Career and Professional Skills
Academic Literacy – basic reading and writing knowledge and abilities required to function adequately in one’s immediate environment.
Close Reading – the process of deliberately reading and rereading in order to achieve deep comprehension, encourage higher level thinking, and supporting opinion with evidence from the text.
Creative Thinking – the ability or power used to produce original thoughts and ideas based upon reasoning and judgment.
Critical Thinking – the ability to acquire information, analyze, and evaluate it, and reach a conclusion or answer by using logic and reasoning skills.
Design – an iterative decision-making process that produces plans by which resources are converted into products or systems that meet human needs and wants or solve problems.
Design Principle – design rules regarding rhythm, balance, proportion, variety, emphasis, and harmony, used to evaluate existing designs and guide the design process.
Design Process – a systematic problem-solving strategy, with criteria and constraints, used to develop many possible solutions to solve a problem or satisfy human needs and want and to narrow down the possible solutions to one final choice.
Engineering – The profession of or work performed by an engineer. Engineering involves the knowledge of the mathematical and natural sciences gained by study, experience, and practice that are applied with judgment and creativity to develop ways to utilize the materials and forces of nature for the benefit of mankind.
Evaluation – the collection and processing of information and data in order to determine how well a design meets the requirements and to provide direction for improvements.
Experimentation – the act of trying out a new procedure, idea, or activity.
Innovation –an improvement of an existing idea, method, device, or solution.
Invention – a product of the imagination develop through design, experimentation, and testing.
Metacognitive Thinking - refers to higher level thinking which involves active control over the cognitive processes engaged in learning. Activities such as planning how to approach a given learning task, monitoring understanding, and evaluating progress toward the completion of a task are metacognitive in nature.
Optimization – an act, process, or methodology used to make a design or system as effective or functional as possible within the given criteria and constraints.
Peer Review – an evaluation of academic or professional work by others working in the same field.
Problem Solving –the process of understanding a problem, devising a plan, carrying out the plan, and evaluating the plan in order to solve a problem or meet a need or want.
Reflective Writing – a practice in which the writer describes his or her thinking based on the writing prompt.
Technical Skills – an ability that has been acquired by training or experience.
Technological Literacy – the ability to use, manage, understand, and assess technology.
Notes
Professionals should be sophisticated problem solvers, excellent communicator, good information gatherer, careful listener, critical thinkers, and creative thinkers.
Professional must stay current with technology, design theory, trends, and popular culture.
The designer’s role is to provide solutions to communication problems.
Many designers are self-employed.
Designers work closely with their clients.
Designers need to help direct a client in determining the best type of design applications to solve the communication problem.
Each designer is responsible to discover ethical way to practice.