Finding Your Bright Spots - Asset Based School Development | E185
Jun 05, 2024
Magnify Learning
Can focusing on what works transform your school? Discover the power of Asset Based School Development in our latest episode of the PBL Simplified Podcast. We'll unpack strategies for identifying and amplifying the strengths within your school community, making learning environments more positive and efficient. Learn how protocols can revolutionize project-based learning . Visit pblshare.com to share your own insights and questions and explore our upcoming workshops designed to deepen your PBL knowledge.
Inspired by the Heath Brothers' book "Switch," we delve into the concept of finding and cloning bright spots to inspire effective change in schools. Hear a compelling case study from a school in Lexington, KY, where success in the second grade was replicated across other grades, showcasing the practical application of this approach. We'll also discuss the role of asset-based assessments and the importance of regular feedback from the entire school community. Shift your focus from problems to strengths and learn how to create a thriving, vibrant educational environment.
Some of the links above are affiliate links which means we get a small commission on anything you purchase using that link (at no more cost to you). As Amazon Associates, we earn from qualifying purchases.
Can focusing on what works transform your school? Discover the power of Asset Based School Development in our latest episode of the PBL Simplified Podcast. We'll unpack strategies for identifying and amplifying the strengths within your school community, making learning environments more positive and efficient. Learn how protocols can revolutionize project-based learning . Visit pblshare.com to share your own insights and questions and explore our upcoming workshops designed to deepen your PBL knowledge.
Inspired by the Heath Brothers' book "Switch," we delve into the concept of finding and cloning bright spots to inspire effective change in schools. Hear a compelling case study from a school in Lexington, KY, where success in the second grade was replicated across other grades, showcasing the practical application of this approach. We'll also discuss the role of asset-based assessments and the importance of regular feedback from the entire school community. Shift your focus from problems to strengths and learn how to create a thriving, vibrant educational environment.
Some of the links above are affiliate links which means we get a small commission on anything you purchase using that link (at no more cost to you). As Amazon Associates, we earn from qualifying purchases.
Ryan Steuer:
Welcome to the PBL Simplified Podcast, where we add value to educators, because everyone wins when educators are inspired. So, whether you're leading a classroom, a school or a district, your leadership matters. Everyone wins when leaders are inspired. I'm your host, ryan Stoyer, chief Inspiration Officer here at Magnify Learning, and so glad you tuned in today. As we get into today's episode, we're going to be talking about asset-based school development. How do we look at the assets that are in your school already the bright spots and build off of those, instead of looking at the deficits, which is something that we tend to automatically go to what's going wrong? And when we focus that, that's where energy goes. So we're going to talk about asset-based school development. How do you look at the assets to build up your school? And this is a first in a many-part series. I would love to have your voice in this series. So if you go to pblsharecom that's pblsharecom you can leave a comment, a need to know a story, and I'll share it on the podcast.
Ryan Steuer:
One of those insights that came in was from one of our educators who's in the online community from Malaysia. That came in was from one of our educators who's in the online community from Malaysia, and he asks he teased it up with this that we use protocols and project-based learning. True, we love them here at Magnify Learning. So an example of protocols are tuning protocols, golden shining moments, decision matrix protocols or gallery walks. And he says some of these protocols seem like cooperative learning activities, to me like a gallery walk. My question is is a protocol the same as cooperative learning activity? So great question. Thank you again for going to pblsharecom to leave a need to know. And at Magnified Learning we're super geeky about protocols because protocols are ways to make learning more efficient, helps us go deeper, helps people kind of get away out of some of the self-conscious kind of acts that we have. Like should I be talking right now? Am I talking too much? Why is that person talking so much, right? So we add time to it, we add some sentence stems to it, we add structure to the next five minutes, 10 minutes, whatever the protocol is going to call for, and we are super geeky about that. I don't think we're as geeky about what you call it. So if you want to call it a cooperative learning activity, I think that's fine. You know, like Kagan has some great activities we love. Like there's a huge book of activities that you can get.
