2150 Cypress Creek Road, Cedar Park, TX 78613
(512) 435-8300 phone (512) 435-8305 fax
Note to Business Partners: This is
a section of notebooks that students will receive prior to COOL Week.
This section discusses SCANS skills. You may find it helpful as you
are planning your COOL Week experience.
Directions for Students:
Prior to COOL Week, take some time to
look over the SCANS information on the following pages. SCANS stands
for "The Secretary of Labor's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills."
These are competencies, skills and personal qualities the department of
labor has determined to be necessary for a successful work force.
If you can develop these skills and competencies during your school years,
and as you begin your career, you will promote advancement potential and
personal flexibility that will enable you to adapt favorably to the changing
demands of the twenty-first century work place.
During COOL Week, you will be asked to
identify any 5 of the competencies, basic skills, or personal qualities
that you see being applied at your work site. Try to identify one
each day. Use the page provided to write a brief paragraph for each
of the 5 you have seen demonstrated. The list of competencies, skills,
and personal qualities are found on the next two pages. The example
below is how you should identify and explain how you saw the SCANS competencies
applied on your work site:
SCANS Example
Competency, skill or quality: Negotiates
I attended a meeting between a manager
and employees where the discussion involved the way a back order should
be handled. A number of employees suggested a procedure which would
let the customers know how soon their back orders could be expected.
After discussing the suggestion, the manager agreed that the old policy
should be modified to serve the customer better.
SCANS Competencies
Resources: Identifies, organizes, plans, and allocates resources
A. Time - Selects goal-relevant activities, ranks them, allocates time, and prepares and follows schedules
B. Money - Uses or prepares budgets, makes forecasts, keeps records, and makes adjustments to meet objectives
C. Material and Facilities - Acquires,
stores, allocates, and uses materials or space efficiently
Interpersonal: Work with others
A. Participates as a member of a Team-contributes to group effort
B. Teaches Others New Skills
C. Serves Clients/Customers - Works to satisfy customers' expectations
D. Exercises Leadership - communicates ideas to justify position, persuades and convinces others, responsibly challenges existing procedures and policies.
E. Negotiates - Works toward agreements involving exchange of resources, resolves divergent interests.
F. Works with Diversity - Works well with men and women from diverse backgrounds
Information: Acquires and uses information
A. Acquires and evaluates information
B. Organizes and maintains information
C. Interprets and communicates information
D. Uses computers to process information
Systems: Understands complex inter-relationships
A. Understands Systems - Knows how social, organizational, and technological systems work and operates effectively with them
B. Monitors and Corrects Performance-Distinguishes trends, predicts impacts on system operation, diagnoses systems' performance and correct malfunctions
C. Improves or Designs Systems - Suggests
modification to existing systems and develops new or alternative systems
to improve performance
Technology: Works with a variety of technologies
A. Selects Technology - Chooses procedures, tools or equipment including computers and related technologies
B. Applies technology to tasks - Understands overall intent and proper procedures for setup and operation of equipment
C. Maintains and troubleshoots equipment
- Prevents identifies, or solves problems with equipment, including computers
and other technologies.
SCANS Skills and Personal Qualities
Basic Skills: Reads, writes, performs arithmetic and mathematical operations, listens and speaks.
A. Reading - Locates, understands and interprets written information in prose and in documents such as manuals, graphs, and schedules.
B. Writing - Communicates thoughts, ideas, information and messages in writing: and creates documents such as letters, directions, manuals reports, graphs and flow charts.
C. Arithmetic/Mathematics - Performs basic computation and approaches practical problems by choosing appropriately from a variety of mathematical techniques.
D. Listening - receives, attends to, interprets and responds to verbal messages and other cues.
E. Speaking - Organizes ideas and communicates
orally.
Thinking skills: Thinks creatively, makes decisions, solves problems, visualizes, knows how to learn, and reasons.
A. Creative Thinking - Generates new ideas.
B. Decision Making - Specifies goals and constraints generates alternatives, considers risks, and evaluates and chooses best alternative.
C. Problem Solving - Recognizes problems and devises and implements plan of action.
D. Seeing Things in the Mind's
Eye-Organizes and processes symbols, pictures,
graphs, objects, and other information.
E. Knowing How to Learn - Uses efficient learning techniques to acquire and apply new knowledge and skills.
F. Reasoning - Discovers a rule or principle
underlying the relationship between two or more objects and applies it
when solving a problem.
Personal Qualities: Displays responsibility, self-esteem, sociability, self-management, integrity and honesty.
A. Responsibility - Exerts a high level of effort and perseveres towards goal attainment.
B. Self-Esteem - Believes in own self worth and maintains a positive view of self.
C. Sociability - Demonstrates understanding, friendliness, adaptability, empathy, and politeness in group settings.
D. Self-Management - Assesses self accurately, sets personal goals, monitors progress, and exhibits self control.
E. Integrity/Honesty - Chooses ethical courses of action.