Teaching Project Management and Leadership Skills through Career and Technical Education (CTE)

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1 ROOSEVELT HIGH SCHOOL, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON Teaching Project Management and Leadership Skills through Career and Technical Education (CTE) strong commitment to providing his students the same opportunities offered by larger programs. He struggled to create a model that would accomplish this goal until he decided to use the life, learning and professional skill of project management. I Providing workforce readiness is a key component of CTE education... magine a classroom where teenage students are simultaneously using hands-on learning, working in self-directed project teams, and learning different subjects at the same time - in the same classroom. It sounds like chaos, but it isn t! Students in Seattle, Washington State, USA, are concurrently creating three-dimensional engineering models, learning digital electronics, studying CAD drawing, aerodynamics and Computer Integrated Manufacturing. Their teacher, Karl Ruff, is able to accomplish this by using project management tools and techniques to effectively manage his classroom while teaching his students project management and leadership skills to help them become independent learners. Project management allows Karl to manage multiple, independent teams of students and teach a variety of workforce development skills all in the same physical classroom. This is quite a feat and very important to Karl who is a Career and Technical Education (CTE) technology teacher in the school. He feels a 1 Providing workforce readiness is a key component of CTE education and Karl has created a hands-on learning approach that engages his students while teaching real life engineering, project management and leadership skills that prepare his students to be successful in the 21st century workforce. Karl s integration of project management into his CTE classes demonstrates that students can learn 21st century learning and innovation skills while completing complex engineering and technology class projects.1 In Karl s classes, students assume the roles of project manager and team members while collaborating on class projects, working under the supervision of a teacher but also operating under their own direction. They experience the practical usefulness as well as the difficulty of learning how to apply leadership, communication and collaboration skills when attempting to define, plan, execute, and control their self-selected engineering and technology class projects. This case study is based on a study undertaken in 2012 by Bruce Benton, PMP, MS Ed. for the Project Management Institute Educational Foundation. In addition to various electronic videos and documentation provided by Karl Ruff, the research effort included a site visit on May 29, 2012, where interviews with Karl Ruff and his student project managers took place. 1

2 Karl Ruff Karl Ruff has been teaching and integrating project management into his CTE engineering and technical classes for six years. Before becoming a teacher, he worked for sixteen years at The Boeing Company, and he is the recent Past President of the Washington Industrial Technical Education Association. For more information about Roosevelt High School in Seattle, Washington, visit: (accessed September 21, 2012). The skills these students develop in Karl s class have proved to be so useful that the students have taken the initiative to apply them to other school projects without prompting. This is a great benefit not only robots. for the students, but also for teachers and the school because instructors spend less time introducing group work guidelines and lecturing while students spend more time honing their skills in a safe, nonthreatening environment. It has become known at Karl s school that teachers who want real project work to go on in [their] classes, look for... [Karl s] students because his students stay focused on their tasks, communicating, collaborating, and problem solving in effective ways. Background CTE, a series of elective courses taught by Karl Ruff at Roosevelt High School in the Seattle (Washington) School District, is comprised of 9th through 12th grade students. With a class size limit of 30 students per each of his five CTE class periods each semester, Karl only accepts students into the program that he knows really want to be there and will do the work. Each class period is comprised of five subjects taught simultaneously. Karl has found project management to be both a learning and leadership skill that can help his students be successful, independent learners in the classroom while also using project management as a professional skill to obtain his teaching objectives. Karl uses project management skills to: Efficiently manage his classroom Karl s CTE/PTE Curricula Includes: Introduction to Engineering Design: hands-on pre-engineering course emphasizing development of three-dimensional (3-D, solid) models Robotics: hands-on design, building, and programming of Digital Electronics: engineering course in applied digital logic encompassing a wide range of applications of electronic circuits and devices Aerospace Engineering: hands-on course developed with NASA to teach aerodynamics, astronautics, space-life sciences, etc. Teach his students project management skills so they can be independent learners and manage their projects Teach leadership and collaboration skills so his students can function as teams Course of Study His approach to teaching project management in high school doesn t rely on memorizing A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide). Instead, he puts the emphasis on having the students learn hands-on through exercises and participation in student projects. He sees project management as a human endeavor, a collection of skills that require practices to be learned, understood, and mastered. Consequentially, Karl creates a supportive environment where the students can practice 21st century skills, such as collaboration and communication, everyday. An important aspect of the effort is the organization of the course material, student groups, and project work because these skills are practiced and honed within this supportive framework. After a brief summary of the 2

