BRINGING PROJECT MANAGEMENT INTO THE SCHOOL TRANSFORMATION...

BRINGING PROJECT MANAGEMENT INTO THESCHOOL TRANSFORMATION CONVERSATION

TOOLK IT OVERVIE W & GUIDE 1-13

PROJEC T MANAGEMENT S K ILL S & 14 -20PROJEC T- B A S ED LE ARNING

SHARING THE VALUE OF PROJEC T 21-26MANAGEMENT W ITH EDUC ATOR

PROJEC T- B A S ED LE ARNING IN AC TION 27-30

DE TERMINING COMMUNIT Y RE ADINE S S 31-38

COMMUNIT Y RE SOURCE MAPPING 39 - 42

UNDER S TANDING EDUC ATION S TR ATEGIE S 43 - 49

PROJEC T MANAGER S IN THE CL A S S ROOM 50 -55

APPENDIX 56 -70• Facilitating an Effective Community Conversation

TOOLK IT HANDOUT S • Resources for Educators• Exemplary Schools & Districts

TABLE OF CONTENTS

“Projects are an excellent way to help students develop important 21st Century skills while engaging in meaningful,

real-world work that addresses compelling questions and problems. Project-Based Learning off ers students rich

opportunities to learn how to manage and lead their own learning; hone a variety of essential 21st Century Skills;

apply these skills to deepening their knowledge of the world, themselves, and others; and help create a better world.

Projects can be integrated into any subject matter and are a natural and eff ective way to develop important college and

career readiness skills, as well as Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) skills.”

PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLK IT FOR TEACHERS,Project Management Institute Educational

Foundation, 2013

TOOLKIT OVERVIEW & GUIDE

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“The world runs on projects... Managing and leading projects are essential life skills, learning skills and career skills.21ST CENTURY SK ILLS MAP – PRO JECT MANAGEMENT FOR LEARNING.Partnership for 21st Century Learning and Project Management Institute Educational Foundation, 2014

Students today face a world where a far broader and deeper set of skills are essential for success than ever before. Schools must use new kinds of tools to teach a wider set of topics, and even more to impart the competencies, perspectives, and prac-tices that, alongside academic and technical knowledge, are more and more essential to compete. Project-Based Learning (PBL) is a powerful approach to learning that offers a wealth of opportunities to build these essential 21st Century competen-cies, especially when it provides opportunities to learn and practice the project management skills that will be extremely valuable to students as they enter the workforce.

In most communities, refocusing learning standards around project management and other 21st Century competencies and integrating PBL into classroom instruction will require no less than a transformation of the educational model. Many regions and school districts have active, ongoing discussions about improving education among a wide range of stakeholders (par-ents, teachers, employers, students, etc.), and some are talking about this kind of transformation. But very few have brought in project managers and other skilled professionals – those with expertise on exactly these areas – to contribute to those conversations.

The Toolkit is intended to bring project management into community conversations about school transformation, by providing tools, definitions and explanations of unfamiliar subjects, and links to other resources that will help project managers, other professionals, and existing stakeholders to

better understand their communities, connect to existing dialogues and reform efforts, and navigate the complex world of education. The Partnership for 21st Century Learning (P21) - a collaborative partnership among education, business, community and government leaders to position “21st Century readiness” at the center of K-12 education – and the PMI Educational Foundation (PMIEF) – the philanthropic arm of the Project Management Institute that leverages project man-agement for social good – developed each Toolkit document to help community leaders work together to build support for integrating PBL and project management into their local schools and partnering with educators to implement learning projects in the classroom.

A N I N T RO DU C T I O N TO TH I S TOO L K I T This toolkit will equip project managers, other professionals, and other stakeholders with the knowledge and tools to:

• Add their voices to deeper community conversations about education transformation in their communities and what is necessary to successfully prepare young people for the 21st Century world of work,

• Work with other groups and leaders to build support among the public and educational decision-makers to bring Project-Based Learning, project management, and 21st Century skills into curricula and teacher training,

• Assist educators to better understand PBL, and

• Provide their important expertise inside and outside of the classroom.

Equipping project managers with these resources will help them engage with and add significant value to discussions about education reform and transformation in their communities. These more inclusive and informed conversations will in turn lead to increased awareness of the potential of transformation and support for implementing it in schools. As a result, more students in school districts around

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the country will graduate with the skills and competencies they will need in college, career, and life.

GOA L SThis Toolkit document and the other resource documents will better enable and empower stakeholders, including project managers and other professionals, to accomplish the goals and strategies above.

Specifically, using the Toolkit, project managers and other professionals will:

• Use Community Resource Mapping and other research to develop knowledge of the existing assets, stakeholders, and connections in communities.

• Evaluate community readiness to implement PBL in schools.

• Gain a basic working knowledge of the education community context, language, current education strategies, and student success factors.

• Become a more thoughtful, contributing participant in community education transformation conversations.

• Help civic and business leadership in the region to better understand why school districts are engaging in a shift to Project-Based Learning and Work-Based Learning and how that will result in a higher-skilled workforce.

• Determine target school districts and schools.

• Identify “educator allies” and possible intermediary organizations to coordinate partnership efforts.

• Understand the roles and benefits of engaging in a participatory conversation in a collective initiative and how to be an active participant and/or facilitate one if needed.

• Strategize with community leaders about how to build strong ties between the employer community and local schools.

• Help teachers and other educators and other community stakeholders better understand Project-Based Learning, project management, and 21st Century Skills, as well as their value as keys to educational success.

• Utilize a set of key messages to communicate with educators and community leaders.

• Better understand how project managers can add value as volunteers working with administrators, teachers, and students inside and outside the classroom.

TO P I C SThis Overview document is intended to supply information about different aspects of how project managers and other professionals can accomplish the goals above. Each section of the Overview offers a brief, summarized description cover-ing only selected topics; much more detailed information is available in the related resource documents (provided as part of the Toolkit online; see below). It begins by offering a short definition of PBL and project management skills and their importance, and asserts their importance and relevance to ed-ucation in the context of college and career readiness. It then turns to a brief affirmation of the need to transform education in the U.S. and the roles of project management, PBL, and project managers in doing so.

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and tools, but it is often as much an art as a science, because each project is different and every project is dynamic.” Trained project managers are able to approach a project systematically by breaking it down into different stages and steps, and guide it through its life cycle to successful completion.

Project Management is a Crucial Component of Effective PBLThe best Project-Based Learning gives students the opportuni-ty to build and explore project management skills. Neverthe-less, many of the projects used in classrooms, even if called “PBL,” do not allow students to truly utilize project manage-ment (for example, projects where the teacher directs the ex-perience and makes most of the decisions). Effective learning projects and PBL curricula should integrate opportunities for learning and practicing project management skills.

PMIEF defines a well-designed, effective learning project as one that has the following features:

• Project outcomes are tied to curriculum and learning goal

• Driving challenges that lead students to the central concepts or principles of the topic or subject area.

• Student investigations and research involve inquiry, problem-solving, and knowledge building.

• Students are responsible for designing and managing much of their own learning.

• Projects are based on authentic, real-world problems and questions that students care about.

PBL has proved to be an excellent approach to help students to build the learning and innovation, digital literacy, and career and life skills that are increasingly recognized as essential to work and life today. For example, research in recent years across several academic subjects has shown that PBL is a highly effective method to help students learn content, process, presentation, and problem-solving skills. In a Stanford University review of the accumulated research on

learning methods used in projects, PBL has been shown to help students:

· Learn more deeply when they apply their knowledge to real-world problems.

· Participate and contribute in tasks that require sustained engagement and collaboration.

· Achieve higher levels of academic perfomance · and personal development, regardless of the student’s background or prior academic record.

· Become more successful by learning how to learn as well as what to learn.

The benefits of PBL apply as much to the “4C’s” - Critical thinking, Collaborating, Communicating and Creative problem solving – as to the technical mastery, life and career skills, and core subjects that are also part of state standards like the Common Core and P21’s “21st Century Learning Framework.” Perhaps most importantly, project management is a universal business skill that is practiced in all industries and a skill set that is in high demand by employers.

The resource document “Sharing the Value of Project Manage-ment with Educators” provides a set of key messages about the potential of PBL that are written with an educator audience in mind, while “Project-Based Learning in Action” includes brief summaries of several well-designed example learning projects.

W H Y DO W E N E E D TO T R A N S F O R M E DUC AT I O N I N TH E U . S . ?The demands of the global economy require all students to have essential skills and competencies.Our nation’s schools need to produce graduates in ever-growing numbers who are college-, career-, and citizenship-ready. Students must possess both content knowledge AND the 21st Century Learning and dispositions demanded by employers today. These skills include not

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only the “4C’s” - Critical thinking, Collaborating, Communicat-ing and Creative problem solving – but also life and career skills, such as leadership and responsibility, self direction, and social and emotional awareness, and the ability to use them across disciplines. Postsecondary education and training (an industry-recognized certificate, apprenticeship, Associate’s degree, or higher degree) will also increasingly be required.

However, the United States is falling far short of these goals nationally. According to the Alliance for Excellent Education, 18 million students in the U.S. attend schools in districts that have been identified as in need of improvement, while seven thousand students drop out of high school without a regular diploma every day. The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Economy projects that the U.S. econo-my will have a shortage of at least 3 million postsecondary degrees and 4.7 million postsecondary certificates by 2018. And, the recent long economic downturn has meant that young people have experienced unprecedented difficulty in finding opportunities for workplace and career experience: the 2010 U.S. Census revealed that only 49 percent of Americans ages 16–24 were employed in July of that year, the lowest July rate on record.

“College and career readiness is the new direction for K–12 education. Preparing students to transition without remediation to postsecondary education or to careers that pay a living wage, or both, is the ultimate aim of federal and state education policies, initiatives, and funding.

“Very few K–12 schools can meet this goal for all students today. Most schools have neither the expectations nor the measures, neither the instruc-tional programs nor the learning environments, to equip students with the knowledge and skills they need to compete and succeed in a global economy.”

PARTNERSH IP FOR 21ST CENTURY LEARNING, Association for Career and Technical Education, and National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium, 2010

New learning strategies are needed for student success – and project management is a powerful approachToday’s educational system must prepare students for a global, ever changing workplace in which mastery of content knowledge alone is insufficient for success. To do so, students must experience a different kind of learning that more closely mirrors today’s work and life. This means that students partic-ipate in an active educational experience, in which real world projects form an important vehicle for engagement. Creating this experience at scale will require a transformation of the standard educational experience in this country.Project-Based Learning (PBL), or using “learning projects” as a part of formal education with strong project management integration, has been proven by experience and research to be an excellent approach to help students to build the learning and innovation, digital literacy, and career and life skills that

are increasingly recognized as essential to work and live today. This is because learning projects are sequences of learning experiences that give students lots of opportunities to practice and improve all of their skills, while engaging in meaningful, real-world work that addresses compelling questions and problems. Moreover, PBL as an educational strategy aligns remarkably well with the ambitious, high-quality learning

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standards, such as Common Core, that have been adopted by many states over the past few years and that emphasize inquiry and mastering diverse competencies.

Implementing PBL in a way that truly imparts the skills that students will need requires teachers, students, and school administrators to develop strong project management skills. However, few educators possess the professional capacity or the tools to manage projects in their classrooms, much less to teach these essential 21st Century Skills to their students.

“The world runs on projects – everyday life projects like planning and planting a garden, school projects like devising and performing experiments for a science fair project, and work-world projects like designing and building a bridge or developing and delivering a community program to reduce energy use. Managing and leading projects are essential life skills, learning skills and career skills.”PROJECT MANAGEMENT FOR LEARNING: A FOUNDAT IONAL GU IDE TO APPLY INGPROJECT MANAGEMENT PR INC IPLES AND METHODS TO EDUCAT ION, 2014

Project managers and other professionals need to be involved in transforming educationCorporate leaders and wealthy philanthropists, such as Eli Broad, cite the need to reshape the education system as the most pressing issue facing the United States. Students will need to gain a wide range of 21st Century skills and compe-tencies in order to embark on successful careers and fit the needs of a globalized economy. But while many of the big ideas and federal programs coming from the top are intended to effect this transformation, much of the actual work of adapt-ing those policies to local needs, prioritizing resources, and changing school culture must be done locally, at the school

district and individual school levels. And all sectors of the larger community must take an active role and a strong voice in those local conversations, debates, and decisions.

E X P LO R I N G CO M M U N I T Y A S S E T S A N D D E T E R M I N I N G CO M M U N I T Y R E A D I N E S S

Related resource documents:

• Determining Community Readiness

• Community Resource Mapping

• Exemplary Schools and Districts (handout)

In order to engage with the ongoing conversations in any com-munity, it is critically important to develop an understanding of the complex systems that it comprises. Effective advocates must discover the assets in their specific local communities - the knowledge, relationships, organizations, leadership, and openness to change – that will be essential for success in the difficult work of transforming schools to prepare students for college and career. These include identifying the schools and educators who are most prepared to implement PBL, the existing coalitions and task forces (or “moving trains”) that are already seeking to address education and career readiness issues, and the organizations that can take on the intermediary tasks that are essential to keeping the initiative moving. What makes a community ready? Ultimately, the most important question to answer is whether a community has the right assets to move forward with this work. Schools and education are contentious issues every-place, and trying to make change in classrooms can often feel like Don Quixote tilting at windmills. A community that is ripe for this work (or already engaged in it) should have three important factors in place:

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1) a culture of readiness for change, 2) a community that supports education, and 3) an organization ready to serve as intermediary or “backbone”.

“Determining Community Readiness,” a resource document in this toolkit, outlines a set of important local factors that project managers can use to help evaluate their communities’ readiness. “Exemplary Schools and Districts” lists organizations and initiatives that have engaged with specific schools and/or districts to support them in improving education to prepare students for college and career. Follow the links in that document to determine if a community or school is part of one or more of these initiatives – their inclusion indicates that they are ahead of the curve, and the initiatives often provide important resources to their member communities.

Using Community Resource Mapping to explore assetsOne framework that can effectively help to uncover a commu-nity’s infrastructure of assets and relationships is Community Resource Mapping. This concept has been around for a long time, but is being used more and more frequently in fields from land-use planning to social-service provision. The Na-tional Center on Secondary Education and Transition (NCSET) at the University of Minnesota defines Community Resource Mapping as “a methodology used to link community resources with an agreed upon vision, organizational goals, strategies,

or expected outcomes.” It focuses on the strengths and relationships – the assets - that are already present in a com-munity through a process that builds partnerships with common goals.

The resource document “Community Resource Mapping” describes methods and resources that will help with reaching out to other stakeholders in the community and gathering and organizing the information that is needed. It also gives exam-

ples of existing community maps.

Finding key community partners and the “moving trains”The process of exploring community assets (whether through mapping or other methods) should identify the individuals and groups in the community who will be necessary for moving forward with this work and who often are already en-gaged in it, including three key groups of players:

1) An intermediary organization(s) that is already engaged with the

education and business sectors and that can bring together needed players, convene ongoing and future conversations, and coordinate partnership efforts (see below).

2)“Educator allies” - principals, teachers, and administrators who understand the benefits of PBL and will advocate for its inclusion in curricula.

3) School districts and schools that may be ripe to implement PBL, some of which may already be doing so. These will likely align with the educator allies described above.

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These key players will be essential partners moving forward. The remaining sections of this Overview and several of the resource documents in the Toolkit are designed to support engagement with these groups around PBL.

