Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Resources For Project Work Students InR
Resources For Project Work Students InR
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Starting a Journal
Analyze processes and outcomes during the course of your project work
Reflect and evaluate these processes and outcomes, based on new inputs,
research or experience.
The assessment criteria for your I&R is the very much the same as that for your EoM. The
main difference here is that in the EoM, much of the analysis may arise from the data in
the material. The material for your EoM thus provides a focus for you to work on you AE
and GI.
The I&Rs writing is based on reflection of process and outcomes. One of the difficulty
that students face when writing the I&R arises from lack of memory on essential
developments in their PW process and the actual outcome following a process. This
makes their writing a little scattered and superficial in explaining their evaluation, since
they have somewhat forgotten about the process.
It is essential that students learn to do journals and reflections on the processes and
outcomes regularly, especially when
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when they face the need to sort out their differences in ideas/ opinions of
matters;
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Before we give you some samples, let us give some examples to clarify what is worthy of
recording in your journal.
1.2 What should I record in my journal?
Your I&R is about reflections on the processes and outcomes. The I&R is NOT about
reflections of moral values and lifeskills.
Hence statements such as
..I learnt the value of teamwork or
I learnt that time management is important or
..I learnt I am the most hardworking member in the team
is not appropriate for your I&R.
I&R is not an extract of the written report and should not be a summary of decisions and
processes that is recorded in the written report. Your I&R is about reflections on the
processes and outcomes, that is
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not captured/ explained in the writing of the written report (though the ideas
may be used in the WR), or
are decisions which the group may have decided not use due to reasons such
as constraint of resources, or
Propose alternatives and elaborate on reasons for ideas which may have
helped to value add the processes or outcomes.
One possible
(needs to provide comparison between the cost of a goodies bag and the prize money in NKF show)..
..(substantiate..)
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At the stage of journal writing, you may not have acquired the necessary depth or specific
details for your ideas. But keep in view the ideas in your journal and revisit them from
time to time. You may be able to provide insights into how the ideas can be pieced
together as an alternative approach that your group can adopt.
1.4 Samples of InR
Comment: Discusses a process which
Title of Group Project: Ray Kroc: The Founding Father of Fast Food
1.Rationale of change
discussed
The groups publicity efforts left much to be desired. While an advertisement to be shown on
national television has been created, I felt that greater advertising efforts through other forms such
as radio, mobTV5, bus decoration or street publicity could be deployed. It is crucial to ensure that
the Ray Kroc Centre attracts a large crowd, especially when its preparation and execution chalking
up such hefty sums, as it will not be sustainable in the long run if fast food companies make losses.
Increased media coverage means that people are more aware of the existence and contribution of
Ray Kroc, as well as the purpose of Ray Kroc Centre. Thus, people are more inclined to visit Ray
Kroc Centre. One possible promotional approach via street publicity includes having men dressed
up as Ray Kroc stationed in Singapores various hotspots such as Orchard Road to attract the
attention of passer-bys. He should be escorted by men wearing uniform of the participating
fast-food chains who will also be giving out flyers, fast food vouchers and brochures on Ray Kroc
Centre. Street publicity effectively grabs the attention of the masses and creates large crowd on the
streets, thus serves as an economical method of publicity to be considered. Another possible option
is to have Ray Kroc-related designs painted on buses. To lower the budget, the painting needs not
be executed by professionals, instead, a design contest open to students from tertiary institutes
could be held, with the winning teams awarded, among the prizes, an opportunity to hand paint the
buses themselves. A similar plan has been successfully carried out earlier this year by SingPost in a
bid to renew the design of their post boxes at lower cost. It can succeed because artistically-inclined
students highly value the opportunity to showcase their artwork and talents, and the money prizes
awarded to winning designs by students are nothing compared to if professionals were employed to
do the job. A design contest as such will also generate considerable buzz among the public on Ray
Kroc. Moreover, the students who participate in this contest will be able to grasp some basic
understanding of Kroc while doing their research to come up with the design, thus awareness on
Kroc is raised and the students might also be attracted to check out our Ray Kroc Centre.
