PBL Showcase: Blending the High School and College Experience | E173

Unlock the secret to transforming students into empowered problem-solvers and active participants in their own education with a journey into Project-Based Learning (PBL). In our latest PBL Simplified Podcast episode, we're joined by the dynamic duo, Bronwen and Sarah, educators at a trailblazing school in Tallahassee, Florida. Together, we delve into how they are blurring the lines between high school and college, offering students an immersive experience that prepares them for real-world challenges. Get an insider's look at how PBL not only reshapes the classroom but also instills in students the confidence to teach and learn from one another, creating a vibrant and collaborative community.

Imagine high school students walking the path of innovation, where their classroom extends into the realm of college life and beyond. Bronwen and Sarah share their transformative journey through professional development, where they embraced PBL to infuse their curriculum with creativity and engagement. The PBL is about academic excellence, and it's a holistic approach that nurtures personal growth, digital literacy, and the ability to traverse cultural divides, equipping students for a future we're all striving to shape.

Step into a world where education isn't confined to the four walls of a classroom, but expands through the power of community partnerships and student-led initiatives. Our PBL Showcase guests reveal how their students teamed up with college theater peers to bring allegorical skits to life, sparking a love for learning and a peek into future academic endeavors. We conclude with a vibrant discussion on the symbiotic relationship between collaboration and competition in PBL, showcasing how peer-to-peer learning and student-driven projects leave lasting educational imprints. Don't miss out on the insights from our conversation, which are not only enlightening but also a testament to the boundless potential of PBL in crafting the educational leaders of tomorrow.


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Transcript

Ryan Steuer: 0:00

Welcome to the PBL Simplified Podcast, where we are helping bring your project-based learning vision to life, whether it's your school or your classroom, you're in the right place. I'm your host, ryan Stoyer, and at Magnified Learning we've been doing this for a decade. We've been helping schools that see that something different needs to happen. You say we want to move from teacher-centered to student-centered. We want our students to move from passive to empowered when they leave us. Our ideal graduate, the portrait of a graduate is a learner that has problem-solving skills, can collaborate with others, can work through conflict, that has agency, that gets things done. And we're going to do this through content-based standards and through PBL. If that's what you're looking for, you're in the right place. We bring you leadership episodes. We bring you PBL leadership guests, but on the second Wednesday, which is what you've tuned in for, is the PBL Showcase episode, and here we bring in facilitators in the field doing the work. They're in the trenches. In fact, these teachers tuned in right before their spring break, literally the afternoon before spring break. Now, that's just devotion to the cause. Like that's crushing it. Super thankful that they tuned in and it's a really special school that they're at. They have created this system down in Tallahassee, florida, where their high school is located on the same campus as a college. So as soon as these learners enter into the high school, they're also kind of entering into college in a way, right, so they can take these dual credit courses for any of their courses. Our teachers today will get into that and they're going to explain a little bit of their school. But I want to tee it up with just the idea that there are so many innovative systems out there that whatever your vision, whatever your dream is as a movement maker, like yes, like go after it, get a three year plan together and then tune in. We're going to have some leadership episodes that'll help you out with this.

Ryan Steuer: 1:58

But start to speak forth that vision to other people, start talking about it, and if somebody says, no, that's crazy, then go find somebody else to talk to, because these things are happening. There are some amazing school environments out there and you need to go visit them. You need to go take a school tour. If you want to go down to Tallahassee, we can hook you up with that. Let us know what kind of system you want to see, and that's one of your first steps that you can take is go see really innovative work and don't let that be enough. But while you're watching that, while you're dreaming, think about how can I bring this back to my school. And that's what starts, that's the seed that gets planted. And then, as you're reading, as you're listening, as you're taking courses, all these different things can lead to your vision. And then you start taking those first couple steps to build a movement at your school and in your classroom. So today we've got a PBL showcase so that you can see in the classroom of a PBL teacher.

Ryan Steuer: 2:54

If you're looking for more, over the summer we're going to have a conference in Indianapolis that you can come to. You can plan out the next three years for your school. We call it the emerging schools track. You can take a PBL jumpstart, you can take a PBL advanced. If you can't make it to Indianapolis, we've got some virtual options for you. So, wherever you're at, you can be at your school in your town and you can still tune in and get that. Still, that PBL jumpstart experience, the advanced or even a certification, depending on what track you're in Isn't that exciting?