An intermediary organization can become a central player in ongoing and future conversations and initiatives. It may be able to take on the daily, essential “backbone” work of planning, managing, and facilitating the coalition involved in this collaborative project. And so, identifying an intermediary, building a relationship with its leadership, and helping them to understand the role that PBL can play in achieving regional education goals are essential tasks. See the “Determining Community Readiness” resource document for a detailed description of the essential activities of intermediary/backbone organizations.

It is also important to note that this likely will be far from the first effort to try to address education and career readiness issues in any community. Nearly every region has seen many ongoing “coalitions,” “initiatives,” “reform projects,” etc., all seeking to solve the challenges of an unprepared workforce. The Forum for Youth Investment calls these types of efforts

“moving trains” - the “fragmented and overlapping array of well-intentioned coalitions, networks, partnerships and task forces – each aimed at shaping polices and securing resources for specific... issues or demographic groups.” Identifying the current and past “moving trains” and the organizations and in-dividuals involved in them will be a fundamental way to better

understand the existing community conversation on education and to find the community’s key players on these issues.

E N G AG I N G I N CO M M U N I T Y D I S CU S S I O N S A B O U T E DUC AT I O N


• Sharing the Value of Project Management with Educators

• Facilitating an Effective Community Conversation

• Understanding Education Strategies

Project managers as valuable contributors Transforming education is no easy job. It is not just that stu-dents need new skills and teachers need new curricula and ca-pacities to take advantage of the approaches above. In order to create educational systems that produce students ready for the 21st Century’s global economy, new models for learning must be brought forward. This requires that educators, policymakers, and the public all understand and embrace these new models.

Although PBL that incorporates project management skills is an important strategy for schools, lack of understanding and institutional inertia are typical barriers that keep many school districts from adopting and implementing it. And while many education advocates have endorsed PBL as a model practice, most do not have a working knowledge of project manage-ment processes or how they work in the “real world.” Project management processes and skills can make the critical difference between success and failure in educational transformation.

So who can bring those missing pieces?The more than 700,000 certified professional project managers in the world have the background and skills to play crucial roles in bringing PBL to the forefront of education discussions. They are likely to be the most passionate about the power of project management and knowledgeable about how to imple-ment meaningful projects. Most have established successful

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careers, many have the perspective of working in the private sector, and many are parents of students themselves. They can and should contribute these assets of their own to their com-munities’ larger discussions about education transformation.

What does it mean to “engage in the community discussion about education”?Determining the readiness of a community for PBL and exploring its assets also leads to identifying its “moving trains,” intermediary organizations, and key potential stake-holder allies. This is then the educational change landscape of that community. Project managers and other professionals who wish to engage in the community’s conversation on that topic should then actively reach out to those different players in order to a) investigate the current momentum and direction of the ongoing conversation, and b) offer their expertise and perspectives. Policymakers and advocates who are seeking better college and career preparation from schools usually welcome the participation of interested and informed professionals.

Once project managers have obtained a “seat at the table,” the next steps will depend on unique local circumstances and should be developed together by the larger, collaborative team. It may also be helpful to put together a short presen-tation or webinar to introduce the topics of Project-Based Learning and project management to those communities and individual stakeholders who are not familiar with it.

Community ConversationsOne tactic for building a coalition and jumpstarting the push toward education transformation is to convene Community Conversations. A Community Conversation could be a single gathering (or a series of gatherings) that brings together key community leaders to share information, build support for PBL as an effective approach, work through differences of perspec-tive, and determine next steps. While not all relationships and plans will be formed at Community Conversations, they can be crucial events for building a shared understanding of the im-

portance of PBL, the role of 21st Century Skills, and designing the plan of action.

An intermediary organization is likely to be the appropriate group to convene Community Conversations, and is also likely to have access to employees and/or volunteers with facilita-tion experience. (In fact, convening and facilitation are core skills for most intermediary and backbone organizations.) In that case, project managers can help to plan and participate actively in these conversations as experts on project manage-ment and interested community members. They can look to the resource document “Facilitating an Effective Community Conversation” for valuable information about joining partici-patory conversations and moving toward a shared agreement among all parties. The document also contains an extensive set of advice for the people who plan and facilitate these types of conversations.

E N G AG I N G W I TH E DU C ATO R S



• Sharing the Value of Project Management

• Helpful Project-Based Learning Resources for Educators

• Project Managers in the Classroom

• Project-Based Learning in Action

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Professionals in the field of education work and interact in a context specific to their environment, with perspectives, trends, and a shared jargon of their own – just like project managers. While it is far from a comprehensive review, this section of the Toolkit and related resource documents provide some essential background to help non-experts “speak the language” of education as they research their communities, en-gaging in community conversations, and working directly with schools and educators.

The sections below refer heavily to related resource documents also in the Toolkit, because their content is too specific and diverse to summarize here usefully. Reading the resource documents in full will give a much fuller complete picture.

One important note: the term “educators” as used in the Toolkit does not only apply to teachers. While teach-ers will be perhaps the most important players involved in implementing PBL at the classroom level, at different stages of this project others will also play crucial roles, including: school district administrators, school board members, and especially the principals of individual schools, who are likely to be the key gatekeepers. Those districts and schools in your region that are most likely to have the capacity and willingness to implement PBL are the primary audience for these efforts.

Current education strategiesThe resource document “Understanding Education Strategies” is a relatively short primer on selected current strategies and “school improvement” initiatives related to PBL and ca-reer-themed education, including Common Core and the 21st Century Learning framework. Concepts covered include: a) Common Core and other state standards, b) college and career readiness and the 21st Century Learning context, c) College

and Career Pathways and Career Academies, d) Work-Based Learning, e) Next Generation Science Standards, and f) Deeper Learning. While not an exhaustive list, these topics are right at the forefront of conversations about education trans-formation nationally and locally in many places.

The document explains each of these strategies very briefly and offers links to discover more in-formation on each topic. The text lists questions, links, and summaries to help investigate how lo-

cal school districts are responding to national trends and assist in finding the schools that are most ready to engage with PBL.

Messages and resources for educatorsThe section above (“Why Project-Based Learning?”) the Toolkit includes a resource document called “Sharing the Value of Project Management with Educators” that outlines a set of key messages defining project management, the benefits of PBL, how PBL aligns with evolving state education standards, and

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the value that project managers can bring to the classroom to help them reach their goals. These messages, written with an educator audience in mind, are intended to arm project leaders, other professionals, and intermediary organizations with a set of key messages about PBL that they can use to prepare for focused conversations with educators about Project-Based Learning.

Another document, “Helpful Project-Based Learning Resources for Educators,” is intended as a handout for educa-tors. It lists a set of links to websites and documents with more learning about all of these PBL-related these topics, including the virtual workshops and handbooks that PMIEF has created targeted to teachers.

Supporting PBL in the classroomBecause one possible outcome of this process is for project managers to bring their expertise to planning and implement-ing learning projects in the classroom, the resource document “Project Managers in the Classroom” offers important infor-mation about preparing to work with students and teachers, including ideas for what project managers are likely to actually be asked to do in schools. It also includes recommendations for developing quality internships and other work-based learning experiences.

In addition, another handout for teachers, “Project-Based Learning in Action,” defines a well-designed learning project and gives several examples of learning projects that have already been used successfully in schools.

An educators-only convening?Although a possible Community Convening component, where selected key education leaders would join project managers, intermediary organizations, and other stake-holders, is mentioned above, the Toolkit hasn’t to this point encouraged a separate convening of educators. That is not

to say that such a gathering would not necessarily be appropri-ate, but the usefulness of bringing together educators will depend on the local context and should be determined by the leadership team of the overall community effort.

The purpose of an educator convening will also vary depending on a region’s individual situation. It might range from meeting with district and/or school officials to discuss the benefits of using PBL in the classroom (in which case the information above in this section should be helpful) to working together to develop an implementation strategy. It is worthwhile to consider asking educator allies who are already advocates for PBL – a principal if working with a single school, a superintendent in an individual district, or a respected policy leader in a group of districts – to take the leading role in educator convenings.

Determining the set of educators to invite to a convening requires figuring out the scope of this effort to implement PBL in the classroom: Will it encompass an entire school district? More than one district? One school only? A group of schools? This decision will necessarily impact the group of educators who should be involved. The school district may also want to select one or a few career themed academies or pathways to pilot Project Management training with their teachers.

As stated more than once in the Toolkit, principals will be the key gateway figures in accessing schools, but the targeted invitation list will depend on the context of the schools that the project leadership wishes to engage. They will also need to determine whether and which district officials and/or indi-vidual teachers would be appropriate to invite. The Community Resource Mapping outcomes, the discussion at a Community Convening, and further research will help them to identify the right individuals with whom to engage.

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CO N CLU S I O NThe Toolkit was developed by P21,with support from PMIEF, to prepare project managers and other professionals to engage with ongoing conversations about how to prepare students for college and careers in their communities. Project-Based Learning is not an end to itself, but instead a proven approach to teaching and learning the 21st Century Learning and competencies that young people will need and which Common Core and other standards now demand. Because project managers have important expertise and relevant skills to help make PBL successful, they should have a seat at the table in these conversations.

C I TAT I O N SProject Management Toolkit for Teachers. Project Manage-ment Institute Educational Foundation, 2013.

“Project Management for Learning: A Foundational Guide to Applying Project Management Principles and Methods to Education”. Bernie Trilling, Project Management Institute Educational Foundation, 2014.

“Gold Standard PBL: A Progress Report & Request for Critique”. John Mergendollar, Buck Institute for Education,

November 3, 2014.bie.org/blog/gold_standard_pbl_a_progress_re-port_request_for_critique

“The Importance of Project Based Teaching.” John Mergendollar, Buck Institute for Education, October 1, 2014. bie.org/blog/the_importance_of_project_based_teaching

“Meeting the Challenge: The Role of School Leaders in Turning Around the Lowest-Performing High Schools” Alliance for Excel-lent Education, January 2011.

“Project Management for Learning: A Foundational Guide to Applying Project Management Principles and Methods

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to Education”. Bernie Trilling, Project Management Institute Educational Foundation, 2014.

“Up to the Challenge: The Role of Career and Technical Educa-tion and 21st Century Skills in College and Career Readiness.” Partnership for 21st Century Learning, Association for Career and Technical Education, and National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium, 2010.

“Help wanted: Projections of Jobs and Education Requirements Through 2018, Executive Summary.” Carnevale, A., Smith, N., Strohl, J., Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, 2010. Cited in “College and Career Readiness: What Do We Mean? A Draft Proposed Conceptual Framework.” ConnectEd: California Center for College and Career, 2011.

“Meeting the Challenge: The Role of School Leaders in Turning Around the Lowest-Performing High Schools” Alliance for Excellent Education, January 2011.

“College and Career Readiness: What Do We Mean? A Draft Proposed Conceptual Framework.” ConnectEd: California Center for College and Career, 2011.

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OB JEC TIVE S FOR THIS DOCUMENT:



• Help teachers and other educators and other community stakeholders better understand Project-Based Learning, project management, and 21st Century Learning as well as their value as keys to educational success.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT SKILLS & PROJECT-BASED LEARNING

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“Learning projects, or Project-Based Learning as it has often been called, is a powerful approach to learning that offers a wealth of opportunities to build all of these essential 21st Century Skills, as well as the deeper knowledge and expertise needed for life and work in our times.”PROJECT MANAGEMENT FOR LEARNING, Bernie Trilling & Project Management Institute Educational Foundation, 2014.

P ROJ EC T M A N AG E M E N T F O R L E A R N I N GThe best Project-Based Learning uses project management methods to help students build skills and knowledge in a variety of subjects through exploration and practice. It is somewhat different from formal project management training, which is designed to train individuals in the specific professional skills of a project manager. Because stakehold-ers including the employer community and educators at all levels will need to understand PBL in order to move toward implementing it in the classroom, this document gives a brief overview of PBL itself and how it should draw on the project management skills that professionals use daily.

W H AT I S P ROJ EC T- B A S E D L E A R N I N G?At its core, PBL is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to a complex question, problem, or challenge using project management techniques. They do this by engaging with designed “learning projects,” sequences of learning experiences that give students lots of opportunities to practice and improve all of their skills, while engaging in meaningful, real-world work that addresses com-pelling questions and problems.

PBL has proved to be an excellent approach to help students to build the learning and innovation, digital literacy, and career and life skills that are increasingly recognized as

essential to work and live today. For example, research in recent years across several academic subjects has shown that PBL is a highly effective method to help students learn content, process, presentation, and problem-solving skills. In a Stanford University review of the accumulated research on learning methods used in projects, PBL has been shown to help students:

· Learn more deeply when they apply their knowledge to real-world problems.

· Participate and contribute in tasks that require sustained engagement and collaboration.

· Achieve higher levels of academic performance and personal development, regardless of the student’s background or prior academic record.

· Become more successful by learning how to learn as well as what to learn.

The benefits of PBL apply as much to the “4C’s” - Critical thinking, Collaborating, Communicating and Creative problem solving – as to the technical mastery, life and career skills, and core subjects that are also part of state standards like the Common Core and P21’s “21st Century Learning Framework.” Perhaps most importantly, project management is a universal business skill that is practiced in all industries and a skill set that is in high demand by employers.

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W H AT I S P ROJ EC T M A N AG E M E N T ?PMIEF defines project management as “applying knowledge, skills, and resources to accomplish activities that are intended to achieve a specific goal. It includes a set of usual practices and tools, but it is often as much an art as a science, because each project is different and every project is dynamic.” Trained project managers are able to approach a project systematically by breaking it down into different stages and steps, and guide it through its life cycle to successful completion.

To achieve that successful outcome, the project management approach is geared to ensure that the resources, schedule, cost, and worksteps are planned appropriately for the specified project and that all of the work for that project is completed according to those expectations and at a high quality. This includes identifying and managing potential risks and commu-nicating progress to supervisors, project participants, and other stakeholders.

P ROJ EC T M A N AG E M E N T I S A CRU CI A L CO M P O N E N T O F E FFEC T I V E P B LThe best Project-Based Learning gives students the opportuni-ty to build and explore project management skills. Neverthe-less, many of the projects used in classrooms, even if called

“PBL,” do not allow students to truly utilize project manage-ment (for example, projects where the teacher directs the experience and makes most of the decisions). Effective Learing projects and PBL curricula should integrate opportunities for learning and practicing project management skills.

The Project Management Institute Educational Foundation (PMIEF) defines a well-designed, effective learning project as one that has the following features:

• Project outcomes are tied to curriculum and learning goals.

• Driving challenges that lead students to the central concepts or principles of the topic or subject area.

• Student investigations and research involve inquiry, problem-solving, and knowledge building.

• Students are responsible for designing and managing much of their own learning.

• Projects are based on authentic, real-world problems and questions that students care about.

To these should also be added that the learning project be designed to help students build 21st Century competencies, that students receive feedback at each stage on the quality of their work, and that students publicly share their knowledge through a product and/or a presentation. Addition-ally, learning projects can be designed with a clearly defined outcome, or more open-ended with students exploring and “discovering” the desired results.

The separate resource document “Project-Based Learning in Action” includes brief summaries of several well-designed example learning projects.

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GO L D S TA N DA R D P B LThe Buck Institute for Education has worked with others to develop “Gold Standard Project-Based Learning,” a framework and guide for excellent classroom practice and deep student learning. The two diagrams below summarize this model from both the project design and the teaching practices

perspectives, placing student learning goals at the center of each one. Understanding and maintaining these goals and standards will be key to ensuring that learning projects are high-quality and effective.

