Action
Key tasks in this stage:
- Carry out your action plan
- Work together to make decisions, developing understandings and solve problems that might arise
- Show evidence of your participation and the impact it is having on you in your CE portfolio
This is probably the easiest stage of your project to understand – it is simply going ahead and completing the tasks of your action plan. It is the ‘doing’ part of your project.
As you proceed with implementing your plans, you may realise that you need to conduct some more planning. As previously mentioned, the stages of your project do not have clearly defined boundaries, and often require you to go back and forth between them.
Do take the time to reflect as you engage in this stage – reflecting is a key part of learning from our experiences, and it often influences our ongoing participation and future actions. See the Reflection stage for more details on this.
Working together – some considerations
Working collaboratively relies on each individual group member to not only contribute and complete their tasks, but also for all group members to interact positively with each other. This requires appropriate interpersonal skills from each group member. These include negotiation, listening, being assertive, communication, giving and receiving meaningful feedback, compromise, building consensus, making fair and equitable decisions, and listening actively to other perspectives and ideas. As you work with others in your group, consider how effective your interpersonal skills are and how you and others contribute to your group goals.
ATL Skills
ATL (Approaches to Learning) are skills that have relevance across the curriculum and help you “learn how to learn”. Your involvement in the CE Project not only relies on these skills, but also provides you an opportunity to develop them. While your involvement in the CE project will see you use and develop a number of ATL skills, this table lists some of the key ones.
| ATL Categories | Skills |
| Communication | Informing Others
Literacy: reading, writing, and using language to gather and communicate information |
| Social-Collaboration | Working effectively with others
Accepting others |
| Self-Management- Organization | Managing time and tasks effectively |
| Self-Management- Affective Skills | Managing state of mind: mindfulness (focus & concentration); perseverance; emotional management; self-motivation; resilience |
| Reflection Skills | Consider content:
What did I learn today? What don’t I yet understand; What questions do I have now? Consider ATL skills development: What can I already do? What will I work on next? Consider personal learning strategies: What can I do to become a more efficient and effective learner? How can I become more flexible? What factors are important for helping me learn well? |
| Research- Information Literacy Skills | Selecting and organizing information: Use a variety of information and media and resources to gather information for the project |
| Research-Media Literacy Skills | Interacting with media to use and create ideas and information |
| Thinking-Critical Thinking Skills | Problem solving & thinking skills: planning; inquiring; applying knowledge & concepts; identifying & solving problems |
| Creative-Thinking Skills | Creating novel solutions/ideas; considering new perspectives |
| Transfer Skills | Using knowledge & skills across subject areas to make connections and create solutions |
Here is a longer list of ATL skills.
As you reflect (ongoing and summative) think about your development in the ATL skills – what are your strengths? Which skills do you find difficult? Which skills would you like to improve it?
