SCANS

In 1990, the US Secretary of Labor appointed a commission to determine the skills our young people need to succeed in the world of work. The Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) was asked to examine the demands of the workplace and whether today's young people are capable of meeting those demands.

The commission's fundamental purpose was to encourage a high-performance economy characterized by high-skill, high-wage employment. Although the commission completed its work in 1992, its findings and recommendations continue to be a valuable source of information for individuals and organizations involved in education and workforce development.

What follows is a detailed representation of the SCANS competencies. We also offer a number of these original reports for download.

In the SCANS reports, three foundation skills were identified:

1) Basic Skills to include Reading , Writing, Arithmetic, Mathematics, Listening, and Speaking

2) Personal Qualities to include Responsibility, Self-Esteem, Sociability, Self-Management, and Integrity/Honesty

3) Thinking Skills to include Creative Thinking, Decision Making, Problem Solving, and Seeing Things in the Mind's Eye. Knowing How to Learn, and Reasoning.

Thinking Skills is of particular interest to Inspiration users. We have addressed each component of the Thinking Skills compentencies and its relationship to using Inspiration Software. Click here to download the SCANS 2000 Report Appendix C.

Creative Thinking. Uses imagination freely, combines ideas or information in new ways, makes connections between seemingly unrelated ideas, and reshapes goals in ways that reveal new possibilities.'

Q: Does Inspiration help in Creative Thinking?

A: More than 16 million users would firmly agree that it does.

Decision Making. Specifies goals and constraints, generates alternatives, considers risks, and evaluations and chooses best alternatives.

Q: Can Inspiration help in Decision Making?

A: Utilizing the variety of pre-installed templates and models can bring users far along their decision process and help weigh alternatives.

Problem Solving. Recognizes that a problem exists (i.e., there is a discrepancy between what is and what should or could be), identifies possible reasons for the discrepancy, and devises and implements a plan of action to resolve it. Evaluates and monitors progress, and revises plan as indicated by findings.

Q: Can Inspiration facilitate Problem Solving?

A: Clear visual representations of problem and opportunity charts can make a significant difference in the outcome. Representing plans for action is quick and easy in Inspiration and can be shared across platform to gain consensus and foster collaboration.

Seeing Things in the Mind's eye. Organizes and processes symbols, pictures, graphs, objects or other information; for example, sees a building from a blueprint, a system's operation from schematics, the flow of work actives from narrative descriptions, or the taste of food from reading a recipe.

Q: Can Inspiration foster a certain 'visuality™', that special and unique capability for users to visualize solutions and enhance the necessary skills to draw conclusions from the visual representation of complex ideas and relationships?

A: Inspiration is recognized as the premier tool for visual thinking , planning, and organizing. More than 12 million K-12 users can attest to that.

Q: Does drawing flow charts and using visuals for communication facilitate our thinking in pictures, 'in the mind's eye?'

A: No question that Inspiration's intuitive function allows for rapid practice in visualizing even the most complex subjects.

Knowing How to Learn. Recognizes and can use learning techniques to apply and adapt new knowledge and skills in both familiar and changing situations. Involves being aware of learning tools such as personal learning styles (visual, aural, etc.), formal learning strategies (not taking or clustering items that share come characteristics), and informal learning strategies (awareness of unidentified false assumptions that may lead to faulty conclusions).

Q: Can Inspiration affect learning?

A: The impact of graphic organizers on learning and cognitive development is well established by current research. Inspiration comes with a variety of pre-loaded templates to enhance learning. In addition, our Higher Ed templates are tools to enhance study habits, note taking, and beyond.

Reasoning. Discovers a rule or principle underlying the relationship between two or more objects and applies it in solving a problem. For example, uses logic to draw conclusions from available information, extracts rules or principles from a set of objects or written text; applies rules and principles to a new situation, or determines which conclusions are correct when given a set of facts and a set of conclusions.

Q: Can Inspiration help with problem solving and finding underlying relationships?

A: Strong arguments exist for the use of graphic organizers to help with the thinking process. See our link page for more information.