3 Planning consists of defining all the work that needs to be completed... determining the tasks and the time required to complete them, and creating a project schedule. subject areas and skills the students can focus on from Karl, the students divide into subject area groups based on their interests. In most cases, beginner and advanced students are grouped in each subject, providing the opportunity for advanced students to serve as mentors. Each period, which includes work in all five subjects, focuses on a two-semester project to design and build a specific product such as a taffy pulling machine, a tee shirt printer, a dirigible, school emergency exit signs, and a tee-shirt air cannon launcher. During the first semester, students define and plan the project, and then carry out their plans during the second semester. Planning consists of defining all the work that needs to be completed with the creation of a work breakdown structure (WBS), determining the tasks and the time required to complete them, and creating a project schedule. Each subject group has a team leader who reports to the assigned class project manager(s), but the majority of students are team members. Karl tries to have at least two overall project managers for each class period. In this way, more students have opportunities to play the project management and leadership roles in class projects that is the heart of the work in each class period. For a short video of a student status meeting see Zack briefing Karl Ruff s class at Roosevelt High School in Seattle on project status, PMforCTE channel, YouTube, June 20, 2012, watch?v=5o2-yxvnlmu (accessed August 21, 2012); for project management materials, also see Zack at Roosevelt showing WBS, Schedule, and Project Charter, PMforCTE channel, YouTube, June 19, 2012, &v=fltrdiscuro (accessed August 21, 2012). Viewers might note the additional class organizational materials posted to the wall in the background of both videos. Charts posted aroud the classroom help students communicate and stay focused on their project goals. The classroom routine places emphasis on students practicing purposeful communication. To assist with communicating and ensuring students (and the teacher) always know what is occurring, Karl has implemented a project management system in which project-related documentation such as each project s organizational chart, work breakdown structure (WBS), and schedule (in the form of a Gantt chart) are posted around the classroom. Karl requires student project managers to hold weekly status meetings or what he defines as the glue that holds everything together. Status meetings include agenda items such updates on the work tasks listed in the WBS and reviewing the schedule to identify upcoming tasks. Every week, the student project managers and teams repeat the same process of preparing, doing and evaluating, which provides students the opportunity to exercise their communication and negotiation skills. Communication is key element in successful projects, and according to Karl, when students fail to communicate, that s when the real learning takes place. The repetition of the status 3

4 meetings provides an opportunity to fail, in front of peers in a safe environment, repeatedly and often. As a result, everyone on the team learns that they need to communicate better, and how to do so. Students discuss their project s progress at a weekly status meeting. students to understand this. Their comments support Karl s claim that learning arises from numerous small failures. Jake, also a student project manager working on the dirigible project, observed, You can ask someone to do something and you get a wide variety of things back. The students frequently find solutions to communication problems too. John, a student project manager, found that ultimately, writing something up and giving it to someone that details everything I have in mind is really the The Student Experience when the real...that s learning takes place. The repetition of the status meetings provide an opportunity to fail, in front of peers in a safe environment, repeatedly and often. As a result, everyone on the team learns that they need to communicate better, and how to do so. Throughout the course, students become aware of how communication and collaboration are life skills that lead to achieving goals in settings inside and outside of school because they help get work done in any situation. Christian and Shan, both student project managers for the taffy pulling machine project, find this lesson particularly appealing. Christian said, What I like most about project management is you re learning something that will actually help you in college, in life; it s a useful skill to learn. A point echoed by Shan when he said I think [project management] is going to be pretty useful throughout high school and college, or maybe even my life. Taking the conversation in a slightly different direction, Zack, a student project manager working on the dirigible project who has been a project lead for two years, said, I think I know how to organize things pretty well now. Skill transference, self-confidence, and organizational skills are only part of the picture because work does not occur if communication is not complete or when collaboration is not realized. The classroom experience enabled What I like most about project management is you re learning...something that will actually help you in college, in life it s a useful skill to learn. Christian best option for communicating with project team members. But communication does not ensure collaboration. He continued, One mistake I made was not checking up on them [his project team] very often. Andre, student project manager for the teeshirt printer project, neatly summed up the situation:...challenges I've had [include] getting people, that I have tasks for, to do those tasks properly. You can t really command people; you have to make them want to do the work. Max, a student project manager for the teeshirt air cannon launcher project, reports that motivation, cooperation, and ultimately collaboration is not real easy to obtain. Noting that you can t give [student team members] a pay 4

5 these transferable skills can be used across disciplines and in alternative settings. Teachers have found that students who have even a modicum of project management experience remain focused on their tasks, working together to be successful by communicating, collaborating and problem solving. Karl works wth CTE student on class project. raise, Max s solution is to use repetition by asking Have you gotten it [the task] done? Have you gotten it done? and eventually they ll... [say] Fine I ll do it. Armed with these skills and insights developed through experience, Karl s students talk and act differently than other students when faced with group projects in other classes: they spontaneously gather and work in concert to plan their approach, sketching out ideas on the white board, and dividing up the tasks.2 These are powerful testimonials to the benefits of integrating project management into a school curriculum. Both students and teachers at Roosevelt High School benefit greatly from integrating project management and leadership into CTE classes because students learn practical 21st century skills that have immediate value to their school work, and their social activities, and they are better prepared for future jobs in the workforce. They are much more project ready for the challenges of learning, work and life in the 21st century. Students understand how these skills can be used in all kinds of learning and work experiences and can help them throughout their life. Conclusion By fulfilling the roles of project team members, team leaders, and project managers while working on class projects, students gained a first-hand appreciation of the value of 21st century life, learning and professional skills communication, collaboration, leadership, initiative and how 14 Campus Boulevard Newtown Square, PA Tel: Fax: pmief@pmi.org Internet: More information about the Roosevelt High School project management program can be found on the PMI Educational Foundation s website at zone/roosevelt School Program.asp 2 Synthesized from points made by a computer teacher and web design teachers. For quote see In Praise of Rufflandia, , May 7, This relates events occurring in a web design class when undertaking a new project The Project Management Institute Educational Foundation logo, CAPM, PMP, PgMP, are marks of Project Management Institute, Inc. All other trademarks, service marks, trade names, trade dress, product names and logos appearing herein are the property of their respective owners. Any rights not expressly granted herein are reserved. 5