Ryan Steuer: 3:24

Wherever you're at, there's just no reason for you to not be moving forward at this point in the world Like PBL is out there. We're doing it. It's a movement. You just need to join and see how your vision fits in. You're going to learn, you're going to give and we're going to move the movement forward. We want 51% of schools using project-based learning by 2051. And I think that means we only have like 37 years, so we've really got to get after it. But, gosh, thank you for tuning in today. I think you're going to love this episode and you're going to want to share it with others. Share it If you're a principal, share this with your teachers so they can hear what it looks like, because we're going to give you the real stuff, like it's not perfect but it's worth doing, it's worth working towards, and I think you're going to hear that in this episode. So I hope you enjoy it. All right, pbl Simplified Audience. Thanks for joining us for another PBL Showcase episode.

Ryan Steuer: 4:14

This is where we have teachers in the classroom, talking to you about what people look like in their specific classroom or in their school, and these are the ones that teachers continually tune in for and ask for more of these. So here you go, you've got it. So today we're talking to Bronwyn and Sarah, who are down in Florida doing PBL, and I don't want to steal their thunder. They're going to do a little bit of an introduction as well, but, as you know, in the PBL Simplified World, we always start off with this question to get people started, which is what is your why. So, bronwyn and Sarah, thank you for being on the podcast. Really appreciate you being here. Can you jump in and just tell us what your why is for teaching?

Bronwen West: 4:59

Sure, this is Bronwyn West and this is year 18 for me of teaching high school and middle school. Interestingly enough, my why is that I want to reach teachers, or reach students, in the same way that teachers reached me. I was somebody who was undiagnosed ADD, was very smart, but couldn't figure out why I couldn't get organized as a student, why I struggled, and I had a lot of teachers who just kind of were my bumpers and nudged me in the right direction over the years, including getting into some disciplinary issues in high school. And that's part of why I love teaching teens, because they need just as much compassion as pre-killing first graders. They're going through so many changes and I just I love being a part of that change and getting to kind of nudge them in the right direction when they need it.

Ryan Steuer: 6:05

That's so good. Teachers as bumpers. I like that metaphor just keeping us on track. That's great, sarah. How about you?

Sarah Chapman: 6:13

Well, I have been teaching for 11 years and one of my favorite things about teaching is that it is the perfect job for constantly learning Like, even though I feel like I do a pretty good job in the classroom. There's always room to grow, there's always more to learn about, and I really like that about teaching and I also just like working with the kids and helping them and seeing them have their all-hawn moments is so rewarding. It's a very busy job and it's a lot of work, but I enjoy it and that's why I keep doing it.

Ryan Steuer: 6:55

Yeah, there you go, super good, super good. So we've got two experienced teachers on the podcast today, but tell us a little bit more about your school and kind of what your adventure is this year.

Bronwen West: 7:08

This is Bronwyn again, and while we are both experienced, this is our first year doing PBL. We work at a brand new school called Tallahassee Collegiate Academy that is on the campus of Tallahassee Community College, so where any public school students and maybe private and charter can do enroll this, our campus sits on the campus of a community college, so that the students can just walk out the door to take their college classes. So that is that's something unique about our school. But we started a month early into the school year last summer so that we could go through PBL training and see what that might look like in a language arts setting. I've done projects in classes before but I had never really thought about or heard much about PBL itself and I was. When I first learned about it it seemed kind of like there might be limitations for language arts, like it might work better in a science classroom or even a math classroom setting. I couldn't really envision it for our subject.

Ryan Steuer: 8:26

Yeah, super good, sarah. Would you add anything else to that? You guys have jumped into this adventure of starting a new school. I love the experience that you have Over a decade of experience, but obviously just in your why you're both learners, right. So tell us a little bit more about the school, maybe why you jumped in. This opportunity came up and you guys jumped in to start this new school. I love it. It's super innovative being on the college campus with your high schoolers. I think it's such a neat model.

Sarah Chapman: 8:53

Yeah, I was really happy at the school. I was not before and I wasn't looking to leave and it was a pretty like prestigious high school for Tallahassee. But when I found out the program here with the dual enrollment and they really are able to do and own any class at the college and they could potentially graduate high school with a full two year degree and I just thought that was such an amazing opportunity for them and it sounded like something I wanted to be a part of. But I know the team here at our school is the A team, this everybody that works here. They care so much about their job and they care about the students and I just couldn't. I was like I'm going to go to the interview and just see what happens and I'm like so I guess I'm leaving my school.

