The Pulse of PBL with Mike Kaechele

In this interview with Mike Kaechele, we discuss dismantling prejudices through projects, how to situate project-based learning within the community and for local impact, what can be learned when a project fails, the difference between projects and recipes, why social and emotional learning (SEL) is important, lessons learned teaching a variety of subject areas, differences between equity and equality in education, and so much more.

Welcome back to another episode of the
csk8 podcast my name is jared o'leary
each week of this podcast is either a
solo episode where i unpack some
scholarship in relation to computer
science education or an interview with a
guest or multiple guests in this week's
particular episode i'm interviewing mike
cackley and we discuss dismantling
prejudices through projects how to
situate project-based learning within
the community and for local impact what
can we learn when a project fails the
difference between projects and recipes
why social and emotional learning sel is
important some lessons learned teaching
a variety of subject areas as both mike
and i have taught a variety of subjects
differences between equity and equality
and education and so much more as always
you can find show notes at jared
o'leary.com or by clicking the link in
the app that you're listening to this on
where you'll find more resources videos
podcasts etc that are where i mentioned
throughout this particular episode when
you do visit the show notes at
jaredolary.com make sure you check out
the other links in the tab at the top of
the page as there are hundreds if not
thousands of free computer science
education resources on my website
including a link to boot up pd.org which
is the nonprofit that i work for where i
create 100 free coding curricula and
while you're on my website you may
notice that one of the reasons why i
call myself a multiplicity is because i
have many interests for instance you'll
find hundreds of hours of drumming
content as well as some video game
content that i've either created or
streamed so check those out if either of
those interest you but with that being
said we will now begin with an
introduction by mike hello my name is
mike cackley and i am a project-based
learning and social emotional learning
teacher and coach my background includes
lots of experiences from 6th grade to
technology for your listeners i spent
about 8 years teaching middle school
technology which involves some computer
coding along with a lot of hands-on
projects and that basically led me to
project-based learning framework and i
moved into a wall-to-wall pbl high
school where i predominantly taught
history integrated with english but also
some math currently i am teaching math
in a local school district sixth grade
math and i am also coaching teachers in
summers and during my free time so one
of the questions that i like to ask
guests is
about something that they believe when
they first started teaching in education
that they no longer believe i'm curious
especially because you've had so many
different experiences teaching different
subject areas like what your answer
would be for that sure my first year
teaching i taught at an alternative ed
high school in my hometown and i had
some preconceived notions i guess about
what students were going to be like and
i believe that the main reason kids feel
in school is because they either lacked
ability or we're lazy i probably
wouldn't have said that if you ask me
but if you really get into my belief
system that was true i thought going
into alternative ad that i was going to
be teaching all these low-level kids
that were way behind in everything and
what i found is that the students there
ran the spectrum of ability from high
achieving to struggling just like any
classroom and that the reason they were
there often had nothing to do with their
academic ability but more to do with
other
factors of how they got along with
school particularly in my district if
they got caught smoking somewhere they
got sent to our school so
that was the biggest factor not their
academic level and so what i've come to
believe now is that it's not the kids
fail school for these reasons but more
often times we fail students by being
rigid irrelevant depersonalized and
boring and the old saying is success
breed success which i 100 believe to be
true but there's also the corollary that
failure breeds failure and too many
times when kids don't succeed in school
it just kind of keeps on itself and
grows and kids start to have negative
views of themselves in school and just
give up yeah i really appreciate that
answer that definitely resonates i
had similar understandings and the more
that i've taught and the more subject
areas that i've worked in the more i
realized like there's so many problems
going on outside of school that like
factor into how well kids are performing
within school like my wife is a
therapist and she's currently in a job
where she helps kids who are
experiencing multiple forms of trauma
and like extreme forms of trauma and
whatnot and to know that like some of
those kids could have been in my
classroom and they've got all these
things that they're dealing with outside
of school and then they come into school
and it can exacerbate things because of
like the systems put in place and
whatnot like it's definitely something
to consider and think about yeah i think
we're making progress we're starting to
at least recognize the problem
but you know we just had the school
shooting in oxford here in michigan
where i'm from and it's just another
reminder that we are not reaching all
kids right yeah i imagine we'll
elaborate on that more especially when
we talk about sel later on i'm curious
can you tell me a story about an
experience in education that has had an
impact on you today yeah so going back
still i was thinking of my first year
teaching again and my hometown is a
rural predominantly white community with
very few people of color and you know i
had students who were flat out white's a
premise i had a couple that had tattoos
i had one kid who was one of the reasons
he was at our school is he actually lit
across an african-american person's yard
and i watched him in my classroom sit
there and become friends
with an african-american girl and they
became really good friends and i just
was struck by that and the other thing
that happened that year is i taught a
bunch of freshmen
a world kind of geography history
class and we focused on world religions
and i started a new unit and it was
going to be on judaism and i announced
that to them and they were all boys
except for one girl so i announced hey
we're going to study judaism and right
off the bat one kid blurts out i hate
jews
and i was like oh really so what is a
jew and he could not articulate anything
like not even a stereotype that you
might think and so i realized you know
these kids have this hate and this
prejudice in them that they've inherited
from their parents most likely or
someone in their community and they
don't even really know what it is and so
the next day i designed an activity
which there was this website you know
this was quite a while ago but it was
famous jews and had all these just
famous shoes on it so i just made a
worksheet of name five jews who are
famous athletes who are famous
entertainers musicians and scientists
and artists and all these things and
just have them go on this website and
explore all the categories and write
down the ones that struck them and so
the kids really got into it and we're in
the computer lab you know because it was
back in the day and they're
going through this and they're getting
excited and they're like oh david lee
roth i like him you know and seinfeld
and adam sandler and all these names are
starting to come out and there was kind
of this moment where they were all
really excited about it and i just kind
of casually said you know you got
remember you guys hate all these people
right and it just kind of hit them it
was just kind of a silence in the room a
minute and then they slowly went back to
work but it really struck me that you
know people hate what they don't know or
understand you know i was such an
isolated community that if we could just
build bridges and get people when i saw
the kid become friends with
african-american girl i realized you
know they just don't know anyone like
