8.1 Re-presenting material Wherever possible, you are encouraged to write in your own words, even when note taking. This is for a number of reasons: firstly, it gets you actively working with and processing key ideas; secondly, as noted above, it allows you to check that you have understood – if you can explain it to someone else using your own words and without relying on those of the authors you have cracked it; and thirdly, it enables you to demonstrate your understanding, especially to your tutor, in assessments.
6 Extracting a summary In developing short notes you are already beginning to extract key ideas from the text. To assist you further in this you might also find it helpful to bring the points you have highlighted and/or made short notes about together. This involves the use of link sentences and words, perhaps even the addition of short quotes taken from the text directly, and examples or additional words of explanation. In this way your notes build up into a summary which you can use more easily. 4 Taking the point: identifying key ideas As earlier activities have demonstrated, active reading and note taking often come hand-in-hand. In order to read effectively we often have to jot down the main ideas and key words introduced in the text. We might also note down one or two questions as we go along to assist in the ‘thinking’ part of the process. But, like reading, note taking comes in all shapes and sizes, and different kinds of notes can be useful for different purposes. Moreover, good note taking, like purposeful, activ 2.3 Reading techniques: focused reading Have a go at reading The Scotsman article again, this time in a more focused way. Think about each section of the text, breaking off at regular intervals in order to identify and extract the main points or examples, a 2.1 Reading techniques: scanning There are three main techniques that you can use in order to read in such a way as to achieve your purpose: scanning, skimming, and focused reading. Let's take each in turn. The technique of scanning is a useful one to use if you want to get an overview of the text you are reading as a whole – its shape, the focus of each section, the topics or key issues that are dealt with, and so on. In order to scan a piece of text you might look for sub-headings or identify key words and p Introduction This unit is about the very basic study skills of reading and taking notes. You will be asked to think about how you currently read and then be introduced to a some techniques that may help you to alter the way you read according to the material you are studying. In the second section you will be asked to look at some useful techniques for note taking and how you may apply them to the notes you make. This material is from our archive and is an adapted extract from Introducing the soc 3.5 Summary of Section 3 When consciously perceiving complex material, such as when looking for a particular letter of a particular colour: Perception requires attention. The attention has to be focused upon one item at a time, thus … processing is serial. Some parallel processing may take place, but… it is detected indirectly, such as by the influence of one word upon another. 3.4 The ‘flanker’ effect A potential problem for the feature integration theory is the fact that the time taken to understand the meaning of a printed word can be influenced by other, nearby words. Of itself, this is not surprising, because it is well known that one word can prime (i.e. speed decisions to) another related word; the example nurse – doctor was given in Secti 2.6 Summary of Section 2 The results of the visual attention experiments we have considered can be interpreted as follows. Attention can be directed selectively towards different areas of the visual field, without the need to re-focus. The inability to report much detail from brief, masked visual displays appears to be linked to the need to assemble the various information components. The visual information is captured in parallel, but assemb 2.5 Masking and attention Before I summarise the material in this section, and we move on to consider attentional processes with clearly-seen displays, it would be appropriate to consider the relevance of the masking studies to the issue of attention. We began the whole subject by enquiring about the fate of material which was, in principle, available for processing, but happened not to be at the focus of attention. Somehow we have moved into a different enquiry, concerning the fate of material that a participant was 2.3 Towards a theory of parallel processing When people are asked to guess about masked material, they are commonly able to provide some information, but it often lacks detail. For example, if participants in a Sperling-type experiment have recalled three letters, but are pressed for more, then they can often provide one or two. However, they generally do not know information such as whereabouts in the display the letters occurred, or what colour they were. These, of course, are exactly the kinds of detail that can be used to select it 3.1.1 Treatment or management? In the preceding paragraph you will notice that we talked generally about the treatment of conditions, but referred to ‘managing’ dyslexia. Why did we do this? It relates to the following important general issues:
Is treatment (i.e. intervention) warranted? We mentioned this issue when we were discussing sociocultural or personal distress based definitions of abnormality. Intervention is not always desi 1.8 Reflecting on definitions of ‘abnormality’ The main thing to remember is that the way that ‘abnormality’ is defined will have consequences for the method of identification. It will also impact on people's expectations of their future development. For example, we discussed the way that dyslexia is defined in relation to a person's IQ. Does that mean that if someone has a low IQ and an even lower reading age we should adjust our expectations of what that person can achieve with help, or let IQ influence how much help is offered? Sim 2.2 Researching ourselves Psychology aims to provide understandings of us, as humans. At a personal level this closeness to our private concerns draws us in and excites us. However, since psychologists are humans, and hence are researching issues just as relevant to themselves as to their research participants, they can be attracted towards researching certain topics and maybe away from others. This is perhaps more evident for psychological research that is most clearly of social relevance. At a societal level all kin References 4 Working with other stakeholders When considering the accountability of the governing body, we need to think about the context of the school and the community it serves. The DfES states quite clearly that the school and its governing body are accountable to anyone who has a ‘legitimate interest’. You might like to spend some time considering who these people are. In terms of providing both high-quality education and, consequently, an educated workforce, pupils, parents and the wider community are the ‘customers†3 Part of the team … good relationships between governors and teachers (are characterised by): frequent and close contact; mutual understanding and respect; openness, honesty and trust; good communication; common aims and school ethos. Creese (1995) Teachers occasionally comment that they do Learning outcomes This unit will help you, as a school governor, to: explore the relationship between the full governing body and the headteacher, as the school's senior professional; understand the need for building sound working relationships across the whole school; develop your confidence in supporting your school while, at the same time, providing an element of challenge; consider how the governing body works with other stakeholders, particularly Acknowledgements Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence Text: DfES ‘Constitution of governing bodies – overview’, 3 Sharing the workload The new terms of reference for the premises committee of one nursery school were clear. The committee would meet three times: in October, February and June. In October they would tour the school with the headteacher and agree what improvements could be made to the school environment. In February they would check how the work was progressing, identify the money that was to be available from the budget in April, and agree thei
Activity 4
Other acknowledgements
