Learning outcomes By the end of this section you should be able to: develop a strategy for using communication skills over an extended period of time; monitor and critically reflect on your use of communication skills, adapting your strategy as necessary, to produce the quality of outcomes required; evaluate your overall strategy and present outcomes.
8.4 Assessing your work
Table 1 below gives the outcomes (italic) and criteria for assessment of your work. Alongside the criteria is a checklist to help you consider and assess your work. 8.1 Evidence required For Part B you must present: an example from your study or work (say, an assignment, project report, video recording) that shows you can learn using different ways of learning; and, a synthesis of what you have learned, using the different ways of learning included in your example (in 1 above). 7.3 Monitoring progress Present a reflective commentary that makes reference to your ongoing notes and records and includes: What you did to manage your time as you worked on your course or work activities, and your own assessment of the effectiveness of your time management. For example, the use you made of your planning schedules, any changes you made to your deadlines, what you did about unexpected priorities and whether you feel your time management is effective. Introduction This key skill is about helping you understand how you learn; think about how you can improve your own learning and performance, and consider how you might generalise the principles and processes for future learning. Improving your learning and performance could be considered to be a ‘meta-skill’, that is the skill of learning how to learn. This unit, then, is a little different from the other skills units because improving your own learning and performance is not a separate option 1.2.4 Rounding It looks as if there was an extra 0.2 of a person in the last calculation – why was this? Probably because the figure of 85% that we used was not precise. In fact 809 people, as a percentage of 952, is very slightly less than 85%. Values are often rounded, and using these rounded numbers in calculations can give answers like 809.2 people. Here we can round the answer down to 809 people, because we know it must be a whole number and it is more likely to be 809 than 810. When we w 1.1.5 Clearing the previous calculation To clear the previous calculation, click the ‘C’ button. Provided that no operation has been performed on an entered number, an incorrect entry can be deleted one digit at a time by clicking the ‘Backspace’ button. (This is labelled ‘Back’ on some versions of the Windows calculator.) 1.1.2 Launching the Windows scientific calculator From the Start menu on your Windows desktop choose ‘Programs’, then ‘Accessories’ and then ‘Calculator’ (if ‘Calculator’ doesn't appear on the menu, click the double down arrows at the bottom). If this is the first time you have used the Windows calculator then it is possible that only the standard view of the calculator will be displayed, but you will need to use the scientific view. To display this, click on the View menu in the calculator's menu bar and select ‘Scie 5.1.3 When is a bar chart not a good format to use? A bar chart is not the best way to show the link or mathematical relationship between two sets of data, for this you would use a line graph. 7.1 Introduction If you want to improve your computing skills or knowledge, there are plenty of resources available to help you. This section aims to get your search started by providing you with some useful websites. 3.1 Introduction One of the most useful and rewarding things you can do with your computer is use it to communicate with your tutor, other students, and course staff. If you like exchanging ideas and information, sharing support with other students, asking questions and getting feedback from your tutor, then online communication can add a whole new dimension to your learning: “Email from another student really kept me going 3.2 Using diagrams of your own choice and design This option is the most challenging and most rewarding, as it clearly shows that you have explored and analysed the source material and reworked it for yourself. In many cases, the source material may not contain any diagrams, simply text or numbers, perhaps expressed as a table. Alternatively, you may have had to make some specific observations or undertake an experiment to produce your own data. In this case, you may be expected to produce a diagram to enhance or improve your assignment. If 5.1.9 Music
Blom, E., revised by Cumings, D. (eds) (1991) The New Everyman Dictionary of Music, London, Dent.
Isaacs, A., and Martin, E. (eds) (1982) Dictionary of Music, London, Sphere. 3.6 Taking an objective, analytical stance One of the things I said an essay should be is ‘objective’. What does that mean? Being objective about something means standing back from it and looking at it coolly. It means focusing your attention on the ‘object’, on what you are discussing, and not on yourself and your own (subjective) feelings about it. Your ideas should be able to survive detailed inspection by other people who are not emotionally committed to them. An essay should argue by force of reason, not emot 2.6.1 Philip's essay
Strengths
a reasonable understanding of the general issues Ellis deals with a good basic structure some good sequences of argument a promising feel for language fluency of expression
Weaknesses
the wrong title and consequently a lack of focus argument is loose-knit in places – some points a 2.5.4. Choosing the right words and phrases Both Philip and Hansa occasionally use words and phrases that don't really do the job they want. We saw, for instance, that Philip uses the word ‘resemblance’ when actually he means ‘contrast’. Here are some other examples from his writing. 2.4 Analysing Hansa's essay To refresh your memory, look again at Hansa's essay and the notes you made earlier. The first thing I noticed is that her essay starts with the title she was set. It also comes to a conclusion that tries to answer the question in the title, so straight away it has some important strengths compared to Philip's. From the start she gets stuck into the argument, making a purposeful attack on the question in her opening sentences. And, while she covers a lot of the same ground as Philip, she devel 1.3 Developing your essay-writing ability To develop your skill in writing essays you need to address two basic questions. What does a good essay look like? How do you set about producing one? We will look at the first of these questions in this chapter and the second in the next. Acknowledgements The content acknowledged below is Proprietary (see terms and conditions) and is used under licence. Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this unit: Table 1: Source: Transport Statistics Great Britain, 2001, Department for Transport. Crown copyright material is reproduced under Class Licence Number C01W0000065 with the permission of the Controller if HMSO and the Que 1.4 Conclusion The aim of this unit has been to try to draw together work on numbers and text, and to try to be helpful to those who, like me, find numbers and statistics rather unapproachable. Evidence is used in social science to convince us of the value of a claim, and is a crucial element in our evaluation of theoretical perspectives.
Table 1: Criteria for asses
Philip's words
More accurate words
Paragraph 1
‘port
Tables
Key point
