It feels almost unfair to talk about summer right now. The days are still packed with grading, lesson planning, meetings, and the steady rhythm of the school year. Summer feels distant—like a reward you haven’t quite earned yet, but here’s the truth: while summer may feel far away, the best opportunities for professional development are already something you might want to be thinking about.
Among the many summer learning opportunities available to educators is PBL World. I have been a PBLWorks facilitator at six PBL World conferences and I always walk away at the end feeling inspired and empowered – and so do the participants I’ve worked with. We’re a little tired as well, but know that we have grown in ways that will leave us better positioned to support the teachers and students we serve. Ideally, this is how we all want to feel at the end of a weeklong educational conference and what many promise, but few seem to be able to consistently deliver.
Here are just a few of the things that set PBL World apart from other summer learning opportunities.
Project Based Learning. Singular Focus.
Most conferences are a smorgasbord of sessions and speakers on a wide variety of topics. Attendees select which rapid-fire concurrent sessions to attend and hope they picked a good one.
I’ve been to a LOT of conferences like this in my 15 years of work as a teacher, consultant, instructional coach, and author. The last mega conference I attended exposed me to all kinds of exciting new ideas and tools. Artificial intelligence, classroom management, instructional technology, RTI strategies, SEL programs … I was able to jump from room to room and explore many topics - but all at a surface level. By the end, my takeaways were a mile wide but only an inch deep and I left feeling like a jack of all trades but a master of none, especially since I didn’t get a chance to apply what I learned due to the sit-and-get format.
In contrast, PBL World emphasizes deeper understanding of one thing: preparing educators (teachers and leaders) to implement Gold Standard Project Based Learning. You won’t have to rush between sessions, you don’t have to worry about finding people interested in the same topics you are. Instead, you can be assured that you’ll only have to sit down once and when you do, you’ll be surrounded by educaashtors from across the globe who bring their own experience with them, allowing you to learn just as much from the people you are sharing a table with as the person facilitating your workshops.
PBLWorld focuses on cultivating extremely deep knowledge of what it takes to make PBL work in your specific context. Workshops are designed to demystify best practices and to engage the educator in inquiry in much the same way that we would expect our students to do in the PBL classroom. You’ll be able to better empathize with your students’ experience, and learn protocols and routines that facilitate their learning and work.
Experience PBL as a Learner
At the last conference I attended, I sat next to a pair of teachers who were deep in conversation about everything they had learned, but both sounded deflated and frustrated. When I asked if they’d enjoyed their time, one replied, “Yeah, it was great, and I’ve learned so much, but who has the time to sort through it all??” This is a common criticism among conference goers: that the amount of time and work they have to put in after the conference in order to apply the strategies and knowledge they gain is prohibitive. After days spent learning in different sessions, you have to find even more days so you can apply what you’ve learned.
PBL World follows a different approach where the emphasis is on experiencing Project Based Learning through the lens of a learner, allowing you to immediately apply what you have learned as soon as the next day. You won’t just talk about strategies, you’ll experience them so that you can facilitate them in a much more effective way later, as soon as you return to school. There is work time built into every workshop, ensuring you’ll find all sorts of things that resonate with you. It’s a socio-constructivist approach to teaching and learning at its best, and you walk away feeling more prepared than ever to make use of the knowledge that you’ve gained.
A Legacy of Leadership in PBL
PBLWorks is the leader in Project Based Learning, our focus for over 25 years, and we’ve run the PBL World conference for 14 years. Expertise matters, especially when you’re asking that finite school resources be dedicated to your own professional growth. Some conferences might feature a few sessions dedicated to PBL, but PBL World is all PBL all day. This singular focus allows PBLWorks to assemble facilitators with globally-recognized expertise you won’t find anywhere else.
Community and Connection at the Center
PBL is best when it’s designed with community at its center. PBL World models this through fostering community-centered practices during our week, because we’ve heard time and again how important it is for educators to be in community with other educators so they can exchange ideas and gain valuable perspectives. PBL World attendee Ashanti Jones echoed this when she said of her first PBL World, “... (this) felt different. It was collaborative and grounded in conversation, allowing me to learn alongside educators.”
PBLWork fosters this community feeling further with celebrations like our annual designation of PBL Champions and the John Larmer Lifelong Learning Award – and our inclusion of student speakers, all of which are hallmarks of the community-centered practice we hope you’ll also cultivate.
We also know there is no other school like yours and no other educator who can do what it is you do. We don’t know where you come from or the unique mix of community organizations and resources that can be integrated into your projects, but we know that we can help you. All of our workshops, even our new TEACH curriculum, are designed with the intention to allow you to incorporate the opportunities and challenges found in your little corner of the world into authentic projects. You’ll walk away with resources that reflect the diversity, culture, and uniqueness of where you live and work so they resonate deeply with the lived experience of your learners. If the thought of boxed curriculum and prescriptive lessons makes you whistle, then you’ll quickly find a home at our conference.
An Inspiring Setting for Deep Learning
In addition to PBL World being anything but a typical conference, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the anything but typical location - the world-famous Napa Valley. After a day of working hard you can enjoy the area so you’ll arrive the next day feeling refreshed, renewed, and having had opportunities to reflect on what you’ve learned with your colleagues and new friends. Whatever your preferred method of relaxation and recreation, it will not be hard to find in Napa or in the adjacent counties.
- Drive through the picturesque scenery in the Sonoma or Napa Valleys while enjoying what makes this region globally famous.
- Spend an evening exploring the shops lining the historic Sonoma Square.
- Take an evening hike inside one of many nearby state parks like Bothe-Napa.
- Enjoy fine dining at one of the countless restaurants in downtown Napa, or enjoy a burger from Gotts Roadside while overlooking the Napa River.
There are a great many opportunities for professional learning available to you right now that you can choose to attend during the summer months, and many of them are excellent and fully worth your time and the expense of attending. But if you’re looking for something a little different, something that is in a category of its own that will leave you feeling like the week you dedicated to your professional growth was a week well spent, you won’t regret attending PBL World this summer.
