They should want to know that. So when you get PBL working for learners in your building and they can be like, oh, like Ryan usually has his head down, but now he's doing things and like he's involved in asking questions, it sounds like PBL is working right. I'll try it right.

Ryan Steuer: 2:36

And people really kind of jump in and get into that informed optimism so they can get to success and fulfillment, because we all want to be a part of a vision bigger than ourselves. So how do you create this school culture when it's not toxic? Your vision is being fulfilled. But it's not just you pulling everybody and working every waking hour and going to every teacher and being a cheerleader and you know Moving them all kinds of different ways like some of that is your job. You need to be the person that has the vision, you to launch it you talk about every day until you're sick of it and then talk about it some more. So everybody knows where we're going. They know they're part of something bigger than just the, the rough parts, the cost that's happening today. They want to know they're part of something bigger. You want to pull them into that informed optimism, but you don't have to do that alone, like you should have a leadership team, and you have teams within that. So I promise you six steps to doing that. These are the six steps that we take schools through in our design days, and I'm gonna give them to you right now so that you can walk through them yourselves or we're happy to help you with them. However, you want to do it again. We're here to build a movement, not an empire. So if we can spread this out and you can use it, fantastic, go for it. You're a movement maker. You're here for the right reasons.

Ryan Steuer: 3:46

Let's talk about it. The first thing you want to do is a needs assessment, and we're actually, as I'm recording this and filming this, we're actually rebranding this as as an asset assessment. Yes, you have needs. Yes, you have, you know, placed areas of growth we really want to start with, and this we start with anyway. It's why we're changing the name to an asset assessment. What are the things that really work well in your school, like maybe you have a staff culture that's really solid and Maybe the need is you know strong teaching skills, maybe you know like? We'll find that out, but we're gonna start with the assets that you have and if you go to pblculturecom, as pblculturecom you can actually get the full needs assessment suite that we use when we come into your building. So when we go into a school to do a needs assessment again soon to be rebranded asset Assessment, because you want to start with what's working and then we'll go into the needs you can get the full suite that we use totally free. So, pblculturecom, you can download all the Google forms that we use. I've got videos but for each one that walk you through it as the leader, so you can run the whole thing on your own, because you need to know what's working, your building and where are your areas of growth. So what you're not gonna hear in these videos because they haven't been rebranded yet is the idea of the asset assessment.

Ryan Steuer: 5:04

So you've in asset-based community development, what we do in communities is we draw a couple different circles. You draw areas of need here's what maybe there's crime here, there's poverty here and then you start doing an asset-based assessment. You start putting well, there's a literacy center here. Right, the police department's over here, there's a great community center here, a great after-school program here. And you start to see the assets and where they overlap and then you can focus on those assets that take care of the needs. That makes sense. So in your building, when you do this asset assessment and this needs assessment, it'll be both essentially, but we wanna focus on the assets. So you see these needs and you look at the assets and see how they overlap and where some of your assets can be improved, can be bolstered up, and then they can take care of some of the needs. But again, we're happy to walk you through that. If you want, we come to your school and do that whole process with you, or you can do it on your own pblculturecom. Go there and download all the resources. You can do it right now.

Ryan Steuer: 6:02

The second piece that we're gonna guide you through, or that you need to walk through as you look at your school culture and this change process that you're involved in, is to establish your why, and hopefully you've heard Simon Sinek talk through this or you've read through his book. If not, I don't know if you can pause this or at least make a note so you can go see that Simon Sinek video talking about establishing your why. Your why is what gets you through the value of despair. It gets your staff through the value of despair. When you go through the change process with people. It's going to get hard as you start to change things and we're really excited about the vision, but then we have to count the cost. We have to do the hard work to get through the informed optimism. That takes a lot of effort.

Ryan Steuer: 6:46

And as you're doing effort and you're trying to motivate people, you wanna have this really strong why that you're continually talking about that? You're just saying over and over and over again, and other people have bought into it but you're the leader. You're inviting people into this better future, to this bigger thing, this bigger than me, that I wanna be a part of. And as you do that, as a staff member, I'm willing to come with you. And this is part of where you're not holding the whole burden. Your leadership team has agreed to this, why They've put their stamp on this, why you all have met and talked through it. You've gone through the wording. It's not this boilerplate thing that sits in a, you know, in a little frame somewhere. You know what it looks at, people can repeat it. People know it cause you say it all the time and your leadership team's gone out. Your AP, your coaches, your lead teachers they're all saying the same thing. This is where we're moving. This is why we're moving that direction.