this and so they hate what they don't
know and so it's always been you know an
emphasis of mine to get kids to look at
other perspectives and know them and
understand them because i think that's
where we break down those walls yeah i
feel like that kind of culture that
breeds the misinformation and that hate
and lies and whatnot is it's much more
forefront today because of all the stuff
going on with the politics and covid
things like that it's fascinating seeing
how different communities will kind of
support that hate like i don't know if
you've seen michael moore's documentary
blood in the face and so it's on white
supremacy in america i don't know if
we've seen that one but it was
fascinating watching that and seeing
kids in particular spouting out hate
about different
groups like african-american black or
jewish people and basically saying a
bunch of misinformation that they were
hearing like you're saying from like
their parents or community members and
whatnot and then how when you actually
engage in a conversation with them and
go that's actually false then they
actually learn more about it or they
actually like you mention with the
student a white supremacist basically
getting to know an african-american girl
and actually getting to know them and
going hey i actually like you like
there's a ted talk of a guy who goes to
clan members who's a black man and he
befriends them and like says hey the
things that you know about me that you
think you know about me are actually
wrong and so like the more that we can
actually bring people together and
actually collaborate have a conversation
and whatnot i think the better off we're
going to be but we have this tendency to
kind of divide in communities and i
think that personal piece is so
important so how does that kind of
impact some of the current classes that
you've been teaching recently and like
the things that have been going on like
how do you try and bring those
communities together whether it be in
the classroom or communities that are
outside of the classroom bring them into
the space and talk about them one of the
projects i did while i was a technology
teacher was a coding project with
scratch which i'm assuming that you and
your listeners are probably familiar
with and what we did
is we were located in michigan and we
did a collaboration with a school
international school in vietnam those
students there knew english and we would
work on our game designs you know during
our class and then we'd email them back
and forth and while we were sleeping
they would work on them and vice versa
and so just finding ways i think to
connect with classrooms and other places
and to just develop relationships with
someone who's not like you with
project-based learning a big emphasis of
mine is looking at multiple viewpoints
you know everything isn't two-sided yeah
most issues have nuance to them so let's
look at there's actually not you know
something that's huge in the news today
simple as pro-life and pro-choice well
there's actually
lots of different opinions on that it's
not just two positions and most people
are in the middle right and so if we can
move away from the extreme edges we'll
find that most people can find common
ground in the middle on most issues yeah
i appreciate that response same thing
with like project-based learning like
there's this like misconception of like
there's one way of doing ppl and it's
like well there's much more nuances to
it than that if we could like zoom in on
what an ideal classroom might look like
if you were to be able to like wave a
magic wand and design the ideal learning
environment like what might people
experience if they were to walk into the
space like that yeah i think it would be
just kind of a playground of learning
you know i think of places like you see
the google workspace or even like a
starbucks coffee shop aspect to it i
would have huge collaborative spaces
large gathering spaces where we could
get all kids together once but not like
a auditorium more of an informal kind of
space i've been in schools where they
have a huge staircase that doubles as a
place where kids can sit and
there's a screen up in front you know so
making the spaces practical but then
also having like private nooks and
crannies where kids can learn by
themselves and not be with the whole
group if they want to i would have like
climbing walls and gardens and plants
and lots of light and water animals you
know there could be trauma pets food
that was accessible to everyone to me
when you went into the school it would
just be a place you'd want to be at and
hang out and how i envisioned the year
starting off i believe that space and
pedagogy go together and they represent
each other and when kids go to a school
that's broken down in dark and dank and
has problems that sends a message that
you're not important so i think that's
really sad versus when they go to a
school that's an amazing space it says
you're valued i imagine the school
you're starting off with the teachers
all kind of having almost like a little
booth set up all over the school and
you're going to come and it's almost
like a little mini fair and the teachers
are going to pitch the projects they're
going to start the year off with the
students are going to choose which
classes and projects they want to join
in so there's an emphasis on the teacher
to like convince kids to come join your
project that is worth doing and so the
kids have choice but also the teachers
are throwing out things that would be
interesting and exciting for students to
want to join and learn about yeah that's
a really interesting idea one of the
professors that i took a class with is
named james paul g and he talks about
how video games were forced to be
engaging in order for them to make money
because people weren't required to play
a video game it was optional now if
teaching
were not required and you did not have
to take any subject area but instead
elected to take any class that looked
interesting then teachers would really
have to focus on pedagogy and so be
interesting to see like in a
hypothetical space like that if no
classes were required and students had
to sign up based on what they thought
was interesting and engaging like how
that would impact the teaching that was
going on yeah and i think you know kids
would collaborate and design with the
teachers too of course but i think you
know curriculum has been overemphasized
in recent times and we need to get back
to you focusing on the students over
mandated curriculum that's often really
not changed in a hundred years yeah
especially depending on what subject
area you're in like having previously
taught band the way band classes look is
very similar to way that it looked 100
years ago
and you know it depends on the teacher
but that's true in in almost any subject
area
so i'm curious you mentioned pbl and
water wall in your school that sounds
really interesting for me it was more of
like the teachers who decided they
wanted to do that that's what they would
do in their classroom we didn't have it
across the entire campus but what does
pbl look like to you or mean to you yeah
i was really blessed to join a school it
was a new tech network school we started
from scratch with wall-to-wall pbl and
we did have an amazing space it wasn't
as good as i just described because we
didn't have all the plants and rivers
and stuff we had a very modern open
friendly space and it did communicate
that message to kids so to me
project-based learning first of all it's
constructionist approach that's
student-centered so the curriculum is
still there and we still had to teach
state standards that we were required to
teach but beside that it was up to us to
design the projects and so we designed
the projects around the kids and around
their interests and around the community
and so we had kids exploring real issues
in our community and we'd often take a
global issue say poverty or climate
change but then we'd look at it through
a local lens so the students could
actually bring about some real change
because we can't all be greta thornberg
and have a world platform for our voice
but we all can do something locally and
work in our own communities to do our
part make a difference in some of these
issues and so to me pbl is
student-centered it's place-based it's
personalized it's problem-solving and
it's community-centered and we really
