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
5.4.6 Adapt your strategy to overcome difficulties Often plans run into difficulties because of unforeseen problems or changing circumstances. For example you may be running over your deadlines, the resources or support available to you may have changed, or your personal circumstances may have changed. Plans are only a means to an end, however. If you run into difficulties, take some time to think about what effect these difficulties are having on your plans, and what changes you may need to make to your overall strategy to achieve the outcom
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
4.4.2 Assess the effectiveness of your strategy Think about how your decisions, the resources you have used, and the people you have consulted have all influenced the way you tackled the work. Consider the effect of your own communication strengths and weaknesses on the outcomes of your work. Use your notes and comments to identify what was and was not helpful in achieving your outcomes, and assess how your own capabilities in communication contributed to this. Assess your achievements against criteria in order to judge quality and success
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.
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
3.6.1 Seek and actively use feedback to achieve your targets Feedback can be an important aspect of improving your performance, but it can also have a negative effect if you take it too personally or if the giver is not skilled in offering feedback in a positive and constructive way. Feedback should not just be a matter of pointing out what you have done wrong; it should help confirm what you are doing well and give you pointers as to how you might improve in other areas. One important thing to remember when dealing with feedback is that the giver is c
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
3.1a Working on the key skill of improving own learning and performance Improving learning and improving your performance may sound simple enough, but experienced learners know that there is not always a direct route from a particular learning experience to improved performance. Many factors can affect this link – motivation, resources, support and feedback. You need to acknowledge that these, and many other factors, can and do influence the outcomes of your efforts. In other words, many influences can come along to knock learning off track. It is also importan
2.4 Using the framework The three-stage framework focuses on the processes of learning, and is a general approach that you can use in different ways. However, skills development also needs a context and should be linked into your course or work activities. A useful starting point is to use your course or project to provide a timeframe for your skills development work. If you are following a formal course of study, the course will have been designed to develop your knowledge and understanding of a subject area,
2.3.1 Developing a strategy A common feature of how effective people work is that they take time to prepare well. They know which aspects they are competent to do and those that they need to work on, plan carefully and identify possible sources of information and support. In other words they develop a strategy. A strategy is a plan for taking you towards and achieving a goal. The purpose of planning is to anticipate opportunities to learn that will improve your performance and develop your capabilities. A strategy
7.1 Evidence required This part is about showing you can develop a strategy for using and improving your skills in working with others, that you can monitor your progress and can evaluate your overall performance and strategy. The evidence you present must show what you have done as you worked through the processes of planning strategically, monitoring, evaluating and presenting your work. Part A must relate directly to the work you have selected for Part B. You must present evidence to show you can:<
5 Becoming an effective team member The purpose of this assessment unit is for you to create a portfolio of your work to represent you as an effective team member within your study or work activities. This will involve using criteria to help you select examples of your work that clearly show you can use and improve your skills in working with others. However, by far the most important aim is that you can use this assessment process to support your learning and improve your performance in working with others. Very few peop
1 About working with others Very few people study or work in complete isolation. Some courses now set projects and assignments that need to be completed in pairs or groups, either face-to-face or using econferencing. Even if your course does not formally require you to do this, working with others is an important part of your skills portfolio. Most jobs require you to work as part of a team, and employers value individuals who can demonstrate this. In working on a work project or an assignment with others – in p
5.2.1 Discrete variables The charts about different modes of transport and that on attendance figures at a range of cultural events all use what might be called ‘word categories’. Each category (e.g. bus, rail, cycle, and walk) is quite distinct from any other in the set of categories. Such distinct categories are known in mathematics as ‘discrete variables’. Word categories are not the only type of variable that is discrete; numbers can also be discrete. For example, at the beginning of this section, w
Introduction Your course might not include any maths or technical content but, at some point during your course, it’s likely that you’ll come across information represented in charts, graphs and tables. You’ll be expected to know how to interpret this information, and possibly encouraged to present your own findings in this way. This unit will help you to develop the skills you need to do this, and gain the confidence to use them. This unit can be used in conjunction with, and builds on the Op
4.8.2 Median The median is the middle value of a set of numbers arranged in ascending (or descending) order. If the set has an even number of values then the median is the mean of the two middle numbers. For example: 4.8.1 Mean The mean is found by adding up all the values in a set of numbers and dividing by the total number of values in the set. This is what is usually meant by the word ‘average’. For example, if a company tests a sample of the batteries it manufactures to determine the lifetime of each battery, the mean result would be appropriate as a measure of the possible lifetime any of the batteries and could be used to promote the product. 3.7.4 Explaining You need to be able to think of things from your reader's point of view. The reader cannot see into your mind so you have to explain your points quite fully and carefully. You need to give examples to illustrate what you are talking about and to justify what you say. In other words, you need a sense of your ‘audience’ and you have to work out how to ‘speak’ to these readers in the right ‘tone of voice’. 3.7 Writing clearly A final point that emerged from our analysis of Philip's and Hansa's essays was that a good essay is easy to read. Grand-sounding phrases and elaborate sentences do not make an essay impressive. Clarity and economy are what count. Such ease of reading is achieved at several levels.
1, 1, 2, 5, 8, 10, 12, 15, 24 This set of nine values is arranged in ascending order and the median is 8. 32, 25, 20, 1
