How School Leaders Can Make Time for Teachers to Have Meaningful PBL Collaboration

Collaboration is an essential feature of high-quality project-based learning (PBL), and the ability to work as part of a team is often cited as key to future success. However, devoting time to any new initiatives must be done with care—the number of professional development days that can be crammed onto any school calendar are few and often far between. In order for PBL to be successful and become a self-sustaining part of the instructional culture at your school, teachers need time to support each other and exchange ideas in order to grow their own practice. 

That being said, making time for genuine collaboration between teachers is often tricky. In fact, when I get a chance to work with a group of teachers and ask them what the biggest barrier to PBL implementation is, “finding time for collaboration with my teammates” is the most common response by a factor of three. 

So how do school leaders aside time for deep and meaningful collaboration without it feeling like “one more thing” to do? Here are some ideas that you can implement or suggest in order to create space for this critical PBL ingredient.

1. Keep PBL Top of Mind so That Teachers Can Steal Minutes

While established venues for teacher collaboration like professional learning communities or department meetings are an obvious choice for building PBL capacity, they’re often filled with other important business, which leaves little space for discussions about instruction or new initiatives. Many leaders and teachers have shared that they often find time for PBL at random, informal times, like between periods, out on the playground, or at the beginning of the day before class starts. This practice of stealing minutes for PBL sometimes drives its continuation, but it doesn’t happen unless leaders constantly advocate for PBL. 

It’s said that “where you spend your time reflects your values.” So if you as a leader aren’t mentioning PBL or revisiting the work you’ve done previously to show that it’s a continuing priority, you’re inadvertently communicating its lack of importance. This doesn’t mean it has to be PBL all day, every day—it’s more about consistency. 

Include resources or readings in your communications to faculty. Provide updates and coverage of projects on school websites. Find ways to conduct what is known in the marketing world as a “drip campaign”—giving small but consistent reminders that PBL is still a priority. That way, when your teachers find 15–20 minutes of time, they’ll be primed to open up that project calendar and share it with a friend. 

2. Asynchronous Opportunities Work 

If we learned one thing from pandemic teaching, it’s that opportunities can come from leveraging asynchronous opportunities. You don’t have to carve out specific times in an already overburdened schedule for PBL to flourish. Instead, find ways to create collaborative opportunities that are available 24/7. 

One school I worked with posted weekly PBL practice problems on poster board next to the teacher mailboxes with markers as an open invitation for anyone who had an idea, strategy, or solution to share what they would do in a similar situation. At the end of each week, they had 20–30 possible solutions, and it didn’t take a second away from their grade-level meetings or prep periods. 

I came across another example in a staff bathroom. On the back of my bathroom stall, there was a poster with a QR code connected to an article that shared multiple strategies for engaging disconnected learners. While this type of “Potty PD” might not be my go-to approach if I were the leader of the school, it does illustrate another creative way to leverage asynchronous opportunities for growing teacher capacity. 

3. Illuminate Your Lighthouses

Every school has teachers who are widely known as early adopters, or people who are naturally disposed to be the first to get onboard with new ideas and initiatives. They can become cheerleaders for things that their colleagues might question or hesitate to embrace. I remember being a teacher, sitting in staff meetings where new initiatives were being discussed, and the endorsement of a single member of the faculty was all that was required for the laggards and late adopters in the group to try it out. These people, whom I call “lighthouses,” help to attract others to them through their own work and successes. They might be the best resource you have for ensuring that PBL continues to flourish. 

Empowering and allowing these lighthouses time to share and inspire their colleagues is something I believe that all school leaders should plan to do. Providing them the time, resources, and space to make their practice more public and accessible can convince those who are averse to change to join the bandwagon.

There are a number of ways to do this. You can give them 10–15 minutes at the beginning of a staff meeting to share a success story or a strategy that was valuable. You can allow them release time to check in and support other members of the staff (if you happen to have funding for the substitute teachers who will be required or coverage for a period or two here or there). You can also include them on your PBL steering team to help contribute to the plan going forward. 

4. Ask Your People What They Think 

You don’t have to have all the answers, and you don’t have to do everything. The leaders who I’ve seen lead the most successful PBL initiatives understand that they’re most effective when they act as conductors—providing guidance for those who actually make the music. Delegation is key, and there are many things that only you can do. There are also things you might miss, so consider asking your staff for their opinions about collaboration opportunities as a way of acknowledging their voices.

A principal I worked with in New York City did just this and found that her staff really wanted to be able to choose when they accessed PBL support. She agreed, stipulating that they had to meet with their coach monthly, and allowed them to decide when those meetings took place. As a result, every grade level attended monthly support meetings.

Despite the fact that none of the teachers had formal PBL training, every single one of them completed a project by the end of the year. This was a remarkable success that came about because the principal allowed herself to be vulnerable and provided her staff a voice.