want to teach our students self-advocacy
so that they know how to learn and i
believe once kids know how to learn on
their own then they can go out and
master any content that they need to and
so if there's something they need to
learn for what they want to get in life
they will have that skill set to learn
it on their own and i just really
believe that school needs to shift from
this idea of preparing kids for the
future to engage in authentic work right
now we understand kids when we think you
know someday you can do this no
they can do meaningful work right now a
project example that i would share is
from a fifth grade classroom in virginia
the teachers set up a classroom and they
put all kinds of green
stuff all over the room so when they
came in this was their entry event and
when the kids were like what's going on
here they told them this represents
algae and they were a couple hours from
the beach but they were learning about
how algae was taking over the beaches
and the food chain problems and they
basically tracked it down to the sharks
were being over fish for the shark fin
soup in doing some research they
discovered that it was illegal to fish
for sharks in virginia but
the restaurants were getting around it
by buying the shark fins from other
places foreign fisheries or whatever and
so the kids are like we need to change
this we need to fix this so and the
teachers are like oh what should we do
and they're like well we need to talk to
the president and they're like okay
let's dial it back a little that's
probably not where we're gonna go but
they arranged for their local state
representative to come in and the kids
all created presentations
on the problems of overfishing of these
sharks and how it was legal to sell the
products and she came in and they had
the big show you know and they all did
dressed up and did this presentation and
kids were proud and just was a really
great day well you know they go on with
the rest of their school year they
finish and a year later
next fall out of nowhere the teacher
gets a tweet with a video message from
this congresswoman state representative
and she tells them that they just passed
a bill in the state of virginia to
eliminate the sale of of shark products
based on what these kids did wow so she
got to go back to him now in sixth grade
and say hey you know here's what
happened because the work you did and i
think that's the kind of stuff that we
should be striving for in our classrooms
letting kids do meaningful work that
they can do they don't have to wait till
they're adults yeah i love that and i
love the idea of focusing on the local
and local impact even like you mentioned
like if it's a global issue how does it
impact you and the community that you
live in and then to see like the efforts
that they put into it have an impact on
their state the entire state like that
is wonderful great example and on top of
it the larger lesson you're teaching
kids here is that your voice matters yep
and you can explore these issues in your
opinion matters and you can't make a
difference and that's something they're
going to take with them and transfer to
whatever issues they care about for the
rest of their lives yeah and i like the
way that you phrased it with the shark
story of posing the question of well
what can we do about it like that i
think is extremely important getting
them to think through it rather than
like being the teacher and being like
okay here's what we're gonna do we've
identified a problem like having them
brainstorm and it was kind of funny and
cute that they wanted to talk to the
president but then they came up with a
great answer that ended up having a
wonderful impact you know a lot of times
the teachers know where the project's
going
like the teachers knew they were going
to focus on the food chain and sharks
for this project they could have said
okay guys we're going to study sharks
right that's not motivating they did an
entry event and it's they laid out
breadcrumbs to lead the students
to where they wanted them to go and the
students still had voice and choice they
didn't know that they were going to
bring in the state rep when they started
it they didn't know that piece there was
avenues of students to figure out and
take the project where they wanted to
also yeah i like that so what about if
the shark project would have failed so
like what could teachers and students
have learned from that if like the
legislation never passed or like the
congresswoman never actually came into
the classroom the fact that the
legislation passed is a cherry on top
and that doesn't often happen if we're
honest but i think the students still
could learn that they have a voice and
that you know global issues have a local
impact and so they're still going to
learn the content they're supposed to
learn about food chains and etc because
that's baked into the project
they never should fail to learn what
we're supposed to be teaching but i
think no matter what they're gonna have
that lesson of that their voice matters
and that's the ultimate thing to me do
you have an example of a pbl experience
that may have failed yeah i'll share one
from my classroom that was an epic
failure so i team taught american
history with english 10th graders and my
partner and i came up with this great
idea to do a choose your own adventure
project and if you remember the old
books where you choose your own
adventure books you would read one page
and at the bottom you'd have to make a
decision you know if you want to go
right turn to page 43 go left turn to
page 64. it was more interesting than
right or left but that's the idea of it
and so we decided that you could do this
on youtube so you could shoot a youtube
video and at the end of the video the
same thing you have a choice click and
you'd go to this youtube link or choose
the other option and go to this other
link so we decided to do this on world
war one world war ii and what you have
to understand about our classroom is
since we team taught we had 50 students
and we decided instead of having them
all do their own version of this project
we would do one class project with 50
students so imagine a group of 50 kids
working together it started off great
the kids we had a whiteboard walls and
they had this big tree of decisions
going out there and they plot it all out
and they had this really great story
writing going in project design and then
they started recording and that's when
the issue started we had sd cards that
they had to pull out and load on their
computers oh we forgot to do that
yesterday's got erased or we lost the sd
card and then oh our main actor's absent
today
we forgot this proper our clothing we
can't record today on and on and on just
chaos and we eventually got to the point
where we had very little final product
done and we realized if we're going to
finish this it's going to take like
three more weeks and we can't sacrifice
three more weeks to this project so
we're gonna have to kill it so we told
the kids hey sorry we are done with this
project we're moving on because we
cannot keep going with it just because
of all the mess-ups the good news that i
would always say is the kid's selling
the content so we didn't fail to teach
what we're supposed to teach we just
didn't have the nice shiny product at
the end yeah i appreciate that story i
try and emphasize the importance of the
process and the learning because not
everything that you create is going to
be an end product like whether it be for
class or even for fun there have been
many projects that i have started where
i've learned a lot in it and i ended up
not completing what i wanted to because
i just decided you know what i can move
on now i don't need to complete this
thing
that's what life is not everything's
successful that's okay i'm wondering if
we can dive even deeper into some of the
nuances around ppl so what do you wish
more people understood about
project-based learning you know i love
what chris lehmann says he's a principal
at science leadership academy in
philadelphia that if you assign a
project and you get back 30 the same
things it's not a project but a recipe
pbl is a mindset it's not
about following a script and making sure
you do everything i've been a pbl
trainer with pbl works and
you know as a set kind of way that you
design a project and that's all well and
good you don't have to follow every
single aspect of it or to be good pbl