Sarah Chapman: 9:45

But I'm really happy I made the change and, like Bronwyn mentioned that PBL training that we did, it really got the wheel turning. Like things that I used to think were PBL were actually not PBL. So, like now, taking projects and using a community partner and the accountability that the kids have from making their projects available to the community or put on display, it adds another dimension to just a class project that no one will see but me. They really make them work harder and learn more and feel a sense of pride for what they've done.

Ryan Steuer: 10:29

Yeah, so good. You guys are crushing it. So we're going to talk about your PBL units now. I want you to be able to share those, but real quick, just for the listener. That training they're talking about over the summer, those are design days, so we've talked about those in the podcast before.

Ryan Steuer: 10:43

Like those design days, you're going to plan out the next three years. You know, in the case of Sarah and Bronwyn, it's like we're going to plan out what school looks like and culture, what's this new thing going to look like, and then you jump into a PBL jumpstart to get those PBL units flowing. And that combination is really strong, just to get your teachers excited. Right to get your team, your A team I love that terminology, sarah you have the A team ready. So the culture is there, because your adult culture, your student culture, is not going to rise above your adult culture. So those design days are there to really get the adult culture flowing, get the collaboration moving, and then the students can jump into that. So who wants to start? Kind of tell us about one of the PBL units that you've really appreciated so far this year.

Sarah Chapman: 11:32

Go for it, Bronwyn.

Bronwen West: 11:34

Okay, so one of the units that we did oh, I think it was November or December. To backtrack for a second we use the FLVS curriculum, which is the Florida Virtual School curriculum, and we don't use it in its traditional sense of students working completely independently. We use it as our textbook. So, where the lessons are very informative, they're also very dry, and it was quarter two I was looking at these different standards that we had to hit and, rather than creating PowerPoints and things like that from the lessons, I assigned pieces of each lesson to groups of students so that they could work together and teach each other. It had done something similar in an introduction PBL at the beginning of the semester back in August and September and had done very well with that. That wasn't strictly PBL, they were working independently. But the second one, they were collaborating on how to teach certain standards, certain skills.

Bronwen West: 12:55

What I loved is that when you say that the students can't rise above the teacher digitally in digital knowledge, a lot of them have, and so I have had to catch up and educate myself, and I'm in a master's program, so I've reached out and tried to learn some different things, but each group had a topic. Each group had to do a presentation, some kind of interactive worksheet for teaching their classmates, some kind of assessment to see if their classmates understood whatever they were teaching. And that was really when I saw the range of skills that our students have. As a brand new school, our students are coming from Leon County, which is where we are, where we're located, but also Waculloch County, gadsden County, jefferson, one other that I can't remember. They're coming from homeschool, charter school, public school. It's a huge mix and in that I have students who created a Canva video with an AI voiceover that changed based on the topic, and then I have students who didn't know how to do a PowerPoint presentation and I had to back.

Ryan Steuer: 14:28

That's a melting pot, right? That's a little bit of everybody.

Bronwen West: 14:32

It's across the board, and what I really saw is that the students were. They wanted to jump in and help each other. They wanted to oh, you don't know how to do that, okay, well, let me show you how to do this. And this is how you would record a video and this is how you do voiceover. And it was a true collaboration in the sense that no one felt like they were competing with each other.

Bronwen West: 14:56

It was not you know who's going to get the best grade as much as getting excited about helping each other rise, and ultimately, the presentations were great. A number of the students turned them into YouTube videos that are now available publicly and I sent them to other middle school teachers because some of the standards are similar to things that I taught last year in eighth grade. I did the videos to other ninth grade teachers in our county so that they could use them and again I saw the quiet students don't necessarily just flip a switch and blossom, but they are able to contribute in their small group in a way that I don't know that they would speak up in a larger group. So in a full class setting, as a teacher, I was able to go around and make sure that they were meeting their checkpoints and really just see where they needed assistance and where to just let them fly and let them continue.

