[Music] Academica Media [Music] from Academica Media Studios in Miami
Florida it's Big Ideas In Education a weekly recap of inspiration and innovation in your
schools welcome to the show everybody I'm Ryan Kairalla from Academica Media we are happy
happy to be joined this week by Telannia Norfar oh look at that she's already smiling I know this
is going to be a good interview Telannia let me tell you a little bit about her she's a National
Board Certified Math Teacher and the Curriculum Dir
ector of PBL Works a nonprofit organization
that endeavors to help teachers and school leaders facilitate quality project-based learning you can
find out more about our guest work by visiting www.pblworks.com Telannia thank you so much for
joining us this week oh thank you you thank you Ryan this is amazing I love everybody people know
that about me very quickly and so I'm so excited to be here to talk about especially Big Ideas In
Education but education in general I am loving but I defini
tely love the Big Ideas part well I would
say of the biggest ideas in education PBL is right up there I mean at least for me personally I have
a big place in my heart for Project-Based learning I love this this model I try to incorporate PBL
as much as I can with my own students I am often trying to get other teachers to embrace this
type of learning and so I know I love PBL and it sounds like you do too what do you love most
about Project-Based learning why and and why do you think it's so
effective as a teaching tool
oh my God okay so that two questions actually fold together in my answer perfectly so I started
teaching and found out about PBL immediately like it was the very first thing they told me that we
do as a school and so I immediately jumped into it because that's what we're supposed to do as a
school and just the love of the experience in my classroom by the students that they just weren't
that typical you know when you see any movie in school kids don't look like
they ever want to be
in the classroom all the fun has happened in the hallway in the cafeteria but in the classroom
everybody looks really sad and bored but I was basically transformed um and I'm that classroom
in the cafeteria and the hallway and so it just how could you stop doing something like that how
could you not want to go to work when you have kids who are into it like that and the learning is
so deep so between those two I can't stop I only stopped being in the classroom to come
out here
and help others do it right you you saw something that worked and you wanted to bring it to as many
people as possible which I imagine is the reason why you got connected with PBL Works to kind of
expand this model into more schools to get more teachers to embrace it how did you get involved
with this organization is there a cool backstory there oh my God it's so funny okay so this this
seems strange I'm just every once in a while I'm sort of like it's 2024 there are teachers
who
weren't even born when I started but in in 2005 when I started again I was at this school
they said there were PBL School unfortunately I didn't do any training so I had to start try to
learn but I'm a journalist by trade so I was used to researching and trying to figure things out but
again for people who run around in 2005 as like an adult like searching then was still hard like the
internet was not the way it is now it was a really School of Hard Knock so I searched thankfully
the second
year I taught it used to be called Buck Institute for Education before it switched
to the name PBL Works and so they had came to my School District but unfortunately I couldn't
even make the training I had to go to a different training because I was a math teacher and we were
implementing something new so a great counselor in my school got me a book like she hood winked
and got an extra book and got it for me and so like I fell in love and then two years later it's
so funny I fell in love
with them but then less than two years later I was at the isty conference
many people know ISTE International Society for technology and education and I happen to connect
with people at bie and they were like oh my God you should come and be a part of the organization
I was like are you for real I was like that would be absolutely amazing I was like and but I'm still
like are you sure like I don't feel like I'm ready like I don't feel like I'm like no enough yet and
they like oh my god well
I was like one they were like nobody's really doing this in man like and
the fact that you're working in it in math just makes you like whatever you doing like we we want
to learn from you so I was like okay and the next thing I know I was in Nevado, California for a
summit I think it was like early late 2007 or early 2008 like somewhere around there COVID
has messed up my time frame of things I just remember certain things like I started teaching
in 2005 and then the years of other stuff
is kind of like jumbled uh but it was definitely in that
time frame and I've just been like on this I was a national faculty member for years with them
before coming again aboard but like yes it was what like and it was just ask okay this is how
bad it was nobody even probably remembers there used to be Skype so before Zoom people there was
this tool called Skype that you would get on and talk with video they even had Skyping education
it was so cool you could connect with experts but you k
now nobody knew that unless you were like a
geeky Tech Teacher so so I found out about Skype met again those people online with Skype and we
both just got like so excited because there was only like three of us there because again nobody
even knew about Skype or how to use it so I was so fortunate that there was like nobody on the
call but like me and another teacher and then the people from at the time so yeah it's I love
yeah there I love that you're bringing up Skype we actually that was
when I started podcasting
Skype was the first application we would use to record interviews it was a very different time
and I'm I'm glad technology has progressed since then but one thing that that struck me about what