the first time in my classroom i had a
coach come in from new tech network and
she observed me and then we met
afterwards and the first thing she said
to me was you didn't follow any of the
protocols i thought oh no this is not
gonna be a very fun meeting
and the next thing she said was but
don't change anything
i was like okay and she's like you get
it it's like it's not about following
this recipe but it's about being
student-centered and shifting and
adapting to students and it's really
that constructivist viewpoint i like to
compare to cooking so i can't cook i can
make macaroni and cheese in a bowl of
cereal anything else i'm gonna need a
recipe and i'm gonna follow it to a tea
because i don't understand cooking but i
love to watch chopped and unchat you
know they get this basket of ingredients
and somehow they just make these amazing
meals and all of them do something
different and they all look great i want
to eat them and that's because cooking
is a science and art and you have to
understand how to season and how flavors
work together and what different styles
of cooking versus grilling versus baking
and all that things happen and once you
do that you don't follow the recipe you
just do good cooking and teaching is the
exact same way it's a science and an art
and once you understand good teaching
you just spice your class up to be
student centered and you don't have to
follow the recipe recipes for people who
don't know what they're doing which is
me when i'm cooking it's the same thing
really with curriculum so that's great
for when you're a new teacher and you
don't know what you're doing but the
more experience you have the less you
need that and you rely on the art of
teaching once you understand that pbl is
a mindset not some formula then it
changes everything your instruction your
assessment what class even looks like
who's a teacher who's a learner it all
gets mixed and muddled together and it
really just
changes your approach to everything yeah
i really appreciate that answer it
definitely resonates like the curriculum
that i create for boot up the ordering
and the directions the things that are
stated in the lesson plan or how i would
have taught it if i was teaching it in
the classroom which is great for
somebody who's brand new but if they
have been teaching computer science for
multiple years yeah i expect you to do
it differently like this is something
that you need to customize for the kids
that you're working with it's important
to do that
definitely i'm really enjoying the
different stories that you have with pbl
i'm wondering do you have another one
that you'd like to share of pbl and when
it was successful sure my favorite
project ever was the water project and
the interesting thing about the water
project is it was the same kids who did
the choose your own adventure project
which was our epic fail and we did this
one at the end of the year and one of
the biggest things happening in our city
is there's a movement it's called grand
rapids but there's no rapids so they
want to remove dams and lower them to
restore the river to what it originally
was like back in the day for economic
reasons and for environmental reasons
just restore the rabbits to the river
and we realized like this is the biggest
thing in our community we have to do a
project on this
and so another teacher and i went in the
summer and they had this big you know
meeting with the community and we tried
to network and sign up for someone from
this organization from the city to get
them to be part of a project we just
totally failed and so we got to the end
of the year and we said well we can do
this project or not we have no community
connections we don't have a purpose to
do it let's just do it anyway we won't
tell the kids and we'll just launch it
and go so we did and we launched it and
it was our whole 10th grade class was
doing this together for two weeks and
all their classes to end the year and
what they ended up doing is designing a
sheets of plywood and they redesigned
downtown along the river it was all done
to scale there was lots of math involved
with that and we did lots of research a
couple things happened first of all we
had different teams and my team was a
public relationship team and we went
down and we toured the river and walked
the river and we interviewed people and
our school was really early in the
morning so we ended up with only like a
dozen interviews and so this girl said
to me you know can i put this on social
media i'm like sure whatever didn't
think anything of it next day she had
contacted all the local news stations
and got him to put it on their feeds and
we had a whole hundreds of responses by
the end of the week we had over 800
responses to our survey wow and this
thing just kind of blew up and she
became the leader of the social media
team that we now realize we needed
and so kids just kind of chose
themselves at one point the different
teams weren't getting along and they
called a meeting to discuss and figure
out some stuff and i went to the meeting
and this kid named ben looked at me and
said we don't need you here we got this
and it was just kind of like this moment
of this is awesome and so we ended up
having a showcase that the students
arranged and invited people we had the
president of the local museum we had one
of the co-founders of grand rapids
whitewater who started all this who we'd
never even met before we had the
michigan department of environmental
quality there we had our local watershed
organization there all these people
showed up and i asked every single one
of them like how do you hear about this
and it was just like oh i just got an
email from someone so basically the
students created a viral campaign
locally and a guy from the museum
offered three of my girls paid
internships that summer to work on a
similar project one of them took him up
on it and ended up meeting the governor
and
just saw amazing things from kids who
some of them didn't hardly work all year
were engaged in doing in this project
and one of the students on our final
reflections i asked him about it the
project they said you know the reason
why we were successful on this project
was because we failed to choose your own
adventure project through that project
we learned how to work together and i
think it's so important to realize that
you're teaching kids skills that they
don't have and so when it goes bad
that's okay because we're teaching for
the long term not just that one project
i really appreciated that story how do
you
teach students to
collaborate not only with their peers
but with adults outside of the classroom
like it's sometimes difficult with just
like timing or there are some schools
that have like policies in place like
where you're not allowed to post on
social media or you're not even allowed
to have your phone etc so like how do
you engage in those kind of
collaborations broadly speaking that's a
really good question as far as the
policies go
sometimes i think you just have to ask
for permission and explain what you're
doing get someone to let you break the
policy or maybe you ask for forgiveness
instead of permission if you're that
kind of person because what else do you
do when there's a policy that's you know
against what you're trying to do but i
do think you need to teach just like you
know if a kid doesn't know how to read
you teach them how to read well we can't
assume that our kids know how to
collaborate that's one of the big
mistakes that teachers make oh i just
put them in groups and they'll do this
amazing project no 90 of the work i do
as a pbl teacher is helping kids figure
out how to work together in groups like
that's the work the work isn't teaching
my content it's teaching kids how to to
deal with other humans whether it's
their group members or community members
so you have to teach them how do you do
a professional phone call how do you
write a professional email you teach
those things just like you would teach
spelling and grammar so you're very
intentional about teaching the skills
that students need and it's a lot of
teaching and it's all year long so you
start off the year with some team
building activities but you don't end
there i remember one year we did team
building activity in the middle of the
year to explain it kids had to get in a
circle and on the right hand you'd have
a finger pointing down on the left hand
