Scotch College

GENERIC SKILLS Year 7 – 2011

Rationale

Personal skills will be important to the success of our students, and must therefore form an integral part of the teaching program of the school. Boys in Year 7 undergo a course of training in Generic Skills, which are taught by their Team Teachers, both as specific skills and reinforced through integration into each of the Core Subjects taught by the Team. The skills chosen are those that are most relevant to life beyond school in the 21st Century, are achieveable by boys at Year 7 level, and can be reinforced through work in a variety of academic subjects.

Course content

Thinking and Learning

1. Application and active learning:

a) Application to work: concentration, motivation, positive attitude: teachers will, as a Team, consider the boy’s concentration during class, motivation to work and to do his best, positive approach to improving his understanding and study skills and his ability to set goals for self- improvement.

b) Use active learning skills and monitor their effectiveness: the ability and willingness of the boy to ask questions, to compare new ideas with previous knowledge; whether he knows his personal preferences for learning styles and is working to develop and extend these.

2. Use thinking strategies in both academic and personal problems:

a) Choose between a range of useful thinking and learning strategies: these include brainstorming, classifying/categorising/sorting, using graphic organisers and diagrams, visualising, de Bono strategies such as the Six Thinking Hats.

b) Persist with the task, choosing a new strategy when necessary: a key skill is to recognise when a chosen strategy is not working and to switch to a different one; this could be expressed as “What to do when you’re stuck”.

c) Use memory skills appropriately and effectively: research indicates that it is possible to train your brain to have a better memory. While not advocating the excessive use of ‘parrot-fashion’ memorising, it is clearly important for students to be able to recall a variety of information and processes in order to move to higher levels of understanding. Students are encouraged to experiment with a wide variety of techniques, to identify the ones that work best for them and to recognise that some techniques are more effective in some situations than others. Techniques include: chunking, recognising patterns, mind-mapping, visualising, making imaginative links, rhymes and stories, loci techniques (for example; imagining the objects in particular rooms in the house). Simply ‘saying it over and over’ is a less powerful strategy. Such memory skills should also be used to plan effective revision strategies for tests and examinations.

3. Research Skills / Information Literacy

Plan research, gather and organise information, form and test hypotheses, draw conclusions: this includes gathering evidence to support a point of view by asking questions, using a variety of sources (books, CD ROM, Internet searches, experiments and trials), recording and sifting data, recognising patterns.

Organisation

1. Punctuality and Time Management

Being on time to school and to class; completing and submitting work on time; backing up computer work on the student server regularly to reduce time lost in computer crashes.

2. Managing Equipment, Recording and Filing: 

Bringing correct equipment to each class (including sports equipment, calculator); using the Record Book to record homework and due dates effectively, obtaining signatures from parents on notes sent from teachers, and vice versa; filing work completed and handouts neatly in folders, keeping locker tidy so books can be found quickly and easily.

Teamwork

Co-operation, compromise and responsibility

Ability to work with other members of the group towards a common goal, willingness to modify ideas to reach a group consensus, willingness to take responsibility for aspects of the work, fulfilling those responsibilities punctually and carefully: evidence for these abilities includes students following instructions, taking turns to speak and using the names of group members, sharing ideas, encouraging others and supporting their ideas, criticising ideas not people (avoiding put-downs), making a worthwhile contribution, staying in their own group, staying on task, recording ideas, showing respect for other groups, asking good questions when help is needed and completing the task on time.

Communication

1. Active Listening Skills

Students should concentrate and listen actively, giving the message that they are listening by their behaviour; development of non-verbal skills including facing the speaker; using appropriate body language (nodding, smiling); waiting until the appropriate moment before asking a question; not interrupting or speaking to another student while being spoken to. These skills apply not only to listening to teachers but also to other students in a range of situations.

2. Oral Communication

Give a prepared talk; speak openly and clearly with group members to share ideas and overcome misunderstandings; interviews and small group discussion; body language such as eye contact, open body posture, standing reasonably still; effective use of volume, pace, articulation, graphic aids; checking understanding of others’ ideas by paraphrasing or asking thoughtful questions.

3. Document Skills

Present work neatly and clearly using effective layout for computerised and freehand work; appropriate use of headings, sub-headings, font sizes, spell-check, neat handwriting.

Assessment

The progress of each boy is monitored by his Team of teachers, and self-evaluation is encouraged. The teachers involved are responsible for selecting the order in which skills are tackled, as different groups of students have different needs. The timing is also left to the teachers, so each Form Group may cover the Skills in a different order. By the end of the year, however, each boy should have improved his understanding and performance in each Skill. Each Term teachers spend a considerable amount of time discussing the progress of each boy, suggesting comments and gradings, based on the boy’s performance of Generic Skills in each subject. The Semester One and Two reports contain a page detailing each boy’s progress and level of operation in each of the four areas covered within the Generic Skills program.