Decision-making skills

Did you have to make any decisions in your action project? Did you have to decide to take one action instead of another? Perhaps you had to decide which colours to use for a poster. Perhaps you chose to write a letter rather than an email - why? There are many decisions that need to be atken during an action project.

Below is a sample answer for someone who used decision-making skills in their project:

Decision-making skills: I had to decide on the slogans I would use. I wanted to use the most catchy ones to attract attention. I also had to decide on the shape of the posters. I decided to use irregular shapes as I thought these would attract interest. Then I decided on the best locations around the school for displaying the posters. As the campaign was aimed at first year students I decided that it was best if the posters were hung along the first year corridors so that they would find out about landmines on their way to and from class.

Creative skills

Creative skills involves many of the following - designing posters, choosing colours or paper, writing slogans, printing posters, making resources or flyers. Did you make an election box? Did you make a PowerPoint presentation?

Here is a sample answer for someone who designed posters for a project to raise awareness about landmines:
Creative skills: I had to design the landmines posters that I was making and choose what colours I would use. I decided to use brightly coloured paper (yellow, lime green, pink and pale blue) and poster paints as these would catch peoples' attention. I thought A2 size paper would be the best size for advertising the awareness day.

Administrative Skills

The following skill will be useful for your Action Project

Administrative Skills

• Writing
• Typing
• Filing
• Telephoning
• Making bookings
• Accounting for funds
• Keeping records

Skills of Analysis

The following skill will be useful for your Action Project

Skills of Analysis

• Reading and understanding materials and arguments
• Thinking about arguments and viewpoints
• Identifying other views and judging them
• Finding and gathering as well as presenting facts and figures
• Preparing graphs and diagrams

Debating Skills

The following skill will be useful for your Action Project

Debating Skills

• Speaking
• Arranging your materials
• Identifying key arguments and points
• Being able to back up an argument
• Seeing many sides to an argument
• Being skilful with language

Presentation Skills

The following skill will be useful for your Action Project

Presentation Skills

• Public speaking to large or small groups
• Deciding on what to present and which arguments to use
• Structuring what you want to say
• Using visual materials to present your facts or arguments or those of others

Team-working Skills

The following skill will be useful for your Action Project

Team-working Skills

• Working in groups
• Allocating and agreeing tasks
• Group discussion skills
• Listening to and talking with others
• Dealing with debate and even disagreement
• Accountability to the group
• Taking responsibility and getting things done

Communication Skills

The following skill will be useful for your Action Project

Communication Skills

• Oral communication
• Contacting and making arrangements with speakers and organisations
• Introducing and chairing meetings
• Summarising discussions
• Meeting and greeting people
• Briefing speakers
• Preparing and sending letters
• Presentation Skills for small and large groups

Research Skills

The following skill will be useful for your Action Project

Research Skills

• Selecting topics and key issues
• Identifying sources of information and accessing them
• Reading and summarising information
• Organising material

Organisational Skills

The following skill will be useful for your Action Project

Organisational Skills

• Deciding on who does what
• Organising meetings
• How to come to making decisions
• Contacting people and organisations
• Setting up rooms for meetings
• Obtaining permissions etc
• Following up activities or events
• Preparing materials
• Making appointments

Skills

Did you use any of these skills during your Action Project?

• Writing skills 
• Communication skills 
• Organisational skills 
• Artistic skills
• I.T. skills 
• Teamwork skills 
• Negotiation skills 
• Cleaning skills
• Speech writing skills
• Public speaking skills
• Graphing skills 
• Research skills
• Marketing skills

I.T. skills

Good IT skills are not only useful tools for researching and presenting your work. IT skills for an Action Project could include some of the following:

• Good typing skills.
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• Developing good searching skills and being able to find information on the internet.
• 
  
• Being able to communicate online - send an email.
• 
  
• Being able to make a poster using a design package.
• 
  
• Being able to create, save and recover files on a computer.
• 
  
• Being able to create a PowerPoint presentation for a class presentation.
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• Create a flyer using a desktop publishing package.

Did you use any of these for your Action Project?

Organisational skills

Organisational skills mean that you can work in a methodical manner, by prioritising and using time management, for either yourself or your team.

It involves:

• Being organised - Not taking on too much work / study
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• Planning ahead - Making a list of tasks to be completed
• 
  
• Time management - Prioritising your workload
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• Delegating tasks to other team members
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• Keeping a diary of important meetings /events
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• Knowing what is essential and what is not

Have you used any of these skills when you did your Action Project?

Problem solving skills

Problem solving is a skill, and is demonstrated by:

•Ability to identify problems
•Ability to deal with change
•Flexibility and adaptability
•Initiative and resourcefulness

Steps to probelm solve include:

Step 1: Recognise the Problem

This step involves recognising that a problem exists and that solving the difficulty is a what you want to achieve.

Step 2: Understand the Problem

Before you start to tackle the current problem, it is important to clearly understand why there is a problem and make sure that the problem you are trying to solve is the "real" problem.

Step 3: Generate Alternative Solutions

You may want to write a list of possible options, or ask others what some solutions they might have for your problem.

Step 4: Make a Decision

Now you are ready to narrow down some of the options that you have generated in the previous step. It is important that you examine each of the options, and think about how realistic each is, how likely you would be to implement that solution, and the potential drawbacks of each solution might be.


Step 5: Implement a chosen Solution

Put your solution to the test. If you find that the solution is too hard to implement or it is just not working, revise it or try something else. Information sourced from

http://www.athealth.com/Consumer/disorders/problemsolving.html

and http://barney.inspire.anglia.ac.uk/minisites/pdp/problem.html