you said is that the subject area in which you practiced Project-Based learning was in math
and that really speaks to me because I think of of all the different disciplines math is one
that particularly benefits from an incorporation of Project-Based learning because what d
o math
students always complain about when you when you get them in the classroom in math when are
we ever going to use this in real life and Project-Based learning is inherently an answer to
that question because you do get opportunities to use the math that you're learning but I know
it can also be sort of challenging to create PBL lessons in math but it's so necessary because
a lot of students struggle with that subject can you you talk about your experience incorporating
PBL into math
education oh yeah yeah and and I quickly understood why math why it's not done
in math a lot because our background we have usually learned math in segments and not in a
holistic way so pbl forces the subject area to be holistic not in a compartment I mean you could
even think about it in life how much if you just have a house project how many different math
concepts you're using from you know purchasing the materials budgeting out painting measuring
like you know you're mixing geometry and
numeracy and even algebra even though you don't know you're
solving for x but you're mixing algebra in there too and so that people don't really like think
of it that way they just think of it as okay let me do one step equation then let me do two-step
equation then let me do you know they don't see the interchangeability of the concepts together
so it makes so that's one reason why people like don't get into it but that's also how you
approach doing it which is another reason why I steppe
d out to do it because it's it is
a different way of thinking and I want to take that lift off of teachers and create units that
already integrated the math for you so you have to look at your chapters differently you have
to look at it as how do they go together rather than how they be discreet and then look and see
when it takes about three weeks of this concept to sort of like Jive together and there's your
your project content and then the rub is okay well where where can this project l
ive in life
and again that's the other hurdle that sometimes happen with teachers and why I'm glad I tried to
take that off and that's where the project takes on this magic once you have that content mixed
with what it is that happens in an authentic way then now it's like boom boom boom on the planet
you immediately think of what students got to create create that thing that they create becomes
like the mold that drives the learning and it's like the vehicle that they keep coming back to
and they keep going into pieces until they reach to that final look of it which is high quality and
enhance that's the other piece that is so amazing what kids could create in a high quality way
not the again don't think of the posters that be onside outside of the classroom that's not that's
not what we talking about we're not talking about that we're talking about High quity professional
like used in the real world type of product and creation and then they get to share that with
an authe
ntic audience again it's just so mind blogging it's 17 I do know the number how years
I've been in education even I don't like saying that number 17 years I've been doing this and it
just gets better and better I love the idea of a pbl-based lesson or series of lessons in math
built around building something right like a house right you could within a house there are
an infinite number of math lessons that can be taught and and by the way there are math lessons
that run through many differe
nt subject areas of math you could get students doing basic arithmetic
you know how much Lumber do you need you move them right into geometry and algebra to measure angles
you could do some trig in there some calculus like there there's so many possibilities yeah you
could build you could build a whole math class out of building something in PBL and students are
going to be so much more engaged by that than they would be just by learning theory or reading stuff
off of posters that's so so c
ool to me now I can already hear the Math teachers just cheering at
this notion of oh my God this is so enlightening I want to do more pbl in my math classroom but it
can be overwhelming right like the idea of having to completely renovate your curriculum and you
know start over start from scratch do you have any advice for the teachers out there who like
what you're hearing about PBL and math but want to dip their toe in the water what are some easy
things that they can do to infuse a litt
le bit of pbl into their math curriculum without completely
having to tear their lesson plans apart day one oh my God okay now did you like read my book
or something like that's what it sounds like you you read my book and you're like let me come
up with these questions based upon tain's book so so that literally was the thought of the entire
book series so it's called Project-Based learning in the math classroom but it's a series because
it's divided by grade levels so there are K-2 level
there's a 3-5 and then 6-10 and so you can
pick which one fits your grade level but I have to admit there's some good stuff in all of them
if you just want to buy them all because we have different examples in each so so in addition
to helping you understand the the basics of understanding of PBL walking you through an
experience because that's another heavy lift teachers have a hard time understanding like
this switching teaching so we have what we call experience PBL chapter so they can b
e like
a student or they could stay a teacher but kind of see what what it looks like to run through it
and then we have what I call tasks are like three to five days long not not weeks long you can you
can get it done in a week and we have like all of it explained in the task of what to do and then
you could you could try it that way another thing that I usually tell people and this is more like
