Learning in this course does not rely on textbooks, talking-head videos, slide decks, or practice tests. It relies mainly on situated experience, reflection on it, and individual practice. Classmate collaboration and AI "mentoring” are available as well.
Key learning activities for those who wish to do them are assignments, task-based, personal, constructive, and cumulative. Each assignment addresses one basic purpose of any project team. Identified in the schedule above, there are eight (8) such purposes and assignments.
In this class, participants may conduct one or two types of case study assignment (or none at all). One type addresses a published commercial case provided by the course. This is used by the coach to create an understanding of basic project know-how that is shared by all participants.
The second case study assignment is unique to each participant who choses to do it. Each selects a “project in focus” (PiF), done or nearly done, in which they had substantial experience. This should be a team project, 2 or more months long, one of the best that they have taken part in. Participants start this kind of assignment by reviewing PiF team work toward a single basic team purpose. They then identify, from all the (80+) project constructs set out on their panoramas, those that were key to achieving the PiF purpose and that seem to have the most potential for doing so in the future. To learn these constructs, participants can then create a personal, time-phased learning plan on their panoramas.
In the live sessions, the coach demonstrates such learning plans using the case study and/or the plans of participants who wish to share. Thus, in each assignment, participants can create a job aid and a plan : a job aid helping them to contribute to a team purpose, and a plan for their own individual continued learning.
With all that said, again, for those in this Exploring Basic Project Know-how course, the goal really is exploring, not working on a schedule. Thus, for them, all above assignments are optional.
