Translating Teaching Experience to a PMP Application
My PMP exam application was accepted recently, so I want to share how I framed my past professional experience in K12 education to project management concepts.
It helps that I frequently volunteered for leadership roles in campus-wide initiatives. Those are the opportunities I included in my PMP exam application.
Here are some examples of projects I referenced:
I organized a service fair. As community service coordinator, it was my responsibility to verify that all secondary students completed their required community service hours. The service fair was an event in our auditorium with over 30 local non-profits and charities set up in booths. Students visited at scheduled times throughout the day and had the chance to connect with different volunteer opportunities. I also scheduled break-out sessions for students who wanted more information about certain initiatives in particular.
I coordinated an overnight history field trip. With a new curriculum focusing on local civil rights history in the South, I saw an opportunity to bring 11th grade history students from Atlanta, GA to Montgomery, AL. I had to cultivate buy-in, plan the agenda, transportation, travel insurance, hotels, permission slips, and budgeting. Risk management was a major concern for this project because so many things could go wrong. Students could wander off, the charter bus could break down, dietary restrictions could conflict with food options, there could be an issue with accommodation, bad weather could impact our plans, funding could fall through, etc. When the trip ran, students participated in civil rights activities such as a walking tour, interviewing a lawyer at the Equal Justice Initiative, going to The Legacy Museum, participating in a history scavenger hunt, and visiting the National Memorial for Peace and Justice.
I led the curriculum domain team for a school reaccreditation. Every 5 years my school had to renew reaccreditation with the certifying boards of CIS and IB for which we offered diplomas. My role specifically covered the domain of curriculum (other domains that were a part of the accreditation process include employee experience, facilities and operations, security, hiring, etc.). My role as domain leader included responsibility to investigate and develop the report we submitted for reaccreditation of our curriculum.
I created and ran a new interdisciplinary unit. The objective of this project was to create a 9th grade interdisciplinary unit (IDU) between social studies, design, and math that included a field work element where students collected data and innovated product designs that uplifted the local community. Students were off timetable for three full days as they engaged in the experience. Deliverables included the unit plan, materials such as rubrics and slide decks, schedules, and logistics such as permission trips, bus information, and route maps for future cohorts.
I initiated and managed a a social studies curriculum overhaul. This was the flagship project I led during my tenure as a Head of Department at Atlanta International School. I built a case for a curriculum refresh and sought sponsorship from senior leadership to take the 2018-19 school year to audit our existing curriculum and update it to be more inclusive and relevant. I created a series of workshops to define our team mission, and embarked on a community listening tour. My team of 15 faculty members heard from stakeholders such as alumni, enrolled students, parents, and DE&I team members. We found that the current curriculum was not serving the community, and defined our mission as, “The mission of the social studies department at AIS is to challenge students to become critically conscious agents of change who embrace the diversity of human experiences.” I broke our team up into smaller grade level groups, each led by a “grade level chair,” who would facilitate curriculum writing sessions. I mapped out a project plan with checkpoints, and a 5 year curriculum review cycle. The new curriculum launched in the fall of 2019.
None of these projects were handed to me; I put my name forward to lead these initiatives. That’s how you get promoted and advance your careers, by taking risks and asking your manager for new challenges. Each item on that list scared me at the time, but each time I rose to the occasion. In fact, the social studies curriculum overhaul got noticed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and I made it to the top ten finalists for a national award.
Hopefully some of these spark some ideas for other transitioning teachers who are interested in the PMP.