Ryan Steuer: 16:15

Well, it's so good, there's so many things that you can hear that my PBL antenna goes up. You've got kids trying to help each other like true collaboration. That's a really neat term because we know that just putting kids in the same vicinity doesn't mean collaboration just because they're close, or the fact that your maybe introverts or quieter students are comfortable in those small group settings, like having their presence known and having that power of the introvert come out. That says a lot about the culture that you've built, I think, within your school and probably within your classroom as well. That's some really neat outcomes. Sarah, do you want to jump in and tell us a little bit about PBL unit that you really appreciated?

Sarah Chapman: 17:04

Yeah. So I started the year with an introduction to McCarthyism leading into the reading of the Crucible, and my focal point was the fact that witch hunts have continuously happened throughout history and we need to be aware of political manipulation and demagogues in order to prevent witch hunts from continuing to happen. So we started learning about McCarthyism and then we read the Crucible, which is an allegory by Arthur Miller. So on the surface it's about the 1692 witch hunts in Salem, massachusetts, but underneath the surface it's actually about McCarthyism happening in America in the 1940s and 50s. So we were kind of learning about two big concepts here, not just witch hunts but also allegories. So while we're reading we're making connections between what we know about McCarthyism and what's happening in the play from 1692. And then when we were done reading the play, we analyzed other allegories and the end project that we did we partnered with the theater department at Tallahassee Community College.

Sarah Chapman: 18:33

It was an improv class, so I had my students write their own allegories and now that we've been exposed to all these examples of them and other modern day witch hunts, they had to create their own skits, much like Arthur Miller did for McCarthyism. And then we took those skits. They pitched them to the theater students at the community college, and then we had workshops. So the college students chose which script they wanted to work on.

Sarah Chapman: 19:06

So the kids were my students were having to create something that would that a college student would want to work on, and they knew that they were having to pitch these to the college classes in front of their peers. So the states were high and they rose to the occasion. The pitches were great. The college students had a lot of fun working with the high school students and then the select few they actually turned into legit skits at the workshop and they performed them in front of their peers and the kids had such a blast with it. On the way back to our, our school because we're on TCC's campus, but we had to walk back to our building and a student turned around and was like Miss Chapman, that was so much fun, are we going to get to do that again? And I was like, wow, we just turned writing allegories into fun.

Ryan Steuer: 20:02

Right.

Sarah Chapman: 20:05

And. But even the theater professor said that her students gained a lot from that too and that it was a good test of their skills, because they're working on improv and having to act at the drop of the hat. So it was a lot of fun and it really got me thinking about other pvls that I could do.

Ryan Steuer: 20:25

moving forward, Well, that's some of the magic of your guys. Is school right Like being on a college campus, like you have college students that are available, you have these other classes, you have professors, like how neat is it? I just think about, you know, when I had eighth graders that you know would have been first generation college students, like they didn't know what college was or they probably had some misconceptions about what people are like in college. Right, like I'm not a college student might be would be something my students would have said. And now they're interacting with college students going oh, these kids are just like me, they're just a little bit older, like I could do that. Right, I could see that. Did you see that happening? That's what I kind of imagined. I hear your pvl unit kind of walking out.

Sarah Chapman: 21:07

Yeah, I did, and because students at our school are able to do enroll, now they are like, wow, I want to take this class and that's an option that they can actually do. But you know, since I started working here, it made me kind of wonder why haven't I ever reached out to the call the college? Because we're in the same town. As a high school teacher, I could have still collaborated with the theater department at TCC. There would have been more logistical challenges getting my kids back and forth, but I could have made it happen. But I love that working here has exposed me to this pvl idea and the idea of having community partners, and now I'm thinking about all the different groups until I see that we could potentially work with. It's like it's the limit and I could have been doing this all along and I just never thought about it.

Ryan Steuer: 22:05

It's kind of an interesting piece, isn't it? I think it's one of the cornerstones of project-based learning is the community partners, because it adds that authenticity to the work, which is really exciting. So, bronwyn, as you've come into pvl too, what would you say to a teacher, maybe a principal that's kind of on the fence, because I love that you're both like decade plus in the profession and now going to pvl? Like what does that look like? If there's somebody who's not sure about this move, what would you say to them?

Bronwen West: 22:42

Um, I was that person this time last year.

Ryan Steuer: 22:44

Yeah so good, yeah so good.

