What is the LS/PS Program?   How can the LS/PS Program benefit you?   What is a Skill Profile?   How does the program work?   What are the Ten Essential Skills?   Levels of Mastery   List of Courses

Get the LS/PS Student Guide Need the plug-in or viewer?

What is the LS/PS Program?
During your time at college, you study a variety of different subjects: Math, english, biology, psychology, philosophy. Along with the content of these courses, you also develop skills, such as: Speaking to groups, working with others, using technology, thinking critically and analyzing data. While your college transcript will document what courses you completed and what grades you earned, it will not indicate what skills you mastered. Simply put, the LS/PS program is a way for you to demonstrate that you have learned the Essential Skills that distinguish someone with a college education.

The Essential Skills are just a few of the 200 skills that the LS/PS program identifies as essential for lifelong learning and employability.

No one student masters all of those skills or is expected to, but the LS/PS program allows you to show the unique capabilities that you have developed through your studies and extracurricular activities. The LS/PS program is a value-added program that allows you to distinguish yourself form other college students by showing others and yourself what you are able to do.
Return to top.

How can the LS/PS Program benefit you?
While working toward a two-or four year degree, you will also be developing your own Skills Profile, which helps you:

• Become more aware of your own abilities and skills
  
• Develop skills that are in demand by employers
• Verify and document your abilities

This means that in addition to your transcript with its record of courses, credits, and grades, you will also have a Skills Profile that will document the skills that you have mastered-those skills that distinguish you from other students.

For instance, two students may have accumulated the same number of credits in, say, sociology or psychology, but because they took courses from different teachers, they learned different skills: one student may have learned how to design a valid experiment and to research the latest information in academic journals, the other may have learned how to interview sources and display information graphically. A transcript does not communicate those differences, but a Skills Profile does.

You then become more aware of where your strengths and experience lie- and so would a prospective employer who examines your Skills Profile.

What is a Skills Profile?
Your skills profile will give:

• A graphic "big picture" representation of where you strengths and experience lie across the Essential Skills.
• A skill-by-skill graphic representation of your strengths and experience, which show the sub-category of each of the Essential Skills.
• A list of the specific assignments and activities that you successfully completed.

How does the LS/PS Program work?
You register for whatever classes you need, for whatever degree, career, or transfer program you have in mind, but when you can, register for the specially marked LS/PS sections of those classes. Not all classes offered at IHCC are part of the LS/PS program, but a good many are-and the more you have in your schedule, the more opportunities you have to develop your own Skills Profile.

In addition, many of the extracurricular activities at Inver Hills, such as The Forum (the newspaper), student government, and Phi Theta Kappa (the honor society) will also provide you with opportunities in master LS/PS skills and have them become a part of your Skills Profile, too.

As you complete the assignments for your LS/PS courses, your teacher will record not only your grade for that assignment, but if you mastered one or more of the LS/PS skills, that accomplishment will also be recorded electronically in a special database used to keep track of your Skills Profile.

Your Skills Profile is available to you, here on the world wide web, for you to keep track of your own progress and to share with prospective employers who want documentation of your particular skill and with transfer institutions.

There is no extra cost to you, the student, to participate in this program.

There is no extra work for you in the LS/PS courses; the skills are incorporated as part of the regular course content and work. Your capabilities are reported in a unique way that we think is a value-added quality of your education at Inver Hill Community College.
Return to top.

What are the Ten Essential Skills?
First of all, the ten broad skill areas have been identified as the skills that - combined with the knowledge that comes from a college education- will provide you with the basis for lifelong learning and employability in contemporary society and business.

These skills are also characterized as:

• Transferable
  Once learned and practiced in one context, they can be adapted and applied in other contexts.
  
  
• Professional
  They are the basis of most professional work.
  
  
• Core competencies
  Once mastered, they become a part of who a person is.

Each of the Essentials Skills can be developed: that is, it can be modeled, taught, learned, assessed, and measured by successful demonstration.
The skills are:

Appreciation Skills: Achieving a perspective on oneself and the world	Material Skills: Interacting with the physical world
Collaboration Skills: Working with people effectively	Presentation Skills: Communicating effectively and responsively
Conceptual Skills: Organizing ideas and materials	Qualification Skills: Making distinctions and finding connections with words
Implementation Skills: Working and organizing effectively	Quantification Skills: Making distinctions and finding connections with words
Inquiry Skills: Finding, assimilating, and evaluating new information	Technology Skills: Using technology

The Essential Skills page will show you all of the skills mentioned above on one scrollable page.
Return to top.

Levels of Mastery
The LS/PS program is designed to allow you to develop and polish your skills at your own rate; there is no expectation that you- or any student- will master all skills.

Each of the five sub-categories for the ten skills is arranged in a developmental model-that is, easier levels of the skill precede more difficult ones. Here are the five levels for the skill of Public Speaking (a sub-category of the Essential Skills of Presentation: Communicating Clearly and Responsibly), with the least difficult level described first:

Public Speaking
Level 1: Incidental Occasion Speak before a group
Level 2: Assessed Effort Prepare and deliver a short presentation
Level 3: Substantial Accomplishment Prepare and deliver a substantial, persuasive presentation
Level 4: Broad Ability Speak in a variety of organizational or public forums
Level 5: Personal Mastery Deliver polished presentations consistently

Level 1, Incidental Occasion, is a non-assessed level, which means that the skill is not the focus of attention or is not sufficiently developed to be measured in this program. Generally speaking, at Inver Hills Community College, skills will be taught and assessed at the Assessed Effort and Substantial Accomplishment levels, corresponding roughly to the first two years of a college education. In addition, instructors in the LS/PS program work with other LS/PS colleagues to determine the assessment standards for all of the skill levels. That means that you, the student, will be getting a consistent message about what is expected in terms of performance criteria for all of the skills. Your instructor will have determined which level of a particular skill is appropriate for any given assignment.

