Aim of Key Skills
Key Skills are the interrelated transferable skills that people need to use for success in life and work. The Key Skills Standards help students focus attention on what they are learning, how they are learning and what they can do to improve. They help the teacher to plan student centred active learning opportunities that enable students to learn, practice and apply their skills.
Key Skills performance is measured and accredited against national British Standards
Key Skills can be mapped to any iEARN project whether it occurs annually, for just a day or as part of a group activity in Learning Circles
Examples of key skills mapped to academic and vocational learning
Ongoing projects & Key Skills
The YouthCAN project at Aberdare College (now Coleg Morgannwg) in 2003-2004 describes the strong links between IT GNVQ, Key Skills and Community Service activities. Read more...
Learning Circles & Key Skills
Key Skills opportunities found in Learning Circles
|
Activity
Getting ready
Opening the Learning Circle
Planning the Learning Circle Projects
Exchanging Student Work on Learning Circle Projects
Organising the Circle Publication
Closing the Learning Circle |
Key Skills
Communication (Discussing, Reading, Writing)
ICT (Select and present info)
Working with Others |
Key Skills requirements increase in independence and complexity as the level of the skill increases
Communication Key Skills (Discussions)
| Level 1 |
Level 2 |
Level 3 |
| Take part in discussions about straightforward subjects |
Help move discussions forward |
Create opportunities for others to contribute to group discussions about complex subjects |
Teamworking (Working with others) Key Skill
| Level 1 |
Level 2 |
Level 3 |
|
Understand what needs to be done
Carry out tasks to meet their own responsibilities
Say how they have got on and suggest ways of improving
|
Plan what needs to be done to achieve objectives
Organise tasks to meet their responsibilities and work cooperatively with others
Exchange information on progress and agree ways of improving
|
Plan work and agree responsibilities and working arrangements
Seek to establish and maintain cooperative working relationships, agreeing ways to overcome any difficulties
Review work with others, including factors that influenced the outcome
|
ICT Key Skills
| Level 1 |
Level 2 |
Level 3 |
| Present information, including text, images and numbers, using appropriate layouts and save information |
Present combined information, including text, images and numbers in a consistent way, |
Develop the structure and content of their presentation, using others’ views to guide refinements, and information from different sources |
Key Skills Progression
Level 1 - develop and apply skills in meeting given purposes within routine situations
Level 2 - take responsibility for some decisions about selecting and applying skills to meet the demands of largely straightforward tasks
Level 3 - demonstrate more explicit reasoning ability and take personal responsibility in making decisions about how tasks are organised
Key Skills Progression
Level 4 - requires substantial autonomy and responsibility for managing activities and for identifying how the key skills relate to their situation. Use key skills over an extended period of time, monitor and critically reflect on progress and adapt strategy
Portfolio based assessment
Students prepare a portfolio for presenting evidence of how they applied their skills to meet the requirements of the specifications
The portfolio is internally assessed against key skills criteria and externally moderated
Students achieve a nationally recognised qualification for their key skills
Other ideas about Assessing iEARN Projects
Benefits of Key Skills
Personal practice directly linked to satisfaction in work,
In early 2007 a total of 433 respondents completed a survey of life work satisfaction. One of the questions we asked in the this: Do you have a reliable personal practice that brings you face to face with the most important choices about your life and work? We didn't specify what such a practice needed to be, only the key qualities of reliability, bringing to light important choices, a personal nature, and the connotations of the word "practice". There are a number of obvious practices that come to mind, such as meditation, career counseling, personal retreats, high level project planning, or journaling. But we left it open and there are probably as many variants to this as there are people.
The most striking result of this cross tabulation is the discovery that nearly five times as many people (22%) who have a personal practice are completely satisfied with their job as compared to those who do not have such a practice (3.7%).
Nearly four times as many people who have a personal practice (24.3%) would continue to do the work they are doing without reservation, as compared to people without such a practice (6.3%). Similarly, more than three times as many people without a personal practice (17.2%) would drop everything about their current work, as compared to those who have such a practice (5.0%).
Conclusion, whether you're an employer looking to improve morale and commitment, a counselor or coach working to help people fulfill their personal missions, or just, like all of us, someone who wants their work to mean something, you could do worse than consider adopting or deepening a regular personal practice of reflection.
Results based on The Pew American Work Life Survey and Nonprofit Organisation's 2007 LifeWork Survey
http://news.gilbert.org/RoleOfPersonalPractice
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.