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The remaining sections provide concrete advice and tools to help project managers participate in the education discussions happening in their communities. One important topic here is how project managers can determine the readiness of their own communities to move forward with embracing 21st Century Skills and PBL. Through research and a mapping process, they can explore their local context and identify the assets, key players, and existing community change initiatives that will be essential components in this work. Another is how to engage with ongoing community conversations about school transformation, whether those are already robust or need more leadership. The final content section of this document is intended to help project managers to reach out to educators by “speaking their language,” both by better under-standing education strategies and jargon and by using a set of key messages that highlight and summarize how PBL can help teachers and administrators reach their goals.

R E S O U RCE DOCU M E N T SAn extensive set of resource documents following the Overview have also been created to supplement this over-view and greatly extend the information and tools that the Toolkit provides. In some cases, their content is summarized in this Overview; Toolkit users may not need to use all of the resource documents depending on local context, but are encouraged to read through each as they prepare to strategi-cally engage with educators and other partners. The following documents are posted online for reference at different stages of the engagement and school transformation effort:

• Project Management Skills and Project-Based Learning


• Project-Based Learning in Action

• Determining Community Readiness

• Community Resource Mapping

• Exemplary Schools and Districts (handout)

• Facilitating an Effective Community Conversation


• Helpful Project-Based Learning Resources for Educators (handout)

• Project Managers in the Classroom

W H AT A R E P ROJ EC T- B A S E D L E A R N I N G A N D P ROJ EC T M A N AG E M E N T ?


• Project Management Skills and Project-Based Learning


Project-Based Learning At its core, PBL is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to a complex question, problem, or challenge using project management techniques. They do this by engaging with designed “learning projects,” sequences of learning experiences that give students lots of opportunities to practice and improve all of their skills, while engaging in meaningful, real-world work that addresses com-pelling questions and problems. Refer to the resource document “Project Management Skills and Project-Based Learning” for a more in-depth look at effective PBL.

Project ManagementPMIEF defines project management as “applying knowledge, skills, and resources to accomplish activities that are intended to achieve a specific goal. It includes a set of usual practices

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TH E L E A R N I N G P ROJ EC T C YCL EWhile trained project managers use a certain shared terminology for the stages of a project, the education community has its own language and concepts. To help “translate” between these different perspectives, the Partnership for 21st Century Learning (P21) and PMIEF have developed the following chart that aligns project life-cycle terms with accessible, teacher- and administrator-friendly terms:

Project managers and other professionals will probably find it helpful to communicate in terms of the four-step educational project cycle while working with teachers and students.

T E ACH E R S A N D S T U D E N T S CO - M A N AG E L E A R N I N G P ROJ EC T SAlthough true PBL gives students a great deal of agency in planning and managing their learning projects – an essential feature of effective learning projects – teachers remain the central player in students’ learning. Teachers design or select projects to match specific learning goals, co-manage the project planning process with students, provide feedback, assess learning, and fill other im-portant roles. John Mergendoller of the Buck Institute for Education considers teachers in the PBL environment “part jazz orchestra conductor, part batting coach, and part jazz composer. The goal is to perform the score (project), but there is room for improvisa-tion by the orchestra members (students) as well as by the conductor.”

PMIEF also notes that teachers and students will spend differing amounts of time in each of the different stages of the project life cycle above. Teachers will need to use much more of their time in the Define and Plan stages, while students will generally spend most of their time in the Do phase. Additionally, professional project managers can play important roles in supporting both teach-ers and students – see “Project Managers in the Classroom,” a resource document also in this toolkit, for some ideas.

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CO N CLU S I O NSince Project-Based Learning occurs in different circumstances and with a different purpose from project management in the workplace, this resource document helpfully defines PBL and project management and discusses the features of well-de-signed learning projects. It also places PBL in the context of the classroom by sharing a PMIEF/P21 chart that translates project life-cycle terms into educator-friendly language and a brief discussion about how teachers and students co-manage learning projects.

This and related toolkit documents are meant to help all stakeholders to better understand the concepts important to PBL using language and context that are also recognizable by educators.

CI TAT I O N SProject Management Toolkit for Teachers. Project Management Institute Educational

Foundation, 2013. Project Management Skills for Life. Project Management Institute Educational Foundation, 2013.

Project Management for Learning: A Foundational Guide to Applying Project Management Principles and Methods to Education. Bernie Trilling, Project Management Institute Educational Foundation, 2014.

“Gold Standard PBL: A Progress Report & Request for Critique”. John Mergendollar, Buck Institute for Education, November 3, 2014. bie.org/blog/gold_stan-dard_pbl_a_progress_re-port_request_for_critique


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• Help teachers and other educators and other community stakeholders better understand Project-Based Learning, project management, and 21st Century Learning, as well as their value as keys to educational success.

SHARING THE VALUE OF PROJECTMANAGEMENT WITH EDUCATORS

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“Teachers who use learning projects in their classrooms know how incredibly motivating and engaging these projects can be for students. They also know how challenging projects can sometimes be – especially without clear guidance in how best to plan, organize, set up, launch, lead, manage, and make the most of all the moving parts in a rich learning project.

“Understanding how projects work and how to effectively support, manage, and lead a variety of learning projects enables teachers and students to focus more on each student’s learning goals and get the most out of each and every project for each and every learner.”THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLKIT FOR TEACHERS, Project Management Institute Education Foundation, 2013. TH E P ROJ EC T M A N AG E M E N T TOO L K I T F O R T E ACH E R S , P M I E DU C AT I O N F O U N DAT I O NProject-Based Learning (PBL) and project management pro-fessionals themselves bring invaluable tools into the ongoing community discussion on education. “Good” PBL – which gives students the opportunity to build and explore project management skills as part of the learning project – offers an integrated approach to learning that provides opportunities for students to develop and practice a range of skills and compe-tencies simultaneously, in alignment with new standards that are in place in most states (such as the Common Core State Standards). At the same time, project managers and other business and community professionals can lend an expert perspective that is often missing from conversations about education reform and technical experience to educators who will actually implement PBL in the classroom.

The Toolkit is designed to help community leaders work together to build support for integrating PBL and project man-agement into their local schools and partnering with educators to implement learning projects in the classroom. Most of the documents in this toolkit accomplish those tasks by providing essential background knowledge about education and tools for community engagement that many professionals may not already possess. This document has a slightly different purpose: to arm stakeholders and intermediary organizations with a set of key messages about PBL that they can use to prepare for focused conversations with educators about Project-Based Learning.

Following are short, powerful message summaries, addressed to educators, that highlight how PBL can help teachers and administrators reach their goals. These messages will be valuable tools for talking with education administrators and teachers about the value of PBL and how it has been success-fully implemented in the classroom. By using language that is familiar in the education sector, they will help to “translate” these concepts for an audience that is not steeped in “proj-ect-management-speak.”

Please note that project management professionals and other stakeholders are NOT being asked to provide training on proj-ect management or PBL to educators as part of this outreach. These key messages are only snapshots to help to share the benefits of PBL and project management to educational trans-formation. The PMI Educational Foundation offers workshops and written resources on PBL that are targeted to educators.

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See the resource document “Helpful Project-Based Learning Resources for Educators” for more information about these and many other useful resources.

W H AT I S P ROJ EC T M A N AG E M E N T ?The Project Management Institute Education Foundation (PMIEF) defines project management as “applying knowledge, skills, and resources to accomplish activities that are intended to achieve a specific goal”. It includes a set of usual practices and tools, but it is often as much an art as a science, because each project is different and every project is dynamic.” Trained project managers are able to approach a project systematically by breaking it down into different stages and steps, and guide it through its life cycle to successful completion.

Projects are a daily part of everyone’s lives, from work to home life to education. PMIEF also delineates two key qualities for projects that are useful to keep in mind: 1) Projects are temporary efforts with a clear start and finish – they are not ongoing.2) Projects have an end result – something created or completed, that is often unique.

Learning projects consist of four phases: 1) Define, 2) Plan, 3) Do, and 4) Review. Students might be working on more than one at any given point in the project lifecycle. Projects also often mix different

subjects, just as in real life; a single learning project might encompass art, science, marketing, and community service.

P ROJ EC T- B A S E D L E A R N I N G I S A P OW E R FU LA P P ROACH TO L E A R N I N G E S S E N T I A L 21 S T CE N T U RY S K I L L SProject-Based Learning, or using “learning projects” as a part of formal education, has proven to be an excellent approach to help students to build the learning and innovation, digital literacy, and career and life skills that are increasingly rec-ognized as essential to work and live today. This is because learning projects are sequences of learning experiences that give students lots of opportunities to practice and improve all of their skills, while engaging in meaningful, real-world work that addresses compelling questions and problems.

The benefits of PBL apply as much to the “4C’s” - Critical thinking, Collaborating, Communicating and Creative problem solving – as to the technical mastery, life and career skills, and core subjects that are also part of the 21st Century Skills Framework. Perhaps most importantly, project management is a universal business skill that is practiced in all industries and a skill set that is in high demand by employers.

P ROJ EC T- B A S E D L E A R N I N G H A S M A N Y B E N E F I T S F O R S T U D E N T S , T E ACH E R S , A N D S CH OO L SResearch in recent years across several academic subjects has shown that PBL is a highly effective method to help students learn content, process, presentation, and prob-lem-solving skills. In a Stanford University review of the accumulated research on learning methods used in projects, PBL has been shown to help students:

• Learn more deeply when they apply their knowledge to real-world problems.

• Participate and contribute in tasks that require sus-tained engagement and collaboration.

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• Achieve higher levels of academic performance and personal development, regardless of the student’s background or prior academic record.

• Become more successful by learning how to learn as well as what to learn.

Many teachers can also attest to the way that projects can engage and motivate students with their learning, especial-ly those who do not do as well with “traditional” classroom learning methods. Learning projects, when done well, allow students to shape their own learning as they make choices throughout the process.

At the same time, PBL and Work-Based Learning can help schools to:

• expand curriculum and extend learning facilities,

• gain access to workplace techniques and technology,

• better meet the needs of diverse student populations,

• make education more relevant and valuable for students,

• give students opportunities to experience work

• environments, and improve retention and graduation rates.

The National Academy Foundation includes PBL in its curricula for career academies, designing one major and one minor project per course, because it a) motivates students, b) improves learning and retention, c) leads to in-depth understanding, d) provides opportunities to use appropriate technology, and e) connects school to the workplace and the larger world.

P B L I S A K E Y A P P ROACH A L I G N E D W I TH CO M M O N CO R E A N D OTH E R S TAT E S TA N DA R DS Common Core is now being implemented in most states, and those that chose not to do so have largely developed similar

goals (though in some cases with different methods). CCSS is an ambitious set of standards with important differences from what came before, but the “how” of implementation – includ-ing curricula, teaching methods, materials, and assessment – is still left to states and local school districts. Meaningful learning projects, with their emphasis on actively exploring significant content and practicing 21st Century competencies as part of teams, are an important instructional strategy for educators to help students master the learning and experienc-es that they need to meet these standards. Most of all, they reflect the important shift in instruction from the delivery of information to inquiry.

Moreover, Project-Based Learning aligns extremely well with the specific standards themselves described in Common Core. Both the Mathematics and English Language Arts standards emphasize inquiry, using learned concepts and procedures in authentic contexts, collaboration, real-world problem solving, and communicating learning for students. All of these values are echoed in PBL.

M E A N I N G FU L P ROJ EC T S R EQU I R E R EQU I R E THO UGH T FU L P L A N N I N GHowever, not all projects are created equal. Meaningful learning comes from meaningful projects – those that are thoughtfully designed to engage students in exploring and practicing the content area at hand through the process of conducting the project, regardless of the resulting product. The Buck Institute for Education identifies eight “essential elements” of meaningful projects:

1) Significant content2) A compelling “need to know”3) A driving question4) Student voice and choice5) Opportunities to build 21st Century competencies, such as collaboration, critical thinking, communication, and creativity6) In-depth inquiry – finding answers leads to more questions

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7) Critique and revision8) A public audience for reporting outcomes Moreover, effective learning projects and PBL curricula must integrate opportunities for learning and practicing project management skills.

Developing projects of this caliber requires a lot of advance planning by teachers. This is doubly so when projects combine different subject areas – such as core academic subjects and career themed courses (math and engineering or technology; writing and business; etc) – that require collaboration between teachers. Fortunately, there are many resources to help with this responsibility, including reams of template projects from different sources and having available project managers to assist.

P ROJ EC T M A N AG E R S A R E E XCE L L E N T R E S OU RCE S F O R E DUC ATO R SWhen developing and using learning projects in the classroom, there are no better resources than consulting with an expe-rienced professional. There are more than 700,000 certified professional project managers in the world working in every field and in every kind of organization. They not only under-stand how projects work in the “real world,” but are also often passionate about the utility of project management processes for solving important problems. And in addition to lending their expertise to help implement effective learning projects, they also can offer to students their insights about building careers in their individual fields.

Experienced Project Managers can be helpful in the classroom in many important ways:

• Helping to plan projects and lesson plans.

• Translating “project management” language to everyday terminology and vice versa.

• Helping teachers and students to understand technical subject matter and language.

• Developing scoring methods for projects.

• Creating and adapting project templates and forms.

• Speaking to students about Project Management concepts and techniques.

• Taking the lead on explaining project assignments.

• Assist with facilitating learning projects.

• Helping teachers and students with certain elements of conducting projects.

• Working with students on their project plans.

• Listening to project presentations.

• Advising students one-on-one.

• Talking to students about their careers, their fields, and how project management skills are transferable to the workplace.

• Hosting students for site visits and internships within the workplace.

P M I E F S CH O L A R S H I P S A R E O F T E N AVA I L A B L E F O R T E ACH E R T R A I N I N G A N D S T U D E N T S CH O L A R S H I P SPMIEF provides hundreds of scholarships directly to teachers and administrators who wish to learn more about the funda-mentals of project management and/or work towards their own certification. Some scholarships can be applied directly to courses offered by the Project Management Institute, while others can be used for a relevant course at any college or university.

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Additionally, teachers may be interested to share information about student scholarships, grants, and awards available for study in degree programs in project management and related fields. The PMIEF Scholarships, Grants, and Awards por-tal guides applicants through the process and matches them with the ones for which they are eligible: pmief.org/scholarships-grants-and-awards.

CO N CLU S I O NThe key messages above offer a very brief primer on project management and PBL, alongside a set of persuasive facts and statements about the value of PBL. Since they use language familiar to educators, they will be very useful in explaining the concepts and bene-fits of these frameworks to that essential audi-ence. Also in the Toolkit is a separate document, “Helpful Project-Based Learning Resources for Educators,” that lists a set of resources where educators to learn more about these concepts and which can be shared directly with educational and other contacts.

CI TAT I O N SProject Management Toolkit for Teachers. Project Management Institute Educational Foundation, 2013.

21st Century Skills Map – Project Management for Learning. Partnership for 21st Century Learning and Project Management Institute Educational Foundation, 2014.

National Academy Foundation Guide to Work-Based Learning: A Continuum of Activities and Experience, 2011. http://workbasedlearning.naf.org/

“PBL and Common Core – and Next Generation Science Standards”. Re-sources, Buck Institute for Education, 2013. [excerpt from PBL for 21st Century Success: Teaching Critical !inking, Collaboration, Communication, and Creativity, Buck Institute for Education, 2013.]

“Project-Based Learning and Common Core Stan-dards”. Thom Markham, The Whole Child Blog, February 21, 2012. www.wholechildeduca-tion.org/blog/project-based-learning-and-com

mon-core-standards

“8 Essentials for Project-Based Learning”. John Larmer and John R. Mergendoller, Buck Institute for Education, 2012.