Bronwen West: 22:47

I hadn't. I was, I hadn't heard about PBL by name, but I was um. I'm in graduate school. I was taking a graduate class and we were talking about um student driven education and how students should be the ones creating these things and teaching concepts, and all I could think of is how could that possibly work with classroom management? They're going to goof off they're. You know, they're not going to do the thing that they're supposed to do and, um, and I think it does, like you were saying earlier, it does come from this, from building the school culture, building the classroom culture, um, but then also creating um, creating projects that the students are interested in and proud of, um. I wasn't really sure how to um.

Bronwen West: 23:41

You know how to make ethos, pathos and logos as a standard and a topic fun and you know, and I'm sure I could have done research and all of that, but when I assigned it to students, they got so excited about how to teach this concept and, um, and one of the things that I read recently, um, in my graduate work was about, uh, um, artifacts and what are things that you know we in our thirties and forties look back on like, oh, I wrote that great project or I made this. You know I wrote this essay in high school or in college and that there are very few things in in standards based and in test driven education that students can point to and be proud of. And that is something that I've seen with PBL. That, um, you know, I've seen Sarah's students be so excited about having their allegory picked or having their um, another project that she did in a humanities class, having that selected.

Bronwen West: 24:50

Um, my students were so excited to present a video that they made about euphemism versus disphemism and it's, you know, something that might not normally get them excited, but but they said, oh, wait till you hear this AI voice. That we did, we changed it up and, and they're creating things that they are excited about and proud of, and, and I haven't seen that much in the past few years of my teaching, Um, I've seen students kind of slog through things and and I do my best to make it interesting. But I think giving them some choice, giving them some making it so that they are invested in what they are doing is so pivotal in in how involved they are and then the effort that they put into it and obviously that changes the outcomes.

Ryan Steuer: 25:47

Right, and I love that you point towards artifacts, cause, when I hear, when we're talking about your PBL unit that you shared with us, you know some of those resources are living on YouTube. They're public for anyone to use and I like that they're. They're good enough for you to recommend them to others, right To to other colleagues in other schools. That's a big deal. You know, when I wrote a research paper in high school like, my mom probably read it. You know, mrs Cusick read it and then it went in the garbage, right, and uh.

Ryan Steuer: 26:21

But it's not like you're creating artifacts that live on, or you think about portfolios, right, when it goes to, like when they're out of high school and they're going to college or into the workforce. Well, what have you done? Well, here's this video that I put on YouTube has got 10,000 views. How about that? You know, and, and and they're just starting, right? You guys are teaching ninth graders and 10th graders, so the artifacts that they'll have when they leave, uh, can be really impressive. Sarah, Sarah, what would you tell somebody who might be on the fence about PBL?

Sarah Chapman: 26:54

Um, I think what was helpful for me, because you know I went through a couple of um stages. At first I was a little bit like, oh, I'm not sure if this is actually going to be like. This is holy grail. And then I was like, wow, this is really exciting. And then I felt overwhelming and I was like, oh, my gosh, that's a lot of work. How am I going to do all of that Um?

Sarah Chapman: 27:15

But now that this is our first year of doing this and I realized that you can take baby steps, you can start with just um, taking a few elements of PBL and trying them out, um, and then build it year after year, build it up to become a bigger and better project, um. So that's what I've kind of done for the second semester of the school year. I'm just doing baby steps here, but next year I'm going to make it much bigger and go more into it. So, um, I I. I also agree with everything Bronwyn said about seeing these kids get excited about things that they typically wouldn't be excited about. And to have an actual artifact, a product to show people that's out there and has been publicly displayed. It really gives them a sense of ownership and they put a lot more effort into that than they would just a paper.

Ryan Steuer: 28:16

Yeah, super good, um gosh. Thank you for sharing all that. Both kind of your school setting your individual PBL units. I like the idea that you can always baby step into PBL, just like anything Like. I would say anything worth doing is worth doing poorly to start.

Ryan Steuer: 28:35

And we like to think that you know a good design days and jump starts gets you passed a lot of that, but they're still. I mean, you have to go do it with students, right. Like it's neat once you've planned out your first PBL, but now it's like, hey, there are learners in front of me and are they going to buy into this, and it's just really need to see when they do. And you guys are seeing that and sometimes it's almost a little hard to describe, isn't it Like? If you describe, like Bronwyn, you kind of describe, you know, this jigsaw piece that we've we've probably all heard, like when we were, you know, going through our collegiate careers.

