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YOUnique4Europe - Mapping and presenting your unique personal and social competences for better employability in a digital world
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This soft skill describes your ability to determine the deeper meaning or significance of what is being expressed.  Considering the amount of information people are facing today in the era of information it also means to be able to recognize wider themes and patterns in information and situations.


Synonyms: Allocate meaning, contextual thinking

Sub-Skills: Pattern recognition, opportunity recognition, analysis

To demonstrate sense making,
Nora suggests you:

  1. Build your own maps about the world
  2. Recognize tendencies and connections and derive correct conclusions and strategies
  3. Pursue opinions that differ from your own
  4. Test your own assumptions with experiments
  5. Seek out multiple perspectives

Examples - Sense making


One day at school Kristie addressed a question to her teacher: "Ms R., my parents think that computer games are not good for us kids. We would get nervous and not get enough exercise. However, I have read that some games help to concentrate better and work together on a problem."

Afterwards Kristie and her classmates freely expressed their thoughts to one another, elaborated one another’s ideas, argued for and against particular computer games, and joked with one another as they constructed arguments.


During the summer holidays Cindy works as a lifeguard at a lake close by. In the event that a bathing guest gets into an emergency situation, she has to quickly grasp the situation, recognize what exactly might have happened and quickly deduce the right rescue measures.

The European Commission's support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

  

 

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