My Understanding of the Skill

My understanding of Managing Effectively is to use your time wisely by not wasting it, regulating yourself and finishing your tasks on time, all while being organized. Putting forth your best work with quality, care, and effort is also important. This takes a lot of focus and discipline. Managing Effectively also means seeking feedback from peers, parents, and teachers to help refine your work, but still making sure the work you do is your own. Your work shows not only the effort you put in, but also how well you understand the topic. This skill is very important to me because it's how I am able to get things done. Without this skill I would not get my work, chores, etc done. The skill Managing Effectively has taught me self control and regulation. I have learned to manage my time much more efficiently by putting in hard work to increase the quality of my assignments.

One way that I Manage Effectively in my life is by using alarms. I set alarms to measure the time I spend doing something, whether it is school work, homework, or extracurricular activities. This helps me because I am able to get a lot done in a day, without wasting time and I also feel productive.

Another tool I use is a daily checklist or planner. I write down the things I need to do, and I check them off once I have finished the task. This helps me get things done easily, and keeps my life and day organized. It is a great way to stay organized during distance learning. For example, I can stay on task during independent work time.

Another way I Manage Effectively is by using bookmarks. On my school computer, I bookmark tabs to keep organized. You can make different folders with names and add links under them. A big part of Managing Effectively is being organized, and making bookmarks really help me.

I have a personal folder for my own use, so I can keep my things and links together. I frequently use these bookmarks in my everyday life. I also have a folder for school, and I use it very often. I have a folder for each subject, and I often bookmark homework under it. For example, I have a folder for my 8th grade defense process, and I bookmarked all my SSPR’s, my exemplar selection, and any helpful videos I might need under it. That’s how I easily access my documents every class.

Through this year’s distance learning, these tools helped me regulate my studies more. Since we weren’t meeting in person and we didn’t have teachers to remind us to stay on task, we had to do it ourselves. Since we had a lot of student independent work time, we needed to Manage Effectively and do our work without relying on teachers. Altitude Learning was another organizational tool I used during distance learning. I was able to organize my assignments by making different columns with different titles.

An example of not Managing Effectively would be watching a show instead of doing your work in independent work time. If you procrastinate, then you will have less time to finish your assignments carefully. That affects the quality of the work you do. Another example of not Managing Effectively would be rushing through your work to finish quickly. If you do this, then you probably won’t have put your best work and effort and into the assignment.

My Growth in the Skill

In seventh grade, I came to this school not knowing how to Manage Effectively, or use my time wisely. I depended on my previous teachers and my parents to remind me to finish my chores, schoolwork, and my homework. So when this skill was introduced to me, I just thought it meant to manage your time effectively on your own to get things done. Even though I started to understand what it meant, I don’t think I really put the skill in action in my 7th grade year.

Now as an 8th-grader, I understand that it means so much more than that. It means using your time wisely and not wasting it, disciplining yourself, and finishing your tasks on time by being organized. I know that my best work is when I’m on task and doing quality work, which is usually when I’m alone and in a safe environment. Managing Effectively also means looking for feedback from peers, parents, and teachers to refine your work, but still making sure the work you do is your own. Your work shows not only the quality of effort you put in, but also how well you understand the assignment. The skill of Managing Effectively is so important to me because it's how I have been able to get things done throughout my life. Without this skill I would not get my work, chores, and assignments in my daily life done so I can have free time. This skill has taught me self control and how to regulate my activities. I have learned to manage my time more efficiently and how to produce quality assignments. It helps me daily in my life. This skill has also taught me to be independent, and not to rely on others to remind me to get my work done.

I feel that I have grown a lot throughout my 2 years at SEEQS. I have learned to Manage Effectively more than before I came to this school. I believe this is true because when it comes to assignments like writing this novel, I know how to produce quality work and to be successful.

My Project

​The project I have selected is my novel, an assignment from English Language Arts (ELA) this year in the 8th grade.

This quarter in ELA, we were assigned to write a novel in one month, and the month of November, is National Novel writing month. We did a lot of assignments leading up to writing our novel. In order to set ourselves up for success we did several assignments to prepare for that process. These assignments were done over the course of 4 weeks before starting our month of novel writing.

We spent about a month preparing to write our novel, with the following assignments: first, we built a world for our story to take place in. I chose a world of fantasy and magic, mostly based on witches. In this assignment, we learned how to write sensory details, and how to make the reader feel like they are in our story. Sensory details are the parts in books that make the story come alive. I chose to do this because anything can happen, and I could let my imagination run wild. These are some pictures that show the world I have imagined.

Next, we added characters into our world. We learned how to create a protagonist, and an antagonist. The protagonist is the main character of a story, usually the good person in the conflict. The antagonist is the evil/bad person of the conflict in the story, usually creating the tension and drama.