Ryan Steuer: 29:08

You know, everybody read part of this article and explain it, and it does. I've seen it flop, or maybe it's just me personally. I've seen it flop. But you saw right like you saw like a little bit of the PBL magic happen right, where students have actually jumped in to help others, like I don't know what my question is, but can you talk about that a little bit? Like, how did it not flop?

Bronwen West: 29:32

I think there was a little. There was true collaboration within the groups. I think there was a little competition once they started, once my students started to see each other's product, and then the team members who may not have been as enthusiastic were then sparked to or fueled to do more. You know, I remember and just students, the group of students who did a presentation on euphemism and dysphemism. They taught that lesson. They were finished before everyone else. They really wanted to share it because they were proud of it and so I showed it even before the due date and other students. It kind of set the bar for them, most of them in a very positive way, a couple of them in a very in a pressuring way that they felt like they couldn't rise to that. They couldn't live up to that, but then I was able to talk to them about, like you, know you don't have to do a Canva video with a voiceover from AI and all of this.

Bronwen West: 30:45

But again, like you were talking about the essays that you used to write that not very many people would see. I think that the PBL has that effect of kind of all boats rise and the students who maybe didn't know how to do something they're motivated to learn how. In our school we have students like the school that I'm coming from. I taught reading for the past three years and reading was specifically for students who had, who scored a level one on the state test in a range of one through five, and one being the lowest, and I understood the value of putting them together so that they could get intensive instruction. But there wasn't always someone to look to in the class who maybe understood a little bit more than they did, and or, if that student was there, they didn't express themselves. They didn't feel like the classroom culture wasn't such that they felt like they could express themselves and we have one level of classes for students to cross the board.

Bronwen West: 32:02

We get them intervention when they need it, but someone who is a struggling reader might hear an idea from another student and it makes more sense to them than what I am saying as the teacher, and so that element of the students teaching. It gives them the public speaking, it gives the speaker the experience. But I think the other students also benefit from it. They're motivated, they learn something in a different way and it can be explained to them from in a peer level. Rather than maybe feeling nervous that, like the teacher doesn't think that they are smart. It's when a peer just says oh, you do this and you click on these buttons and there's your PowerPoint. I think sometimes it hits differently and the pride doesn't take as much of a blow as when a teacher is telling them how to do something.

Ryan Steuer: 33:02

Yeah, well, I think when you're also talking to teachers that are listening about YPBL, there's kind of this idea that you're getting a project based learning and it's all student driven. So the teachers in the back of the class twirling their thumbs, you know, it's all all right, kids, do what you will and great things will happen. It's like, first of all, no one's advocating for that right, like that's not what we're talking about with YPBL. But what I do here, as you talk about your classroom, is that your students are driving the learning which allows you to come alongside them, or come alongside the learner that needs maybe a little extra help right now, and I think that's some of the special specialness of PBL is that it allows you to have, you know, more more individualized attention for that group. It's like whoa, there's no way we can produce that Right.

Ryan Steuer: 33:52

Okay, let's, let's see if maybe you could. Let's, let's see what you would like to do. And, by the way, I'm not asking you to make that right, I'm asking you to make your, your project be the best right. So I can definitely tell that there's a lot of passion in both of your classes, the cultures there, even as a school, you guys are creating something really special and this is your one, so really excited to see how things progress. So, speaking of that, like what's next for each of you? Like what do we have? What's on the horizon for you? What are you excited about?

Sarah Chapman: 34:23

Well, in November, our school sent us to Columbus, ohio, for the National Conference of Teachers of English and while we were there we went and saw a lot of amazing talks and we learned about different types of lessons that we could do. We were really inspired by this conference, but we noticed that there wasn't a PBL element there and it really made us think we should submit a proposal.

Sarah Chapman: 34:56

We'd like to do something like that, and we are not experts by any means. This is our first year doing this. We've only just learned about it, but we've already seen the benefits. And if it just keeps, we get better and it keeps growing. And where's it going to go from? Here it's? We've got so much opportunity here. So we have got together and we put together a proposal for NCTE 2024, and it's going to be in Boston and we will find out in April if our proposal was accepted or not. But we are very excited to share what we've done and what we've learned and share it with other teachers.