Ryan Steuer: 7:33

As you're doing that, it starts to build a grassroots movement and it's not just you pulling people, it's people going with you and they're bringing others with them. So you've done your needs assessment. You went to pboculturecom. You ran the needs assessment with your staff. You're ready for project-based learning, but maybe you aren't ready to travel to one of our model schools. Well, we can bring design days to you. We bring our two-day workshop to your school and work with your leadership team to develop a three-year plan around project-based learning. As we do that, we're building mission, vision, values. We're introducing protocols, we're introducing processes that we've run multiple partners through so that they have a successful PBL implementation. You want this plan before you start PBL. The other piece that it brings you is culture. You have a leadership team that has bought into your vision, this PBL vision, because they helped create it co-created. So now they're gonna go as teacher leaders and as your administrative staff to go out and speak forth this vision. It's not just coming from you, the building leader. This is super strong for your sustainability of your vision.

Ryan Steuer: 8:39

So take a look in the show notes to see if you're ready for design days. So you have to establish your why because it will get tough, like it's gonna get hard. So that's what change process is. If you don't want that change process, then you stay mediocre, you do what everybody else does and you'll be fine. But I'm assuming that, since you're here, you're looking at project-based learning. You're looking at something different, that you want to go through that value of despair. If you will, or you wanna count the cost, you wanna work through the cost to do the work to create an environment that's amazing for kids and moves them from passive to empowered. So the next thing you're gonna do you're gonna do your asset assessment, you're gonna establish your why and you're gonna create a plan and you're going to bring the vision because you are the leader, you're the visionary leader, the movement maker, but you're going to bring your leadership team in to create the plan. So they're going to help you create the plan so that they're bought into it. They've already bought into your why. Now they're going to create the plan.

Ryan Steuer: 9:33

So what does that plan look like? Who needs? Who's been trained, who hasn't been trained? Who all needs to be trained? Who should be trained first? Who's ready to move? Who's going to be a little reluctant?

Ryan Steuer: 9:45

Again, in another episode next month, we're going to talk about the innovation curve and where your staff stands in there, because how you move people whether they're an innovator, early majority, late majority or laggard, like how you move them is going to be different. They have different motivations. They have different motivations than you, right? You are not a late majority, right? You are probably an innovator. You're an early adopter. You're on that end of the innovation curve where you want to move and change things, but you're also in a position where you need structure for your people. So that plan takes all of that into consideration and those are things that we know. We've taken a bunch of schools through the process, so we know what it looks like, even though it's different and customized for every school. That's why we do the asset assessment so you can look at where are the bright spots that you can start from. Where are the bright spots that you can start from? That's the whole point of the asset assessment. I'm going to say it again where are the bright spots that you can start from? You grow those bright spots. So you're going to have a plan. That's number three. Number four you're going to build a culture. And four you're probably doing this throughout.

Ryan Steuer: 10:47

But I think it's important to state it explicitly that you do need to build a culture within your staff so that you can build the culture within your student body. So, within your staff, you need to have a collaborative growth mindset culture. You have norms and agreements, like maybe you have the 24 hour rule. That's one that we advocate for that if anybody has something that they just can't live with like somebody said something to faculty meeting it's like I can't live with that Okay, let's talk about it. You set a time within 24 hours to talk about that, come to consensus or you forget about it. So if you're going to come to me two weeks later and say, hey, two weeks ago you said this thing and it's not okay, we have the 24 hour rule, like that's how we do it. We address things right away, and you'll do the same thing If a teacher does something that you think doesn't abide by a norm or agreement.

Ryan Steuer: 11:36

Then you step up and say, hey, here's our agreement, here's what I saw. Can we talk through this? So you have this culture established where your adults are operating at a high level of collaboration, integrity and work, ethic, agency. And as you establish those, they're going to be established in classrooms. They're going to be lived out by you, by your staff, and then your students will live them out as well, because PBL wants to live on this foundation of a strong growth mindset culture. And, oddly enough, I don't know where the paradox is in this, but PBL actually helps create that foundation somehow, because it's intrinsic in the protocols that we do the inquiry, that we have the empowerment that it brings. So you want to intentionally start with it, but understand that PBL is going to strengthen that foundation that it actually sits on. So building that culture is number four.

Ryan Steuer: 12:26

Number five is you need to make sure you're communicating this plan. Again, you're probably doing this throughout as well, as you're building the plan, but at some point you need to explicitly communicate to the world. What does the world mean? It's your world and all of your stakeholders, which is a bit of a buzzword. So it's going to be your staff. You're going to start with your leadership team because they're going to help you build it. Then it's going to be your staff, your learners, parents, community partners, school board. Who else can you think of? Are your superintendent needs to be on board? Hey, I'm going to be doing this thing.