It
Due to time constraints, my initial idea of organizing Ray Kroc-related talks in local tertiary
institutes and universities was shelved. In hindsight, with sufficient planning, these talks would
prove to be effective both as publicity tool as well as to nurture the Ray Kroc spirit, that is to say
the entrepreneur spirit, in youth. Talks are also more interactive than, for example, posters or
brochures, which are static and only appeal to the sense of sight, and most students tend to not pay
attention to them or read their content. Such interactivity is necessary to keep the students interested
in the talk and pique their interest in Ray Kroc so that they will want to visit our showcase. While
posters are unlikely to elicit positive responds from most students and attract them to visit our
showcase; interactive talks ensure that the students at least acquire some basic information on Kroc.
:usefulness to project
Comment: Discusses how advantages
and disadvantages of the various publicity
methods. (Analysis)
Comment: Again notice how student link
Mobile Television Network for SBS bus riders. Reportedly deliver to daily audience of 1.4million.
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Hence, even though they might not visit Kroc Centre in the end, our most important objective of
educating our target audience about Kroc is achieved. Brochures will be handed out after these talks,
giving the students information on the Centre and guiding them to find out the full story about Ray
Kroc and try other fruitful activities only upon visiting the Centre, thus further attract them to visit
it. However, one drawback is that students might feel that they have learnt enough about Kroc and
choose not to visit the showcase, since the talks and exhibition are on the same topic and might be
repetitive. To prevent this, the talk will only cover a few main points about Ray Kroc, while
presenters will tell the students that they can learn more details and try out interactive activities at
the showcase, to attract students to our showcase.
A regret the group has is that notwithstanding fierce attempts in persuading McDonalds officials
the proposal for the modification of staff uniform was not welcomed, resulting in out original
design having gone to waste. This is attributed to the fact that modifying the uniform of thousands
of McDonalds employees that has been in place for the past few decades would be costly and near
impossible. In retrospect, we should not have discarded the idea straight away. Rather, we should
have proposed alternatives for the enhancement of staff uniform that do not involve the costly
production of new designs such as Ray Kroc stick-on, or a removable tag, or Ray Kroc-themed pins.
These items can be added to the original uniform during the Ray Kroc month itself and removed
afterwards and can also be sold in stores for interested customers, thus increasing revenue. This
plan is thus much less costly and more likely to gain approval from the fast-food chains, judging
from McDonalds stand6.
According to our email exchange with Ms Claudia Yeo (McDonalds Pte Ltd, Singapore).
http://mentalhealth.about.com/od/familyresources/a/ytkidlearn1205.htm
http://www.labouroflove.org/tv-toys-&-technology/television/tv-addiction-%11-how-does-television-harm-yo
ur-children%3F/
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Another weakness of our proposal is that it is not tested. This is due to firstly, the constraints of
manpower and secondly, the difficulty of liaising with primary schools for a class of pupils to be
our test subjects as there are many restrictions involved. Because of this, we cannot therefore gauge
the effectiveness of our proposal accurately. Since we are constrained in terms of resources and
contacts, what we had done is to survey entrepreneurs, parents, teachers and children for them to
give their opinion on the viability of our course and where children are concerned to see if our
course is successful. On hindsight, I felt that we could have conducted mini lessons in small groups
to pilot test our activities as we can gather a small number of children more easily this will at least
give us a chance to see our course in practice. Though the smaller scale means that it is not a very
accurate gauge but it will still be helpful in troubleshooting our proposed course.
Lastly, I will comment on our two ways of assessing the students one by a feedback form and the
other through their performance in setting up a booth to sell things. I feel that these might be unfair
especially since for the latter method, unpredicted circumstances might crop up (like fluctuating
business conditions). Just like there are calls9 for continuous assessments in our educational system
instead if a one-time examination at the end of the year, I anticipate this problem surfacing with our
way of assessment too and so pre-empt it by suggesting continuous tests to monitor the childrens
mastery of the various entrepreneurial qualities taught in the different phases of our course. They
can take the form of questionnaires or group projects. Though they may be demanding for the
young children, they are effective as it means that the children have to be paying regular attention to
the course. Hopefully the measures can accelerate their journey to become entrepreneurs.
Problems and grievances with the education system in Singapore were expressed in the Singaporean drama
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