Coaching Days

Coaching days offer a flexible option for targeted ongoing learning — available for participants who attended one of our PBL entry services.

Coaching Description

Coaching sessions, facilitated by a member of our National Faculty, help ensure that all teachers deepen their ability to implement a Gold Standard project by reflecting on and strengthening Project Based Teaching Practices in their PBL classrooms. Coaching
sessions are designed to provide focused support to help teachers implement projects effectively.

Who benefits from Coaching?

Coaching Days are designed for teachers and instructional coaches who have already completed one of the three entry workshops (Discover PBL, Facilitate PBL, or Design PBL). School leaders will also benefit from participating alongside their teams. These one-day and three-day coaching topics can be packaged together to meet the needs of your team, and they help to teachers and coaches implement PBL more effectively.

Coaching Outcomes

Learn and apply strategies to facilitate Gold Standard projects that engage all students in growth toward learning goals.
Engage in collaborative reflection and analysis to strengthen PBL practice.
Specific outcomes for each Coaching Day topic are listed below.

The Essentials

Instruction: Led by a member of PBLWorks' National Faculty – seasoned teachers, administrators, school coaches, and PBL experts

Workshop Size: Up to 35 participants

Coaching Day Duration: 1 day (6 hours of instruction) or 3 days (18 hours of instruction)

Format: Available onsite or online (certain topics)

Pre-requisite: Teachers should have completed one of the entry workshops (Discover PBL, Facilitate PBL, or Design PBL)

Coaching Topics

Building a PBL Culture
Available in person or online
Duration: 1 day
Driving Question: How can we create a classroom culture that supports PBL?
Outcomes:
- Cultivate agency, interdependence, and a positive classroom culture for Project Based Learning.
- Engage in collaborative reflection and analysis to strengthen PBL practice.
Deliverable: Plan for PBL Culture
Managing the Process
Available in person or online
Duration: 1 day
Driving Question: How can we structure and facilitate daily lessons within a project to support product development and student learning?
Outcomes:
- Implement project management processes to:
  ○ support product development,
  ○ promote effective teamwork,
  ○ develop age-appropriate student independence, and
  ○ balance structure and flexibility.
- Engage in collaborative reflection and analysis to strengthen PBL practice.
Deliverable: Workshop Planner
Sustained Inquiry
Available in person or online
Duration: 1 day
Driving Question: How can we utilize sustained inquiry to cultivate student ownership of learning?
Outcomes:
- Develop an active, in-depth process in which students generate questions, find and use resources, develop their own answers, and ask further questions throughout the process of a project.
- Engage in collaborative reflection and analysis to strengthen PBL practice.
Deliverables: Learning Log, Sustained Inquiry Plan
Formative Assessment
Available in person or online
Duration: 1 day
Driving Question: How can we use formative assessment to guide learning throughout a project?
Outcomes:
- Use purposeful formative assessment to guide student learning throughout a project.
- Engage in collaborative reflection and analysis to strengthen PBL practice.
Deliverable: Project Assessment Map
Student Reflection
Available in person or online
Duration: 1 day
Driving Question: How can we use purposeful reflection to help students make meaning and understand themselves as learners?
Outcomes:
- Create intentional structures for student reflection throughout a project.
- Engage in collaborative reflection and analysis to strengthen PBL practice.
Deliverable: Reflection Planning Tool
Literacy
Available in person or online
Duration: 1 day
Driving Question: How can we provide experiences that deepen students’ capacity to read, write, listen, and speak across a range of contexts and disciplines?
Outcomes:
- Integrate experiences in projects that deepen students’ capacity to read, write, listen, and speak across a range of contexts and disciplines.
- Engage in collaborative reflection and analysis to strengthen PBL practice.
Deliverable: Revised Project Plan
Peer Critique
Available in person or online
Duration: 1 day
Driving Question: How can we build a culture of peer critique to support student learning and agency in PBL?
Outcomes:
- Build a culture of peer critique to support student learning and agency throughout a project.
- Engage in collaborative reflection and analysis to strengthen PBL practice.
Deliverable: Peer Critique Planner
Project Design Refresh
Available in person or online
Duration: 1 day
Driving Question: How can we plan an authentic, relevant, and learner-centered project for our students?
Outcomes:
- Plan authentic, relevant, learner-centered projects that teach learning goals
- Include well-curated resources, engaging learning experiences, and purposeful assessments to ensure that all students are appropriately challenged and supported as they move through the Project Path
- Engage in collaborative reflection and analysis to strengthen PBL practice
Deliverable: New or Revised Planner
Project Design Consulting
Available in person or online
Duration: 1 day
Driving Question: How can we improve our project design?
Outcomes:
- Strengthen project design skills to ensure projects are relevant to students and their communities, aligned to learning goals, and include opportunities for collaboration and reflection.
- Identify improvements to ensure stronger evidence of effective Gold Standard PBL for targeted Design Elements in their project.
Deliverable: Revised Project Plan
SEL and PBL
Available in person or online
Duration: 1 day
Driving Question: How can we teach SEL through PBL?
Outcomes:
- Describe the connection between the development of SEL competencies and Gold Standard PBL
- Articulate the attributes of Transformative SEL.
- Identify opportunities to strengthen SEL competencies through Transformative SEL within a project.
Deliverable: SEL Planning Tool
Celebration of Learning
Available in person or online
Duration: 1 day
Scheduling Considerations: Best at the end of a quarter, semester, or school year
Driving Question: How can we create a learner-centered classroom through project implementation?
Outcomes:
- Reflect upon project implementation successes and apply new insights to planning and teaching of future projects.
- Use the project rubric as an anchor to analyze evidence of student learning in student work samples to identify strengths and areas for improvement.
- Identify growth areas to strengthen future PBL practice and improve student learning.
- Contribute to the vision of high-quality PBL for all students by participating in collegial communities of practice, sharing their learning, and supporting other teachers with their PBL journeys.
Deliverable: Presentation of Learning
Deepen PBL: Quality of Student Work
Available in person or online
Duration: 3 days
Scheduling Considerations: Best after teachers have designed or implemented at least two projects
Driving Question: How can we support students in developing high-quality work?
Outcomes:
- Align projects to significant content and skills
- Scaffold students’ capacity to think critically
- Use learner-centered coaching practices to help all students grow
- Facilitate effective critique and revision processes
- Build a culture of quality work, and rigorous thinking
Deliverable: Draft Project Design
Deepen PBL: Equity & Gold Standard PBL
Available in person or online
Duration: 3 days
Scheduling Considerations: Best after teachers have designed or implemented at least two projects
Driving Question: How can Gold Standard PBL lead to equity?
Outcomes:
- Develop and implement strategies and practices for learning about students, their families, and communities and use that learning to inform PBL design and facilitation
- Provide a balance of challenge and support via cognitively demanding tasks and appropriate scaffolds so that all students are able to access deep levels of inquiry.
- Identify key literacy skills and make a plan to support them in order to help students access content/learning and deepen students’ ability to communicate within and across disciplines
- Co-create a learning community where students have the opportunity to shape the direction of the process and products as appropriate for the task, content, and age level of the students.
Deliverable: Revised project plan and supporting lessons that demonstrate application of the four equity levers to meet the needs of your students

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