definitely directed when I'm in the PBL workspace we have a framework called gold standard PBL
and
I just tell people I was like it's just great practices put together like that's you could each
of them could land on their own so you could also just look at this upcoming chapter and see what
elements really could enhance that chapter could it be enhanced by kids reflecting more could it
be enhanced by kids critiquing and revising their thought process or their work could it be enhanced
by maybe you don't tell them everything maybe they start to be I call them sustained inquirers
bas
ically they come up with questions and they try to work on figuring out their answers through
technology like Desmos has great in creativity so does Texas Instrument they can end up sort of
like immersing themselves in the thought and let them be the sort of tool drivers or maybe they go
ahead and publicly say something to someone the next the next classroom or you bring someone in
as a guest speaker and they start to have like a public audience aspect to it so pick a I said pick
a element
any element you don't have to let me see but you could pick one and then you could try it
out or you could try out a three to five day that have some of the elements already built in for you
and and execute it that way it's it's easy to get started that's great I love when teachers can get
easy points of entry into new things so they don't feel like they have to completely start over and
and just give up on what they might have already that already sort of works and allow them to as
I said
before dip their toe in the water I think that's fantastic our guest has been telena nor
far she is the curriculum director of PBL Works you can find out more about her work by visiting
www.pblworks.com kindred spirit when it comes to project-based learning I attribute so much of the
success of my students in the classes I've taught to this concept so I'm glad we have somebody out
there like you with so much enthusiasm to continue to to spread this to more and more teachers it's
fantastic b
efore we let you go I got one last question for you and given what you've told us so
far I'm particularly interested in your answer if with the snap of your fingers to in you could
make any change to the education system what change would it be I love that kind of power I bet
yeah yeah yeah yeah that's like you know it's kind of like Superman I would want to fly I would want
to do laser like yeah if you gave me the ability to have any sort of superpower I want you know I
this has been somet
hing that's really hitting me especially after covid um and I don't know how
many teachers are out there listening to this right now who taught before and it's teaching now
after it's very different like it's very different landscape of education and I thought it was going
to change even when I left last school year but it it hasn't and I think that's a good thing and I
say this because I think what I would snap with my fingers is an opportunity right now we don't
have to wait for someone e
lse I think it could be us and it's rather I mean I would love to get rid
of testing completely like that's the the thing I'm snapping my fingers on but even without the
removal of testing what I think would be there and you could do now is what I call portfolio based
learning students truly integrating a portfolio of what they know and what they're able to
do from K all the way through college like let's not even just stop it at 12 let's keep it
going through college and you're like litera
lly displaying and and defending to people what you
know and show that quality of learning that a test will never show like a test in a moment a
time is not a reflection of who that student is or who what that school is or what's the capacity
that's happening there but we have the technology like we can't say it no more co co got us all
getting everybody on tech like we we can't act like we don't have no money for tech no more we
now just had a infrastructure bill that's going into place th
at's bringing access to everywhere
like we can't act like we can't do it anymore and just I would give a big shout out to two
organizations since again I'm saying I think it's something we can start on the road now that
um that has this one is Envision Learning Network like Envision they are great at that portfolio
look they've been working on it for years they have their students do a portfolio defense at the
8th grade level and at the 12th grade level that's how they graduate from their s
chool not the test
and then I have been in love with education for years they are the best at helping students create
high quality work and they have free resources available on their site um and Visions has some
too but they also have some paid uh workshops you can go to and eel also has conferences you can go
to so both of them you can get some learning in that's both low like you know just print if
all you got money for is to print what they got right now they got that but then they also
have some resources or conferences you could you could purchase and between those two I think
they marry together well to start the process of students not just being test takers anymore but
they're actually demonstrators of what they know and it's so empowering to see a student say what
they know um or again on the stream and defend what they know so that's my snap it is beautiful
and you know the merit in that sort of portfolio based assessment is quite obvious and it lends
itself so we
ll to Project-Based learning right cuz in Project-Based learning you're making stuff
and then that stuff can go in your portfolio and you can then defend it like that it all connects
together so so well Telennia thank you so much for being on the show this week this has been such a
treat I loved it Ryan I loved it thank you so much and thank you all for checking out big ideas
and education we'll see you next week [Music] the views expressed on the preceding program
have been those of the ho
sts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of Academica,
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