“Project-Based Learning: Engagement, Rigor, and Relevance”, mul-timedia presentation. John Larmer, National Academy Foundation, 2011. naf.org/resources/project-based-learning-engagement-rig-or-and-relevance

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PROJECT-BASED LEARNING IN ACTION

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Project-Based Learning, or using “learning projects” as a part of formal education, has proven to be an excellent approach to helping students build the learning and innovation, digital literacy, and career and life skills that are increasingly recog-nized as essential to work and life today. Learning projects are sequences of learning experiences that give students lots of opportunities to practice and improve all of their skills, while engaging in mean-ingful, real-world work that addresses compelling questions and problems.

However, not all projects are equal, and not all will serve as effective “learning projects.” Fortunately, practitioners have developed a set of typical charac-teristics for well-designed projects, and several expert organizations maintain lists of proven projects that they make available to the public.

L E A R N I N G P ROJ EC T FE AT U R E SWhen evaluating and selecting possible learning projects, keep in mind the features considered essential for a well-designed, effective learning project:

1) Project outcomes are tied to curriculum and learning goals.

2) Driving challenges lead students to the central concepts or principles of the topic or subject area.

3) Student investigations and research involve inquiry, problem-solving, and knowledge building.

4) Students are responsible for designing and managing much of their own learning.

5) Projects are based on authentic, real-world problems and questions that students care about.

6) The learning project is designed to help students build 21st Century competencies.

7) Students receive feedback at each stage on the status of the project and quality of their work.

8) Students publicly share their knowledge through demon-strating a product and/or a presentation.

L E A R N I N G P ROJ EC T E X A M P L E SFollowing are brief descriptions of a few projects drawn from the BIE database that will give a sense of the flavor and diversity of well-designed projects:

Designing Better Nutrition: This interdisciplinary visual design project brings together topics from government, English, health and digital design for real world analysis. Students study the effects of food choices on personal health, the environment, the economy and the influence of marketing and packaging on those choices. Students learn that what they eat not only affects their health, but the health of the world. Partners from the design and health care field coach students as they develop and design their food package.www.slideshare.net/NAFCareerAcads/designing-better-nutrition

The Hunger Games Challenge – Avoiding the Path to Panem: How did North America become Panem, the post-apocalyptic world of The Hunger Games? How can we avoid a similar path in our world? ConnectEd Studios and Educurious have joined forces to create an exciting project that applies theThe Hunger Games premise to real-world dilemmas. Fully loaded, the project contains Common Core aligned lesson plans, media resources, and performance tasks, ready to be deployed by educators. It’s all available on ConnectEd Studios.www.connectedstudios.org/url-zuVqjaz-MX8iWWv3kA

The Greater Good: Economic leaders from two island nations pursue trade possibilities by analyzing data on production and discovering the benefits of specialization. After a trade agreement is negotiated, the leaders of the islands must justify

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their actions in the face of protests against job loss and envi-ronmental damage. Topics include absolute and comparative advantage, exports/imports, free trade, protectionism, scarcity, tradeoff, and opportunity cost.www.socialstudies.com/c/product.html?nocache@0+s@viw0U2NKhk2zg+record@TF43288

Improving Transit Access, Opportunity and Equity for Riders in Oakland: As a primary group of “non choice” riders, students are important stakeholders who rely daily on public transpor-tation to go to and from school, home, internships, and other extracurricular activities. 11th grade students from MetWest’s junior class researched solutions to improve bus service for their client, AC Transit, the public transit agency serving the San Francisco Bay Area’s Alameda and Contra Costa counties. y-plan.berkeley.edu/impact

Teen-S-Team-Plus “Pathways to Success” Anti-Bullying and Project Managment Skills Program: Students participating in the program, in Elk Grove, California, conducted in partnership with the PMI Sacramento Valley Chapter and PMIEF, develop and present an anti-bullying program to their school and then pass it forward to a middle school and implement it there. www.teen-s-team-plus.org/“Unbullyable” video: youtu.be/C-M5e-soAfr4

The Ultimate Design Challenge: The world is filled with design challenges. Some of these challenges are environmental because of the disposal of them. Some are due to functionality for the consumer, business or transportation. Students take on the role of designers. They work to create a new and improved container of their choice that resolves a current problem (environmental, financial or function). Students connect these designs to mathematical models. They use these models to improve the design of the containers.bie.org/object/document/the_ultimate_design_challenge

Wind Turbine Design and Build: One class at the Academy of Engineering and Green Technology at Hartford High School in Connecticut worked with a utilities expert and neighboring corporate partner United Technologies to design and build a solar-powered wind turbine that would generate electricity for a rural school in Saldang, Nepal.naf.org/in-the-news/project-based-learning-brings-wind-turbine-school-nepal-0

There are many other resources available where teachers and project managers can find learning projects that have been thoughtfully designed and implemented before. For example, the Buck Institute for Education (BIE) has more than 500 tested learning projects in its database alone (bie.org/project_search). See the Toolkit resource document “Helpful Project-Based Learning Resources for Educators” for several other relevant website addresses.

CO N CLU S I O NThe key messages above offer a very brief primer on project management and PBL, alongside a set of persuasive facts and statements about the value of PBL. Since they use language familiar to educators, they will be very useful in explaining the concepts and benefits of these frameworks to that essential audience. Also in the Toolkit is a separate document, “Helpful Project-Based Learning Resources for Educators,” that lists a set of resources where educators to learn more about these concepts and which can be shared directly with educational and other contacts.

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CI TAT I O N SProject Management Toolkit for Teachers. Project Management Institute Educational Foundation, 2013.

21st Century Skills Map – Project Management for Learning. Partnership for 21st Century Learning and Project Management Institute Educational Foundation, 2014.

National Academy Foundation Guide to Work-Based Learning: A Continuum of Activities and Experience, 2011.

“PBL and Common Core – and Next Generation Science Stan-dards”. Resources, Buck Institute for Education, 2013. [excerpt from PBL for 21st Century Success: Teaching Critical !inking, Collaboration, Communication, and Creativity, Buck Institute for Education, 2013.]

“Project-Based Learning and Common Core Standards”. Thom Markham, The Whole Child Blog, February 21, 2012. www.wholechildeducation.org/blog/project-based-learning-and-common-core-standards

“8 Essentials for Project-Based Learning”. John Larmer and John R. Mergendoller, Buck Institute for Education, 2012.

“Project-Based Learning: Engagement, Rigor, and Relevance”, mul-timedia presentation. John Larmer, National Academy Foundation, 2011. naf.org/resources/project-based-learning-engagement-rig-or-and-relevance

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DETERMINING COMMUNITY READINESS

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Many communities are not yet ready to tackle the difficult work of transforming schools to prepare students for college and career. While a deep understanding in the community about Project-Based Learning (PBL) is not a prerequisite for launching an effort to transform education (part of that initiative can include an educational campaign about the

benefits of PBL), other factors can prove to be barriers.

Mapping processes and tools – or even just a concerted short-term research project - can be utilized to find the individuals and groups in the community who will be necessary for mov-ing forward with this work and who often are already engaged in it, including three key groups of players:

1) An intermediary organization(s) that is already engaged with the education and business sectors and that can bring together needed players, convene ongoing and future conver-sations, and coordinate partnership efforts (see below).

2) “Educator allies” - principals, teachers, and administrators who understand the need for transformation and the benefits of PBL and will advocate for its inclusion in curricula.

3) School districts and schools that may be ripe for systemic change such as implementing PBL, some of which may already be doing so.

These key players will be essential partners moving forward. Several other documents in this Toolkit are designed to sup-port engagement with these groups around education transfor-mation, explain the value that experienced professionals can bring to students, and inform participation in ongoing com-munity conversations. This document is focused on evaluating whether the pieces are in place so that those efforts are likely to ultimately succeed.

DATA S O U RCE SInformation about the organizations, leaders, schools, demo-graphics, community discussions and initiatives, economic sectors, and other elements in a region can be found through many different sources.

Following are a few sources that may be useful:

• Newspapers, blogs, and websites (look for the regional business newspaper)

• Universities and colleges

• Chambers of Commerce

• Local government economic development departments

• U.S. Census (trainings on using Census data are available in many cities)

• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

• State finance department websites

• National Center for Educational Statistics (good for comparing between states)

• State education departmental websites

• Individual school district websites (most post performance data annually or more often)

Interviews with selected community leaders will be a key source of intelligence about existing relationships and past and current efforts to transform education. While interviews require a significant investment of time and resources, speaking with the right people can provide a great deal of helpful information that does not appear in data reports or newspapers.

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Who to interview will depend on a community’s specific circumstances. However, the list below may provide some good ideas:

• School district superintendents

• School board members

• High school principals who are more likely to be ready to implement Project-Based Learning in their schools or have done so already

• Local university and community college leaders

• Teachers’ union officials

• Chamber of Commerce leadership (some Chambers have an education committee or initiative)

• Executives, including Human Resources Directors, of prominent employers in the community

• Corporate foundation and corporate community development executives

• Leaders and Board members of other civic • organizations that focus on education, employment,

and career training

• Executives and program officers of local community foundations and/or other charitable foundations that focus on education and/or workforce development

• Journalists who cover the local education beat

• Executives from science centers and other afterschool programs in the community

• Fellow project management professionals who are involved in education reform activities

CO M M U N I T Y R E A D I N E S S FAC TO R SOne of the most important questions that transformation advocates should help to answer is whether a community is ready to move forward with an endeavor like this one in the first place. Schools and education are contentious issues every-place, and trying to make change in classrooms can often feel like Don Quixote tilting at windmills.

In order to decide if a community is ready (or perhaps is already engaged in this work), advocates will need to deter-mine if three important factors are in place:1) a culture of readiness for change,2) a community that supports education, and3) an organization ready to serve as intermediaryor “backbone”.

All leaders of this type of effort will need to develop an under-standing of the issues that schools and communities are facing today (see the resource document “Understanding Education Strategies” for helpful information), while school officials and teachers will need to be prepared to implement and support the infusion of learning projects into their curricula.

Following is an extensive list of factors that will influence readiness. It can be narrowed to match local priorities and context.

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Strong, interested PMI chapter

· Members who will commit to being involved

· Ability to fund student/school/teacher involvement

· Interest in helping develop strong business/ employer engagement opportunities

School Performance

· State Adequate Yearly Progress Performance below standards

· Graduation Rates below standards

· Math and Literacy scores below standards

· Achievement gap of African-American & Hispanic students compared to white peers

Student Demographics - Target areas with higher number of students at risk of academic failure – may include following characteristics

· Qualify for free/reduced lunch

· Over-age and under-credit

· Underrepresented racial/ethnic populations

· Qualify for special education services

· English language learners

· Dropout/truancy rates

· Homeless

· Recipients of foster care

· Teen parents

· Court involved

School district support

· Relationships with National Academy Foundation and/or other high school transformation programs such as Talent Development, Ford Partnership for Advanced Studies Next Generation Learning, North Carolina New Schools, Southern Regional Educa-tion Board, ConnectEd California Center for College and Career, Linked Learning Alliance, Northwest Community · Action Center, College and Career Academy Support Network

· Small learning community structure within com-prehensive schools with cohorts of students who work with a team of teachers over multiple years

· Team teaching utilizing strong project based learning curriculum and techniques incorporating business/employer involvement with students and teachers

· Understanding and prioritization of work-based learning activities and outcomes for students

· Formal articulation of district goals for changing and improving schools and student outcomes, e.g., has the District incorporated college and career skills into its Strategic Plan

Community Support

· One or more existing intermediary organizations that could take on the crucial functions of con-vening, connecting, measuring, and sustaining the work (see below)

· Local businesses that provide grass roots support to students, teachers, and schools

· Businesses and public employers with willingness to involve their employees with students and teachers both in the classroom and in the workplace

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· Strong community foundations with resources that can be directed to developing structures for career themed academies with community involvement

· Local emphasis, program, or campaigns to improve schools and student outcomes

· PTA and other parent group support for college and career readiness uncover the assets of the community - its knowledge, relationships, orga-nizations, · leadership, and openness to change – that it will need to succeed in the difficult work of transforming schools and implementing 21st Century learning. These include identifying the schools and educators who are most prepared to implement PBL, the existing coalitions and task forces (or “moving trains”) that are already seeking to address education and career readiness issues, and the organizations that can take on the inter-mediary tasks that are essential to keeping the initiative moving.

· Formal academic agreements between school dis-tricts and local colleges for offering college course credit for specific high school courses

· Fast-tracking college admission to students who complete specific high school academic programs of study

“Moving Trains” - existing coalitions and initiatives Many communities have already seen multiple efforts to address education and career readiness issues. Nearly every region has several ongoing “coalitions,” “initiatives,” “reform projects,” etc., all seeking to solve the challenges of an unprepared workforce. The Forum for Youth Investment calls these types of efforts “moving trains” - the “fragmented and overlapping array of well-intentioned coalitions, networks, partnerships and task forces – each aimed at shaping polices and securing resources for specific... issues or demographic groups.”

What is the best way to discover and engage with these “moving trains”? In addition to web and newspaper searches,

the most effective approach is likely to ask community leaders about the coalitions and initiatives with which they interact.

Note also that the organizations serving as intermediaries or backbones of these efforts are likely to be the most appropri-ate and best-suited to take on a similar role in implementing PBL (see below for more information).

Intermediaries and “Backbone Organizations”One crucial factor in determining whether a region has the necessary assets to move forward on PBL in the classroom is the need to find a partner organization that is already engaged with the education and business sectors and that can take on the crucial functions of convening, connecting, measuring, and sustaining the work, including the Quality Assurance and Risk Management aspects. Individual project managers may not have existing relationships with all of the important stakeholders, knowledge of all the relevant education-related systems, or the time to develop them.

An intermediary organization can bring together needed players, convene ongoing and future conversations, and coor-dinate partnership efforts. This intermediary will be a central player as this initiative moves forward. And so, identifying an intermediary, building a relationship with its leadership, and helping them to understand the role that PBL can play in achieving regional education goals are essential tasks.

Since 2011, a burgeoning number of articles and blog posts have begun to define a special role for intermediaries that take on the ongoing responsibilities of supporting and facilitating collective, cross-sectoral efforts to tackle complex, large-scale social problems. The writers of these pieces call these central players “backbone organizations,” and they exist in many com-munities in many different forms.

John Kania and Mark Kramer of the consulting firm FSG offer this set of key characteristics: “The backbone organization requires a dedicated staff separate from the participating organizations who can plan, manage, and support the initiative

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through ongoing facilitation, technology and communica-tions support, data collection and reporting, and handling the myriad logistical and administrative details needed for the initiative to function smoothly.” They and others also see six essential activities that backbone organizations conduct as part of a collective initiative:

1) Guide vision and strategy

2) Support aligned activities

3) Establish shared measurement practices

4) Build public will

5) Advance policy

6) Mobilize funding

An intermediary organization may not need to fulfill all of these functions in order to succeed. But, depending existing collective impact efforts (the “moving trains”) fit with that effort, organizations that are already serving as backbones to those initiatives may also be the right partners.

Additionally, the Forum for Youth Investment developed a short worksheet that lists a number of important attributes/activities of backbone support organizations (based on Kania and Kramer’s research) and which can be helpful to assess the strength of possible candidates for the intermediary role.

