8.3.2 Identify the outcomes you hope to achieve An outcome is the result or consequence of a process. For example, you may want contribute effectively to a design project in a course, or work in a team to improve a product or system. In this case the design or product improvement is an outcome, and using your problem-solving skills is part of the process by which you achieve that outcome. You may find it useful to discuss or negotiate the outcomes you hope to achieve with others. Solving problems will often depend to some extent on other k
7.7 Drawing ideas together This key skill has used a three-stage framework for developing your skills. By developing a strategy, monitoring your progress and evaluating your overall approach, you take an active role in your own learning. But learning does not necessarily follow a path of steady improvement, it involves change: revisiting ideas, seeing things from different perspectives, tackling things in different ways. You are unlikely to be able to complete your work by working through it from beginning to end
7.6.1 Interpret results and identify your main findings In stating your conclusions and interpreting the results of your work, you should refer back to what you set out to investigate or demonstrate. Have you achieved your goals? What evidence have you got to support your conclusions? If you are making general statements based on your work (for example a statistical analysis of data), then you should be able to explain clearly the reasoning that has led to your conclusions. In quoting mathematical results you should be able to say whether the resu
7.6 Evaluating strategy and presenting outcomes This stage of the framework focuses on identifying what you have achieved and how well you have achieved it. It involves you in evaluating your overall strategy and presenting the outcomes of your work. As you evaluate and assess your strategy, identify aspects of your number skills that you want to develop further. At the end of this stage, use the records in your Skills File to complete the activity ‘Evaluating your use of number strategy and presenting outcomes’ and pull together this
7.5 Monitoring progress This stage of the framework is about keeping track of your progress. Are you using number effectively for your purposes? How do you know? Could you have done things differently: made use of different tools (such as software packages) or facilities, taken more advantage of tutorials, training sessions or local expertise, or recognised that such support would have helped you? Monitoring your own performance and progress needs practice; try to stand back and look at what you are doing as i
6.7 Drawing ideas together This key skill has used a three-stage framework for developing your skills. By developing a strategy, monitoring your progress and evaluating your overall approach, you take an active role in your own learning. But learning does not necessarily follow a path of steady improvement, it involves change: revisiting ideas, seeing things from different perspectives, tackling things in different ways. You are unlikely to be able to complete your work by working through it from beginning to end
6.5.4 Monitor and critically reflect on your use of IL skills As you develop your information literacy skills, refer back to the outcomes you hope to achieve and goals you have set yourself. Ask yourself questions such as: am I on track to achieve my outcomes? what difficulties in using information literacy techniques have I experienced and what have I done about them? how have the choices and decisions I made impacted on the quality of my work? do I need to mak
6.3.3 Identify and research relevant sources of information Spend some time finding out about what you will need to help you complete you IL work and who you will need to consult. You may need to arrange access to a library, the Internet, databases online, or specialist training or publications. If you need to learn about specific aspects of IL (for example how to reference correctly articles, papers and books, or how to put together a bibliography), then look first at your course material and then at study guides or notes aimed at your area of intere
6.3.1 Identify opportunities for using IL skills Where and how will you use information literacy skills over the next 3–4 months? You may need IL to help you identify, search for, evaluate and present information for a specific task, such as an essay or project report. You may have to visit and learn how to use an academic library, or need to search for, select and evaluate information from specialist databases or the Internet. Spend some time thinking about your study or work requirements and what opportunities you will have or can creat
6.2 Working on improving your IL skills The three-stage framework for developing and improving your skills provides the basis for you become more confident in: developing a strategy for using a variety of IL skills, including being clear about what you want to achieve, identifying relevant sources of information that will help you to achieve your goals, and planning how you intend to improve your skills; monitoring your progress and critically reflecting on your performance
5.5.4 Evaluate the effectiveness of your strategy Using the records in your Skills File, look back over your IT development work and think about how your decisions, and the facilities and constraints of your working environment influenced the way you tackled the task. How effective was your strategy in improving your IT skills? Identify what was and was not helpful in achieving your goals and outcomes, and assess how your own IT strengths and weaknesses contributed to this. Evaluate your achievements against the criteria you establishe
5.4.4 Monitor and critically reflect on your use of IT skills As you use IT in your work, refer back to the outcomes you hope to achieve and the goals you have set yourself. Ask yourself questions such as: am I on track to achieve my outcomes? what difficulties in using information technology have I experienced and what have I done about them? how have the choices and decisions I made impacted on the quality of my work? do I need to make any changes in the way I
5.4.2 Develop and exchange relevant information to meet your purposes How does the way you communicate information affect the way you work? What opportunities do you have for developing or exploring different ways of working or sharing information using IT (e.g. using email, computer conferencing, video conferencing, web pages, sharing documents)? Depending on your requirements, you may need to consider factors such as the security, archiving and back-up of your data. What steps do you need to take to guard against the loss or misuse of your information? Can yo
5.4 Monitoring progress This stage of the framework is about keeping track of how you are doing and what progress you are making. Are you using IT effectively for your purposes? How do you know? Could you have done things differently, such as made use of different facilities and software packages, taken more advantage of training sessions or local expertise, or recognised that such support would have helped you? Monitoring your own performance and progress needs practice; try to stand back and look at what you
5.2 Developing a strategy In developing a strategy for improving your IT skills you are aiming to: identify the opportunities you can use to develop and practise your IT skills; establish the outcomes you hope to achieve and targets for meeting them; identify the resources you might use for developing your skills, including people who might be able to help you as well as books, study guides, tutorials, specialist training, databases, libraries
4.4.1 Organise and clearly present relevant information You need to know how to present information in ways that best suit your purpose, subject and audience, that is how to structure coherently what you say so that a sequence of ideas may be followed easily; how to use a range of techniques to help present information and support your argument (such as diagrams and models), and when to use technical vocabulary and conventions. Check that your work meets relevant guidelines and conventions. You may have guidelines about this at work and different
4.3.4 Monitor and critically reflect on your use of communication skills You need to know how to track and record your progress on your use of communication skills. Try to assess the overall quality of your written and oral work and the way you produced the work. Checklists and criteria provided as part of the project or assignment and those set out in the Bookmark can be very useful tools in helping you to assess for yourself precisely what you are doing and how well you are doing it. Unless you know what you are doing wrong, it is very difficult to improve.
4.3.2 Synthesise information Synthesising information is about assessing the new information and prior information in relation to each other, looking for logical relationships in the material, identifying the important ideas, and taking a critical attitude towards the material by relating it to your own views and experiences and thinking about how the material can be used. Synthesising information is not just summarising the information or identifying main points. 3.10 Drawing ideas together This key skill has used a three-stage framework for developing your skills. By developing a strategy, monitoring your progress and evaluating your overall approach, you take an active role in your own learning. But learning does not necessarily follow a path of steady improvement, it involves change: revisiting ideas, seeing things from different perspectives, tackling things in different ways. You are unlikely to be able to complete your work by working through it from beginning to end 3.4 Monitoring progress Monitoring progress is about keeping track of what you are doing and how well you are doing it as you work towards your targets. It is about being able to make an assessment about yourself and being ‘self aware’ about your own capabilities, how you learn best, things that have helped you and so on. One problem in becoming more aware of yourself and making a self-assessment is that you may not know enough terms to describe yourself. Think of the first time you were asked to describe a pain