To create a character, we had to come up with names, genders, backstories, etc. We had to decide our characters personality, strengths and weaknesses, their wants and needs, and most important of all, to find out what they were going to look like. Another important part was deciding where the characters would live. I chose Quebec City, Canada because the beautiful architecture and landscapes fit my vision for this novel. These are two pictures of my main characters, and the last picture is of Quebec City, where my novel takes place.

Then, we learned how to write conflict. After creating our characters (protagonist and antagonist) we learned to create conflict, to make the story interesting. I created a story about two sisters, and created conflict between the two of them. Here is a picture below of my conflict brainstorming.

A big part of Managing Effectively is breaking big tasks into small manageable steps. We definitely did before writing this novel and it made it a lot easier. All of this pre-work made me understand the process of writing a novel and helped me brainstorm so many ideas. This process of breaking my big project novel into little parts helped me to manage effectively because I could work on one task at a time which made it easier to do quality work. All of the pieces helped me to really understand the process and this proves I was Managing Effectively because I broke down the task into easier more manageable steps which helped me to complete them on time.

Finally, I started my novel.

​On the first day we started, my ELA teacher, Mr. David, gave us a word count goal to hit by the end of the month. My word count goal was to have 8,000 words by the end of the month. Mr. David gave us these word count goals based on our writing ability so far. The tool that helped me to write this story efficiently and hit my word count goal, was my novel tracker doc. In this document, I wrote down a daily amount of words I would write to hit my word count goal by the end of the month. If I wrote 400 words everyday of the month, I would get to 8,000 by November 30. I tried to write at least 400 words each day, and for the first week and a half I succeeded in reaching my goal. Most of the time I was writing even more than 400 words.

I think Mr. David structured this large task into small lessons to make a really big project easier for us, and more attainable. Writing a novel is usually a huge task, but it was a lot easier because we got to build a world, think of characters, write conflict, and draft ideas. To be honest, I had no idea why we were doing all of these steps before, but when it came time to write my novel, I had many ideas running through my head. This is an example of managing our lesson effectively because we learned how to break down a big task into small tasks, and manage our time in smaller chunks and increments.

In the beginning when Mr. David first gave us this novel tracker, he said that we could give ourselves some days off, like Thanksgiving and weekends. I thought that I would be able to write 400 words a day, but now that I think about it, I should have given myself a more realistic goal.

This novel tracker doc was very helpful to me while writing my novel. If I didn’t have it, I probably wouldn’t have hit my word count goal or finished my novel at all. I think I grew a lot in Managing Effectively while doing this assignment, and I learned how to use my time more wisely.

How Does My Project Connect To The Skill?

​This project demonstrates that I used Managing Effectively through each step of this process because I was able to put forth quality work, and turn in all my assignments on time. I got feedback from my ELA teacher, and I improved my writing. Getting feedback is a very important step in Managing Effectively. It shows you can pick up from what others are saying, and utilize it. It shows that you have been listening and also, if the feedback is written, it shows you know how to improve your work. Here is my progress report for ELA, showing that I have turned in these assignments on time and with quality

I also got feedback from two of my peers and their feedback really helped improve my grammar. Their feedback also helped improve my run on sentences and sentences that didn’t make sense. Through this experience I realized it is very important to make sure your work is your own. I had let my friend read my story, and she suggested a big plot twist that would make the story much more interesting. I used her idea, but made sure not to plagiarize her words and use my own. This process of getting feedback from my friend improved the quality of my story because it helped to have another perspective, to provide new ideas. If I made credits for this book, I would put her in them, because she helped me a lot. I made sure not to copy exactly what she said, but I used the general idea. I think this assignment/project really displayed my ability to Manage Effectively.

An example of this is using my novel tracker document throughout writing my novel. Asking someone to write a novel in one month is extremely difficult, at least in my opinion. My novel tracker doc was very helpful to me while writing my novel. As I have said, if I didn’t have it, I probably wouldn’t have hit my word count goal or finished my novel at all. My tracker doc also helped me set goals for myself. I believe this because setting goals is a way to keep focused, organized, on-task, but most of all, to get things finished.

A time where I didn’t Manage Effectively was when I was very busy on one weekend and I didn’t write anything. I was doing the exact opposite of Managing Effectively. So, I had two days of words to catch up on. On Monday, I decided to write double my word count goal to make up for the days before. I thought this was a good way to use my time wisely. Also, on Thanksgiving, again I didn’t write anything. I decided to do the same thing, and make up for it by writing more. But the downside was I couldn’t get feedback on those days because I didn’t write anything. Getting feedback is important to help me revise my work. The next two days I wrote 641, and 810 words. I think that overall I used my novel tracker effectively though I did slack off some days.

Ultimately, I think that this demonstrates the skill because using this novel tracker doc helped me finish my novel. I turned in a quality assignment on time, hit my word count goal of 8,000, put out my best effort, worked carefully and was organized. This assignment, with the help from my novel tracker doc, has increased my ability and allowed me to grow and learn the skill of Managing Effectively.

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Collaborating Productively
Thinking Systemically