you had your palm out and so your finger
pointing down was on top of someone
else's palm to the right of you and the
activity was simple we would say go and
you would tap the person to your right
and go around the circle we had two
groups to see who could do it the
fastest very simple activity i literally
had
a student hiding under a table who
didn't want to participate i had another
kid pretending to
write something not want to participate
the other group had someone sabotaged
and just refused to tap so they lost and
these were the exact same kids who
weren't functioning groups during the
year and so then that gave us that
conversation of like you know you're
doing the same behaviors now that are
self-destructing you in projects yeah
that's interesting i'm wondering how
that relates to sel and why it's
important for educators to know yeah i
think we've seen a huge emphasis
slightly on sel it's become a fad almost
and i personally believe it shouldn't be
it should be something that lasts in
project-based learning when we lead a
workshop on it we often talk about how
people think about their ideal graduate
and what kind of characteristics they
want that ideal graduate to have and
teachers list all kinds of
characteristics
and what's usually missing from the list
is content there's very little things
they list that are content related
they're all the soft skills and what i
came to notice is that these soft skills
actually are sel skills and i hate the
term soft skills because it makes them
sound weak and when we look at
what social emotional learning actually
is that is really what we're trying to
teach through project-based learning so
project-based learning gives us this
avenue to teach our content and the sal
skills at the same time when it comes to
social emotional learning i use the
castle framework which stands for the
collaborative for academic social and
emotional learning and in my opinion
they're kind of the most recognized name
brand if you will
in
sel and they just have a very succinct
clear vision of what they are there's
other ones out there and they're fine
too but i didn't stick with this one
because it's well known so they have
five competencies general categories the
first one is self-awareness and
self-awareness is about things like kids
having an identity of who they are but
it's also things like growth mindset and
self-efficacy and working through
problems and so if you're a coder this
is the kid who can not give up the first
time they get stuck but is willing to
work through
and problem solve through that because
they have that strength through
self-awareness the second category is
self-management these are kids who can
manage their emotions but also you know
themselves and their team and so it's
really about building the ability to
attack a problem and work your way
through it and be organized the third
category is social awareness and this is
really about recognizing others
viewpoints the multiple perspectives the
nuance empathy to me is the crux of this
empathetic students are at the peak of
social awareness and then the fourth one
is relationship skills and this is huge
in project-based learning because those
are the two that come up the most are
collaboration working together with
others and then communicating so it's
great if you can program but are you
able to articulate your work to others
and we're learning more and more you
know that this is the skill set you know
i've heard that you know video game
companies they want english majors
because the video game can't just have
great graphics and great design but it
also has a story with it and so having
that combination of speaking skills with
the content is huge and then the fifth
one is responsible decision making and
that's really problem solving and design
thinking so that fits great with
project-based learning because we're
starting with a problem or solving it
for our community and developing things
like leadership too and understanding
serving others and they're not really
distinct all these things kind of flow
together and intermix with each other
but these are the soft skills that kids
need to be happy successful adults and
quite frankly employers want from people
too i love that response i'm really
curious how do you integrate sel into
like general classroom or into pbl in
particular all the research out there
tells us that buying some artificial
canned curriculum of seo and teaching it
half hour in advisory doesn't work it
needs to be integrated into the daily
life of the classroom it needs to be
modeled by the adults and then
integrated into what students are doing
and so in a traditional classroom where
students just sit get and forget there's
no
opportunity for them to collaborate or
to practice their communication skills i
mean when i was in high school i
probably spoke in front of class maybe
twice in four years in a pbl classroom
kids are getting up presenting 10 20
times a year per class and so they
naturally get much better at public
speaking through practice and so in a
computer class it could be as simple as
standing up and explaining your your
design so giving opportunities to
practice these skill sets teach practice
and assess them because if we believe
it's important we should teach practice
and assess i'm not talking about grading
here i'm talking about formative
assessments and a lot of its reflection
of of having students ask you know how
am i working with my group am i being a
successful teammate today so a lot of it
is not like oh i don't have time for
that it doesn't have to be a 10 minute
activity it could be two minutes one
minute to begin in class saying you know
guys today i really want you to focus on
listening to your partner that you're
programming with and making sure that
you're being a good active listener and
then at the end of the class fifth to
five how'd you do today you know
self-report and if you see a kid who was
really struggling and they give
themselves a five then that's an
opportunity for you to pull them aside
and have a private conversation say hey
you know i know that you gave yourself a
five on that that's not what i observed
can you tell me about that and there's a
coaching moment so you
build this into the fabric of everything
that you're doing and it's not an extra
it's just part of the culture of the
room and projects are a great way to do
that i think coding is a great place to
do that
how did you learn about sel you know
originally i had a colleague at pbo
works who just asked a question and said
you know does anyone have a crosswalk
between sel and pbl and i thought about
it and i thought that's genius like i
looked at it and i'm like i don't know
if one exists but i sure could make one
and as soon as i asked that question i
just realized that all these nebulous
terms that we use like soft skills 21st
century skills career and college
readiness skills they're really scl is
what they are and i realized that this
is a better term and i like it better
than all those other ones because those
all have problems in my mind for
different reasons and i just realized
like this is the name of what i've been
trying to do in my classroom for years
and i don't know if you've ever had that
moment where like this thing becomes
named and you're like well yeah i've
already been doing that that's kind of
how it felt to me yeah and not that i
haven't learned how to do things better
but it just kind of like i realized it
and so the place i would send you to the
two things that really got me focused on
it first of all is castle because their
website lays out all the competencies
has plenty of examples has a million
resources so castle is a great place to
learn more about it and then the book
that i read that influenced me a lot too
is all learning a social emotional by
fisher fry and smith and that's where
they make the argument based on research
that it needs to be integrated and they
don't talk about pbl a ton in there a
little bit but basically once i read the
book it's like well yeah this is the
best way to do this is project-based
learning and another great place where
you can learn about sel is my recently
released book called the pulse of pbl
cultivating equity through social
emotional learning that i co-wrote with
matinga raggeds and in this book we
explore it's very practical the research
is out there if you want research this
