29th November 2011

In this lesson, Mr.James came to us and the four of us agreed that we will change our focus from the domestic violence inside the house to the child abuse violence in school. This is because, we have noticed that by having the focus for the domestic violence inside the house, there will not be enough information about it. It is also a personal matter towards the teenagers and including the parents. By having a more public approach, it is easier for us to find the information and there are more issues about this in school.

We still agree that we want to focus this subject locally. This is because, we can find our information more easily and Malaysia has a lot of problems in government schools with canning, etc. We can find an international approach by comparing a local school and an international within Malaysia. We also agreed that we can ask foreign international schools to find out their opinions of this and if they can give advice.

We have stopped talking about our outcome. This is because, Maxwell has said that, if we continue progressing on our project, we might change our outcome as it goes. So we all decided to leave that behind and just do our project.

Our outcome audience is still focusing on the teenagers. Maxwell will write down his homework on his blog on the pro's and con's.

We communicated appropriately except the fact that, as usual, Maxwell and Adam likes to go out of topic if we're not actually talking about it. Including the fact when we were writing down on our reflection, it took a lot of convincing to do.

Throughout the whole meeting, I gave questions to ask them and see if they are able to answer them. As they answer, they have very reliable answers and we can actually be on track. Just the fact that we, or perhaps, they, like to get off track, the procrastination is there.

What we can continue to work on effectively is to actually get the work done, create a Gantt Chart and make a deadline for each task.

26th November 2011

In this meeting, we met up on Skype. We didn't get to talk so much due to the fact everyone was quite busy or were about to be busy so we gave each other homework to do.

But in the lesson, we have agreed to the following;

1. Everyone of us agreed that the best choice for our campaign is engaging teenage audiences. We are trying to discuss on where we can find solid proof for this.
2. We then discussed as a group on the type of media that we should use.
   

So afterwards, these were the homework that we set for each other;

1. Maxwell will find a solid proof why engaging teenage audiences are the best audience for our campaign. Maxwell will also find out which multimedia fits best with our audience with solid reasonings.
2. Adam and I will plan the Gantt Chart whilst Maxwell figures that out so we don’t waste time.
3. Adam will find the definition for Child Abuse - Domestic Violence with Bibliography.
4. PRESENT ALL OF THIS BY TUESDAY - INCLUDING THE HOMEWORK YOU HAVE NOT DONE!!!

We will discuss all our homework LATEST BY TUESDAY so we can finally get going with our project.

22nd November 2011

Today, we discussed with Mr.James on our outcome. He told our group that choosing our outcome would be more complex than other groups due to our topic; but that didn't stop our motivation!

In a group (including Mr.James), we asked these few questions to each other;

1. Outcome thoughts - change parent’s behaviours
2. Real focus - the kids or the parents. - pros and cons - international school or government school.
3. What is the most effective way to address discipline - ask adults that we know in Malaysia whether what their views of discipline are like.
4. How do we find out the information that our campaign.

Until the end of the class, we still have not answered any of these questions. We were trying to find the pro's and con's of the different audiences we wanted to engage - youth or adults. We were discussing with a scrap piece of paper and writing it all down. But then, I suggested on finding more solid proof on how we can show we found our outcome more reliable. So we will be discussing this in our next meeting.

21st November 2011

In this lesson, Ms.Gita taught us about the Belbin test. Most of us have already done this test last year so we know our roles. In my case, I know my first role but then I did not jot down the second nor third so I asked Ms.Gita for a new questionnaire paper to retake again.

During the whole lesson, we were basically setting down our own roles. My group, it was filled with waiting for Adam and I to finish our test whilst Maxwell sat there and chatted with us throughout.

After we have done, this is what we ended up with;


As you can see, even with an unstable group member number, we actually have a sufficient group. All three of us are Resource Investigator indicating that we all can find good information on the internet. We all fill the whole wheel so I am pretty happy with my group. :)

18th November 2011

Today, Ms.Gita presented the individual and group evaluation information mark scheme sheet. It shows how the examiner will mark our work. By having a better understanding what we are going to be assessed on, it gave a bigger and clearer idea of how to be able to meet the expectations.

By ticking which mark scheme band I am in (individually and a group element), I can see where we need to focus on more and the baby steps to achieve a Band 4.

There are 2 different mark scheme; individual & group evaluation.

This is my individual mark scheme. I have ticked the boxes next to the statement to show where I am at currently. Currently, I am pretty stable with my individual role in the group, except at some stage in time during our discussions, I would need to have a little pampering to do. When it comes to the project itself, I have marked myself at a Band 1 because we have not actually started with our work.

This is my group element. The ticked boxes are where my group is at. So far, I actually believe we are going in a right track, just need to go with the baby steps. It might look low now but that is probably because we have just started with the project. I might be harsh, but that is how I am. I am harsh on the things that I do so I can achieve higher.


As shown, the mark scheme was incredibly helpful. So starting now on till the end, we will be achieving a Band 4 with baby steps.

