E2 Selecting and applying strategies: SACE Activating Identities and Futures
“E2 Selecting and applying strategies: explore, select and test relevant learning strategies to progress your learning towards your Learning Goal, adapting them as you consider their implications”
E2 rewards choosing learning strategies that suit your Learning Goal, testing their effect with evidence, considering what the results mean, and adapting them. Record the cycle of select, apply, test and adapt in your Portfolio, because listing strategies alone does not reach the higher standards.
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What this criterion asks
E2, Selecting and applying strategies, is about how you learn. The subject outline says students "explore and select relevant strategies to progress their learning". E2 is assessed mainly through the Portfolio (AT1), and the impact of strategies is appraised later (A2).
The answer
What counts as a strategy
A strategy is a deliberate method for making progress. Examples:
- Learning strategies: spaced practice, following a course, learning from worked examples, teaching someone else.
- Research strategies: interviews, surveys, reading expert sources, visiting a workplace.
- Making strategies: prototyping, drafting and redrafting, testing a product with users.
- Organising strategies: weekly goals, checklists, a timeline, breaking the goal into milestones.
- Motivation strategies: accountability partners, rewards, choosing the best time of day to work.
Select, apply, test, adapt
- Select a strategy that suits your goal, and say why.
- Apply it for long enough to judge.
- Test its effect with evidence (progress made, quality, feedback).
- Consider implications: what does the result mean for your learning?
- Adapt it, combine it with another, or replace it.
What the performance standards reward
| Grade | E2 standard |
|---|---|
| A | Develops, tests, and/or adapts strategies, considering their implications on the learning |
| B | Selects strategies and adjusts them for purpose to progress the learning |
| C | Selects and applies strategies to complete tasks and/or goals |
| D | Uses a strategy to complete a task |
| E | Describes a strategy |
Learning Goal: to design a small vegetable garden plan for the school's early learning centre.
- Strategy 1: research online garden guides. Test: lots of information, but much was for colder climates. Implication: needs local knowledge.
- Adapt: interview a local nursery owner and visit a community garden. Result: learned which vegetables suit the local climate and small children.
- Strategy 2: draft the plan, then test it with the centre's staff. Result: they wanted raised beds for accessibility; plan revised.
- Portfolio evidence: interview voice notes, annotated drafts, photos of the community garden, staff feedback.
- Vague strategies
- "Research" is not enough; say what, how and why.
- No evidence of effect
- Record what happened when you used the strategy.
- Never changing anything
- Adapting in response to evidence is what the top standard describes.
Practice questions
Original practice questions graded from foundation to exam level, each with a full worked solution. Try them before revealing the solution.
foundation3 marksList three strategies a student could use for the Learning Goal 'to learn to play five songs on the ukulele for a family celebration'.Show worked solution →
- Structured online lessons to learn chords in order of difficulty.
- Deliberate practice in 15-minute daily sessions focusing on the hardest chord change.
- Recording and reviewing themselves weekly to hear progress and errors.
Marking guide: 1 mark per relevant, specific strategy.
core4 marksWrite a Portfolio entry that shows a strategy being tested and adapted.Show worked solution →
Example entry:
"Week 4, strategy test. I tried learning the website-building software from a 3-hour video course. After two sessions I had watched 90 minutes but could not build a page myself. Implication: passive watching was not building skill.
Adaptation: I switched to building one small page each session and only watching the section I needed. Result (Week 5): I built my home page and contact form in two sessions. I will keep the 'build first, watch when stuck' approach."
It shows a strategy selected, tested, its implication considered, and an adaptation with evidence of its effect.
Marking guide: 1 mark for the initial strategy, 1 mark for the test and evidence, 1 mark for the adaptation, 1 mark for the result and decision.
exam5 marksExplain why simply listing the strategies you used will not reach the top performance standard for E2, and describe what evidence would.Show worked solution →
A list shows that strategies were used, which matches the C standard ("Selects and applies strategies to complete tasks and/or goals") at best. The A standard asks you to "develop, test, and/or adapt strategies, considering their implications on the learning". That requires evidence of thinking about strategies, not just using them.
Evidence that reaches A level:
- Why each strategy was chosen for this Learning Goal (and alternatives rejected).
- How it was tested, with a measure of its effect (time taken, quality of work, feedback).
- What its implications were (it worked for skills but not for motivation).
- How it was adapted or replaced, and what happened next.
Marking guide: 2 marks for explaining the difference between C and A standards, 3 marks for specific evidence of development, testing and adaptation.