OTH E R I M P O R TA N T LOC A L R E A D I N E S S FAC TO R SEven with a better understanding of some of the national trends affecting schools and college and career readiness, project leaders should also consider many locally specific factors and strategies that will help them to find the schools that are most ready to engage with transformation through Project-Based Learning. Because there is such enormous diver-sity of school districts and communities, this section will offer mostly information at a general level about how to investigate

a specific community’s readiness. An exception is the last top-ic, which outlines exemplary work being done in several states and districts around the country.

Leveraging the community mapping effortAnother resource document in this Toolkit already describes an effective method to determine community capacity and learn more about local school districts and education leader-ship: Community Resource Mapping. Whether or not a formal mapping process is launched, leaders can look into the factors below to better understand their local community context and the key leaders to bring into community involvement. If a map is created, these elements should be built into its scope.

The Community Resource Map should be designed to gather basic information about all of the school districts in the region. Leaders from at least some of these districts (including school principals) should be engaged in the research process and community conversations. Mappers will likely also be evaluat-ing the districts’ culture of readiness for change according to a detailed set of readiness factors that are listed in Section II. To these, factors like the following questions can be added:

· How committed is the district and/or its schools to college and career readiness versus academ-ic subjects only? (Reviewing any District- and school-level Strategic Plans will be helpful here.)

· How is this district implementing the Common Core standards or other state standards?

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· To what extent are the schools using Common Core or other initiatives to drive major change and reinvention?

· Has the district and/or its schools already imple-mented Project-Based Learning and/or Work-Based Learning? To what extent?

· Does the district operate any career academies? How are they affiliated and certified?

Asking these questions and delving into the other readiness factors (especially the ones related to community support) will help to identify the school districts and individual schools that have already embraced the importance of career readiness alongside academics and college readiness.

The mapping process is also an excellent way to identify the school district leaders, including principals, who will be key partners in shaping change. Some number of these leaders should be invited to participate in community conversations, and more of them will engage with the process as this effort continues. (The Community Resource Mapping process will also be useful to find the other local education leaders, reform efforts, and groups who will be key partners moving forward.)

Local implementation of Common Core and other education strategiesNot all states have adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), and implementation of CCSS varies greatly among those that have. However, all states have specific standards that form the backbone of curriculum and assessment devel-opment. Curriculum and assessment decisions, processes, and policies made at the state and school district levels determine the degree of success toward those outcomes. Ultimately, research and conversations with local education leaders will help the leadership team to understand the ongoing changes in their community. The following web links will help to point toward the right direction for initial exploration:

· Common Core state adoption and links to individu-al state CCSS websites: www.corestandards.org/standards-in-your-state/

· Partnership for 21st Century Learning “Leadership States”: www.p21.org/members-states/partner-states

· Places that have worked with the Forum for Youth Investment to implement “Ready by 21” strategies to prepare youth for college, work, and life: www.readyby21.org/readyby21places

· National Academy Foundation “Academy Locator”: x.naf.org/map/

Other important local factorsIn addition to the education strategies above, other factors may be important to understand in order to navigate through tricky waters build relationships with local school leaders. These will also be crucial factors in determining which districts and which schools will make good partners to lead change. Here are a few critical factors:

· Testing and other assessment of students. What tests are used by the school district, and how can PBL play a role in preparing students for them? What is the role of performance assessments? This may be in flux as states implement Common Core and adopt new assessments.

· Current district leadership support. Who are the superintendents and school board members of the local school districts, and what positions do each of them seem to take on education reform initia-tives? Have they said anything about PBL publicly or already begun an effort to implement it? The District Strategic Plan, usually a public document, can be a good indicator of current thinking.

· The role of local teachers’ organizations. Do teacher unions and other organizations take a strong role in education reform in that district?

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· How have they influenced teacher practice and educational practice? What are their relationships with district administration? How can they be partners in transformation efforts? Who are the key leaders that can be part of community conversations?

· Strength of Career Technical Education (CTE) programs. The robustness of these programs can indicate how committed districts and schools are to career readiness, as will their levels of integra-tion into academic subjects. Are CTE classes and other WBL completely separated from academics, or has there been an effort to keep them near the center of the educational mission?

· Time constraints on teachers. Because imple-menting PBL in the classroom requires consider-able professional development for the teachers involved (PMIEF’s Virtual Workshops and/or other sources) and preparation of new curricula, the teachers will need to have enough time available to take it on. If a school is already maximizing its teachers’ time for other training and work, it would affect their ability to take on this additional challenge. Are district/school leaders willing to rearrange schedules and commit resources to build professional capacity?

· Different perspectives within a single school. Just because a principal and a few teachers are enthusi-astic about transformation, that doesn’t mean that the entire school will instantly back the idea. Some teachers might not want to change how they have done things, or feel that the program is one more attempt to take away their autonomy in their own classrooms. Different grade levels and/or depart-ments in the school might not communicate well with each other. Keep in mind that change can be slow, and that part of the job for outside profes-sional volunteers is to support educator partners in showing the benefits of PBL and persuading reluctant colleagues.

CO N CLU S I O N In order to engage with the ongoing conversations in any community, it is critically important to develop an under-standing of the complex systems that it comprises. Those who wish to become effective participants in those conversations must discover the assets in their specific local communities - the knowledge, relationships, organizations, leadership, and openness to change – that will be essential for success in the difficult work of transforming schools to prepare students for college and career. These include identifying the schools and educators who are most prepared to implement PBL, the existing coalitions and task forces (or “moving trains”) that are already seeking to address education and career readiness issues, and the organizations that can take on the intermediary tasks that are essential to keeping the initiative moving.

C I TAT I O N S“Community Resource Mapping: A Strategy for Promoting Success-ful Transition for Youth with Disabilities”, Kelli Crane and Becky Skinner, National Center on Secondary Education and Transition. Information Brief, April 2003. www.ncset.org/publications/viewdesc.asp?id=939

“Ready by 21 Community Catalysts - Ready Leaders: Aligning a Community’s Moving Trains”. Forum for Youth Investment. readyby21.org

“Collective Impact”. John Kania and Mark Kramer, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Winter 2011, p. 36-41.

“Understanding the Value of Backbone Organizations in Collective Impact”. Shiloh Turner, Kathy Merchant, John Kania, and Ellen Martin. FSG & The Greater Cincinnatti Foundation.

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COMMUNITY RESOURCE MAPPING

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The resource document “Determining Community Readiness” offered a set of key factors and players whose presence is crucial to the future success of education transformation efforts, as well as others that will influence the right approach to those efforts. One framework that can effectively help to uncover this infrastructure is Community Resource Mapping. This approach has been around for a long time, but is being used more and more frequently in fields, from land-use planning to social-service provision, in order to develop programs and establish partnerships. The National Center on Secondary Education and Transition (NCSET) at the University of Minnesota offers a good basic definition [emphasis added]:

What is Community Resource Mapping?

Mapping provides an alternative approach to the more common “needs” or “deficit” models of youth services. Mapping focuses on what communities have to offer by identifying assets and resources that can be used for building a system...

Although there is no common definition for map-ping, it is, generally, a methodology used to link community resources with an agreed upon vision, organizational goals, strategies, or expected out-comes. There are several principles that are unique to mapping efforts. First, mapping strategies focus on what is already present in the community. The idea is to build on the strengths within a commu-nity. Second, mapping is relationship-driven. Key to mapping efforts is the development of partner-ships--a group of equals with a common interest working together over a sustained period of time to accomplish common goals. Third, mapping embraces the notion that to realize vision and meet goals, a community may have to work across programmatic

and geographic boundaries. These principles provide the foundation for the mapping process.This type of tool is also sometimes called Community Asset Mapping or a Community Resource Inventory. There are many kinds of ways to visualize the information collected, as well. Many “maps” don’t plot assets on a geographical map but instead use concept maps and categories. (When the results are plotted using something other than a geographic map, the region being examined must still be defined early in the process - see below.)

An example of a map plotted geographically is posted online at healthpolicy.ucla.edu/programs/health-data/trainings/Documents/tw_cba20.pdf (PDF document).

A more conceptual example is available at www.brighterfuturestogether.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/assets-diagram-2-large.jpg.

While a mapping process won’t necessarily result in a “traditional” geographic map, the first step is to define the size of the community to be described – not just geographical-ly, but also according to other important criteria. This will help to target limited time and resources and to determine the scope of future work. Here are a few important categories to consider:

Data sourcesAnother resource document in this Toolkit, “Determining Community Readiness,” includes a brief list of information sources for learning about community resources that will likely also be helpful in a more formal mapping process.

Geographic sizeIn what defined areas should efforts to contact stakeholders and discover resources be focused? This could be limited to a single school district, city, county, metropolitan region, or PMI chapter area, or it could encompass some subsections and/or

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combinations of these (and other) jurisdictions. Keep in mind the following factors:

· The size should be small enough to realistically be able to explore given limited time and resources.

· Often, existing political and program boundaries won’t exactly fit the targeted area. For example, since many businesses hire from and service an entire region (and beyond), the geographic area for review of business resources and employer networks might be significantly larger than one or even several school districts.

· The geographic area selected now will probably change (expand OR contract) over time as the mapping process uncovers more about the rela-tionships in the designated region on more than one at any given point in the project lifecycle.

· Projects also often mix different subjects, just as in real life; a single learning project might encompass art, science, marketing, and community service.

SectorsWhat economic and community sectors should be included in this research? The answer will depend on a region’s specific situation, but following are some sectors to consider:

· Companies that are major employers and community leaders

· Growing regional employment sectors

· Economic sectors that include many project managers

· Economic sectors that are being targeted by existing and/or planned career academies

· Civic organizations that focus on education, employment, and career training (e.g., the Chamber of Commerce, education-oriented nonprofits, youth development organizations)

· Local school districts and other education leaders: District Superintendents, Assistant Superintendents in charge of Curriculum, Principals, etc.

· Philanthropists and charitable foundations

· Economic development agencies (whether part of local government or independent)

While many sectors could be considered as relevant, the focus here is on the assets and resources present in a community that are related to career readiness and education.

Interviewing community leadersAs noted in the resource document “Determining Community Readiness,” interviews with selected community leaders can provide a great deal of helpful information that does not appear in data reports or newspapers. That document also includes a list of people who are well-placed and should be considered for interviews.

Building on prior workIt is possible that some of this work has already been done and that there is an existing Community Resource Map (or even more than one) for the specific community area. These maps (again, often referred to as Community Asset Maps and/or Community Resource Inventory), can be invaluable shortcuts.

However, existing maps may be out of date, focus on a differ-ent set of assets than the relevant ones for this map, and/or

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cover a geographic area that is too broad or small. Because it didn’t focus on answering the specific questions needed in the current process, an existing map is also unlikely to have all of the needed information.

Where to find information about past community mapping efforts? Besides Google and the local newspaper’s website, the best resource re-mains the set of community leaders already on the planned interview list. Some of them probably participated in, or at least know about, any mapping projects that have taken place in the past. Other good places to look are local government officials; city, county, and school district planning departments; and civic organizations like the Chamber of Commerce.

CO N CLU S I O NAlthough it may be too involved a process for many situations, Community Resource Mapping can be a very useful framework for delving into a community’s existing assets and investigat-ing its readiness for educational transformation. The resulting maps reveal much about the complex network of community assets and relationships that will impact any initiatives.

C I TAT I O N S“Community Resource Mapping: A Strategy for Promoting Success-ful Transition for Youth with Disabilities”, Kelli Crane and Becky Skinner, National Center on Secondary Education and Transition. Information Brief, April 2003. www.ncset.org/publications/viewdesc.asp?id=939

“Ready by 21 Community Catalysts - Ready Leaders: Aligning a Community’s Moving Trains”. Forum for Youth Investment. readyby21.org

“Collective Impact”. John Kania and Mark Kramer, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Winter 2011, p. 36-41.

“Understanding the Value of Backbone Organizations in Collec-tive Impact”. Shiloh Turn-er, Kathy Merchant, John Kania, and Ellen Martin. FSG & The Greater

Cincinnatti Foundation.

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UNDERSTANDING EDUCATION STRATEGIES

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This section of the Toolkit offers a primer on current strategies and “school reform” initiatives related to school transformation, including but not limited to Project-Based Learning (PBL) and Common Core, and how educators and others are defining student success for college, career, and life. The following are brief sketches of some of the important concepts and systems currently affecting schools across the United States. For further research, this section includes - where possible - the addresses of websites with additional information.

It is important to realize that teachers and education admin-istrators are bombarded by new methods and movements all the time, and may be skeptical about new ideas. Although improved state-level standards like Common Core has been a major topic for several years, the major curricula and student assessment changes that come with it are only now reach-ing some districts and schools. Similarly, “college and career readiness” / 21st Century skill attainment is gaining more and more acceptance across the country. Educators will likely be more receptive to an approach that emphasizes how new strat-egies such as PBL will help them to achieve these shifts and meet the student success goals of the programs below (see the resource document “Sharing the Value of Project Management with Educators” for more messages for educators about these topics).

CO M M O N CO R E A N D OTH E R S TAT E S TA N DA R DSBeginning in 2009, governors and state school chiefs from nearly every state in the U.S. came together to develop a common set of high-quality academic standards in mathemat-ics and English language arts/literacy. Released a year later, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have as of 2014 been adopted by 44 states (though a few have since repealed or replaced it), the District of Columbia, and four territories as their official state education standards.

Although the term CCSS is not used in all states (see below),

there are many similarities, and the learning goals for what students should know and be able to do at each grade level are often similar. The calendar for full implementation of the standards has varied by state, but generally all adopting states are now implementing the CCSS. States and individual school districts (depending on local process) remain responsible for designing curricula, selecting learning strategies, and develop-ing many of the local assessments. This has led to the devel-opment of different types of curricula, tools, and resources.

The process to develop the CCSS specifically included the writing of college and career readiness standards or “21st Century Skills attributes” (see below), which were incorporated into the K12 standards in the final version of the Common Core. The CCSS stress critical thinking, reasoning, conceptual understanding, text reading, and collaboration.

The adoption and implementation of CCSS has become contro-versial in several states and among some teachers and parents. However, it is important to remember that, as NPR reports, “The Common Core standards don’t specify the use of curricula, textbooks, workbooks or lesson plans... The creation of new materials, the repackaging of old materials, and the training of teachers to teach to the new standards within a few short years are all causing adjustment issues.”

The CCSS are a set of standards, and so methods to assess stu-dents against those standards are being developed separately. Several states, including California and North Carolina, joined a group called the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium to create new assessment tests aligned to the Common Core State Standards. A different group of states formed the Part-nership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), which is developing its own set of assessments. Other states are developing their own individual assessments. Many of these assessments are being used for the first time in the 2014-15 school year. Results on these new more challenging tests are likely to be lower than those on earlier tests, so there will continue to be a public discussion about the CCSS and

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how schools can best implement Common Core. It is also worth noting that several states have adopted standards that differ from the Common Core in small and large ways but still largely reflect the need for conceptual understanding, reasoning, and collaboration that undergird CCSS. These state systems use different names and terminology, such as the “Idaho Core Standards,” and “Arizona’s College and Career Ready Stan-dards.” It may take a visit to the state’s education department website or a question to a local superintendent to discover the terminology in a specific community.

Certain other states (at least 9 as of this date) initially adopted CCSS but have since repealed or replaced them. However, in some of those states, current standards under law remain those of Common Core (perhaps until they are replaced) or very similar ones. Minnesota has adopted the English Language Arts Common Core standards, but not those for Mathematics.