isn't the book for you this is the book
for how to do it and so practical ways
to teach
seo skills through a project-based
learning framework and you can find it
at pulse of pbl.com awesome i'll include
a link to that in the show notes so one
of the things that i like to think about
when i really agree with like an
approach or a pedagogy is when i would
not do that thing that i strongly agree
with so i'm curious either for pbl or
sel when would you not do or not
recommend either of those yeah for sell
i think we always want to do it and one
of the things in fisher and brian
smith's book that they argue is we're
teaching it whether we know it or not
like we're always teaching values these
students whether they're positive or
negative you know we're teaching kids
for example that failure is a good thing
you know that's it's a chance to learn
or we're teaching them that failure is
awful and you want to avoid it and all
of us are teaching probably one of those
two things whether it's intentional or
not a lot of we're already doing but for
pbl it works best when the teachers in
the building and district level
administration are all on board and so
if you're in a very traditional
structured system it can be difficult
you need some freedom with curriculum
you need to be able to move things
around a little bit and if you have
strict pacing guides or common
assessments that can really be a
detriment my current job i'm in is kind
of that situation and what i found is i
talked to my administration and i asked
for permission to do a project say hey
you know every unit that i teach in
sixth grade math we have a common
assessment that all the math teachers
have to give and i said you know what
can i pilot and that's my keyword pilot
it's a great word because it gives you
permission to do something but also
gives you permission to fail can i pilot
a project for the next unit and not do
what everyone else is doing and they
were on board with it they were cool
with it and a lot of times you just need
to ask and that's my recommendation is
that you use something of that language
to get permission to do something
different yeah i appreciate that one of
the things that i was really interested
in that resonated with me is you
mentioned having taught a variety of
subject areas and having
taught different subject areas across
the entire grade span each one of them
has kind of informed other experiences
in classroom and teaching so i'm curious
for you like how have the different
subject areas informed your own approach
to class room experiences or teaching
yeah so i'm a big believer in integrated
learning you know it's a very western
concept that we have separate subject
areas that's not how the eastern mine
works but it's so ingrained in our
culture and when i was a technology
teacher in middle school i didn't fit in
with any of the other subject areas so i
was part of the fine arts department the
lack of teachers if you will and i'm
sure many people have that experience
and one of the things they made us do
was like oh you need to have literacy
and you need to have math like i was
supposed to be teaching math skills in
my class and they really were pushing
that on us and i remember from one of
our pd's we did a book study on you know
how fine arts really needs to be pushed
into the mainstream and i would agree
with that and so you know one of the
projects that we did was a school-wide
project that we called revolution garden
and it basically was a shark tank style
project based on the industrial
revolution and kids had to take a
problem that's still around today from
the industrial revolution and design a
solution for it
and we were able to integrate math
science english all the subject areas
into this one project it's just way more
meaningful and then they pitched to the
local chamber of commerce a bunch of
business people came in and we pitched
to them and it was very meaningful for
the kids and i think whenever we can
break down those walls between subject
areas it's helpful you know i had a
chemistry colleague who constantly in
his classroom would have kids design
their own experience doing them and
they'd get stuck and he'd get to a point
and he'd be like oh my word we need math
and he would run and grab the math
teacher and have him come in and teach a
mini lesson on how to do statistical
analysis of whatever data they were just
looking at
and so just really honoring the other
subject areas and bringing them in and
not treating it like oh this is math we
don't read and write in here i mean it
doesn't even make sense right yeah i
love that do you have any advice for
teachers who are interested in
integrating or connecting
various subject areas that are typically
siloed i think it's a lot of planning so
ideally if you can plan with teachers in
the summer before the year starts
and you can ask yourself like where does
our subjects overlap and maybe we can
collaborate here and maybe they're doing
most of the project in one class but
then there's many lessons in the other
class like a math and english supporting
it and if you start early and you plan
it out you can often do it and then i
mean just obsessively plan every detail
that you can because it's going to be a
lot of work but the irony is you also
need to reject all your plans if
necessary to go in another direction if
that's where students take it so you
want to plan obsessively but yet have
freedom for students to move if it goes
in a different way as long as you're
still hitting your content yeah
depending on the way that you do pbl in
particular there can be a ton of upfront
work and then when you actually start
facilitating the project it's like a
breeze because of all the up-front work
that you ended up having to do i 100
agree with that that's all i felt every
time usually in the middle of the
project i would have this beautiful
moment where everything was just humming
and i'm looking around and i'm thinking
you know what i don't really have
anything to do right now
right that's the moment when i realized
i had better start planning the next
project because the end of the project
was always a little chaotic with some
kind of showcase or whatever and then as
soon as the showcase is done you need to
launch the next project yep so whenever
i felt that oh i'm doing pretty good i'm
i don't have a million things to do
right now i better start playing the
next thing yeah that definitely
resonates i'm curious if you've kind of
already touched on this or hinted at it
earlier but what do you feel is holding
back educators of the field and what's
something we can actually do to stop
that i think we still have almost like
this jet lag from no child left behind
you know we're still emphasizing
standardized curriculum and testing and
the tests are still controlling a lot of
what we're doing in schools
and it hasn't worked first of all
all the data that's coming out shows
that just as many kids are left behind
as before you know it might have helped
in some instances with some places that
were basically malpractice where they
weren't teaching kids what they should
be teaching i would say there's nothing
that came out of it but as far as
student achievement on the standardized
tests it didn't improve them and so
and not that that's the end all be all i
think we should be looking towards
alternative assessments and really we
need the courage just to say you know
what the kids in your school are going
to test like they always have you know
the high achieving schools if you start
doing project-based learning their test
scores aren't going to tank if you're in
a school
that's a high need school that has low
test scores doing project-based learning
probably isn't automatically going to
make you the top school in the state but
it is going to get kids actively
involved in their learning and what do
you have to lose like the kids are going
to get the test scores they're going to
get anyway so let's focus on learning
and getting kids passionate about
learning and developing their skill sets
that are going to help them in life yeah
that i think is way more important than
increasing test scores it's just can we
help people understand the value of
learning and being able to learn and
developing those skills and whatnot the
long term that's going to pay off
because like there's this tendency for
school to kind of burn out students
whether it be in k-12 or even in
