Are you prepared to enter the workforce?

Michigan State University's Career Services Network has published the Twelve Essentials for Success. http://careernetwork.msu.edu/pdf/Competencies.pdf Here are the skills or competencies we must learn:

1. Working in a Diverse Environment

Learning from people who are different from

you—and recognizing your commonalities—is an

important part of your education and essential

preparation for the world you will join.

2. Managing Time and Priorities

Managing how you spend your time, and on

what, is essential in today’s world. Learn how to

sort priorities so you stay in control of your life.

3. Acquiring Knowledge

Learning how to learn is just as important as the

knowledge itself. No matter what your future

holds, you’ll continue to learn every day of your

life.

4. Thinking Critically

Developing solid critical thinking skills means

you’ll be confident to handle autonomy, make

sound decisions, and find the connection

between opportunities you have to learn and

how those opportunities will affect your future.

5. Communicating Effectively

Developing listening, interpreting, and speaking

skills is just as important as reading and writing.

6. Solving Problems

You may only have thought about problemsolving

when you’re faced with a crisis.

Understand the process and mind-set of successful

problem-solving and you’ll more easily handle

the bigger challenges that come your way

7. Contributing to a Team

In the workplace each person’s contribution is

essential to success. Having the ability to work

collaboratively with others is vital. This includes

identifying individual strengths (yours and

others) and harnessing them for the group,

building consensus, knowing when to lead and

when to follow, and appreciating group dynamics.

8. Navigating Across Boundaries

Life is filled with boundaries—good and bad.

Discover how to avoid the boundaries that

become barriers so you don’t hamper the ability

to collaborate with other people.

9. Performing with Integrity

It only takes one bad instance to destroy years

of good faith and good relationships. It’s

important to develop a code of ethics and

principles to guide your life.

10. Developing Professional Competencies

The end of college is the beginning of a new

education. Build on what you already know and

keep learning new skills—your job will challenge

you to grow and develop in ways you haven’t

imagined yet.

11. Balancing Work and Life

You’ve got a lot to accomplish in limited time.

How do you get it all done and still stay sane?

The key is maintaining balance among the

different parts of your life.

12. Embracing Change

Just about every aspect of life is in a constant

state of change. Sometimes it may seem that no

sooner do you get caught up than you have to

start all over again. No matter how you feel

about change, you have to learn to deal with it.

Multimedia | Stand Up with Comedian Pete Dominick on Sirius XM Radio

Multimedia Stand Up with Comedian Pete Dominick on Sirius XM Radio: "The Incredible Progression of Technology
By Pete Dominick on Sep 17, 2010 in Multimedia
Check out this amazing video about the progression of technology. It’s got a great soundtrack, too!"

Cenk Uygur&Robert Reich-"What Obama's Done Wrong On The Economy"-Pt.2

Critical Thinking Competencies

In the next twenty years, according to latest census data, 80 percent of the world’s population will be “nonwhite.” By 2020, nearly 21% of the American population will either be Hispanic, African American, Asian, or Native American:

Population
	Percentage 1995	Percentage 2005	Percentage 2020
Whites, Non Hispanic	83%	81.3%	79%
Hispanic	10.2%	12.6%	16.3%
African American	12.6%	13.2%	14%
Asian American	3.6%	4.6%	6.1%
Native American	0.9%	0.9%	1%
Source: Workforce 2020, Hudson Institute

The number one “competency” that employers demand as they review applicants for employment is the “ability to work in a diverse environment.” Acquiring, learning, such a competency requires continuous self-improvement to develop certain intellectual traits, dispositions or virtues:

• Fair-mindedness
• Empathy
• Humility
• Autonomy
• Integrity
• Courage
• Perseverance
• Confidence in Reason

For me, the ultimate goal of “critical thinking” is to foster the development of these “traits”. My life purpose is “building true community.” Being and living the change I want to create, requires that I therefore become a “critical thinker.” To me, this also means that I must become a “creative thinker” as the two go hand-in-hand. Being a critical thinker is about assessing or judging, and being a creative thinker is about building, producing or making. I want to be able to both assess and produce, which requires imagination as well as intellectual rigor. Thus, I seek to be authentic—show up and take action that is true to myself, in alignment with my own values and beliefs and true/fair to others, in keeping with universal laws/principles. Thinking critically and creatively is becoming increasing important as change keeps accelerating in our global, complex, and interdependent world—a world that is also becoming more and more dangerous as inequity and poverty persist amidst abundance.

As a “teacher” or builder of learning communities, I hold critical/creative thinking (CCT) at the center of both learning and education. CCT has been defined as “the process of analyzing and assessing thinking with a view to improving [thinking].” (Elder, 2004) In order to accomplish this, we need to know the structures of thinking, the elements of thought, as well as the standards for thinking. Thinking can be improved by restructuring it as a result of analysis and assessment. (Ibid)

Thinking can be shallow, dishonest and based on flawed logic or it can be founded on intellectual fairmindedness. Fairminded, critical/creative thinkers are intellectually humble and empathic. They have confidence in reason and intellectual integrity and display intellectual courage and autonomy. There are also CTT competencies that focus on the elements of reasoning such as purpose, goals, and objectives; those that focus on universal intellectual standards; those that deal with barriers to sound reasoning such as egocentricity and sociocentric thought; those competencies that highlight CCT critical to learning itself; and those focusing on the specific domains or disciplines of thought such as ethical reasoning ability and skills in detecting media bias and propaganda. Each of these areas of competency must include principles of CTT, performance indicators, outcomes, and rubrics to determine the extent to which learners/students display achievement of outcomes and also the extent to which we understand and internalize the particular competence (see www.criticalthinking.org. )

(For a helpful resource see: Elder, Paul and Linda. (2006) Critical Thinking Competency Standards. The Foundation for Critical Thinking which can be found at the url above.)

Next, I intend to present the other competencies required by the nation’s employers and show how all of them are connected to CCT. More later…