(EXAMPLE TITLE OF KSP) ENGAGING IN COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP
Titles work best if they are action-oriented and really capture the "essence" of what you learned or gained from an experience (e.g. "Creating a tutoring program" "Learning abstract thinking through calculus" "Applying statistics to everyday life").
Description/Overview
The purpose of this section is to provide a brief summary (one paragraph) of the overall Knowledge Synthesis page that grabs the reader’s attention and makes them want to continue reading. It often begins with a brief overview of the work, including its purpose and goals, and then includes a sentence or two about your role and why the work was valuable or important to you. You should ALWAYS include at least one image, aligned to either the right or left, in this section.
Skills Gained
This section describes your role: what you did, with whom you worked, and the types of knowledge and skills you gained. Use a variety of specific action verbs (ex. mentoring, training, facilitating, etc.) and behaviors to describe the kinds of decisions and actions that went along with this work/experience. Search the web for specific skill language related to your interests, major, or work.
Lessons Learned
The purpose of this section is for you to think about how you are currently applying the knowledge, insights and skills you have learned from this experience to other areas of your life, as well as how you imagine using that knowledge in the future. It is VERY important that you be specific in this section, providing as many examples as possible. For instance, if you discuss your work in a leadership role, then you can describe how it gave you the foundation or confidence to take on additional leadership roles and responsibilities in other contexts, or how it taught you about the importance of collaborating with others and how to delegate tasks.
Impact/Importance
This section demonstrates your capacity for "Big Picture" thinking. It should describe: 1. How your learning connects to goals or values way beyond the immediate experience (i.e. how your work benefited an individual, a group of people, an organization, or social network). 2. The influence or impact your work has had on others and yourself (in terms of your own professional development or life goals). This could include examples of how groups, organizations or communities were affected by a project, program, research effort, or volunteer commitment you described in the Knowledge Synthesis pages. For example, consider how the work you are describing relate to the following:
Address your larger learning and professional goals? (i.e. the importance of learning Spanish could be that it prepares you to be successful in a diverse workplace).
Support a change underway within a group, community or institution? (i.e. the importance of doing research on a health-related issue could be that it motivated you to participate more actively in the national health-care debate).
Enhance group/community development or well-being? (i.e. the “importance” of being a resident advisor is that you can help first-year students make the critical transition to college life).
Sample of a Completed Knowledge Synthesis Page A Second Sample
A Note on Visual Elements The visual element (image, diagram or picture) usually captures some theme, context, or poignant moment illustrated in the Knowledge Synthesis Pages. These elements can be abstract or concrete, personally created or taken from the public domain. Effective visual elements capture some kind of insight, theme, goal, or outcome described in the work and are distributed throughout the page.
Titles work best if they are action-oriented and really capture the "essence" of what you learned or gained from an experience (e.g. "Creating a tutoring program" "Learning abstract thinking through calculus" "Applying statistics to everyday life").
Description/Overview
The purpose of this section is to provide a brief summary (one paragraph) of the overall Knowledge Synthesis page that grabs the reader’s attention and makes them want to continue reading. It often begins with a brief overview of the work, including its purpose and goals, and then includes a sentence or two about your role and why the work was valuable or important to you. You should ALWAYS include at least one image, aligned to either the right or left, in this section.
Skills Gained
This section describes your role: what you did, with whom you worked, and the types of knowledge and skills you gained. Use a variety of specific action verbs (ex. mentoring, training, facilitating, etc.) and behaviors to describe the kinds of decisions and actions that went along with this work/experience. Search the web for specific skill language related to your interests, major, or work.
Lessons Learned
The purpose of this section is for you to think about how you are currently applying the knowledge, insights and skills you have learned from this experience to other areas of your life, as well as how you imagine using that knowledge in the future. It is VERY important that you be specific in this section, providing as many examples as possible. For instance, if you discuss your work in a leadership role, then you can describe how it gave you the foundation or confidence to take on additional leadership roles and responsibilities in other contexts, or how it taught you about the importance of collaborating with others and how to delegate tasks.
Impact/Importance
This section demonstrates your capacity for "Big Picture" thinking. It should describe: 1. How your learning connects to goals or values way beyond the immediate experience (i.e. how your work benefited an individual, a group of people, an organization, or social network). 2. The influence or impact your work has had on others and yourself (in terms of your own professional development or life goals). This could include examples of how groups, organizations or communities were affected by a project, program, research effort, or volunteer commitment you described in the Knowledge Synthesis pages. For example, consider how the work you are describing relate to the following:
Address your larger learning and professional goals? (i.e. the importance of learning Spanish could be that it prepares you to be successful in a diverse workplace).
Support a change underway within a group, community or institution? (i.e. the importance of doing research on a health-related issue could be that it motivated you to participate more actively in the national health-care debate).
Enhance group/community development or well-being? (i.e. the “importance” of being a resident advisor is that you can help first-year students make the critical transition to college life).
Sample of a Completed Knowledge Synthesis Page A Second Sample
A Note on Visual Elements The visual element (image, diagram or picture) usually captures some theme, context, or poignant moment illustrated in the Knowledge Synthesis Pages. These elements can be abstract or concrete, personally created or taken from the public domain. Effective visual elements capture some kind of insight, theme, goal, or outcome described in the work and are distributed throughout the page.