university level like people often walk
away from schools going i hate
formalized education or i hate learning
and that's just a shame yeah but they
don't hurt learning in their free time
right they love learning about things
they care about right yeah i think kids
are turning to platforms like youtube to
learn more than they are going to school
i turn there too
so you mentioned the part about students
who are presenting more in pbl like
multiple times in a class and how that
practice allows them to develop their
own skills being a former music educator
really resonates with me i'm curious for
you how do you practice or iterate on
your own abilities as an educator yeah i
think first of all just being my own
worst critic you know i'm always
reflective i think and in the heat of
the moment of the school year it can be
hard at times but i use blogging that's
one way i've reflected over the years in
downtime you know like i'm on break
right now and it's just a really good
time i'm doing a class this year where
seventh graders are doing the
announcements and it was kind of uh i
was thrown into it there's been a change
from ipads to chromebooks with no
software it was kind of a disaster to
start out and i've just kind of muddled
weight my way through but
even this week taking a step back and
just reflecting i now have a plan going
forward where how i'm going to fix all
kinds of issues in my classroom so just
taking the time to reflect and then the
other thing is talking to colleagues
whether it's in person or via social
media you know i'm always just kind of
taking in learning on my own if you will
from other educators who are experts in
my building or abroad i imagine you've
also iterated on your own abilities by
jumping into more and more different
subject areas were those intentional or
was it like admin being like hey we
don't have somebody to do this class
congratulations mike you're now teaching
this i mean i'm i guess weird in that
i'm a history major math minor and so
those subjects don't normally go
together i would say history is kind of
my passion but math is where the need is
for jobs sometimes so that's where i end
up teaching too so that's kind of where
i end up i would say my passion is
social studies but i also think you know
it's a tough climate to teach social
studies right now especially the way i
prefer to teach it some people don't
want to do that
yeah because i like to kids argue and be
open-ended on everything question
everything how do you
stave off the burnout that can come with
working in education for me it's just
trying to balance i guess we know as i
said earlier adult scl has come before
you can teach it to students and so one
of the things i did this year the first
time i've taught somewhere close by
where i live not a half hour drive and
so i bought a bike and i'm riding my
bike to school every day and
that alone makes sure i exercise because
once i sit on the couch at home i'm
highly unlikely to get up but i found
every morning like that physical
activity gets me going gets me ready for
the day and then on the way home i have
that stress for the day i just kind of
release it in my bike ride and so that's
been a huge savior for me this year if
it wasn't for my bike ride i think i
would lose my mind yeah i like that idea
i have also been trying to
do that where i will do like strength
based workout in the morning before i
start my day and then to kind of close
off my day and
use it as a signal of saying hey you're
done working on this thing i'll do some
kind of cardio in the afternoon and that
has been nice having those like start
and end points for me it's so important
because it's so easy to neglect it and
then lots of bad habits for me eating
habits all those things do you have any
recommendations for how we might be able
to improve equity and inclusion in
education yeah this is another area that
i'm pretty passionate about just even
the term equity i think we often misuse
it when we other students with it and
you think about the way we talk
sometimes we say oh you know what are
some equitable practices
that you use in your classroom and if we
think about what we're really saying is
you know how are you teaching students
of color and what if i was to say what
are some black student practices that
you use in your classroom like that's
pretty much offensive and we would never
say that but that's really what we mean
a lot of times when we say equitable my
co-author she's originally from
equatorial guinea in west africa and she
talks about you know she has this
amazing hair that you know she can do
all kinds of cool hairstyles with but
when she goes to the store her hair
products are not in the beauty aisle
they're over in the ethnic aisle which
often has a camera on it as has been
documented or it's under lock and key
and it's basically saying you know the
products for your hair aren't normal
there's some other thing over here
that's not a hair product so we have to
put it somewhere else and that's how we
treat equity sometimes and so i also
think of that famous example of the kids
trying to watch the baseball game
looking over the fence probably seen me
and you know oh we got to add some boxes
to help these kids out or whatever no
the real answer is remove the fence like
let's get rid of the barriers and i
think that's where project-based
learning steps in and the other person
that i really look to on this is loretta
hammond's work and she does a great job
of distinguishing equity and cultural
responsive teaching from things like
diversity multiculturalism and even
anti-racism and all those are good
things but they're not the same things
and it's not enough just to have
multiculturalism and diversity and have
a cultural day and you know make tacos
or whatever or even celebrate a history
month or read a novel about a different
group of people those are all good and
well but when we're really talking about
equity and culturally responsive she
says it's about teaching our students of
color the skills to help them be
successful and that's the literacy in
numeracy and coding like if children of
color don't have the opportunity to
learn the code and they're shut off from
a whole section of it jobs and we know
that that is a huge job sector today and
in the future that's never going away
then that's not equity and i have a
friend who teaches high-level math out
in the bay area in california and you
know when he talks about equity he says
you know what i do for equity is i'm
teaching calculus and pre-triggering
these high-level classes so that my
students who are primarily
children of color can go to the best
universities and get in these programs
that's equity it's developing these
skills in the kids and so it's not
something extra but it's really making
sure that we're using strategies that
allow for culturally appropriate ways
for all kids to learn and pbl again is a
great part of that because pbl honors
different ways of looking at it and it's
an asset based viewpoint rather than
deficit based and so teaching these seo
skills is going to help increase these
opportunities by teaching resilience and
growth mindset in these values that are
needed for
our students of color to be successful
yeah i appreciate that answer especially
the part about removing the fence
there's a recent paper that i read that
was talking about how growth mindset is
great but we shouldn't just focus on
growth mindset we also need to focus on
the fact that they're having to have a
growth mindset because of the barriers
that are in place and perhaps we should
focus on removing some of those barriers
so that definitely resonates when you're
talking about removing the fence
we've created them most of the time we
the system in general and so we need to
analyze it and ask ourselves where
things are not equitable and fair and
remove those we're not doing something
extra something special for our student
of color we're just making sure that our
teaching it's not like oh let's teach
you a wrap to learn this no let's teach
you the skill set of how to analyze and
think with code and doing it something
as simple as instead of working
individually working in groups that is a
culturally responsive way that most
people of color work they work
collaboratively more than the western
individual mindset so it's something as
basic as allowing open communication and
group work is a cultural responsive