16th November 2011

During the lunch break meeting, we looked through what Maxwell had summarized for our rationale reasoning. The summary was not presented properly so eventually, Maxwell continued to summarized the paragraph.

Whilst Maxwell was doing that, Adam and I were discussing about some sub-questions. There were some questions that were quite interesting; "where do you draw the line for abuse? From slapping your child to canning." "how does this affect them as they grow up?" "Does this actually show discipline?"

Afterwards, we discussed what type of outcome appealed to us. For now, we have stuck with a documentary and pamphlet. Adam actually suggested these and Maxwell suggested to include varieties of things for the documentary which led to the pamphlet. (reasoning will be presented through homework).

Furthermore, we discussed about the audience. We have focused on children and parents since the topic associates with them (reasoning will also be presented through homework).

After all that, Maxwell has finally finished his summary and we, as a group, agreed to the splendid job Maxwell has put in.

In this meeting, we actually discussed more calmly which made us more focused with what we were suppose to do. There weren't any yelling nor shouting that needed to be done. There weren't any improvements for today's meeting since we actually communicated sufficiently.

15th November 2011

Today, my group and I have achieved on writing down a rationale reasoning by writing down our own personal and individual paragraphs.

During the whole lesson (40 minutes), Adam and I were writing down our individual paragraphs whilst Maxwell was supposedly doing, nothing since he has done his work already.

After we both finished our individual reasoning, Maxwell & I told Adam that we had some questions to consider for our Focus Question. Eventually, we ended up with "what is the fine line between discipline and abuse towards children at home?" - the reasoning will also be in our rationale reasoning.

Today, it was more to an individual work so there wasn't any problems (perhaps, only to try to work more efficiently) But today, we were all assigned a specific task to do at home to be presented the following meeting (tomorrow lunch time). Adam and I will go back home, find some sub-questions for our focus question and Maxwell will combine all our rationale reasoning together.

14th November 2011.

During the whole double period, my group and I have been discussing of a focus area for our upcoming group project. This goal was achieved throughout rustily. This is because, we were suppose to focus on our topic with "vandalism" but as it turned out, we weren't all keen in this idea of vandalism and we were sort of pushing away the idea. So eventually, this topic was abolished.

We were trying to find issues specifically within Malaysia; for the source of data was much more, if I may say so myself, "friendly". But not to mention, could associate with the whole world.

During the meeting, there were obviously some communication failure because we would go off topic. Sometimes, it took a lot of dedication to try to force them back to work but eventually, they just talked more. So I might need to learn a new tactic.

We also had a problem with the topic of study because, apparently, Maxwell's topic focused on "law and criminality" and mine as "tradition and culture" so this led to a lot of complications. So to end all the commotion, Maxwell went to Ms.Suzy and straighten it out that his topic was not actually focusing on "law and criminality". But eventually, we have chosen a whole new topic; "family and demographics".

Eventually, Maxwell was very useful for eliminating and narrowing down topics. So by this time, it was either refugees, domestic abuse or poverty. We then eventually narrowed it down to domestic abuse because it appealed to everyone.

We also had a meeting today at the night on Skype. Unfortunately, the thunderstorm cut off Adam's internet connection for the night so it was only Maxwell and I in the meeting. We both talked and gave suggestion which focus question to create. The next day, we will ask Adam which one appeals to him.

I think, we all could improve by trying not to go off topic & try to be more serious.

blank blank blank.

Self Evaluation.

1. What have I contributed to the group project?

- I contributed to the group project by keeping the group organised, supported, help each group member with any problems that they faced and make sure we’re on track.

2. What would I do differently next time? Why?

For the real group project, I (preferably we) would assign roles specifically to each group member. This is because, sometimes, the group members are stuck in a dilemma between which work they are suppose to do.

3. What have I learnt about working together?

In this group, I have learnt that each group member have their own way of working and getting off track. I learnt to understand how to get these members to work efficiently by learning how easily they got off track.

I have also learnt that, this group was actually stable but tend to get discourage if there was a lack of support from the teacher.

4. What has been good/challenging about working as part of a group?

In this group, the good part of working as part of a group was that, I was able to ask for advice for the task that I was doing, Through all that, they are able to help me go through with the challenge. The group has confidence in the work that I was handling so gave support.

The challenging part of working as part of a group were the fact that I worked with 2 (use to be 3) other human beings of the opposite gender. I was unable to understand some part of their conversation & this lead to being confused for awhile. Sometimes, it took extra effort to get their attention to do work.

What have I learnt doing the project?

1. What have I learnt about;

a) deciding on and planning a project?

I learnt that deciding and planning a project is quite difficult because there were so many topics that were appealing, but yet, we were unable to choose one. I learnt this was difficult due to the fact there were some complications between the teacher and our group.

b) Planning and producing research?

Planning and producing research was actually an easy task to do because, once we knew what topic we wanted to focus on, the research were quite straight forward. Giving different roles towards each group member was easy since we didn’t mind what task were set out to us.

