Becoming a Lifelong Learner
Developing and practising the attributes of the Learner Profile can contribute to having a happy and fulfilling life.
Find ways to:
• incorporate the development and pursuit of these attributes into your weekly routine.
• self-assess your progress over the months.
Tip: Think of simple actions that reflect your reality and that you would like to undertake, both at home and at school.
Self-Management Skills
Building Up My Affective Skills and Managing My State of Mind
Good habits are what power your efforts to strive to be the very best you can be. Reflect on whether you are building these habits.
RESILIENCE
• “bouncing forward” after adversity, mistakes and failures
• dealing constructively with disappointment and unmet expectations
• dealing positively with change.
MINDFULNESS
• maintaining focus and concentration
• using strategies to develop mental focus
• successfully implementing strategies to overcome distractions
• being aware of body-mind connection.
PERSEVERANCE
• showing grit and persistence
• delaying gratification.
EMOTIONAL MANAGEMENT
• using strategies to overcome impulsiveness and anger
• acting in ways that prevent and eliminate bullying
• effectively implementing strategies to reduce stress and anxiety.
SELF-MOTIVATION
• analysing and attributing causes for failure
• managing self-talk
• engaging in positive thinking.
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Rate yourself out of 10 for each of the following essentials for life success: Rating Attitude – striving to be a positive thinker Approach – seeking better ways to do things Awareness – monitoring my efforts, progress and health Attendance – being present and in the “learning zone” in both mind and body Ability – making the most of my special talents
My Goals: Making Them Happen This Year
In the space below, write yourself a short letter on what you want this academic year to be for you. Set clear goals that you believe will benefit you. You can use this letter as a reflective tool throughout the year to inspire you to achieve your goals.
Social Skills
People in My Life
To be the very best that you can be you need the support of other people. Nearly everything you will want to achieve in life will require you to collaborate with other people; the earlier you start the better. Therefore, it is important to understand how you can set up your support TEAM.
The various members of your TEAM will all be able to support your “needs” and “wants”, but the key is knowing which TEAM members are the best for the job; no one person can do it all.
There are three groups of people always there for you; they are:
• Family and Friends – their role is to care for and love you, share highs and lows and provide the emotional stability that enables you to know yourself and feel that you matter as a person first and foremost.
• Teachers – their role is to teach you how to learn effectively, how to think critically and creatively and how to study strategically, so you can get the most out of your education.
• Year-Level Advisors/Coordinators/Counsellors – their role is to assist you to overcome issues and situations which upset you and hinder your progress. By showing your issues or concerns with them, they are then able to offer support.
Action Stocktake
Reflect on each of the supports in your life and write down how they influence you. Be honest with yourself. Are there other people?
Family and Friends ............................................................................................................................................................
Who else could I ask?
Teachers
Who else could I ask?
Year-Level Advisors/Coordinators/Counsellors
Who else could I ask? .........................................................................................................................................................
Learning: Family and Peer Support
Your parents, siblings and peers often have the skills to:
• further develop your understandings
• show you new techniques to use
• suggest ideas/topics for essays
• improve your spelling and vocabulary
• discuss problems you encounter
• help you set smart and balanced goals.
Ask your family and peers to:
• listen to you explaining what you have learnt
• read your subject books and discuss them with you
• listen to your topic summaries and give you feedback
• ask you questions about your subjects so you can check your understandings.
Always remember that they are trying to help you. Don’t mistake their advice for criticism.
• make the most of their experience, it’s very useful
• they want to see you be successful and achieve your goals.
Self-Management Skills
Home Learning Sessions
To maximize your ability to study effectively it is essential to be an organized learner. To get the best out of your learning, study is required at home daily, including weekends.
Studying provides you with a challenge to extend yourself, follow up on topics that interest you, make new connections with what you already know and transfer knowledge, skills and attitude across subjects.
The best way to do this is to break up the time into study sessions. The number of sessions you do depends on your year level and how well organized your study habits are. At the beginning of each week, you should create a weekly plan of when you will allocate time to all of your activities; home learning sessions, sports, friends, relaxation, etc.
Each Home Learning Session is 40 minutes in length and made up of 30-minutes uninterrupted work followed by a 10-minute break.
To make sure you stick to these times, put reminders in your phone of when to begin, when to have a break and when to end home learning sessions.
You will find that 30 minutes will test your concentration span; with practice you will be able to increase it. Set appropriate and manageable goals. If you are tired, break up your time into smaller pieces. This will help you to develop your focus and allow you to concentrate for longer periods over time. Actions
What are two things that I will start doing to improve my focus on home learning sessions?
Mindfulness Activity
Five Senses. Think of two of your greatest achievements and describe what you experienced for each of your five senses ... sight; sound; smell; touch; taste,
Went Well This Week?
Communication Skills
Note Taking
Effectively recording the information you receive is vital. As a learner you should get to know your preferred modes of information processing, storage and recall. Doing this will allow you to develop your own system for making effective notes in class and which help you to feel organized when it comes time to study.
When taking notes:
• always use your own words
• use headings to group main points to organize information logically
• use key words to trigger important ideas
• use abbreviations to save time
• use different colors for different purposes.
Use the 80/20 Principle:
• Actively listen 80%
• Note take and passively listen for 20%.
Pay special attention to concepts, words and areas your teacher emphasizes – these are vital and may be assessed.
When note taking be actively involved in the subject. Think about how what you are learning connects with what you already know and transfers into other subjects.
Laptops and tablets can be useful for note taking. There are many different note taking styles, and it is important for you to find the method that works for you.
If time permits after class sit down and rewrite your notes to make them neater and more readable.
TO DO LIST / NOTES
Actions
What are two things that I will start doing to improve the way I take notes in class?