More information about Common Core: www.corestandards.org

CO L L EG E A N D C A R E E R R E A D I N E S S A N D TH E 21 S T CE N T U RY S K I L L S CO N T E X T Over the past decade or so, there has been increasing recog-nition that “college readiness” extends well beyond the high school transcript and entrance exam results. Research shows emphatically that key cognitive strategies and academic behaviors that enable students to learn content from a range of disciplines are just as important as content knowledge in determining if a student will succeed in college.

Moreover, a vocal contingent of educators, advocates, poli-cymakers, and employers have protested the movement of the United States’ educational systems away from preparing students for skilled careers, whether or not that leads to a four-year college degree. Rather than separating career preparation from the “college track” - and therefore pushing students into one or another direction and limiting their future options – the momentum has instead shifted toward building “college and career readiness,” acknowledging that schools can impart

the content knowledge and learning skills that will prepare students for multiple future pathways.

The Partnership for 21st Century Learning (P21), a coalition of leaders from the business, education, and government sectors, has taken the additional step of developing a framework of what students should know and be able to do to succeed in college, career, and life in the 21st century. The Framework for 21st Century Learning combines a discrete focus on student outcomes (a blending of specific skills, content knowledge, expertise, and literacies) with innovative support systems to help students master the multi-dimensional abilities required of them in the 21st century and beyond.

P21 developed the Framework for 21st Century Learning below to define the key elements (content, skills, and cross-cultural themes) that all students must possess to graduate college, career and life ready. The graphic represents both student outcomes (as represented by the arches of the rainbow) and critical learning support systems (as represented by the pools at the bottom) that are required for 21st Century learning. All of the elements are interconnected and interact with each other in teaching and learning.

The diagram (see figure 1) also illustrates that the Framework builds on a base of core academic subject knowledge. All 21st century skills can and should be taught in the context of core academic subjects.

While the Common Core State Standards do not explicitly address every skill in the P21 Framework, several areas (such as critical thinking, communication and collaboration) are strongly represented throughout. P21 developed a Common Core Toolkit which has detailed information about about the intersection of the common core state standards and the Framework. (Find it at www.p21.org/component/content/article/2-publications/1005-p21-common-core-toolkit).

For more information: www.p21.org

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D E E P E R L E A R N I N GEven with the spread of new standards across the U.S. that require deeper content knowledge and the ability to apply those skills in school and the working world, some education advocates urge that educators push students even further, so that they develop the mindsets and competencies that they will need to thrive in new situations, such as self-control, perseverance, people skills, creative thinking, effective com-munication, collaboration, lifelong learning, and the ability to transfer knowledge and skills learned in one setting into new situations. Many different terms have been used to refer to learning inclusive of these competencies, but it has come to be called “deeper learning” by some of its leading advocates.

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which has led and supported much of the work on deeper learning as part of a national initiative, has identified six sets of skills that students gain:

1) Mastery of core academic content2) Critical thinking and problem-solving3) Effective communication4) Ability to work collaboratively5) Learning how to learn6) Academic mindsets

FIGURE 1

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Clearly then, deeper learning bears a close relationship to 21st Century Learning, college and career pathways, work-based learning, and the new education standards in many states. Project-Based Learning is an important strategy for teaching and learning these competencies, and can be an excellent methodology for schools.

The Hewlett Foundation’s website has a great deal of further information on deeper learning, as well as links to ongoing research and evaluation: www.hewlett.org/pro-grams/education/deep-er-learning

CO L L EG E A N D C A -R E E R PATH WAY S A N D C A R E E R AC A D -E M I E S A school that has em-braced a career pathway or academy design prepares students for a full range of post-grad-uation opportunities by bringing together strong academics, career-based classroom learning, and real-world workplace experience to prepare students for college, career, and life. Generally situated at the high school level, pathways offer students a rigorous academic curriculum integrated with a career focus and work-based learning opportunities in and out of the class-room, such as job shadowing, apprenticeships, internships, and professional skill-building. Often, these components are joined by support services for students, including counseling and supplemental instruction in reading, writing, and mathematics that help them master the academic and technical learning.

All pathways, by design, offer students a college preparatory education, leaving the door open for students to pursue any career goal or interest after high school.

Different states have adopted college and career pathways to differing degrees. In California, this approach has been named “Linked Learning” and is being implemented by dozens of school districts and supported by a growing infrastructure

of funding and other resources. www.linkedlearning.org for more information.

One model that has arisen for implement-ing college and career pathways and Work-Based Learning in many states is the “Career Academy” model. A career academy might be a small learning community bringing together a cohort of students on a campus, or it might encom-pass an entire school. Career academies are usually formed around

a specific industry sector (health care, engineering) or theme (green technology) that helps students see the connections between academic subjects and their application in the real world. Students in career academies typically take both ca-reer-themed and academic classes together. These courses are linked to academic and industry standards and encourage high achievement.

The National Academy Foundation (NAF), along with business and educational leaders and organizations, developed five

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C3 Framework are to: a) enhance the rigor of the social studies disciplines; b) build critical thinking, problem solving, and participatory skills to become engaged citizens; and c) align academic programs to the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies.

See www.socialstudies.org/c3/c3framework for more information.

CO N CLU S I O NWhile there is no need for education stakeholders to have a deep understanding of all the strategies and standards in education reform, getting at least a basic working knowledge of relevant concepts will help to communicate with educators and navigate the constant shifts that affect most schools and districts in the U.S. The specific strategies defined above are not only intended to increase college and career readiness, but also align extremely well with PBL, giving its advocates an opening.

C I TAT I O N SProject Management Toolkit for Teachers. Project Management Institute Educational Foundation, 2013.

Communications Toolkit for Engaging internal Audiences. Linked Learning Alliance, 2013.


Redefining College Readiness. David T. Conley, Educational Policy Improvement Center, 2007.

The Common Core FAQ (web page). www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/05/27/307755798/the-common-core-faq

“Does Deeper Learning Improve Student Outcomes?” American Institutes for Research, 2014. www.hewlett.org/sites/default/files/AIR%20Deeper%20Learning%20Summary.pdf

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Next Generation Science Standards (web page). www.nextgenscience.org/

“Project Management for Learning: A Foundational Guide to Applying Project Management Principles and Methods to Educa-tion”. Bernie Trilling, Project Management Institute Educational Foundation, 2014.

“Gold Standard PBL: A Progress Report & Request for Critique”. John Mergendollar, Buck Institute for Education, November 3, 2014. bie.org/blog/gold_standard_pbl_a_progress_report_re-quest_for_critique


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PROJECT MANAGERS IN THE CLASSROOM

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While the rest of the Toolkit documents are intended to bring project management into community conversations about school transformation, this resource document turns to the role that project managers and other professionals can play in helping educators to implement PBL inside and outside of the classroom by providing expertise and lending their supportive voice to community conversations. While every school is different, there are common strategies that that have been shown to be successful.

This resource document offers information about volunteering in schools, including the roles project managers and other professionals can play as well as district processes that may need to be fulfilled to work with students and teachers. Once in the classroom, professionals will be working closely with teachers and principals, and so it is crucial to build strong relationships based on trust and mutual help. Most of these tips are not specific to PBL and learning projects, but they will still be useful for understanding what to expect and deciding how best to utilize skills and experience to help teachers and students learn college and career skills through projects.

In addition, another handout in the Toolkit, “Project-Based Learning in Action,” defines a well-designed learning project and gives several examples of learning projects that have already been used successfully in schools.

Nevertheless, most communities are unlikely to bring project management professionals into the classroom to direct and mentor students themselves at any large scale. In most cases, teachers will still be the source of instruction for project management skills. Therefore, it will be important to build in plans for teachers to themselves learn these skills and how to transfer them to students. “Helpful Project-Based Learning Resources for Educators,” available from the website, lists some resources and references specifically meant for teachers, including Virtual Workshops offered by the PMI Educational Foundation.

W H AT C A N P ROJ EC T M A N AG E R S DO TO H E L P ?As a volunteer with a specific, relevant expertise, there are several roles to play that can be helpful to teachers, import-ant for students, and offer a sense of accomplishment in an important role:

1) Helping teachers to plan projects and lesson plans.

2) Translating “project management” language to everyday terminology and vice versa.

3) Helping teachers and students to understand technical subject matter and language.

4) Developing scoring methods for projects.

5) Creating and adapting project templates and forms.

6) Speaking to students about Project Management concepts and techniques.

7) Taking the lead on explaining project assignments.

8) Assist with facilitating learning projects.

9) Helping teachers and students with certain elements of conducting projects.

10) Working with students on their project plans.

11) Listening to project presentations.

12) Advising students one-on-one.

13) Talking to students about your career as a Project Management Professional and in your field.

14) Hosting students for site visits and internships.

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F I R S T S T E P SMany project managers and other professionals may be mo-tivated to bring their time and expertise into schools, but not have any idea about how to get started. Here are a few initial steps to find the right entrances:

· Look for existing programs that bring professionals into contact with teachers and students. The local Chamber of Commerce is often a good place to start.

· Review the school district’s website for its volunteer programs.

· Many professionals already have rela-tionships with local schools attended by their children. Or research low-performing schools that might have a greater need for volunteer resources.

· Contact the principal of the se-lected school for a meeting to discuss school needs and opportunities.

· Meet with the teacher(s) of the best-match classes to determine tasks, roles, and scheduling.

WO R K I N G W I TH T E ACH E R SIn 2005, the Sandia National Laboratories published Science Education In Our Elementary and Secondary Schools: A Guide for Technical Professionals Who Want to Help, with

advice for technical professionals who want to volunteer to help enhance K-12 Science education. While it is focused on scientific professionals, the chapter on “Working Effectively with Teachers” has become widely recommended and contains a great deal of useful information. Following are a few tips from that chapter and the separate section “Coordinating With the Teacher - The Foundation for Success.”

· It is usually best for your first formal contact with a school to be with the principal... Assuming a favorable response, have the principal arrange a time for you to meet with the teachers, either all of

them or a group of the most creative, flexible and pro-active ones.

· The teacher knows far more than you do about such things as cognitive development, the structure and goals of the cur-riculum, classroom management, and the abilities, limitations, and learning styles of the students... By working together as a team you can make each other’s jobs more produc-

tive and interesting.

· [Y]ou need to assure the teacher that you want to assist and supplement his or her efforts, not criti-cize, belittle, or change what he or she is doing. If the teacher sees you as a threat you will start out with two strikes against you.

· [Keep] in mind the level of intellectual develop-ment of the age group.

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· It is important to recognize that your long-term impact depends critically on the development of positive interpersonal relationships. You can maximize your chances of doing this by treat-ing the teachers as respected peers, responding to their expressed needs, following up on your commitments, giving them lots of encouragement and positive feedback, seeking their evaluation and constructive criticism of your efforts, and modify-ing your future efforts in response to their comments.

“The best way to help a teacher is to become a trusted friend and teammate who respects and is responsive to his or her expressed needs. Don’t enter into your new relationship with a predetermined notion of what is needed or what you will do. Worse yet, don’t insult the teacher’s intelligence by assuming that teaching is easy, that it’s a part-time job, or that he or she is doing it because they can’t find a “real job”. Instead, find out what the teacher is trying to teach, then help them do it with excellence.” Science Education In Our Elementary andSecondary Schools: A Guide for Technical Professionals Who Want to Help, Sandia National Laboratories

The Guide is online at www.nas.edu/rise/scied.htm

WO R K I N G W I TH S T U D E N T SThe National Academy Foundation offers a list of suggestions for working with students in its network of Career Academy schools that will really be helpful in every school [emphasis in original]:

· Extend respect to students and expect students to reciprocate – don’t talk down to them.

· Share personal stories of your own educational and career journey – both the struggles and the successes. Brief narratives of your experiences can be engaging and informative.

· Help reinforce our work-based learning outcomes

whenever possible. We can’t have too many adults restating the importance of college and career readiness skills.

· Model professionalism and other career-ready skills. While the classroom atmosphere is more ca-sual, please wear professional workplace attire and model the skills you expect from your employees and colleagues.

· Remember to use the [school learning goals] as a context for learning. Use every opportunity to draw connections between Academy outcomes, your specific work, and the industry as a whole.

· Show examples of your work and engage students by using images and artifacts. Many students are visual learners and will understand you best when you show samples of what you are explaining.

· If you are giving a presentation, try to keep it interactive by having students move, speak, and get involved. And please allow time for questions and answers.

· Don’t worry about behavior and discipline. For most academy work-based learning activities, at least one teacher will be present to deal with any unexpected behavior management issues.

Similar to its chapter on working with teachers, the Science Education In Our Elementary and Secondary Schools guide mentioned above also has a chapter on “Working Effectively with Students.” This chapter provides an extensive but summa-rized background on the social and emotional development of children and principles of learning. It also offers advice on how to plan and present activities for students. This chapter is also available at www.nas.edu/rise/scied.htm

DO E S TH E S CH OO L N E E D M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N?Interacting with children is an area that garners a lot of official attention, and therefore may come with restrictions and

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requirements from state and local authorities. Most school districts have posted on their websites a list of any forms and certifications that will be required for volunteers before they are allowed to work in the school. (It may also be available on the website of the individual school.) Note that some may differ for long-term volunteers versus one-time class speakers.

To give an idea of what to expect, the following are requirements found in some settings:

• Fingerprinting (may be done on site or at a Livescan facility)

• Completing an information and permission form to conduct a background check

• Taking a tuberculosis test or a chest x-ray

• Reading and signing a district volunteer handbook and/or policy

A few districts may ask volunteers to complete an online sexual misconduct prevention course, sign a legal release for any injuries incurred on school property, and/or participate in a volunteer orientation – especially for those who will volunteer over a longer term. Note that transportation of students is also an area with many rules and restrictions. When planning to take students off-campus for a worksite visit or project-related trip, volunteers will need to work with the teacher and school principal to arrange transportation in accordance with district policy.

D E V E LO P I N G O N -S I T E I N T E R N S H I P S A N D WO R K- B A S E D L E A R N I N G O P P O R T U N I T I E SAs noted in the resource document “Understanding Education Strategies,” Work-Based Learning gives students the chance to connect what they are learning in the classroom to the world of work and to develop their interest in and knowledge about different career pathways. Project managers and other professionals may work with teachers, counselors, and prin-cipals to develop internships and other Work-Based Learning

opportunities, possibly even at their own worksites. However, whether they extend over a summer or just one afternoon, it is important to make sure that these opportunities are of the highest quality for students.

The National Academy Foundation says that “quality work-based learning experiences” must do the following:

• Identify learning objectives

• Be developmentally appropriate

• Assess student performance, including self-assessment methodologies

• Include an orientation for all parties

• Provide opportunities for student reflection

• Link to the student’s next work-based learning experience

• Provide links between classroom learning and professional expectations

NAF has also developed a set of “gold standards” for high school internships – key practices to ensure that they are high-quality – that are available from its website at naf.org/resources-list/business-partners.

CO N CLU S I O NIn addition to offering support through participation in community conversations, which is outlined in the Overview document of the Toolkit, project managers and other profes-sionals possess expertise and knowledge that will be of great value to educators in implementing effective learning projects, Work-Based Learning opportunities, and other activities that help prepare students for college and career. This document will help to prepare professionals for working with students and teachers.

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CI TAT I O N SScience Education In Our Elementary and Secondary Schools: A Guide for Technical Professionals Who Want to Help. Sandia National Laboratories, 2005. www.nas.edu/rise/scied.htm

“Working with Academy Students.” National Academy Foundation, 2014.

“Project Management for Learning: A Foundational Guide to Applying Project Management Principles and Methods to Educa-tion”. Bernie Trilling, Project Management Institute Educational Foundation, 2014.