Ryan Steuer:
We'd call them protocols. You know some way where you're looking at the learning and not just doing like this big group share out, where you just say, hey, who knows this answer? And you know the first learner that that speaks every single time right is the extrovert is going to give you an answer, and whether it's right or wrong, you just kind of go with it and you run with it and you wonder why nobody else talks. And it's that lack of a protocol that we can lose our learner's voice in that and we can also lose our teacher voices in that. And even for administrators, we have different personalities in the room hopefully right. And as you're building your team, you're going to have different people in the room and they have different ways of expressing themselves. So protocols allow voice to be protected. It brings equity into the conversation. So we use them in any training that we do, whether it's with leadership teams or teachers, and then we advocate that you're going to use those in the classroom for all those same reasons. So now we really don't care what you're going to call it. I don't think whether it's a cooperative activity or a protocol. We've just kind of chosen this term protocol, because it resonates with us and, honestly, sometimes it brings out a need to know, like, what's a protocol? Great question, let's talk about that. When we did connections this morning, that was what we would call a protocol. Do you have more of those? Because I really liked that. Well, in fact we do, and we've got a lot ones that fit best for project-based learning and the leadership work that we do. So I hope that clears up that question for you. And again, if you want to ask your own question, you don't need to know, go to pblsharecom, pblsharecom.
Ryan Steuer:
And then, before we jump into our episode, I want to give a plug for our virtual workshops. You still have an opportunity to jump into a virtual workshop for a jumpstart or an advanced, either in June or July. So this is a great way to get around possible like travel issues that can come about, so you can save some some money there. You can come as a group, you can have a full group at a virtual workshop. We'd love to customize some of those things for you. You can still get into an in-person workshop if you'd like. You're really cutting it pretty close. For the Indianapolis one, it's coming up June 10th and 11th, and then we've got another one that's going to be in Missouri. If you want to be in person, then that one's in July. You can check the show notes for all the details there. But highly recommend that you jump in.
Ryan Steuer:
And here's why you know, just kind of thinking through this process of you know why do you need to jump in right away? And I think part of it is that you just want to get started and just get to get past the starting line because this is a journey. If you, if anybody's trying to sell you PBL that's done in a year and suddenly you're an expert, I wouldn't jump in with them. I would not partner with that group. Right, when we look at magnified learning, we at pbl we're looking at least a three-year process. We have jump starts, we've got advanced, we've got certification, that that your teachers can go through, because there's so much to learn really.
Ryan Steuer:
And when you go to a jump start as your first professional development, you're going to learn the nuts and bolts of project based learning. You learn why you should jump in. You're going to learn how you're going to do it and what're going to do day to day. You're going to plan out your whole unit, but you haven't done it with learners yet. So you're gonna have a whole time of learning, which is why we suggest coaching that next year and then, when you come back, then that next summer for PBL advanced, you have so much more experience, so many more wins, failures, things that you've tried, resources that you like, some that you didn't like, you know hold instead of need to notice, so that pbl advanced is building on your knowledge and experience now and then you've got a whole year of that where you're starting to perfect things, and then we can get into conversation around certification, where, if you're really firing on all cylinders, you know you can come become pbl certified. You can start doing some trainings at your school or around the country with us, but it's a process and we really want to go deep with you as a school, as a teacher. We want you to be deep in the practice with sustainable for you, and you're continually using this practice in your classroom because the results are phenomenal.
Ryan Steuer:
So that's my quick plug for virtual workshops, and I guess I technically threw in the in person too, because I know some people like to be in person, but the virtuals are super collaborative. You know we pivoted during COVID, like so many folks did, and we just our team, did a great job of keeping the collaborative spirit in the virtual workshops, which was absolutely one of our pillars is how do we stay collaborative? Because we believe in that collaborative spirit at the adult level and at the kid level. So when you go into a virtual workshop, it's not this asynchronous piece where you just listen to somebody you know spout off on a PowerPoint. You're actually doing the work. You're going to do a tuning protocol with people that are in the workshop with you. You're going to have an expo. You're going to present all those same feels that come from an in-person in a virtual environment. So I think you'll love it. If you want to jump in or if you have more questions, you can always reach out, but check out the show notes for more information.
