PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) and CPM (Critical Path Method) are foundational analytical tools in project management and operations management education (Best and Lewis, 2020). Despite their conceptual importance, these techniques have historically been taught through labor intensive methods, including chalk and blackboard instruction in India and spreadsheet or costly subscription based project management software in the United States, both of which divert student cognitive effort from conceptual understanding toward mechanical calculation (Arenas-Marquez et al., 2012). This paper presents a comparative analysis of PERT/CPM pedagogy across these two educational contexts and evaluates the impact of transitioning to an AI powered interactive dashboard as an instructional medium. In India, traditional classroom delivery relies on hand drawn network diagrams and manual forward backward pass computation. In the USA, Microsoft Excel and project management software have become the dominant tools, requiring students to construct 40 to 60 interdependent formulas per problem. Both approaches introduce significant barriers between students and the core scheduling concepts (Maj, 2024). PERTfect Planner, an AI driven R Shiny web application, is proposed as a pedagogically superior alternative (Doi et al., 2016). The dashboard automatically computes Early Start, Early Finish, Late Start, Late Finish, and Slack values using an automated scheduling algorithm, renders dynamic Activity on Node (AON) network diagrams with color coded critical path visualization, and supports real time what if sensitivity analysis. A pilot study with 48 students demonstrated an average task completion time of 5.19 minutes compared to 40 to 60 minutes using Excel, with ease of use and clarity ratings of 4.79 and 4.77 out of 5.0, respectively. This study contributes to the literature on engineering and management education and curriculum improvement by establishing evidence based, cost effective, and modern benchmarks for technology enhanced instruction in network scheduling.

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Mr. Prudhvi raj Baddanapuri