A Project Management Series | Skills Growth for the K-12 Learner | engage2learn

As educators, we have an amazing responsibility and mission to prepare our children for college, careers, and life.  We bring formal education and life experiences to the learning environment. While academic achievement around content standards is critical and necessary, we also need to make sure learners walk away with skills that can enhance their daily lives and make them successful no matter the route they take.

Project management enables learners’ Life Ready Skills, such as communication, collaboration, growth mindset, autonomy, creativity, critical thinking, and professional ethics.

One of the most important Life Ready Skills our learners can acquire in the classroom is project management. But we don’t mean project-based learning; project management itself is a general skill that is extremely valuable in the workplace.

There is so much opportunity for skills growth when practicing project management, such as analysis, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication.

Let’s break down project management at its highest level;  you’ll see how your students can apply this information to classwork and their daily lives.

Whether a project is simple or complex, or a single day or years, they all go through the following processes. These processes improve skills that learners need to be prepared for the workforce, college and life.

• Initiation (critical thinking and analysis – problem identification)
• Planning (collaboration and communication – working with others and drafting plans that range from simple to comprehensive)
• Execution (collaboration, communication and critical thinking – work and communicate with others to implement solutions while tough decisions when necessary)
• Monitoring (critical thinking, analysis and research – evaluate progress, research alternatives and modify solutions to meet change)
• Closing (communication – communicate and share final products and record lessons learned)

When routinely practiced, learners will begin to naturally acquire and strengthen these very important skills. These are skills employers are looking for in high school and college graduates.  Make project management a seamless part of your learning environment to nurture learner growth.