7.3.1 Identify opportunities for using number skills Where and how will you use numerical and mathematical skills over the next 3–4 months? You may need to gather numerical information from different sources, form hypotheses about the information carried by the data, carry out statistical tests to check your hypotheses and then present your results and interpretations. Or you may be working with mathematical models (for example in engineering, environmental or financial applications) and need to understand and use formulas expressing relation
7.2 Working on improving your number skills The three-stage framework for developing and improving your skills provides the basis for you to become more confident in: developing a strategy for using a variety of numerical and mathematical 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 ref
6.5.5 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 try to take some time to think about what effect they will have on your plans, and what changes you may need to make to your overall strategy to achieve the outcomes you a
6.5.3 Record and critically evaluate the results of your search Keeping a record of what sources you have explored, and the strategies, keywords and search terms you have used, will help you make best use of the facilities and time you have. As part of this record you should note how useful the sources have been, what was returned from your search, and what adjustments you made to your search plan (for example new keywords, different search parameters, different combination of Boolean operators). Establish criteria (such as by date, author, subject,
6.5.2 Use a variety of search strategies and tools effectively How you search for information will depend on the subject area as well as the libraries, databases and other sources available to you. Each subject area will have its own way of talking about relevant information and the relationships between different groupings of knowledge within the discipline. The indexing of information sources associated with the subject area is likely to stress those areas which are considered central to the subject area, but may ignore other areas which are seen as fr
6.5 Monitoring progress This stage of the framework is about keeping track of your progress. Are you using your information literacy skills effectively for your purposes? How do you know? Could you have done things differently: made use of different facilities and expertise, 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 if y
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
5.5.3 Present information effectively Organise your information so that you can use it to illustrate and support your arguments or point of view. To do this successfully, you must be clear about what you want to say, and how you want your audience to interpret your information. Ensure that any illustrations, graphs, diagrams and charts are correctly labelled and that you have met any particular requirements for presentations. Use the word-count facility of your word processor to help you keep within limits. Remember to proofread
5.5 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 IT 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 IT strategy and presenting outcomes’ and pull together this final st
5.2.1 Identify opportunities for using IT skills Where and how will you use information technology skills over the next 3–4 months? You may need IT to help you search for, develop, exchange and present information, including text, images and numbers. You may have to learn how to use a new software package, use email or computer conferencing, or search for, select and evaluate information from the Internet or online sources. Spend some time thinking about your study or work requirements and what opportunities you will have or can create to
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
5.1a Working on improving your IT skills The three-stage framework for developing your IT skills provides the basis for you to become more confident in: developing a strategy for using a variety of IT 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 in sear
4.4.3 Identify ways of further developing your communication skills Think about your overall level of communication skills and suggest areas where you feel you need to improve, based on the experience you have gained. You might find it useful to discuss with your tutor or another student or work colleague how you might do this. There may be changes you feel you need to make so that you can move forward, such as trying to extend the facilities and resources available to you, changing the way you study to make best use of the time you have, or focusing on impro
4.1 Introduction to improving your skills in communication This key skill focuses on the ways in which you receive and respond to information and communicate with other people in your work, study and everyday life. Communication skills include speaking, listening, reading and writing for different purposes. Techniques such as note taking and writing summaries are important, but so, too, are the techniques of evaluation and application, such as evaluating the relevance and quality of information. Communication is part of everyone's life and impr
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
3.8.3 Identify ways of further improving your own learning and performance Remember that improving your own learning and performance is not something that you can do once and then forget about it. It is a process that needs to become an integral part of your normal approach to work and study throughout your career in higher education and in the world of work. Developing and using the skill of improving your own learning and performance can enhance all other learning. As you worked through this key skill, what is it that you have learned? What can you take away with
3.8 Evaluating strategy and presenting outcomes By now you will have found out about and sampled different resources for learning and used different ways to learn. But the structured approach used in this section is one of the main resources for developing and improving your other key skills. So how do you know if you have learned? How do you know if you have improved? How do you know if you are meeting the standard for improving your own learning and performance expected of someone doing a course in higher education or using higher
3.2.1Review your current capabilities, including your preferred learning style Before you begin to plan in detail what you hope to achieve, it is useful to look at relevant examples of previous work or study as well as the feedback you received from different people. This review should help you to confirm those areas you need and/or want to work on. Feedback from others may also point out areas you need to work on which are different from the ones you expected. These areas might relate to specific skills, such as interrogating a database, or they might be more general,
2.9 Putting it all together One aim of completing a key skill is to pull ideas together, reflect on and evaluate the effectiveness of your work and identify those aspects that you can ‘take away with you’ for the next task. The process of strategic planning, monitoring and reflection, and evaluation is one that you are encouraged to use throughout these materials. Activities prompt you to plan and monitor your work, think about what you have learned and how you have learned it, keep an ongoing record of how yo
2.4.1 Keeping a Skills File As you work on your skills development, you are likely to find that you'll need several skill files so that you can keep a helpful frequent record or log of your learning. In this unit such a record is called a Skills File. Building up a Skills File as you go along will help you identify the skills you are using and how you are applying them to different tasks. You can also include your own reflective comments on how you think your work is progressing. The activities associated with each key