Ryan Steuer:
So we're talking about asset based school development and we've kind of internally been doing this for a while because we just believe in the optimism of teachers already working in a passion area. Like you didn't come into teaching or education in general if you're, you know, a building leader because you know you just needed a job and that's not why we do it right. So we assume that you're already in this work to do passionate work and you want good outcomes for kids, right? So with that assumption, even in the name, magnify learning we didn't call it replace learning we know that at your school, in your classroom, you're working to serve kids well and that's our beginning assumption. So we don't go in with a deficit and say, hey, you're doing this wrong, let's fix that. We're coming in looking for bright spots and saying, wow, you guys do this really well. How can we magnify that learning? Right, see what we did there with the name.
Ryan Steuer:
And so what we've done now is we've really just codified things. We have this term asset-based school development that we've trademarked and we're super excited about it. We've got a book coming out in the next year with the same title where we're going to help walk you through this process for your school and really your classroom to say where can you find these bright spots? And when you look at bright spots you need to look at. Go grab this book called Switch by the Heath Brothers, and Dan Heath has this. I'm going to read you a couple of quotes from Dan Heath, because I love the way that they look at bright spots and I think it's important to work and they do a ton of research, so I love their books in general.
Ryan Steuer:
So he says, instead of emphasizing what isn't working and needs to be fixed, ask what is working and how can we clone it? That seems easy enough, except that, again, humans are involved. So here's what he says. He goes on to say that human beings are hardwired to analyze problems but not success. So we're hardwired to see that things aren't working right and to call those things out, and sometimes that works out okay, right, if you have one problem, that's you know. Maybe you see that the bus line isn't quite working right. So you can look at that one problem, analyze it and fix it. However, analyzing success is the only way that you can create more success, is what he says. So he calls this philosophy finding the bright spots, and we love it. We've brought it into asset-based school development. And another piece that he goes on to talk about he's got a great YouTube videos, about three minutes with vast company.
Ryan Steuer:
And he goes through and he says well, if you get a report card back from your child and there's, you know one, a, three B's and an F, what's the first thing you see? You see the F and you say, hey, what happened in math? Like, let's talk about that, right? So he's. He's trying to prove this idea that we're hardwired to find problems, because it's pretty rare that you look at that report card and go, wow, you got an A in English, great job. What are you doing really well there? How can we do more of that? That's not where we tend to go, just in our brains in general. So when we look at that report card, you say, wow, I see the problem there. And when we're looking at change process, it's a little bit different. You can't just say, hey, there's this one thing that needs to be fixed. Let's fix it and then we'll move forward with complete success.
Ryan Steuer:
Education is such a complicated machine with so many different relationships and so many different ideas, so many different problems and so many different solutions, that it's not as simple as find the one problem, fix it and move on. So in that case, this is where Heath Dan Heath really recommends that you start looking at the bright spots, and we found a ton of success this with this. As we do our leadership workshops that we call design days, we go in with your team and say, where are the bright spots happening in your school. How can we clone those? You know, when we're doing leadership coaching, we had a school in Lexington and we use this exact same protocol as we were coaching the principal there and she said you know, the second grade team's doing really great. I wish I could get everybody else doing. That was vaguely the the idea Right, and it was like, well, let's, let's dig into that, like let's not gloss over this idea, right, let's not look at things that people aren't doing, let's look at what is working and really, on that question, dug a little deeper to find a few structural things that were happening at the second grade level that were working really well, that could be cloned in other grade levels. Inv invited some grade levels to go see the second grade level and take notes and say ask that same thing, what are the bright spots, what's something you could replicate at your grade level, and, lo and behold, it worked. Right, we found those things.
Ryan Steuer:
When you start looking at your craft or the practice of teaching, not as and this is hard because it is such a personal thing we're not saying that you as a teacher need to change. We're saying what if there's a different structure or a different tool that you could bring to your classroom. And when you start doing that, you're looking at bright spots and you can bring them to other places. You're cloning the bright spots instead of focusing on the problems, because when you start focusing on something, it grows. So where your attention goes, those things grow. So if you're focusing your attention on the problems, they tend to actually get bigger. It kind of backfires and we miss out on those things that are the bright spots. So how do you practically apply this?
