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what about assignments what do they do wrong in assignments how do people
Why do they underperform why do people not get
A grades for every assignment they put in
again similar to the examinations people don't read the instructions
you buy something from...
And I can’t say MFI again or
Ikea or one of these shops and its all in pieces isn’t it and it tells you how to
put it together
and you have a go at it and then if all else fails you read the instructions
i think that's what happens sometimes with CIM assignments
people jump straight in and look at the question
and don't fully read
the first few pages that guide us that tell us what they have to do
they don't read the
the questions the tasks properly so read the instructions and make sure you
understand what you have to do
before you make a start on it
they don't read the brief thoroughly enough they don’t really
understand what it's about what the key issues are that
we're looking at
and they bend the brief to try and fit the contents I mean
the brief is very clear about what you’re expected to do
but it doesn't quite match with my situation and work so i’ll sory of bend
the brief to fit that no
Bend the work situation to fit the brief you’re not gonna get marks for doing that
don't don't
we see lots of variation where people actually try to sort of
adjust the brief to fit their own organization because
well I’ve been working on this project anyway so I might as well use that
It’ll save me
having to go through the whole process again because i've already got information on
that
but it's not relevant to the brief
that you’re being
given for that subject
they don't fully understand the tasks set again it goes back to understanding
command words sometimes
if we don't
Understand what the command words are asking us to do
we don't understand what the tasks are asking us to do it doesn't hang together
properly
And dare I say don't leave until the last minute even though
producing assignments does actually
we we we
do have a very extra timetable to work towards and i'm sure that if you've
gone through it yourself you would know there are deadlines to hit
it's amazing how many people will say well I work better under pressure last thing
And they will leave it til the last possible minute NO have a clear plan of when
you have to reach certain stages by uh... it's bound to help we we come
across to lots of examples evidence where people clearly have put it
together very quickly almost the night before
and you think what they've done is pretty good but they’ve missed bits out they
Haven’t quite seen this through they haven’t
done this property given more time that could be a really good assignment
so plan out your time don't leave it until the last minute
again take note of the command exactly the same as in examinations
what are you being asked to do
and don't get into knowledge dumping which is
This awful disease people suffer from I think
and i think its a virus actually gets passed around does that make
sense
and what it is you see a word you recognise and you know all the theory
And you spent ages revising it you know it back to front and you
think oh if I just dump all this knowledge on the paper
The examiner is gonna think oh aren’t they clever they know lots of things
and you’ll get lots of marks for it
what you'’ll get is an examiner that goes not another one
And trying to sort of sift through that they don't want to know
everything that you know that want to know
what
you know within the context of what you’re being asked
to
put in the assignment but how you apply it
we'll talk later about the CIM magic formula which defines
very clearly
What you are expected to do in terms of concept in theory application evaluation
and presentation and it differs across all levels
but what is important is none of the examinations none of the subjects
simply give you marks just for dumping knowledge
what you have to do is to apply the knowledge you have to evaulate
Recommendations that you made evaluate what The organisation are doing at the
moment so
i'm afraid knowledge dumping will not get you through
you need to demonstrate understanding of the syllabus and the
concept and theory
But you need to take it a little bit further than that I think that’s a very important issue
okay and people only access the conscious learning as with the
examinations you would think in an assignment you've got time to access that
Unconscious learning that is taking place that
information hidden away but no people just start to sort of put down what's in
Their minds at that point in time
okay can I move on from that really and
move on from giving you my opinion really
And really ask what
The two of you feel about it do you have any particular views on what I’ve talked about
I know Jack we were talking before about
learning and about different types of learners
the global learner and the sort of linear
Collecting bits of a jigsaw and do you want to explain a bit about That
concept
What I sometimes find
is that the students learn in a couple of different ways one group of students
Like to get the
big picture first of all so they like to see how all the different aspects of
A course or a topic all fit together so they can see you know its wider role
Etcetera
and then what they do is they start to delve into specific aspects of it
So they take this wider knowledge if you like but not necessarily very deep and then they go into
specific aspects and really deepen the knowledge of those individual aspects
Other students on the other hand need to Really go into detail first of all on
A narrower area so they learn all about that narrower area then move on To another one
Learn all that then they move on to another one and they learn all that
And sometimes what happens is they don’t get the real wider picture until they’ve narrowed down
all of the individual paths
And it is like doing a jigsaw
In that when you start off doing a jigsaw you've got various individual bits of it but it's not
Until you put the last few pieces in and then you go
Ahhhh now I see how it all fits together
But as you know the global people are more I can see how it all fits together
Now I need more knowledge
And its not that one approach is right or wrong
Both of them are useful because they both get to The same position at the end I think it’s just
Really a case of students understanding what their Preferred method is because then you know they can make
sure they get the types of things which will help them to do that so they work more towards that
Side of it
Their own style so putting that together with what we discussed before yes absolutely
And then
devising it's managing your own learning rather than just
taking what's be given to you
yes but i’ve had the same experience i’ve been running a ten week course that
week nine
Somebody comes up to me and says
that's great that but that all makes sense now that was the last bit of the jigsaw
And I found that very strange that they’ve gone through nine weeks nearly ten weeks nearly
with not having any real understanding but
Suddenly that magic little jigsaw and that's important
Kath we were talking about time management as well and I know you've got some
sort of
very strong views on time management because as an examiner you see lots of
examples of students who just
Don’t finish the paper do they yes that’s right and they miss out really on
Valuable marks
there's no way that you can pass a paper by doing a really brilliant
part B for example and not really tackle part A enough you can’t
pass
On just doing a few of the questions
you're much better off
trying to tackle every single question and give it a stab
rather than just concentrating on
one section
and then running out of time
the problem is with time management because when i
Invigilate examinations
marketing people
write up to the last minute and you have to wrench the pen off them almost to stop them writing
Yet I see in other examinations people sit for half an hour before the end of the
examination
Arms folded they’ve finished and
perhaps the CIM examinations are too long i don't know but people do
it's this last question
syndrome isn’t it you know i don't quite get that but i’ve started it
i won't finish it but i might get a few marks on it because they
they put all the effort into the earlier questions which they feel confident about
And think i’ll keep writing about this but
if you've already got a good mark for one question
writing more about it won’t get you many more marks you’re better deciding i’m stopping at
that point and going on to the next question and making sure you can't you
Balance your effort accross the board
right anything you want to ask me anythinbg
i can expand upon in terms of what i've talked about so far
About learning
Ray have you got any suggestion in terms of students in practical terms
Can try and move up to that state of unconscious competence
what you're trying to get towards is a stage where people can think without
thinking its where the unconscious takes over so its practices isn’t it
Its actually applying its not
trying to learn lots of facts and concepts and theories it's about doing
it so
doing past paper questions is a great way
the more you can do the better it's not just past paper questions are not
just there to
um...
test your knowledge they’re there to test application as well and if you apply it it
makes sense
going back to taking a concept and applying it in the workplace
so yes we talked about uh... process of analysis or porters five forces
it's going back doing it do it on your own company it's then embedded in the
unconscious
doing mock exams as well so when you've you've done a mock exam you'll go
through the pain not in the real day of the exam and make
mistakes then
make mistakes in the mock
get used to what it's like and learn from that and when you go into the exam on the day
it's easy you’ve done it before it's just part of what you do
unconsciously even without thinking about
okay jack can I sort
Of hand over to you now and
could you sort of pick up some of the issues we’ve discussed already
and look at how this can be applied to the post graduate diploma level