The Power of Problem-Based Learning for Developing School Leaders
By Greg Ponikvar
“Yes, she said it!” I watched as the Zoom chat exploded with similar messages.
Olivia — a white, female, new school leader — was engaging in a practice conversation. In this simulation, a teacher demanded disciplinary consequences for three African-American boys he had kicked out of class repeatedly over the last few weeks. Seventy other school and organization leaders watched the scenario play out between Olivia and the teacher over Zoom and compiled feedback for her as she continued the simulation.
The attendees were part of a school leader training I led last week using a Problem-Based Learning (PBL) approach. We were in the Performance Task portion of the day, and the conversation between Olivia and the teacher represented the culmination of hours of discussion, reflection, team alignment, and planning in small groups.
“Look, some of these kids in my class just haven’t learned how to behave yet and I don’t have the time to teach them,” the teacher-actor said. “I can’t let them disrupt the learning of others.”
Olivia paused, thought, and responded slowly:
“The language you are using and actions you are taking are coming across to me as unobjectively, filled with biases, and perpetuating racist systems. We serve all students, and you can’t do that if they are out of class. Let’s not talk about consequences, but how I can help you better serve these young men.”
“Thank you for calling out what he was really saying,” read one Zoom chat message, delivered to Olivia in real-time. “That’s an ally right there.”
Characteristics of Problem-Based Learning
Over the last two years, I’ve led dozens of Problem-Based Learning experiences (PBLs, for short) for a variety of audiences — teachers, aspiring leaders, new leaders, experienced principals, and C-level executives. We’ve covered everything from coaching a struggling teacher to making complex values-based decisions with wide-reaching impacts. No matter the audience or topic, the feedback I’ve received from this adult-learning approach is consistently positive. This approach works for everybody.
While traditional professional development often presents a direct pathway to master objectives, Problem-Based Learning takes a constructivist approach to learning. Though there are many variations, PBL instruction generally shares the following characteristics:
- PBLs start with a problem participants are likely to face in the future.
- The knowledge and skills that participants are expected to learn during the training is organized around a problem, rather than an isolated discipline or content area.
- Participants, individually and collectively, assume major responsibility for their own instruction and learning.
- Most of the learning occurs within the context of small groups rather than lectures.¹
In Olivia’s case, leaders were given this scenario: An angry teacher brought three boys to the office and demanded consequences for their “consistent disruption of class.” Though the experience is backward designed² and the core questions of this PBL were evident to the planners, participants were simply asked, “What would you do?” Small groups then work to identify the problems, identify solutions, and then — taking the entire context into account — build a strategy to respond to the scenario.
As such, the process and final products of each group vary, and everybody benefits from observing the way others handle the same challenge. The benefits, drawbacks, and implications of each approach are debriefed as a group after each simulation is played out. Problem-Based Learning activities provide a safe space for school leaders to practice taking risks, have critical conversations, and strategically plan responses to situations they’ll face in the field. They are aligned to best practices for adult learning in that they:
- Intrinsically motivate, as the tasks are challenging and collaborative in nature. They lend themselves toward healthy conflict and build relationships through deep engagement in solving a common problem while leveraging the prior experiences and expertise of the learners.³
- Activate prior knowledge, experiences, perspectives of a diverse group of people, while mimicking the context in which information will later be used. We know this method enables retrieval over traditional pedagogical approaches such as lectures, presentations, and discussions.⁴
- Put a healthy amount of pressure on participants, as they know they may need to “perform” in front of the group and will open themselves up to immediate feedback. All participants know they must be active contributors in the learning process.⁵
PBLs allow school leaders space to practice, collaborate, share, and intentionally reflect on how they make decisions and lead their schools. They empower leaders to look at each moment in their school day as an opportunity to lead in alignment with their values.
9 Steps for Designing a PBL Experience
The PBL approach helps school leaders become more informed, conscious, and intentional about the many daily decisions they make. If you support school leaders, consider trying out a PBL-approach. I have learned it can work for just about any issue that requires a school leader to confront complex problems or dilemmas in their work.
Here are some steps to get started:
▸ 1. Select skills to develop.
Select the skills you believe are important for responding to the situation using a familiar leader rubric to your organization. If you are leading this with a team, ensure you all agree on the skills you are looking for participants to develop.
▸ 2. Ground your session in a specific problem of practice.
Ground your session in a specific problem of practice that is facing your organization. Keep zooming in until you get to a moment that warrants a response from a school leader. Depending on the level of experience of your group, adjust the complexity level of the problem (i.e. Olivia’s scenario may be more complex if you knew this teacher taught a hard-to-fill subject area and was on the verge of quitting; it’d be different if it were made clear to be a knowledge — or “skill” — rather than a motivation — or “will” — issue). The possibilities to tweak each PBL to focus on pain points at your school or network are endless.
▸ 3. Pick a Performance Task
Pick a Performance Task that reflects a situation you expect the school leaders or teachers will find themselves in. It should be concrete and give enough time for each group to act out the task.
▸ 4. Identify Content Knowledge Needed
Identify the content knowledge needed to address the problem. Make sure participants have reviewed it ahead of time or have time to internalize and process it.
