Culture day, also called Whakanui was an event where we as students were given an opportunity to explore the cultures of different regions. We were divided into groups so that we could represent the cultures of different regions. In our group, we had to explore the rituals of the royal wedding of that culture. I had registered to be a group leader and had passed to meet the requirements to be the group leader. Our group had got the region as Asia in which we had selected to represent the royal wedding of Bhutan. The aim of this event was to study the rituals of the royal wedding in different cultures. And we had also aimed to explain the audience how the rituals and procedures differ from other cultures. This was my CAS project and we had covered the strand “Creativity”.
Learning Outcome 1:- Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
While working on this project I have identified my strengths and weaknesses, as being a group leader. It feels that now I am much informed about myself and I got to know more about myself. It is really important for me to focus on my strengths as this helps me to understand that in which field I could progress and take advantage of the opportunities I could have in the future or the ones which I have in the present. During the project, the weakness in me I felt was that our group had not very well explained to the learning outcomes of the event. So, to overcome this mistake I always read the criteria of the activity or of any work so that I get a direction to work and understand the purpose of the work I am doing.
L3. Initiate and plan a CAS experience
To organize me and my group the main thing we did was that we had set deadlines for each of us according to the work we had to do. In my daily routine, I am an organized person to an extent but not completely organized. In our group, we had planned very well through the meetings and informal talks, we had initiated our plan well, but not excellently so initiating the plan had not been very easy for our group. We had tried to complete our work in the deadline planned but due to the works other than the ones of projects, we were a bit late sometimes but we made sure that it does not affect the quality of our work. One skill I discovered after this project is time management, our group had very well tried to complete the work till the deadline, as at the starting of the project being a group leader I had discussed with my group the importance of completing the work on time. I do think that planning and initiating things will be easier now in the future, as now I have already learned from my mistakes and have got a way to overcome one of my weaknesses which I have already mentioned. And now I have also got a bit of experience to work with people in order to get the tasks done. It is important to know how to plan and initiate the activities, as our group had made sure that the work allotted to each of us is appropriate and to the person and equally distributed, so there are no chances of misunderstandings between the group members. We had also tried to complete the work according to the deadline which was discussed and set for each of us. Our strategy had helped us to keep track of the work which was done by each of us, this also gave an indication of the pace on which our group was required to work in order to make ourselves prepared for the presentation date. In the end, we were the best group selected by the audience.
L4. Show perseverance and commitment in CAS experience
There were some moments during the project which had demotivated me from working effectively. It was when some of the group members had not completed the given task on time. But, then I thought that I am the leader of the group and at the end should be held responsible for not completing the work assigned to my group so I decided that my whole group should not suffer because of some members. I talked with the people who could not complete the assigned work and discussed how we should complete it on time. And, in the end, all our work was done on time. It is usually not very easy for me to commit to the thing, but when I am given a responsibility especially when I have voluntarily chosen to take up the responsibility then I become committed to complete the task. In this project, I was leading a group and it was my responsibility to get the tasks done. When I commit to a thing then it gives a direction and a purpose to complete that activity so, the project was more willingly completed and I was happy to see that I and my group had done a really good job.
L5. Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboratively
Working with others has been difficult for me if the environment and the people I am working with are unfamiliar to me. In this project, it was not very difficult for me to work as the people were my classmates and were very familiar to me as I interact with them on a daily basis. There were times when I had faced difficulty in working with some of my teammates as they had not completed the given task on time. To solve this problem I had discussed with them about their unproductivity and explained to them how their irresponsibility will nullify the efforts that other group members have put in to make the project a success, in the end, each of us had done our job very well. It is very important to work collaboratively with others, as it gives each other the motivation to work as people would know that they are a part of a team and their efforts will help the team to progress further. In this project, it was very important for me to display leadership skills. In my team everyone had different skills and as a leader, I distributed the work according to the skills of a person. I also made sure that there was an even distribution of work so that there would be no conflict between the group members in the future. I also kept track on the work done by each group member by asking about the progress made and tried to make sure that work was done on the decided deadline. It had really helped in completing the project successfully at the given time.
Conclusion:-
The learner profiles covered were communicators, thinkers, and inquirers, as we had researched about different cultures, worked collaboratively in the group and presented. This event was connected to the English subject as we had to present the topic and the presentation was connected with the syllabus and the learning outcomes of the English subject. We had successfully presented to our audience and we were selected as the best group by the audience. Being a group leader it gave a sense of achievement as we all have a group had put in a lot of effort to make this project a success. Through this project, I have learned that every culture had its own way to celebrate and to marry, after this project I think that every opinion or perspective should be valued and considered as everyone has their own way of looking to the world and every perspective has something special in it.
Evidence:-
Me explaining to the audience about the royal dresses of Bhutan.