Ryan Steuer:
So when we look at asset-based school development, we want you to start somewhere to say, like where are you? You need to define, like, where is your school, where's your classroom? And there's a lot of different ways to do that. One that we love is the idea of you know, an asset assessment. So you start asking people like what are the things that are working? You get your different stakeholders involved and start asking them at different levels. So you ask your leadership team, your administrative team what are the things that are working in our building? And you could be really specific here. You know, you might say hey, when the health teacher does this particular activity, I noticed that learners are super engaged. Awesome. That might be something we go and look at, we put the magnifying glass on that and say why is that? Maybe you find out that she brings a community partner in for that particular activity, that unit, and maybe not other times. Okay, so that's a piece that seems to work in this area. Could we clone that in different areas?
Ryan Steuer:
And your administrative team is going to see your school in a little different light. They have a different viewpoint than the other stakeholders. So you have a set of questions that you ask your admin team. As they're doing walkthroughs, non-evaluative walkthroughs they're going through and just saying what are the things I really like that I see, where I see learners truly engaged, not just quiet, not passive, not sitting there compliant, but engaged in the work, like what are the things that are happening? And love the idea we have some principals that will leave a post-it note in the back with just some I likes and you just leave the I like in the back and you're adding a plus one, or you're adding a heart to the bright spot that you saw while you were in that classroom and that tells that teacher like hey, somebody saw that this is working. I'm going to do more of that. That's just how our humanness works Like. Somebody said yes to that and I want to do a great job, so I'm going to do more of that. So you start getting your admin team looking for bright spots as they're going throughout the work that they're doing. When they're talking to parents, they've had a meeting with an IEP, in an IEP meeting, or they're working with a community partner or a vendor or teachers, they've got a viewpoint that's a little bit different than other people. So record their bright spots.
Ryan Steuer:
What about teachers? Same thing. Ask your teachers, like you can say what's not working, that's fine, there's a place for that but ask them what is working. You'd be surprised if you go and look at your faculty meetings, what your exit ticket looks like. So many times it's not asking that simple question or maybe doing some kind of a chalk talk around. What really is working. You know in our school, in our classroom. Well, I really like when our faculty meeting does this right, and you're like, oh, I didn't know that. You know we should do more of that. Right, the collaborative activity that you did, you know right before break because you weren't real sure what to do.
Ryan Steuer:
It turns out that was one of the best things that your teachers really liked and you should do more of those collaborative pieces because they want to work together or they like the community, they like the synergy and they want to do more of that. And you'll never find out unless you ask. Because what, when teachers come to you, if you're a building leader, what do they typically come with? They typically come with problems and again, it's with a good heart most of the time. Right, I've got this problem. If I solve it, it's good for kids. So I'm going to bring you problems so that we can try to figure this out.
Ryan Steuer:
It's pretty rare that somebody comes into your office and says hey, boss, I got to talk, I've got this really great thing that happened in my classroom and I just want to tell you about it. Right? That just doesn't usually happen, right? So what if you started asking? What if you started asking what are the bright spots that are happening in in your classroom right now and just get them all on the board and see if you can find some, some threads that go throughout the different bright spots, and maybe you can replicate and or clone some of those to get more of them, and then you can ask students the same thing.
Ryan Steuer:
And we don't ask students this all the time. You can ask parents. You know what are some of the great things that have been happening. What are some bright spots from this first semester that you know, that you've seen or maybe you know as a post piece for as school's ending right now. You know, you ask, you know what are some of your greatest moments, the bright spots that came out of this last year and again, a lot of times parents will call in and say, hey, I didn't like this, I can't believe. You know this happened. You know, I heard this, is it true? They don't usually call, unfortunately, to say, hey, this was really great and I really appreciate that. Some will right and make sure you appreciate those and always ask for more, but you need to ask. You know, if you don't ask, you don't get.