Mindfulness Activity
Favourite Song. In your mind mentally sing your favourite song while at the same time writing out all of the words and describe what they mean to you and how they make you feel.
Wellbeing Tip
Visit an art gallery and wonder at the creativity of the artists.
Social Skills
Volunteering: My Community
Community service encourages students to become aware of their roles and their responsibilities as members of communities.
When you volunteer in your community you don’t just make others feel good, you will feel good as a result. It is an involvement that benefits both parties.
Real satisfaction comes from helping others to feel positive and achieve their goals just as your team helps you.
There are many ways to volunteer in your local community:
• helping out your local youth organizations
• coaching or umpiring for a local sports team
• supporting a local charity environmental group
• visiting the elderly for a chat or to help with their shopping or gardening.
Volunteering your time helps you to develop relationships with different parts of your local community, which will build a sense of community pride. Volunteering helps build your self-confidence and the knowledge that you can make a difference.
Actions
What are two things that I will start doing to improve my focus on volunteering?
Mindfulness Activity
Character Imaginations. If you had a choice of any character you could be in a book, movie or TV show, who would you be and describe why.
DO LIST / NOTES
What Went Well This Week?
Research Skills
Writing Genres
When you are asked to compose a piece of writing, the most important thing is to understand the purpose you are writing for; it could be to:
• describe an event
• tell a fictional story
• give instructions about how to do something
• provide information by writing a report
• persuade someone about an issue
• create a story in verse or rhyme.
The different types of writing are known as genres. Each genre caters for a specific purpose and audience. Below is a description of each genre and some best practice ideas to help you when using that specific genre.
Genre Description Practice
Descriptive Brings to life a person, place or thing through active, alive and rich detail; the reader is able to picture the topic in his/her mind. Used in diaries and stories.
Write a description of a special person, place or thing using as many senses (touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing) as you can. This will help paint a mental picture for the reader.
Expository Informs and educates the reader about a topic by using facts and logical explanations. Used in reports and experiments.
Select a topic you know well and explain it logically to the reader using details and examples throughout.
Narrative Tells a story and it is often used in novels and essays in which the story moves from an introduction to climax to conclusion. Used in adventure stories and fairytales.
Persuasive
Used to express an opinion on a topic and tries to convince the reader to your way of thinking. Used in speeches and advertising pamphlets.
Write a story about a special event you experienced and describe to the reader what it was about and why you enjoyed it.
Write a letter to your school about why Social Media should be allowed in class. It is good to back up your perspective with examples.
Poetry
This type of writing is used to tell a story to the reader using rhyme, verse and repetition. Used in songs and poems.
Procedure Used to tell the reader how to make or do something through instructions. Used in scientific methods.
Create a poem or song that follows a rhyming pattern. Try to find some music that has the same pattern and see if it complements your words.
Design a procedure for a peer to follow in order to conduct a scientific experiment; give lots of detail in your instructions.
Quality writing requires you to analyze the task’s purpose and audience in order to select the best genre to use.
Research Skills
Being Academically Honest – Acknowledging Sources
In order to be academically honest, you need to acknowledge all of the quotes, statistics and key ideas you have used in your writing and the sources they have come from. This acknowledgement isn’t limited to books and the Internet, you need to acknowledge all of your sources. These could be speeches, television shows, movies or emails. If you do not acknowledge the source of these ideas, you are plagiarizing.
PLAGIARISM
Plagiarism is using another person’s material for assignments, assessment and presentations without acknowledging them through in text referencing and creating a bibliography. Plagiarism is unacceptable and viewed as cheating. To avoid plagiarism always use “ ” to enclose quotes and reference any material sourced from elsewhere in text and create a bibliography.
COLLUSION
Collusion is sharing your work with another person or taking another student’s work and presenting it as your own. Many students who get caught for collusion do not realise that this is a form of academic dishonesty. If someone has shared their ideas with you then you must also cite that person.
SETTING OUT
Immediately after you: quote from a guest speaker or book in a piece of writing OR take an idea (not actually a quotation) and use it in a piece of writing OR quote statistics or figures in a piece of writing you should give the following information in brackets before continuing your essay:
a) author’s surname
b) date of publication
c) page
e.g. (Jones, 1946, p. 6) or (Smith, 2-5-’93, p. 7)
If an author has published more than one article on the same date, the article is identified by a letter after the name of its author in both the bibliography and the acknowledgement of sources in the text.
e.g. (Jones (a), 2-5-’93, p. 3)
This enables anyone reading your essay to check the source of your ideas. However they will only be able to do this properly if you also complete a detailed bibliography with your essay or assignment. Acknowledgements must be able to be cross-referenced with your bibliography.
Bibliography or Works Cited
A bibliography is a list of all sources used in preparing your essay or assignment. This list must include all books, articles, etc. acknowledged throughout the piece of writing and should also include any other sources used in your research. The reason for the bibliography is to show the sources of your information and inform interested readers where they may find further information.
SETTING OUT
A bibliography is placed at the very end of the essay or assignment on a separate sheet. It lists all sources used alphabetically by:
• author (surname or name of the organization)
• title (if there is no author’s name)
• if sorting by title ignore ‘The’, ‘A’ or ‘An’ and alphabetize using the next word (see the example in the sample bibliography)
A finished Bibliography will look like this: BIBLIOGRAPHY
Andrews, M. 1994. Senior Sergeant. Kyabram. 24 June.
Bloggs, J. 2002. “Frog”. Microsoft Encarta (cd-rom). Washington: Microsoft Corporation. Brown, M. 1994. Retired. Senior citizen. Kyabram. 23 June.
The Comedic Fall. 2003. (motion picture). Englewood, New Jersey: Pratfall Releases.
The following list sets out the details you need for each kind of source. In each case an example is given. Be careful to follow the punctuation as shown in the examples on the following page.