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• Understand the benefi ts of a participatory conversation in collective initiative and how to be an active participant and/or facilitate one if needed.

• Strategize with community leaders about how to build strong ties between the employer community and local schools.

• Help teachers and other educators better understand Project-Based Learning and the value of PBL to help them and their students reach their goals.

APPENDIXFACILITATING AN EFFECTIVE COMMUNITY CONVERSATION

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“The facilitator’s job is to support everyone to do their best thinking.”THE FAC IL ITATOR’S GU IDE TO PART IC IPATORY DEC IS ION-MAK ING

Conducting outreach and research will help to uncover the community assets and moving trains that can support Proj-ect-Based Learning. After these initial steps, one tactic that may be helpful in building a coalition and jumpstarting the push toward PBL is to convene Community Conversations on school transformation. A Community Conversation could be a single gathering or a series of gatherings that brings together key community leaders to share information, build support for PBL as an effective approach, work through differences of perspective, and determine next steps. While not all relation-ships and plans will be formed at Community Conversations, they can be crucial events for building a shared understanding of the importance of PBL, the role of 21st Century Skills, and designing the plan of action.

An intermediary organization is likely to be the appropriate group to convene Community Conversations, and is also likely to have access to employees and/or volunteers with facilita-tion experience. (In fact, convening and facilitation are core skills for most intermediary and backbone organizations.) In that case, interested professionals in the community can help to plan and participate actively in these conversations as experts on project management and workplace needs. This resource document offers some valuable tips about joining participatory conversations and moving toward a shared agreement among all parties.

However, some regions do not have a suitable and easily identifiable intermediary or other stakeholder leader with facilitation skills. In that case, it may fall to other stakeholders in the employer/business sector to convene and even facilitate Community Conversations.

Facilitating a productive and collaborative conversation re-

quires an entirely different set of skills from managing a proj-ect or mapping community assets. Each brings together people who come from a diverse set of backgrounds and perspectives, and everyone approaches a group conversation from his or her own very specific frame of reference. Even participants who are in the same field may have very different personalities, status levels within their organizations, and experiences with public schools.

Since many professionals do not already have experience in convening and facilitating such diverse discussion groups on policy topics (and because bringing together a cross-sectoral group like this will be very different from the typical project team), this document provides an extensive set of tools and advice covering all aspects of preparation, from who to invite to room setup to facilitation techniques for a participatory conversation.

PA R T I C I PATO RY CO N V E R S AT I O N SWhen presented with the same set of information, people from different segments of the community will naturally have differ-ent reactions – sometimes very different. This often leads to misunderstandings and even conflicts about the way forward - and at times about the facts in front of them. But, it also offers opportunities to draw on a wide range of experiences, approaches, and ideas. In order to take advantage of the par-ticipants’ diversity and move the group through the challenges that accompany it, organizers will need to take on an active role in facilitating a participatory conversation.

The outcome of a participatory conversation is a sustainable agreement on the way forward because participants have developed:

· a mutual understanding of each other’s perspectives;

· trust in each other (at least in this area);

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dimensions of college and career readiness:

1) Core academics (subject content knowledge)2) Career knowledge (content specific to the profession; pathway requirements and qualifications)3) Foundational skills for post-secondary and career success (critical and systemic thinking and problem solving, organiza-tion, information literacy; communication, et. al.)4) Interpersonal skills (collaboration and teamwork, ethical behavior)5) Self-management

NAF (www.naf.org), a network that assists and certifies career academies, counts more than 667 academies in 38 states, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia, serving more than 80,000 students, among its members.

WO R K- B A S E D L E A R N I N GWork-Based Learning (WBL) is a set of curricula, activities, and experiences, tied to student success outcomes, with which stu-dents can connect what they are learning in the classroom to the world of work and to develop their interest in and knowl-edge about different career pathways. It involves interaction with employer partners and prepares students for success in post-secondary education and careers.

The National Academy Foundation describes a continuum of WBL: career awareness (elementary, middle school, and high school), career exploration (beginning in middle school), and career preparation (beginning in high school), culminating with an internship. Student WBL activities and opportunities to understand how school relates to the world of work match up extremely well with PBL, CCSS, and career pathways.WBL and PBL complement each other very well, and if imple-mented carefully, one can feed into the other, with learning project related to a career field helping to prepare students for conversations with professionals, internships, and other WBL experiences (and vice versa). Like learning projects, WBL activ-ities offer students opportunities to explore and “try out” dif-

ferent careers and discover their true interests and strengths.

The National Academy Foundation’s Work-Based Learning Tools website (workbasedlearning.naf.org) offers many informa-tional pages and tools covering a wide range of WBL-related topics, including planning timelines, sample checklists, and template materials.

N E X T G E N E R AT I O N S CI E N CE S TA N DA R DSThe Common Core State Standards include only English Lan-guage Arts and Mathematics (though they do include Standards for Literacy in Science, which cover the challenges of reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language in the field). Therefore, the National Research Council (NRC), the Na-tional Science Teachers Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a group called Achieve banded together in an effort to develop the “Next Generation Science Standards” (NGSS), which are similarly designed to be adopted by states as education standards for students across the U.S. Also similar to Common Core, these science standards emphasize critical thinking and communications skills.

The final draft of the Next Generation Science Standards was released in April 2013. While 26 states were involved in the development of the NGSS, only 11 (plus the District of Colum-bia) have so far adopted them.

For more information: www.nextgenscience.org/

C 3 FR A M E WO R K F O R S OC I A L S T U D I E S S TAT E S TA N DA R DSA coalition of national organizations has developed the Col-lege, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards to provide guidance for states to upgrade their state social studies standards and for practitioners — local school districts, schools, teachers and curriculum writers — to strengthen their social studies programs. The objectives of the

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· confidence that the final outcome will benefit them and their community;

· greater willingness to follow through;

· higher-quality ideas;

· access to a much larger set of information that is shared instead of held back; and

· increased capacity for resolving future problems together.

The main task of facilitating a participatory conversation is to help make sure that everyone understands the informa-tion being presented and each other’s perspectives about it; encouraging everyone to speak, identifying differences; and, in fact, probing for them - not hiding them. There is a significant difference between being the facilitator for a conversation and the leader; the facilitator(s) is there to support the participants in reaching the group’s goals.

Note that bringing forward different perspectives and devel-oping mutual understanding will take time. The experience of discovery can be uncomfortable, as participants have the chance to air their views and are exposed to those of others. That’s OK; change requires struggle and often causes natural anxiety as people’s long-held views and ways of working are challenged. And, often, this process is also thoughtful and energizing for participants.

The role of a facilitator is NOT to forestall all frustration or smooth over the (often very real) differences in the room, but instead to support individual participants as they wrestle with new perspectives, to encourage the group as it works through this process, and to find ways to help build shared understand-ing. The techniques described below will help to succeed in this role, as will preparation beforehand and patience during the Conversation.

While group facilitation is not typically part of formal project management training, professionals may have more expe-rience at it than they know. Many project managers utilize facilitation skills every day as part of their work within project teams (and some do go on to get training in this area). These existing skills can be brought to bear in the framework of a participatory conversation.

W H O TO I N V I T E TO CO M M U N I T Y CO N V E R S AT I O N SThe invitation list for Community Conversations will probably look very similar to the sectors and community leaders that are included in community readiness research. The learning that results from mapping a community will also inform participant selection greatly.

Focus on identifying the right representatives from several groups to invite to Community Conversations:

1) Business leaders

2) Political leaders

3) School district leaders and principals (and perhaps teachers’ union officials)

4) Leaders from local colleges and universities and notable out-of-school education programs like science centers

5) Other community leaders, including philanthropists and executives/Board members of civic organizations.

In all cases, the best candidates are leaders who have important contributions to make to a joint effort and who are engaged in the community beyond their own organizations. A healthy proportion of leaders who will be the ones actually following through on contributions and implementing action steps should also be invited, rather than only top leaders who would pass off implementation to other officials who were not present. One way to identify the right leaders is

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to look back at community interview notes and figure out who is mentioned often as a partner or stakeholder by respondents.

Given the broad nature of this group, the invitee list will nec-essarily be a large one. In fact, a good target is more than 20 participants at each Community Conversation. This will help to ensure that most stakeholder perspectives are represented and that the right people are in the room to drive decision-making and follow-up actions. A large number for participation also em-phasizes the importance of initial conversations and interviews to garner buy-in and excitement – both of which will be necessary to get these leaders to the Conver-sation.

Remember also that, while this is a broad discussion among high-level leaders in the community, that does not mean that the leaders invited should only be the CEOs of top regional companies and organizations. Smaller companies may play just as significant roles as larger ones in engaging their employees and resourc-es with schools, especially where the leadership of those companies is passionate about it. The “right person” at a school district or university is not necessarily only the superintendent. And, engaging school principals who are open to exploring PBL in the Conversation at this stage can be a very productive and helpful idea. Not only can principals provide an important perspective to the discussion, but they are also often the most important gatekeepers to the classrooms on their campuses.

Suggested text for an invitation to a Community Conversation is posted on your resource website, along with other related resources.

TH E V E N U EWhere to hold a Community Conversation?The setting for the Conversation can have a big impact on its

outcomes. This extends to the location and the setup – both of which will send signals about and impose limits on the participation, the ease, and the productivity of a Conversation.

While there are many venues in most regions that would work, here are some criteria to consider:

• Location in the region. Is the venue in a central area? Consider this factor in relation to the group of invitees – will most invitees

have to travel a long way to participate?

• Ease of access. Holding a Conversation in a Downtown office building may not be the best option if it means that a number of people will need to fight rush hour traffic and search for limited parking. Keep in mind the importance of access for people with disabilities as well.

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• A neutral space. Holding a Community Conversation in a space controlled by the school district, for example, runs the risk of encouraging school officials to domi-nate the conversation on their “home turf.”

• Natural light. People feel more energized and comfort-able in a space with abundant natural light. Be careful of how this light comes into the room, however, because another important factor is...

• Privacy. It will be extremely difficult to have a produc-tive and frank conversation if the group is disturbed regularly by interruption, outside noise, etc. Street-lev-el windows around the meeting room will also prove to be a distraction unless they have good curtains.

• Enough space. Make sure that the expected number of participants will not be cramped, that they will all be able to see each other around the table, and that there is remaining space to walk around as needed.

• Comfort. It might be surprising how much comfortable chairs (as opposed to the stackable banquet type), easy access to snacks and drinks, and space to walk around will make an enormous difference in the success of a Community Conversation. Like the privacy concern, creating a comfortable space will help to keep partici-pants engaged and promote trust and risk-taking.

Alternative venuesIn addition to hotel and conference spaces, consider:

· Local philanthropic foundations sometimes have meeting spaces available;

· Asking fellow project management professionals if they have an appropriate venue;

· Corporate and law offices often also have larger conference rooms;

· The city or county government might offer an appropriate space.

Food and drinkHealthy, appealing snacks and drinks (think yogurt, fresh and dried fruits, chocolate, fruit juice, etc.) will help the group to keep up its energy and focus throughout the Conversation. These should be out and easily accessible upon arrival and at the break. Put bowls on the tables as well so that participants can access them during other times. And don’t forget the coffee!

Setting up the room

· When anticipating a large number of participants, consider setting up multiple round tables with an easel next to each one. This will make it easy to break up the larger Conversation with small-group sessions around each table and to record and report out those smaller discussions.

· If it works in the venue and for the number of participants, using “partial rounds” - seating people around half of a round table, arranged so that everyone is facing toward the facilitator in the front or middle of the room – is a good backup alternative. That way, most participants can see each other and the facilitator.

· If the only good option is to use long tables in a rectangle or U-shape, never place chairs along the inside of the shape.

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· The facilitator(s) should be placed at one end of the group or in the center, whereever she is able to observe all participants. The facilitator will also need a) space to stand up and walk around, and b) easy access to the flipcharts.

· Place a registration/arrival table with nametags and any handouts near the entrance.

· Make sure that there is clear signage to find the Conversation as people enter the building, get on and off the elevator, et. al. Participants may not have written down the room name or number when they put the location address into their calendars, so existing signage with the room name alone may not be enough.

· Set up flipcharts if they are part of the format or note-taking plan. Make sure that multiple colors of markers are in easy reach of the flipcharts (and be sure that the venue or facilitator has the right kind of markers!).

· Learn the location of the nearest restrooms and be prepared to give directions to others.

S E T T I N G TH E S TAG EGround rulesGetting the group’s agreement on a set of ground rules for Community Conversations is a crucial step toward building trust – both between participants and in the facilitator – and in creating a space for open conversation and risk-taking. The set of suggested ground rules below has been developed from multiple sources and personal experiences:

· Be present physically (stay for the full planned time period; return from break promptly) and cog-nitively – please NO e-mail or phone use except during the break.

· Have a “kitchen table” conversation - Everyone participates; no one dominates. Share the oxygen with others.

· There are no “right answers”. Draw on your own experiences, views and beliefs - you do not need to be an expert.

· Keep an open mind. Listen carefully and try hard to understand the views of those who disagree with you.

· Help keep the discussion on track. Stick to the questions: try not to ramble.

· It is okay to disagree, but don’t be disagreeable.

· Respond to others how you want to be responded to.

· Take care of yourself. Stand up and stretch as needed.

Conversation organizers can adapt the suggested rules above as necessary. Print the final version on a poster-sized piece of paper to display on the wall of the venue. Having the ground rules visible to everyone helps to set the Community Conver-sation space as one where participants can trust that they will be able to share their perspectives and can take risks within those rules.

Once the Conversation begins, take a couple of brief minutes to go over each of the ground rules on the poster and ask if any of them need explanation or clarification. Explain that they are intended to create a framework for a frank and open conversation, not to promote any specific agenda. Then, give the participants an opportunity to suggest any changes or ad-ditions – these rules are theirs, after all. Lastly, ask the group explicitly if they can accept the ground rules. The facilitator(s) will refer back to them as the Conversation progresses, especially if the discussion seems to deviate from what everyone agreed.

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What to bring

• Sign-in sheet

• Name tents and nametags

• Extra pens and notepads

• Markers in multiple, dark colors

• Flipcharts – preferred over whiteboards since they can be repositioned them and taken out afterwards. “Smart” whiteboards can also capture information written on them, but they are rare to find.

• Poster with the Ground Rules

• Copies of the agenda (see below)

• Business cards with relevant contact information for potential questions or clarifications later

• Hard copies of any materials sent to participants by e-mail in advance of the Conversation

• Copies of the evaluation (see below)

Framing the agendaThe agenda for a Community Conversation shouldn’t be too detailed, but just can provide an opportunity to share the pro-cess and expectations for this meeting. Do include the break on the agenda. However, do NOT include times on the printed agenda, as the conversation should be allowed to flow and stretch as needed. (However, it might be useful for the facili-tator to work out a rough timeline for the agenda – especially for the timing of the break.)

Following is a suggested agenda for a Conversation on PBL and 21st Century Skills – to be carefully adjusted for a particular community:

I. Welcome and Introductions

II. Expectations for todayA. Informational presentation (see below)

III. Discussion about key industry sectors and education needs in our region

IV. Discussion about existing initiatives and resources in our schools

V. Common Core and relation to college and career readiness skills

VI. How Project-Based Learning can support our educational goalsA. The importance of 21st Century SkillsB. Why Project-Based Learning? Definitions and benefitsC. Bringing PBL into our schools

VII. Next stepsA. Other organizations and people who should be engagedB. Upcoming teacher Conversations and trainingsC. Follow-up steps

VIII. Evaluation and Closing

It can also be helpful to include a printed agenda in the materials given to participants. The facilitator may also want to have it printed at poster size (or just written on a flipchart page) to post on the wall.

