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Educators

9 July, 2015 - 10:11

“Educator” is a broad term that can describe a career in teaching, maybe being a lecturer, a professor, a tutor, or a homeschooler. Other educators include gurus, mullahs, pastors, rabbis, and priests. Instructors also provide vocational training or teach skills like learning how to drive a car or use a computer. Educators provide motivation to learn a new language or showcase new products and services. Educators use project management skills including planning and communication.

Let us look at teachers, since we all have had teachers, and see if we can recognize the project management skills that are demonstrated in this profession.

Example: Teachers

Some teachers foster the intellectual and social development of children during their formative years; other teachers provide knowledge, career skill sets, and guidance to adults. Project management skills that teachers exhibit include acting as facilitators or coaches and communicating in the classroom and in individual instruction. Project managers plan and evaluate various aspects of a project; teachers plan, evaluate, and assign lessons; implement these plans; and monitor each student’s progress similar to the way a project manager monitors and delivers goods or services. Teachers use their people skills to manage students, parents, and administrators. The soft skills that project managers exercise can be seen in teachers who encourage collaboration in solving problems by having students work in groups to discuss and solve problems as a team.

Project managers may work in a variety of fields with a broad assortment of people, similar to teachers who work with students from varied ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds. These teachers must have awareness and understanding of different cultures.

Teachers in some schools may be involved in making decisions regarding the budget, personnel, textbooks, curriculum design, and teaching methods, demonstrating skills that a project manager would possess such as financial management and decision making.