Ryan Steuer: 12:57

We're going to have some different wording. There's a reason for it. Here's my why. That probably happens early on, but don't skip any of these steps, because everybody has a different currency in this conversation. Community partners are going to be looking at your school perception. How is your school perceived? Your parents all they want to know about is their kid. They're not looking at this big picture of how is their kid going to be affected. You need to have wording for that that they're going to move from passive to empowered when they get to that job interview. They're going to be able to look somebody in the eye, shake their hand and be able to speak intelligently at that job interview. That's what I wanted for junior. That's perfect.

Ryan Steuer: 13:38

But you need to think through what your talk is for each one of those. So when it says, communicate the plan as the fifth step, understand that there's a lot of different plans that are actually in there. Generally the same idea and talking points, but you want to massage that for each stakeholder group. The sixth step work the plan. Work the plan and if you didn't see it from last week, go back and see it. But the five stages of the cycle of change.

Ryan Steuer: 14:04

It's going to take you through that super optimism level where we're excited about the plan your leadership team is going to be there for sure and then you get this informed pessimism where it's like, oh, we didn't count all the costs, we didn't know it was gonna be this hard. It's gonna be, it's gonna be hard. And then it takes you down to the Valley of Despair and it's like are we even supposed to be doing this? This is too hard. Should we turn back? And this separates those visionary leaders and movement makers from the rest, cause the rest will turn around and be like that didn't work, let's try something else. And guess what? They're gonna start off in optimism, that uninformed pessimism, and go back to the Valley of Despair and be like that's tough, I'm gonna turn back around. And that's how we get the revolving door of educational cycles right. We've all been a part of that.

Ryan Steuer: 14:51

But what you're gonna do is you're gonna have a plan for this already. You've already built a culture for this, so, and you've got coaches that are ready to help you structures, systems you're listening to this podcast we're gonna continue to build you up into informed optimism. So you're gonna help pull your people out of the Valley of Despair and then they're gonna get up to success and fulfillment. And at that point you have worked the plan, cause you have already planned for this dip. That can happen Again, with the right measures in place and supports. The dip doesn't have to be as low and it doesn't have to be as long, right, but in some point people are gonna be like this is hard, correct, it's hard, but remember our why, and you're every single day remember our why, remember our why, remember our why, and that's gonna help the dip be not as steep, not as deep, and you can pull them up in that informed optimism. So those are the six steps you're going to.

Ryan Steuer: 15:44

I keep saying needs assessment, but soon it'll be an asset assessment. You're gonna look at the bright spots, you're gonna grow those so that they overshadow those needs and you're still gonna address the needs, but you're gonna start with the assets of what really works in your building. You're gonna establish your why and you're gonna talk about it every day. If you need to get a T-shirt, like, make some T-shirts, we've got posters that we can give you to go print so that the why is explicit and everybody knows it. You're gonna create the plan with your leadership team, not just you. You're gonna bring the vision, but don't just do the plan by yourself. Get, start a grassroots movement. Bring other people in APs, coaches, teachers that's the grassroots part, right, let them start to speak about the greatness of your vision and how it's gonna be applied, because you have a plan. So then you're gonna build the culture very intentionally, knowing that the PBL is also gonna help build your culture. You're gonna communicate the plan to all of your different stakeholders. Now you have buy-in from not just inside the building but from outside of the building, other external pressures, saying yes, we want PBL here because we want our learners to be successful in the workforce. Right, there's more voices again than not just yours. Remember that was my plug at the very beginning.

Ryan Steuer: 16:53

Six steps last step is to work the plan six steps so that you don't have a toxic environment and so you don't have to bear the burden of leadership alone. You're gonna create a grassroots movement where there are multiple stakeholders all saying yes, I agree, we need to go in this movement, this direction, because it's best for our kids right now. Right, why PBL? Why now? You have to be able to answer that question for you you specifically, you personally, and your building. Not just hey, it works over here, or I saw it when I went to Kentucky and went to the model school. That doesn't work. It's a start. Now you have to say this works here at our building and here's why. Here's why we need it. Will you help me? Will you come on this journey with me? People will say yes. People will say yes, they wanna follow a confident leader. They want a confident movement maker, just like you, who can go through these six steps to bring change into your school.

Ryan Steuer: 17:54

In the links below we'll tag some references and some additional supports to design days. If you want us to come and help you with these, we actually bring you into one of our model schools so you can see the work happening during school. So the second semester would be perfect. We're actually doing them right now. And you go out in to the school environment. You come back out and you plan for your school. So that was neat for here. What does that look like for us and our spaces and our people? You leave with a three year plan the three year plan that talks about right here. You leave with culture being built and established why, and a grassroots momentum. It's one of the greatest things we've created to jumpstart your movement at your school. If we can help out, reach out. I'd love to have that conversation In the meantime.

Ryan Steuer: 18:42

Thanks for tuning in. Go lead inspire. 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 Ten minutes ago. Our plan is