S TA R T I N G O N TH E R I GH T F OOT - S U GG E S T E D TO P I C S A N D QU E S T I O N SIntroductions

· The facilitator(s) should start out by introducing himself and pointing out any project team mem-bers present.

· Ask each participant to introduce themselves brief-ly with his or her name and organization, and then another piece of information that is a bit unusual as an icebreaker. These can also reveal interesting aspects of the people in the room. Some sug-gestions: “What is one thing that no one at work knows about you?” “Tell us one thing that you have learned this week.” Ask everyone to keep

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it SHORT, and facilitators and other organizers should answer it too.

· Asking the question “Why did you come here to-day?” will often lead to lengthy answers that have limited relevance, and which often will emerge during the conversation anyway. Instead, the facilitator might ask what each participant expects to get out of participating in the Community Conversation.

Setting expectations

· Tell the group the expected amount of time that the Community Conversation will take (and hold to those starting and ending times).

· Explain the goals of the Community Conversation, its role in the larger project, and what organizers hope that participants will take away from it.

· Give a brief explanation of the role of the facilitator(s).

· Remind the group that notes are being taken (and point out who is taking them), but that the notes won’t include names.

· Go over the suggested ground rules and ask for any changes.

Presenting information to frame Community ConversationsIn order to set the stage for the upcoming discussion, organiz-ers will likely want to set aside some time to present import-ant information to the group (this is in addition to the setting expectations / ground rules explanation above). Keep this time minimal and at the very beginning of the Conversation; taking a large chunk of time for one leader or participant to talk at the group can kill momentum and undermine the exploration that is key to a successful participatory conversation. The facil-

itator(s) should also think about what information could instead be sprinkled naturally into later parts of the conversation (without interrupting the flow).

However, explaining new concepts and providing needed facts to the group can also be essential to making sure that all participants are on the same page. If organizers decide to add an informa-tional presentation to the agenda, that role should be assigned to a colleague who is NOT facilitating this

Conversation. Taking on the “expert” role shifts the presenter into a very different position relative to the rest of the group, rather than as a facilitator and peer.

Some topics that organizing teams may want to include in an initial informational presentation:

• A brief background about project management and Project-Based Learning.

• Reinforcement about The Framework for 21st Century Learning and the knowledge, skills, and expertise that

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will be needed to succeed in work and life.

• The goals and strategy of the larger effort to “reimagine schools” in the region.

• Common Core State Standards

One big consideration here is whether to use PowerPoint, Prezi, or other types of projected images for this informational sharing. Organizers will need to use their judgment here about whether a) these tools are necessary, b) summarizing data or other information into charts or images would convey it much more quickly than a verbal explanation, c) the room setup allows for a projector and screen that can be easily seen by all participants, and d) handouts would accomplish the same task with less interruption (especially if they can be provided in advance).

Suggested questions to frame and open the discussion

• What brought you here today? (This is more appropriate to come after the initial introductions.)

• Why is preparing students with 21st Century skills important?

• Which skills and attributes are most important to you as employers? To you as educators?

• Which skills and attributes are most often lacking in entry-level employees?

• Why do you think project-based learning in the class-room is important?

• How is this different from the norm right now?

N OT E -TA K I N G

“The main responsibility of a note taker is to capture key insights, themes, turning points, and quotes from the Community Conversation.” THE HARWOOD INST ITUTE

The organizing team will need to assign someone to capture the ideas, agreements, and follow-up steps that are discussed during a Community Conversation. This should be a separate role from the facilitator(s), although the note-taker can also participate in all discussions. (The facilitator should still write on the flipcharts, as that is a visible summary of discussion that itself plays a role in shaping the conversation).

Tips for note-takers:

• DON’T try to write down everything said verbatim. Summaries and shorthand are needed much more than exact wording. (That said, DO listen for statements that might be useful quotes for later and write those down as best as possible.)

• DON’T record the Conversation. People talk differently and are willing to open themselves less when they are being recorded. The idea is for note-taking to be as invisible and unobtrusive as possible.

• DON’T type at a noisy keyboard. It can distract from the conversation at hand. If the note-taker wants to

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use a quiet keyboard, test it out first in the Conversa-tion venue with someone else listening and talking.

• DO listen for why participants are saying what they say. Think about what is going on beneath the surface. Body language can give important clues.

• DO watch for areas of tension and strong emotion, and note those as well.

• DO listen for when the facilitator(s) (who will be practicing the techniques of active listening) takes a moment to summarize the recent conversation and/or check in about what she had heard. If the par-ticipants agree that the facilitator has gotten it right, she just provided a handy, accurate summary of conversation points.

• DO look for turning points in the conversation, where participants were able to break through disagree-ments, find compromises, and/or reach a new level.

• DO listen for issues that seem to be linked together in participants’ minds. Will the community need to solve one before tackling the other?

• DO compare what participants say at the beginning of the conversation with where they have arrived at the end.

• DO talk to the facilitator immediately following the Conversation to compare what was recorded with what she understood was happening. Ask what points (and quotes!) might have been missed.

• DO organize the notes as soon as possible after the Conversation.

• DO determine what the 2-3 most important issues were from the Conversation and highlight them in the final notes.

• DO summarize the top concerns and likely obstacles raised by the group.

• DO point out the themes that naturally arose during the Conversation. These may or may not align with the agenda.

FAC I L I TAT I O N T ECH N I QU E SThe role of a facilitator must be an active one, keeping the conversation focused on the topics at hand, ensuring that all perspectives are heard, and supporting the group as it works through difficult divides of opinion and perspective.

The following definitions (from The Harwood Institute) of the responsibility and roles of a “Conversation Leader” provide a good summary of the mindset to take into the room as a facilitator:

The main responsibility of a Conversation Leader is to create a discussion that enables you to learn about the community and people’s aspirations. [The facilitator is] not there as an expert but as a curious listener who can help others share what they’re thinking.

An effective Conversation Leader: · Explores ideas with people — displays a genuine sense of curiosity.

· Listens to people and builds trust.

· Pushes people to consider different perspectives — helping folks to understand why others think in different ways.

· Helps people reconcile conflicting remarks make in a non-confrontational manner.

· Stays focused on the goal of the conversation - remember this is about learning, not promotion.

· Prepares for each conversation, reading the guide, going over notes from previous conversations.

These techniques are drawn from a variety of sources, including The Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-

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Making, The Harwood Institute, and personal experiences.

Active listening

1) Probe

2) Notice the words and phrases that people use, and ask for explanation if they are unclear.

3) Mirroring – repeating the exact words that have been said – can be useful to establish trust in the facilitator. Use this early in the conver-sation to show that each speaker is being heard. But remember to always maintain an open, warm tone, even if the original speaker did not.

4) Paraphrasing is an extremely useful tool to use as the conversa-tion develops.

ParaphraseThis is one of the most important and fundamental skills that a facilitator can bring into the room. Paraphrasing and repeating ideas can reassure participants that they are being heard and understood, can calm unneeded frustrations and disruptions (as opposed to the necessary ones that come from working through differing perspectives), and can encourage “thinking out loud.”

1) Restate the ideas that were said using descriptive language.

2) Summarize if the speaker used a lot of sentences to describe his or her idea.

3) Start with a framing comment like “If I understand you correctly...” or “It sounds like what you’re saying is...” or “This is what I’m hearing you say...”.

4) Use this technique especially when a speaker’s statements have been convoluted or confusing.

5) Always ask for and get acknowledgment from the speaker that the paraphrasing was correct. This can be a verbal check-

in (“Does that sound like what you were saying?”) or a nonverbal look.

6) If an “Okay” was not received, ask for clarifica-tion until the facilitator can understand and repeat the idea correctly. One way to do this is to “draw out” the speaker by prompting him or her with open-ended ques-tions for examples and/or further reasoning. “Can you give me an example of...” “Please say more about that...” “I want to make sure I understand...”

7) When paraphrasing and/or summarizing multiple ideas that were raised, check back to

make sure that no contributions were missed. “Did I capture all of the themes?” “Were those all of the ideas on the table at this point?”

Keep the conversation focused - without stifling the group

1) When several people want to speak, ask if all of them want to address the specific subject currently at hand. For those who want to talk about other topics, ask them to wait until after the current discussion is completed. Write their names on a flipchart sheet to assure them that their chance won’t be forgotten.

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2) If a participant interrupts, firmly and respectfully ask the interruptor to allow the original speaker to complete his or her thought. Promise to address the new idea soon.

3) Sometimes the discussion will branch into multiple areas simultaneously, or even multiple approaches to the same idea. When this happens, acknowledge it (“It sounds like we have two or three directions at the same time right now, and I don’t want to lose any of them.”) and ask for a moment as the facil-itator to step back. Use paraphrasing techniques to check in with the group and make sure that the situational assessment is correct.

4) If participants seem to want to pursue multiple branch-es, tell them that the group will take a few minutes apiece responding to each in sequence. (When transitioning, it might help to ask the original speaker to re-introduce his or her idea.) After this is completed, summarize the group’s progress and determine the best course to move forward.

5) When needed and appropriate, remind the group about where this part of the conversation began or what their shared goal was. “We started this discussion talking about...” “At the beginning of this meeting, we said that we needed to ____. What have we not discussed that will be important to accom-plish our goal?”

6) When one (or a few) participant dominates the conversation, instead of trying to “control” that person, encourage everyone else to participate more (see below for tips on how to engage them).

Engage everyone in the room

1) Make sure that everyone gets a chance to share their views, especially early in the conversation and again at the end.

2) Make room for quiet members of the group. “You look like you might be about to say something...”

3) Check back with people who have been quiet for a while.

4) Ask people to respond to what other participants are saying.

5) Be aware if one group or another is dominating the conver-

sation (e.g. men, school district officials) and ask for comments from others so that all views are heard.

6) Use the clock – in both directions. “We only have a couple of minutes left on this topic, and I’d like to make sure that we hear from someone who hasn’t spoken yet.” “Since there is a lot of time left, can we hear from someone who hasn’t spoken in a while?” Both can be helpful.

Encourage participants to take risks

1) Seek out views that might be in the room but unexpressed. “Does everyone agree with that statement?” “Now that we’ve heard from Participant X, does anyone have a different per-spective?” “Is there a third way of looking at this?”

Remember that arguing can be OKIn fact, if participants don’t disagree at all, the group may not be having the discussion that the community needs in order to change the status quo.

1) Accept that both disagreements and misunderstandings are inevitable, and allow them to be worked through to resolution.

2) Make sure that the discussion remains respectful, and break in if it is not.

3) If participants seem to understand the information at hand but are not addressing their clashing perspectives on that information, raise some different ideas that have been said or that are reasonable to expect that people may hold.

4) Point out the natural outcomes of the direction that the group is headed and ask if they are prepared to accept them.

What to do when the conversation gets “stuck”

1) Evaluate why it is stuck. Do participants need more facts? Is a bias or perception keeping them from understanding or accepting others’ assertions? Is there a low level of trust between participants? Are workplace or political pressures preventing them from moving forward?

2) If a participant or subgroup continually repeats similar points, try to paraphrase them to help summarize and move

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forward. (“This is what I’m hearing....”)

3) Point out where the difficulties seem to be. This is where the facilitator’s position as a neutral third party can be most useful. Try to define the differences that have been stated without making judgments about whether one side is more right than another.

4) Just as differences between perspectives in the group should be lifted up, listen actively for areas of common ground and point those out as well, checking in to make sure that they are captured accurately and that the group understands that they may agree on more than they had believed.

5) When the conversation is “stuck” because of an unending back-and-forth between two people, bring others into the conversation by asking their opinion on the issue at hand or if there are other issues being missed.

6) Most of all, exercise patience. The group and its partici-pants sometimes need to struggle through accommodating differing perspectives. They need the facilitator(s) to model patience and faith that the process will work and will result in outcomes that will benefit everyone.

Write the group’s ideas on a flipchartSummarizing the progress of the group can both provide a record of the topics that have been discussed and show participants that their ideas are valued. Separately from note-taking (see below), it is an extremely valuable tool for structuring and balancing the conversation. “ChartWriting provides participants with a group memory” (Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making).

1) Position the flipchart on an easel where it can be easily seen by as many participants as possible and is easily acces-sible to the facilitator (e.g., the head of the table). Make sure that it is high enough!

2) Write in clear, print letters that are large enough to be seen at the back of the room.

3) Be sure to leave space between lines.

4) Have multiple dark-colored markers available – different colors for different purposes (not just black). Yellows and other lighter colors may not be visible from further away, so use them only for underlining and circling.

5) Title every page and number pages where they continue from prior ones.

6) Write in full but simple sentences where possible – it will be much easier to understand their meaning later in the discussion (or weeks after it is concluded) than single words or phrases.

7) Use a lot of bullets to help different items stand apart.

8) Star items that are especially important to capture or areas that will need later follow-up.

9) Circling items can help to highlight them and connect them to other ideas.

10) Diagrams and illustrations (depending on the facilitator’s drawing talent) can also be helpful, but keep them simple and quick!

Other tips

1) Stand up and move around the room, or at least part of it, even if the rest of the participants are seated. That not only helps to maintain the facilitator’s position, but also allows the facilitator(s) to make eye contact with all participants, observe body language, and encourage the participants at the back of the room to speak.

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2) Allow others to stand up and move around too as needed, as long as they aren’t disruptive. Most people have a limit on the amount of time that they can remain seated at a table and actively engaged in a conversation. There isn’t any reason why they cannot stand up and stretch while they consider what someone else has said.

3) DON’T be afraid of silence. Sometimes, participants need time to process what they have heard or consider what they want to say. Don’t let discomfort with silence cut off the time that they need for those tasks. The facilitator(s) will also sometimes need to signal others to remain quiet to allow one speaker to think through his or her next comment.

4) However, silence is not golden if it comes because no one is participating in the conversation. Remember the engagement techniques from above.

5) Remember that breaks should come when the group needs them, even if that doesn’t match the agenda. When partici-pants are losing focus, starting a lot of side conversations, or checking their phones, that is probably a signal that they need a break to come back fresh.

F O L LOW - U PEvaluationAsking the participants to complete a brief written evaluation at the end of a Community Conversation can provide organizers with important feedback about the connection between the participants and the topic, their enthusiasm about following up, and the effectiveness of the facilitator(s). The keys to getting good responses are to keep it short (one page!) and to ask

open-ended questions that prompt participants to respond with their real feelings.

Sending out the notes and follow-up messagesTo maintain momentum, it will be important to connect back to all participants at the Community Conversation within about a week. This initial follow-up message should include the summary notes from the Conversation, highlighting any follow-up steps. Also include dates of upcoming events and other relevant information, and tell the group how often they will be receiving messages like this from organizers (if at all). If the Conversation participants will continue to communicate using an e-mail list or other method, this is a good time also to introduce that to them.

One other possible idea: If some important thoughts came through the evaluations about the importance of Project-Based Learning in schools or ideas for how to follow up, it might be helpful to quote those as well, anonymously. (Omit the ones about the performance of the facilitator.)

C I TAT I O N SFacilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making. Sam Kaner with Lenny Lind, Catherine Toldi, Sarah Fisk, and Duane Berger. New Society Publishers 1996.

“The National Center for Media Engagement: Community Conversation Guide”. The Harwood Institute. www.theharwoodinstitute.org/

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