It may be helpful to think of the five levels of skill development in this way:

Incidental Occasion
These are short, often informal activities without attention to explicit standards, often accomplished while attending to something else.

Assessed Effort
Here you will find short activities or assignments (for instance, a 2-5 page paper) with clear standards for acceptable quality.

Substantial Accomplishment
Here you will find extended projects of a larger scope, requiring more effort and attention to complete and stringent standards - a clear progression in ability beyond the level above.

Broad Ability
The competencies at this level increase in breadth, versatility, and reliability.

Personal Mastery
At this level, a given skill becomes a part of who you are and what you bring to any setting - your colleagues vouch for you as a person with a deserved reputation for excellence at this skill.
Return to top.

List of Courses for Spring Semester 2001

Course #	Section #	Course Title	Instructor
BIOL 1154	01	General Biology	Brient-Johnson, Heather
BIOL 1155	01	General Biology	Brient-Johnson, Heather
BIOL 2201	01	Anatomy & Physiology	Malotky, Michele
BIOL 2201	02	Anatomy & Physiology	Brient-Johnson, Heather
CIS 2205	99	Intro. to Internet	Bozonie, Mike
CIS 2206	99	Internet Resources	Bozonie, Mike
CS 1100	03	Intro. Comp. Science	Mudd, Rita
CS 1100	04	Intro. Comp. Science	Mudd, Rita
CS 1100	05	Intro. Comp. Science Self Paced	Mudd, Rita
CS 1104	91	Introduction to Networking	Jacobson, Jerry
ENG 1108	03	Writing/Research Skills	Collins, Anthony
ENG 1108	04	Writing/Research Skills	Holdeman, Arlene
ENG 1108	10	Writing/Research Skills	Holdeman, Arlene
ENG 1108	12	Writing/Research Skills	Collins, Anthony
ENG 1108	13*	Writing/Research Skills	McGregor, Julia
ENG 1108	14	Writing/Research Skills	Fagerson, Jon
ENG 1108	15	Writing/Research Skills	Fagerson, Jon
ENG 1108	93	Writing/Research Skills	Beurskens, Peter
ENG 1108	99	Writing/Research Skills	Swanson, Celia
ENG 1114	01	The Research Paper	Collins, Anthony
ENG 1114	03	The Research Paper	Swanson, Celia
ENG 1114	91	The Research Paper	Ford, Sara
ENG 2238	01	Contemporary Fiction	McGregor, Julia
ENG 2239	01*	Images of Women in Literature	Holdeman, Arlene
HIST 1105	01	Western Civilization II	Nelson, Richard
HIST 1105	91	Western Civilization II	Nelson, Richard
HLTH 1110	01	Nutrition	Anderson, Dennis
HLTH 1123	01*	Stress Management	Anderson, D/DeDeyn, K.
HLTH 1130	01	Drug Use/Abuse	Anderson, Dennis
HLTH 1130	02	Drug Use/Abuse	Anderson, Dennis
HLTH 1155	01	Lifetime Fitness	DeDeyn, Kathy
INTS 1101	01	College Success	Swanson, Celia
INTS 1101	02	College Success	Swanson, Celia
JOUR 1101	01	Intro. Mass Communication	Page, Dave P.
JOUR 1124	01	Newswriting	Page, Dave P.
MATH 1101	01	Inter Algebra	Kostyk, Vivian
MATH 1101	91	Inter Algebra	Kostyk, Vivian
MATH 1118	01	College Algebra I	Kostyk, Vivian
MUSC 1105	01	Choir	Danielson, Pauline
MUSC 1110	01	Music Fundamentals	Danielson, Pauline
PHED 1101	01	Aerobics	DeDeyn, Kathy
PHED 1101	02	Aerobics	DeDeyn, Kathy
PHED 1109	09	Weight Training	DeDeyn, Kathy
PHED 1110	01	Conditioning	DeDeyn, Kathy
PHED 1123	01	Body Shaping & Toning	DeDeyn, Kathy
PHED 1126	01	Nautilus Workout	DeDeyn, Kathy
PHIL 1112	01	Ethics	Knapp, Doug
PHIL 1112	81	Ethics	Knapp, Doug
PHIL 1120	01	Logic	Knapp, Doug
PHIL 1120	91	Logic	Knapp, Doug
PHIL 2201	01	Philosophy of Religion	Knapp, Doug
PSYC 1101	01	General Psychology	Manos-Andrea, Connie
PSYC 1101	04*	General Psychology	Manos-Andrea, Connie
PSYC 1140	01*	Psychology of Women	Rogers, Mary
READ 1100	01	Intro. to Critical Reading	Watt, Laurel
READ 1100	02	Intro. to Critical Reading	Kammeraad, Joyce
SOC  1185	91	Religion & Societies	Goar, Heidi
SPCH 1100	03	Interpersonal Communication	DeBoer, Judy
SPCH 1100	05	Interpersonal Communication	DeBoer, Judy
SPCH 1100	91	Interpersonal Communication	DeBoer, Judy
SPCH 1110	02	Fundamentals of Speech	DeBoer, Judy
SPCH 1114	01	Intercultural Communication	Golden, Meri
SPCH 2230	01	Small Group Disc & Leadership	DeBoer, Judy

Return to top.