Workplace Skills Rationale
Workplace Skills Standard 1
Workplace Skills Standard 2
Workplace Skills Standard 3
Workplace Skills Standard 4
Workplace Skills Standard 5
Workplace Skills Standard 6
Workplace Skills Standard 7
Workplace Skills Standard 8

Arizona Standards

Workplace Skills Standards
(Adopted 3/24/97)

Standard 3

Students apply critical and creative thinking skills to make decisions and solve workplace problems.

Students know and are able to do the following:

READINESS (Kindergarten)

  • Share in the planning of classroom activities, specifying the goals and alternatives, and choosing the best course of action to take 
  • Identify changing aspects of the school and community and describe the effects they have on personal decisions

FOUNDATIONS (Grades 1-3)

  • Address a specific problem by specifying their goals, devising alternative solutions, considering the risks of each and choosing the best course of action 
  • Identify methods for initiating change 
  • Define a variety of creative thinking skills 
  • Practice a variety of creative thinking skills to identify potential solutions to workplace issues 
  • Identify the need for data, obtaining it from existing sources such as the library, on-line databases or field research 
  • Describe possible solutions to a variety of problems

ESSENTIALS (Grades 4-8)

  • Utilize information acquired from several sources and transfer information learned in one situation to another 
  • Devise and implementing a plan of action by specifying goals and constraints 
  • Generate alternatives, consider risks, evaluate and choose solutions 
  • Monitor progress and make adjustments to meet stated objectives 
  • Reflect on the action taken to determine what has been gained, lost or achieved 
  • Identify a need for data, obtain it and develop a validation instrument for determining its accuracy

PROFICIENCY (Grades 9-12)

  • Develop a plan to solve complex problems by gathering, selecting and analyzing data; include determining the history and politics of the situation 
  • Identify and allocate available resources (e.g., time, money, materials, facilities and human)  
  • Design and justify solutions by tracking and evaluating the results 
  • Demonstrate the ability to adapt new information to changing situations and requirements
  • Combine ideas or information in new ways, make connections between seemingly unrelated ideas, and reshape goals in ways that reveal new possibilities to solve problems 
  • Develop an inventory record-keeping system to maintain data and information in systematic fashion

DISTINCTION (Honors)

  • Apply a continuous improvement process to an existing business 
  • Conduct a comprehensive workplace needs assessment, communicate their findings to the employer, and develop and defend a set of proposed solutions to address the needs