▸ 5. Build Heterogeneous Groups
Build heterogeneous groups. I find that groups with six people work best, but you can structure the activity for groups with fewer participants. Provide each group with the situation and allow them to wrestle with it. Part of the learning is also about the group process.
▸ 6. Give Groups Time to Complete the Task
Give groups enough time — but not too much — to complete the task. Part of the PBL’s power is the race against the clock to balance having a deep conversation and getting to a concrete plan of action.
▸ 7. Have Groups Present in an Emotionally Safe Environment
Have each group present after establishing clear norms for an emotionally safe environment. Ensure that participants know that this space is built to allow participants to take risks and put themselves out there for the sake of learning and growth. After each presentation, allow the larger group to provide “glows,” “grows,” and reflections on the way the presenter dealt with the challenge.
▸ 8. Provide Honest, Actionable, and Timely Feedback
Organization leaders provide their honest, actionable, and timely feedback, as aligned to the skills and content objectives you identified. They publicly acknowledge the strong performances that reinforce best practices and effective behaviors and correct misunderstandings. They highlight the connections between the task and the work in front of educators when they return to their schools. Feedback may be about the Performance Task or about the process groups took — all learning is on the table.
▸ 9. Reflect as a Whole Group
Reflect as a whole group. What did folks learn about how to approach this situation? Just as importantly, what did they learn about themselves?
Clearly, these steps are just a starting point. Adapt, modify, and make it fit your own context. The key is to slow down the decision-making process for school leaders, giving them the chance to analyze their rationale for an appropriate response, hear the perspectives of others, and then practice in a safe and supportive community of their peers. Proponents of PBL argue that this form of “doing-centered learning,” which both activates participants’ prior knowledge and requires immediate practice, leads to a higher likelihood of retention of content and application of skills in the future compared to more traditional forms of instruction.⁶
When to Use the PBL Approach
After receiving constructive feedback from the group on her performance, Olivia shared her reflections:
“I was terrified to present and have shied away from tough conversations in the past — I know it will be a big learning curve for me as a new leader. But I feel supported and pushed to grow. This situation is real and I feel more prepared to tackle it, though I really need to think about the student experience that will come out of the adult conversation. Maybe our next PBL can be about the challenges we might face in the follow-up?”
I couldn’t help but reflect on the different experience Olivia had completing a PBL compared to a more traditional professional development structure. On one of her first days as a school leader, she engaged, contributed, and performed an important function of her new role. She built relationships with others, discussed her values and how those align to the action she’d take in this situation, and ultimately was celebrated by her colleagues for stepping up into the performance role. The feedback was personal, affirming, and constructive. The structure allowed her to be heard, seen, and grow right from the start.
A more traditional structure would have positioned Olivia as a consumer of information. In contrast, as a PBL participant, she was immediately a contributor to the collective knowledge of the group.
PBLs aren’t perfect for everything. There are times when it’s important to learn directly from the experiences of an expert or have a space for tactical training. For example, I wouldn’t use a PBL to teach about spreadsheet formulas or the details of Special Education state compliance reporting.
The best professional development experiences engage learners in the complexity of decision-making from the outset. Content is infused with practice to help participants solve challenging and real-world problems, but the focus of the learning isn’t on the solution given to them by an expert; it’s generated from the power and experiences of their diverse group members.
Exemplary adult learning experiences provide educators an opportunity to connect theory and practice.⁷ PBL offers this by giving participants a space to collaborate, problem-solve, make decisions, practice, get expert and peer feedback, and reflect.
Greg Ponikvar is the founding Executive Director of the Marshall Leadership Institute at Marshall Street and the moderator of the Leadership Fellows Program. He dedicates his time to building scalable solutions to problems facing the training, development, and retention of a set of high-quality and diverse school leaders through year-long fellowships for aspiring, new, and experienced school leaders. Greg is a former school principal and National Board Certified Teacher.
If you are an aspiring, new, or experienced school leader interested in experiencing the power of the PBL as a learner, please explore some of the School Leader Fellowships offered by the Marshall Leadership Institute. If you are a school or organizational leader interested in learning how to bring this type of professional development to your teams, don’t hesitate to reach out to Greg Ponikvar <gponikvar@summitps.org> to explore how we can leverage our experience to set you up for success.
References1. Bridges, E. M., & Hallinger, P. Problem-based learning for administrators. ERIC, 1993.2. Wiggins, Grant, and McTighe, Jay. Understanding by Design. 2005.3. Administrative Services Credential Program Standards Handbook. (July 2018). Page 35.4. Nislon, Linda B. Teaching at Its Best: A Research-Based Resource for College Instructors, Third Edition. Jossey-Bass, 2010.5. Torp, Linda, and Sara Sage. Problems as Possibilities: Problem-Based Learning for K-16 Education. ASCD, 2002.6. Copland, Michael Aaron. The Reform of Administrator Preparation at Stanford: An Analytic Description, Journal of School Leadership: Volume 11, (July 2001).7. Hammon, et. al. Preparing School Leaders for a Changing World: Lessons from Exemplary Leadership Development Programs. Stanford Educational Leadership Institute. (2007)
