Agile Learning - How students can take ownership of their own journey - Lessons from the IT industry

Sep 12, 2026

Agile Learning explores how teaching can be approached as project management to help students take ownership of their own learning journey. The content builds classroom use cases for applying Scrum, contrasting traditional, hierarchical planning with iterative delivery. Drawing on lessons from the IT industry, it explains the origins of IT project management, the limitations of waterfall development, and how risks grow until surprises emerge. It also outlines key Scrum concepts and their impacts on learning.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPresentations

FormatPDF

Pages72

Reading Time25 min

AccessFree to download

Teaching as Project Management

Classroom Use Cases

Lessons from the IT Industry

Scrum Palette

Managing Projects with Scrum

Impacts on Student Learning

My Background

IT Industry

Education

Classrooms Look a Lot Like a Project

The Plan

Lessons from the IT Industry

The origins of IT Project Management

Waterfall and why it sucks

The birth of Agile

A Project

Traditional Project Management

IT Projects

Waterfall Project Management

AGILE LEARNING How students can take ownership of their own journey sploot v (esp. of dogs) lie on stomach with hind legs stretched flat out Peter Hurwood – St Peters Lutheran College, Indooroopilly THE PLAN TEACHING AS PROJECT MANAGEMENT CLASSROOM USE CASES LESSONS FROM THE IT INDUSTRY SCRUM PALETTE MANAGING PROJECTS WITH SCRUM IMPACTS ON STUDENT LEARNING THE PLAN Teaching as Project Management • What experiences from my career might make me think this is a good idea? • What do the two things have in common? • I want to manage my classes better • For someone with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail… TEACHING AS PROJECT MANAGEMENT CLASSROOM USE CASES LESSONS FROM THE IT INDUSTRY SCRUM PALETTE MANAGING PROJECTS WITH SCRUM IMPACTS ON STUDENT LEARNING MY BACKGROUND IT Industry 􀂏 25 years in infrastructure and management roles 􀂏 10 years leading and project managing IT Dev teams 􀂏 Certified Scrum Master Education 􀂏 Studied DipEd 2017 􀂏 Digital Curriculum Assistant at St Peters Lutheran College, Indooroopilly 􀂏 Motivated to bring my knowledge and experience from industry into my classrooms CLASSROOMS LOOK A LOT LIKE A PROJECT a team of people a goal a plan a set of tools a timeframe milestones expected outcomes or deliverables measures of success THE PLAN Lessons from the IT Industry • The origins of IT Project Management • Waterfall and why it sucks… • The birth of Agile TEACHING AS PROJECT MANAGEMENT CLASSROOM USE CASES LESSONS FROM THE IT INDUSTRY SCRUM PALETTE MANAGING PROJECTS WITH SCRUM IMPACTS ON STUDENT LEARNING A PROJECT is a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product or service Traditional Project Management • Based on manufacturing and construction projects • Effective planning requires high levels of predictability • Each activity is completed before handoff to the next team/phase • Teams are typically divided functionally and managed hierarchically • Clients/customers only consulted at the beginning and end of the project (if at all) BUILDING PROJECTS… Clockwise from top left: 􀂏 Pons Fabricius, Tiber River, Rome, 62 BCE 􀂏 Caravan Bridge, Meles River, Turkey, 850 BCE 􀂏 Tarr Steps, River Barle, England – c 1000 BCE 􀂏 Arkadiko Bridge, Argolis, Greece – c 1300 BCE All four bridges are still in use. Let’s be conservative: humans have been building bridges for at least 3000 years. Each one of these constructions started as a project… IT PROJECTS Humans have been building computer systems for about 70 years Getting it wrong for most of that time: 􀂏 Used construction and manufacturing as templates for project management 􀂏 Used job titles like Computer Scientist and Software Engineer 􀂏 Fred Brooks’ book “Mythical Man Month”published 1975 􀂏 Waterfall project management By 1994, the research firm “The Standish Group” estimated as much as 84% of all IT projects failed to complete on time and budget! WATERFALL PROJECT MANAGEMENT What does a waterfall development project look like? 􀂏 At the start, the plan contains everything you know about the project until completion 􀂏 The early parts go well, and it seems like everything is on track 􀂏 You can’t sense it, but the risk is rising… 􀂏 As the development phase proceeds, the surprises start coming... False security More uncertainty Uncertainty

FAQs

How does the presentation connect teaching to project management?

It frames a classroom as a project with a team, goal, plan, tools, milestones, and measures of success, then proposes managing learning using project-management practices.

What are the main differences between traditional project management and agile approaches?

Traditional management relies on predictability, functional hierarchical teams, and consulting clients mainly at the beginning and end, while agile emphasizes iterative progress where surprises and risks can be addressed as they emerge.

Which lessons from the IT industry are used to explain waterfall and agile?

It discusses the origins of IT project management, explains how waterfall plans everything up front, describes growing hidden risk, and highlights why agile emerged as a response to recurring delivery failures.

Sep 12, 2026

Upload by Evangeline