teaching strategy right what do you wish
there's more research on that could
inform your own practices that's a
tricky one for me because i'm not a huge
research person and the reason is that i
found you can just cherry-pick research
and you can find research to pick
whatever you want to believe in and i'm
guilty as as anyone and then the second
reason is so much of the research is
based on test scores and standardized
achievement and i just don't believe
that that's the most important thing
that being said the research that i
would be most interested in would be
longitudinal studies of kids who have
been in a pbl environment especially if
it's like k-12 kids who've been in
almost their whole life like where are
they at 20 years from now what are their
lives like it's the research that's
really expensive and hard to do but
that's the kind of thing i'm interested
in is like okay your test scores are
great but how many of you are going to
college graduating from college and
finding a career where you're happy and
successful like that's what i would like
to know the most about i'll include a
link to this in the show notes but i did
an interview with andrea steffek and one
of the things we talked about is higher
education in order to get tenure it
typically has to do with how many
publications you have and then like
number of citations on that maybe your
presentations as well so to have a large
quantity of publications you have to do
short studies which rewards things like
doing just quantitative data or survey
data and not actually doing these
longitudinal studies to figure out what
is the impact over time
because if you want to get tenure in
time you can't do a five year study
instead you need to do like 50 studies
in the course of that five years et
cetera so like higher education itself
does not reward these longitudinal
studies but that i agree with you is
something we really need more of in
education yeah that makes a lot of sense
again it's a structure that isn't
working right so where might people go
to connect with you in the organizations
that you work with so you can find me at
michaelcackly.com is my blog
where i try to blog every week or so and
also i'm on twitter at mike cackly and i
have a facebook page where i post daily
resources on either social emotional
learning pbl or both
and that's sel in pbl on facebook page
and then of course my book that's coming
out is pulsa pbl you can find it
alsopbl.com and with that that concludes
this week's episode of the csk8 podcast
you can find all the links that mike
mentioned as well as many more resources
in the show notes at jaredoliri.com and
if you enjoyed this particular episode i
hope you consider sharing with a friend
or simply leaving a rating on whatever
platform you're listening to this on
stay tuned next week for another episode
and until then i hope you're all staying
safe and are having a wonderful week

Guest Bio

Mike is a PBL and SEL teacher and coach. He leads Project Based Learning and Social and Emotional Learning workshops around the country helping teachers make the shift to student-centered inquiry. His passion is inspiring educators to design SEL infused PBL curriculum for all content areas and age levels. During 20 years of PBL teaching, Mike has taught social studies, math, STEM, and STEAM classes. Mike is convinced that we don’t need to prepare students for “someday,” but that they should be doing meaningful work right now!

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Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode
- Accessible CS Education through Evidence-based Programming Languages with Andreas Stefik
  - In this interview with Andreas Stefik, we discuss the importance of using evidence-based programming languages, problems with the lack of replication in CS education scholarship and academia in general, the importance of designing for accessibility and disabilities, lessons learned designing Quorum (an accessible programming language and platform), and much more.
- Bringing Curriculum to Life: Enacting Project-Based Learning in [Computer Science] Programs
  - In this episode I unpack Tobias, Campbell, and Greco’s (2015) publication titled “Bringing curriculum to life: Enacting project-based learning in music programs” to explore how computer science educators could incorporate project-based learning in their classroom.
- CS Educator as Dungeon Master with Jon Stapleton
  - In this interview with Jon Stapleton, we discuss metaphors for education and facilitating, the importance of community and navigating inappropriate content online, how programming languages and platforms influence learning, theories and philosophies that inform Jon’s practice, critical code studies, and much more.
- Decolonizing Education through SEL and PBL with Matinga Ragatz
  - In this interview with Matinga Ragatz, we discuss Matinga’s journey into education, creating environments where kids can learn through struggle, the importance of social and emotional learning (SEL), how schools promote individualism and exceptionalism, the intersections of project-based learning and SEL, decolonizing education, the importance of shared values in education, and so much more.
- How to Get Started with Computer Science Education
  - In this episode I provide a framework for how districts and educators can get started with computer science education for free.
- James Fester on What Works with PBL
  - In this interview with James Fester, we discuss using informal learning approaches within formal learning spaces, what makes a learning experience engaging, how James’ experience in the National Parks Service’s Teacher Ranger Teacher program informed how he taught in the classroom, unpacking nuances of project-based learning, debunking common misconceptions of PBL, and so much more.
- Project-based Learning in Computer Science with Justin Cannady
  - In this interview with Justin Cannady, we discuss project-based learning in CS, encouraging debugging and working through failure as students and teachers, considerations for integrating CS, lessons learned working on NMSI’s CS AlignEd, and much more.
- Situated Language and Learning with Bryan Brown
  - In this interview Bryan Brown, we discuss the importance of language in education. In particular, we discuss the role of language in teaching and learning, discursive identity, situated language and learning, the importance of representation in education, the role of language on stress, how smartphones and virtual communication platforms (e.g., Zoom) could change learning, and many other topics relevant to CS education and learning.
- The Place for Joy in Teaching and Learning with Sara Lev
  - In this interview with Sara Lev, we discuss the place for joy in teaching and learning, the impact of remote learning on PBL in early childhood, misconceptions around PBL in early childhood, encouraging curiosity by responding to questions with questions, social and emotional learning, the impact of yoga and meditation on teaching, and so much more.
- Unpacking Various Entry Points into Innovative Teaching with Jorge Valenzuela
  - In this interview with Jorge Valenzuela, we discuss the importance of engineering in STEM, situating computational thinking within a problem, getting started with computational thinking and computer science, project-based learning, incorporating social and emotional learning (SEL) in the classroom, Jorge’s approach to professional development, and much more.
- More episodes related to equity
- More episodes related to project-based learning
- More episodes on the situated language and learning
- More episodes related to social and emotional learning (SEL)
- All other episodes
Learn more about the documentary I mentioned, Blood in the Face
Watch TED Talks by Daryl Davis, the Black man I mentioned who befriends KKK members
Read publications by James Paul Gee
Learn more about SEL with the CASEL framework that Mike mentioned
Read the book by Frey, Fisher, and Smith titled “All Learning Is Social and Emotional: Helping Students Develop Essential Skills for the Classroom and Beyond”
Read Mike’s book titled “The Pulse of PBL: Seamlessly Integrating Social and Emotional Learning!” that he coauthored with Matinga Ragatz
Here’s a link to the equality vs equity picture that mic mentioned
Connect with Mike
Find other CS educators and resources by using the #CSK8 hashtag on Twitter