Collecting the data was quite troublesome in my perspective because I was basing my research on the future aspect & as how ‘interesting’ peak oil was to some people, it didn’t at all catch my attention.

c) reading and presenting my ideas?

I continuously and constantly gave ideas through the group. It was important to show support and commitment so the group didn’t feel discouraged.

d) time management?

My time management was not at its finest because, yet again, I didn’t see the point of giving your all on a mock project rather than your real project. I became this way because, every time the school told me there was going to be a Mock Exam, I would pretend it was my Real one (partially, because I also thought it was my Real Exam) then afterwards, when I found out, it was just a mock, I felt discourage so my Real Exam tend to be worse than my Mock.

2) What would you do differently to develop these skills?

I would develop these skills more effectively by always contributing more ideas, communicate to the group members more occasionally, give members advices and have a specific role to be finish with a deadline.

3) How did I approach my individual contribution?

I approach my individual contribution by constantly giving ideas, set the group members roles to do each class lesson, gave support and advices to each other.

4) What are the most valuable points I have learnt? Why?

The most valuable points that I have learnt were that I knew how the group members were like so this was good for me to understand what I had to do to for the Real Project.

Group Evaluation

Group Evaluation
It is time to review your ‘mock’ project’ as a group. You will need to discuss and answer these questions on your group wiki/blog/webpage.

The Project

1. What area of study did you choose? Why?

- Why are we looking for oil rather than alternatives oil?

- The topic sounded very interesting but yet again, we were too lazy to think of another topic to focus on.

2. What did your groups hope to achieve? What was your proposed outcome?

- Wanted to show awareness that peak oil is important to our lives.

- We wanted to create an advertisement and a documentary showing why people were not looking for alternatives rather than digging for more oil and how disastrous this issue can be to the society.

3. How could you critically evaluate the success of your outcome?

- As a group, we can honestly say we did not create an outcome. So preferably speaking, the success of our outcome was a failure due to the fact we had lack of information, concentration and interest in the topic.

4. What were your specific group roles and responsibilities? How did you organise this? Was the allocation effective?

- Stephanie's the leader when it comes to organization, whip cracking and giving out work as well as rewarding and encouraging us

- Adam's the leader when it came to the technical work and documents, what we should do, what we should add, how we should do it

- Maxwell's the leader when it comes to the times where everyone's feeling down, and when help is needed the most to raise the spirits of the young offsprings.

- The roles were quite vague due to the fact, yet again, we weren’t so interested into the topic, we didn’t give much thought about it. But then again, the roles were quite effective since we actually somewhat did work that we initially planned to do.

5. Did your project have enough scope for every group member to play an active, full time part in the group work? How could you improve this?

- Yes, we did have enough scope for every group member to play an active, full time part in the group work. There were so few members in the group, it might have had some disadvantages when it comes to the efficiency of our work. On the other hand, quoted by Maxwell, “it relaly magnifies our strength, weaknesses, and our determination as well as commitment.”

- We can improve this by doing our work more effectively, more commitment and better responsibilities for our own specific roles.

6. Was the workload manageable in the time frame given?

- The workload was manageable in the time frame given.

- If we had been more hardworking, took more initiatives, and to focus more occasionally rather than slacking around, then yes.

7. How effective were your minutes and agendas? How did they help you? How could you improve them?

- The agenda shows us what we’ve been doing over the weeks to indicate how hard we’ve been working, as hard as before, or even harder. It is sort of like a journal that allows us to keep track with the activities we’ve done.

- We’ve created one minute throughout the whole project. The minute was posted up on Stephanie’s bog and it was helpful because we occasionally look back to that post and see on what we had to work on.

- So far, we have updated our agendas according to every single meeting so there is not much improvement for this.

The Perspectives

1. How did you gather information and opinions/viewpoints from a personal, national/local and global perspective?

- We gathered all the information through research.

2. How did/ could you ensure you consider all these perspectives in your project?

- create a checklist and check it often so we know what we have to accomplish before the deadline.

3. Would your outcome need to be accompanied by some additional explanation or elaboration?

- Preferably not. Because we would be stating almost everything into the documentary and advertisement. If we add more information, we might confuse the audience even further.

4. How could you make sure you include cross-cultural views?

- Ask opinions (surveys) around the school who are foreigners.

- Get in contact with schools in foreign countries.

[NOTE: Adam, Maxwell's & My Group Evaluation are the same because we discussed as a group.]

Gantt Chart.

1. What is a Gantt Chart?

A Gantt Chart is a bar chart that illustrates the project's schedules.

2. Why should we use them?

• A Gantt Chart is an easier way to plan and monitor the process of the project. This allows us, the team, to know the duration of the project's task(s) which leads to knowing the order of the task(s) need to be carried out.
• It also tells us immediately what should have been achieved at any point of time.
• Shows remedial actions and bring the project back on track.

3. Your top tips of using Gantt Charts.

• Colour coordinations
• Labels
• Duration of the start of the project and the end.

[my team's Mock Gantt Chart when I was absent! :D]