ATL+Advice+Column

Time Management

 * Use email to contact supervisors for appointments
 * Create a wiki or blog to bring people together for collaborative projects
 * Refer to your action plan regularly, adjusting dates further on as necessary
 * Order or highlight steps according to priority or difficulty to achieve
 * Consider the outcomes of the changes you may need to make for the overall project and essay
 * Involve others' help when appropriate and do so in a manner that raises everyone's confidence and sense of engagement
 * Don't be shy about holding your peers accountable for promises made
 * When frustrated or disinterested, seek out your supervisor, talk to parents and peers (keeping it a secret is the worst!)
 * Write down all reactions and feelings, negative and positive in your journal; they are all part of the process. Doing so might lead you to solutions or strategies on your own. If not, see your supervisor
 * As a community, remain positive so that everyone is in the spirit of creating and doing

Self-Management

 * Choose a project that you are interested in so that you will remain enthusiastic
 * Keep discussions positive when talking about your project. DO talk to others!
 * Take notes when you see your supervisor
 * Do a follow-up entry every time you work
 * Put up action plans or To Do lists on your refrigerator or next to the computer
 * See reminders on Outlook﻿﻿ or cell phone
 * Have a place for keeping you folders, books, project materials
 * Continually check in with the criteria
 * Use the AOI q﻿ uestions to reflect on your project and essay work, recording these in your journal
 * Write your own reflection questions pertaining to your AOI that are particular to your project
 * Ask subject teachers to share additional questions with you if your project relates to their discipline
 * Just because you have a supervisor, doesn't mean you can't make appointments to see other teacher-specialists for an interview, thereby counting them as one of your sources
 * Follow the help points at the end of each criterion in your Handbook

Collaboration

 * =====Clearly assign roles to those who are helping you =====
 * =====Share dates with them well ahead of time and make sure they agree beforehand by check these dates with their family plans =====
 * =====Choose those who you can count on =====
 * =====Balance your time between your own needs and others' needs, requests or invitations =====
 * =====Be open-minded about other ways of doing, test out new ideas. This will give you some interesting material for your journal and essay =====
 * =====Always have a back-up plan for potential absences =====
 * =====Encourage others to be part of your project through enthusiasm and persistance. Sometimes experts you may want to contact will not reply on the first contact, for example. =====
 * =====Do not enlist your supervisor or parents as personal secretaries or research assistants for you; this is all part of your organization skills and you will want to comment upon how strategies you developed for getting in touch with people or resources. For example, you may need to find a French-speaking friend to help you speak to someone. You will need to rule out certain sources for other more reliable sources, and such arguments are proof of your critical thinking. Only you will know the reason for why you make such choices. =====

Communication and Literacy

 * Use AOI as communication and argumentation tools for own learning
 * Within every paragraph of your reflection essay, explicitly and consciously refer to one of your two AOI
 * Consider your AOI as techniques for analysis
 * Use technical and content-specific language
 * Have a strong sense of argumentation
 * Use charts, statistics and tables and share your interpretation of them
 * Share reflections on the quality of your sources
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Compare and contrast others ideas within a single paragraph, moving to the larger picture as you go
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Compose a complete bibliography using MLA standards set by library resources

Information Literacy

 * Find varied sources from a multitude of media independently
 * If you cannot do so, independently, turn to Ms. Dornan, you supervisor, another specialist in our school, the American Library of Paris, etc...
 * Find sources by Winter Break in bibliographies contained at the back of other sources and try to order these ahead of time
 * Work from appropriate research questions
 * Even if you think you possess some of the skills to be doing your project, compare this knowledge and know-how to others by looking at "how to" guides and books. Do not invent from scratch which a clear reason for doing so.
 * Make sure develop more complex research questions related to your AOI as you go.
 * Recognize suitability, reliability, bias, propaganda, opinion and fact in sources
 * Juggle complex information from more than one source within a single paragraph
 * Uses full citations or images regularly and appropriately
 * Infer and draw conclusions from sources
 * Compares sources for accuracy
 * Compose an MLA standards bibliography by using the back of the PP Handbook or visiting Ms. Dornan (not all in the same week and before the Spring Break)
 * Assemble an Appendix if necessary to meet word count


 * Reflection: Self-Awareness and Evaluation**
 * Take into account your learning style when coming up with your project idea; work with some weaknesses but balance these with strengths and interests. For example, if you are not fluent in English, consider a project that can be done in your mother tongue or one that is activity-based.
 * Write your own criteria for achievement connected to your project and the essay
 * Keeping in mind time-management, try not to beat yourself up about time lost in the past. Always move forward
 * Constantly re-evaluate goals in relation to self through journal writing


 * Thinking**
 * Clearly state struggles and choices.
 * Justify choices or solutions t hrough understanding of AOI, research, personal insight and learning
 * Develop individualized learning questions connected to AOI
 * Make predictions in journal and come up with alternatives
 * Apply thinking strategies from other classes and projects in the past that have used logic, reason, deductive/inductive thinking, contrast, juxtaposition, problem-solving, comparison, synthesis
 * Seek to identify illogical conclusions or inconsistencies
 * Be critical and creative in response to context


 * Tranfer**
 * Brainstorm and apply past AOI learning to Personal Project
 * Apply thinking strategies from other classes and projects in the past that have used logic, reason, deductive/inductive thinking, contrast, juxtaposition, problem-solving, comparison, synthesis -- go through old notes and work to find them!
 * Recognize when you are bringing two subjects together to further thinking and make this **explicit**
 * Compare what your are doing to other contexts and experiences, recognize and describe how past learning comes together or informs new learning experiences
 * Implement or take action based on big picture understanding