Ryan Steuer:
So start asking students, ask parents. What is it that's really working in our school? You know how can we do more of that? And you say, well, that's neat, ryan, how do I do that? That sounds like a lot of asking, even if I'm in. How do I do that? We've got resources for you.
Ryan Steuer:
If you go to pblculturecom. Pblculturecom, you can download all of the asset assessments that we have that we would use. So if you asked us, if you said, hey, ryan, come into our school today, you know, come do an asset-based school development assessment. Let us know where we're at, because that's where you start right, we would use a lot of these. We would come do a walkthrough and we've got a rubric that we use. We would also use a lot of Google forms to collect a bunch of data from your stakeholders. Well, here's the thing A lot of you are not asking for that first assessment and we love it when we get to do it because it tells us so much about where you're at. So we're just going to give them to you, right? So if you go to pblculturecom, you can literally download all and copy for you all the Google forms that we would use for your admin team, for teachers, for community partners, for teachers, students, parents, for all your stakeholders, and use the ones that you're most comfortable with to start with.
Ryan Steuer:
And the flood of data is amazing. It's so much fun to see when you can see the patterns that form, because they happen really quickly. You make the Google form easy to fill out, you send it to people at the right time and you get a really good response, because people do want to help. They're just not usually sure how you can even kind of preface it with. You know how you want to frame this, like, hey, we're doing some asset based school development. We want to check out the bright spots that are happening in our school so we can celebrate those and clone those. Would you be willing to take five minutes and fill out this Google form to give us some examples of bright spots? Yes, yes, I'll do that. Like most people will say yes to that. And then now you have some data, or you have some data that you can share to say, hey, these are the bright spots that are happening and you can start thinking through how can we clone the great things that are happening, instead of continually trying to put out fires of all the different problems that are happening. That it may seem like.
Ryan Steuer:
If you're new to this idea, you probably need to read some John Gordon, some positive mental attitude thinking stuff. It's not positive woo-woo, mumbo-jumbo. This is a different frame to look at your school and your classroom that changes the power dynamic. You are now not working from a deficit. You're working from something that's already there, to add to it, multiply it, to magnify it, and it's so much easier to start doing that.
Ryan Steuer:
So the first thing you're going to do with asset-based school development is figure out where are you at right now. And my favorite analogy for this is because I love to hike and I love to explore and I try to get my kids using maps as much as we can and it turns out a map is super useful, but only if you know where you are on that map. You can have a compass, you can have all the backcountry things that you need, you can have all the maps, the elevation changes, all the trails, but if you don't know where you're at on that map, it does you no good. None of the tools help. So the very first step in asset-based school development is to figure out where are you, and that is you ask around.
Ryan Steuer:
You start to ask the question of what are some great things that are happening. I'll tell you what. I don't know if it seems intimidating and maybe I'm just a real positive person, but I love asking this question because people smile, their eyes get a little bit of a sparkle. I think, oh yeah, you know what was really great. And they'll tell you a student story. You know it was really great is when the teachers did this. And you know it was really great was when this parent came in and actually told me I was doing a really great job, like yeah, like let's celebrate those things right. And again it starts to change the power dynamic from we're always focusing on problems and putting out fires to we are going to expand the good things that are happening. I promise you that that frame makes a difference. All right, so that is our very first podcast on asset based school development.
Ryan Steuer:
There is more to come. There's a book and workbook coming. We'd love to have your need to knows and your comments and your stories. That could very well make it into the podcast and into the book. But you need to go to pblsharecom, pblsharecom and, now that you kind of have this basic opening of asset-based school development, if you've got some of these bright spot stories, I would love to hear them. I would love to put them in the book. When you make the book, obviously we're going to send you a free copy of that book. We're super excited about it coming out to add to a lot of the leadership work that we do and we think it's going to make a huge difference in schools across the country.
Ryan Steuer:
So thank you for tuning in to the PBL Simplified podcast. Again, I'm your host, ryan Stoyer, and we want you to lead inspired. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the PBL Simplified podcast. I appreciate you and honor that you tune in each week. Would you please take two minutes to leave a rating and a review? When you leave a review, it lets the next person know that this is a podcast worth listening to. When they go into 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 leaving a review. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you.