Ryan Steuer: 35:40

Yeah, that's so good, ron, we need to get some PBL of that conference right, and I think it's fair. Like I think, like at Magnify Learning, I don't think of anywhere on our website where we're PBL experts right, like Rochelle, who's our director of coaching I think she coaches you guys, right, and she's a PBL practitioner, right Like, we're all getting better at this, we're all getting better at assessment, and that's why I love having you on the podcast, because we what people love about the showcases like this is that it's people that are in progress. Right, we're all in progress in this and, as we call it a journey, right, it's a PBL journey. So I love that. You're going to have to share your story. Yeah, you should be on that agenda. Bronwyn, do you have a PBL update? You have something coming up that you're excited about.

Bronwen West: 36:24

I do so. I am taking a page from Sarah with her analogy project. Our students are reading Romeo and Julie, yet they're about halfway through and I'm going to have and I'm going to coordinate with the Tallahassee Community College theater students Sarah worked with the improv, I'm going to be working with the I think it's the intermediate theater students and so my students are going to be taking one of the acts for Romeo and Julie, selecting a scene and making some kind of adaptation, and they're going to write the scenes and then we're going to propose them to theater students and put on as many of these scenes as we can, and so the students are already very excited about it. They've been collecting costume pieces and props that we've been using in class as we read the play and coming up with little, with different adaptations.

Bronwen West: 37:35

And really it was one that when I first started PBL, I wasn't sure how I could marry PBL and the Florida standards or really any standards, and I thought, oh, this would be fun, but how do we do this? And adaptation is one of the lessons in the ninth grade curriculum, and so, rather than using what would be kind of a stale assignment or stale lesson, that is, in the FLDS curriculum. The students are now already getting excited and, oh, I hope I get Act One, or I hope I get Act Three, because we can. You know it's the murder of Mercutio and Tibbolt, and so I've you know, I've let them know that this is on the horizon and they're getting pretty excited about it.

Ryan Steuer: 38:32

I mean, I know it's not the end thing and sometimes people pick this up hard, but I love that your learners are excited to be at school. They're excited for things to happen. It's so much easier to learn that way, right? And?

Ryan Steuer: 38:42

English teachers that are watching. Can I? Oh, I'm going to let you jump back in. Braum is doing a novel. Hey English teachers, we can do novels in PBL, it's OK. Or you say Braum, go ahead, I got. That's always my precursor. Anytime we have a novel in a PBL showcase, I just have to.

Bronwen West: 38:56

it's always a question, so absolutely Well, and the euphemism and dysphemism lesson, that or the PBL, was actually students teaching and, and the lesson topics came from FLDS but also from an examination of 1984. So we were reading the George Orwell novel and topics like euphemism and dysphemism came into play. On, topics like propaganda came into play and the students actually taught those topics rather than us sitting down and doing worksheets about those topics. So I was definitely not sure about that either. But and and Sarah was saying I started with Baby Steps, I started with pieces of PBL in the first couple of quarters of the year and now I'm kind of, I feel like I'm getting my sea legs a little bit more, but I've. It was, it was a little overwhelming to wrap my mind around how to integrate those two things the, the, the things that I had been teaching with, teaching them in a new way.

Bronwen West: 40:13

And you know, and again, for anybody who thinks like, oh, wow, a whole class of students who's excited, it's not, it's not every day, you know and it's not all class period, but but it's a level of buy in that that is different than what I have seen, and I've taught seventh grade, eighth grade, ninth up through twelfth Orlando, Tallahassee, different schools and and there is definitely more excitement and buy in with this method of teaching than I have seen before. And and it's I like you were saying, I am a work in progress in terms of learning how to do these things, which is, you know, I didn't think when I started teaching that at 18 years I would be doing something totally different, but but it's absolutely worth it.

Ryan Steuer: 41:14

That's super good. That's super good. We're going to wrap right there. Thank you, Browen. Sarah, Thank you so much for being on today. I really appreciate your time.

Sarah Chapman: 41:25

Happy to be here. Thanks for having us.

Ryan Steuer: 41:27

Hey, pbl simplified audience. You just heard a great showcase Tallahassee Collegiate Academy. You can hear the culture of the school in this podcast episode. You can hear the culture of each classroom is and you heard standards. You heard novels. You heard assessments, presentations, buy in, engagement, collaboration and you also heard it's not perfect, but those things are there and they're growing and that's exciting. That's why we keep doing the work. So we're going to keep doing the work. You keep tuning in so that you can teach inspired.

Ryan Steuer: 42:06

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.