Critical Skills for Solving Design Problems

The essential guide to decision making and problem solving for the interior designer The interior design profession requires effective problem solving and critical thinking, as they impact all phases of the design project and most work activities of the interior designer. Whether you are a student or professional designer, much of what you do involves these skills. Although most of us do not even think about what we do in terms of these activities, they are a constant part of design. They are also skills that must be performed successfully outside a professional career. Improving these skills makes you a more sought-after employee and designer, effective business owner, and fulfilled individual. Problem Solving and Critical Thinking for Designers will put the reader on the correct path to a solutions-oriented practice. Using her trademark accessible and conversational approach, Christine Piotrowski guides readers through the process of how the working designer solves problems and makes decisions. Some of the topics she discusses are: Design process Communication Asking questions Problem definition and analysis Decision-making process Negotiation Working with others Ethical decision making This book also features real-life scenarios and design problems that guide the reader toward making correct decisions in real-life situations.

Students need to learn to manage their time, organise their studies, understand, learn, and convey a lot of information – and they need to learn to do it quickly. Whether you’re fresh out of school, or a mature student returning to education, you now don’t need to feel alone! With Study Skills For Dummies, you'll be given the know-how and confidence to achieve consistent results every time – and a lack of preparation will become a thing of the past. Discover how to excel at: Note-taking, speed-reading and essay-writing Improving your memory, critical thinking and analysis Using the internet to supplement study Exam skills and developing the best learning strategy to fit your specific needs and abilities

Being a “good teacher” is a difficult goal to achieve, being largely dependent on a huge variety of skills outside of the main curriculum. Teaching Skills For Dummies focuses on these ‘soft’ skills of teaching, from maintaining discipline to creating engaging lesson plans and monitoring performance. This essential guide promises to help teachers gain the respect of their pupils, manage potential confrontations and ultimately get the best out of both their careers and their students. Teaching Skills For Dummies includes information on: Developing Your Teaching Style Teaching a Class Managing a Class Dealing with Different Kinds of People Succeeding Beyond the Classroom “Don’t let the title fool you; this is an essential guide and resource for any aspiring teacher. Sue Cowley uses her experience and insight to provide a comprehensive and informative resource, packed with excellent advice and brilliant suggestions for making both teaching and learning effective. A must for any teacher’s bookshelf!” – Peter Hadfield, Principal lecturer in Education, University of Bedfordshire

An invaluable nursing handbook to increase your confidence with medicine management  In the newly revised Second Edition of  Medicine Management Skills for Nurses , renowned nursing trainer Claire Boyd delivers a concise, pocket-sized companion to the subject of medicines management and drug administration that’s perfect for student nurses, associate practitioners, and newly qualified registered nurses.  Part of the popular  Student Survival Skills  series, this edition includes tips, advice, and words of wisdom from nursing students written for people working through the nursing curriculum. It mirrors the standards set by the Nursing and Midwifery Council and contains interactive student activities throughout the book.  An ideal companion to the forthcoming  Calculation Skills for Nurses, 2nd Edition , the latest edition of  Medicine Management Skills for Nurses  is packed with conversational, accessible guidance to help you understand and handle medicines with confidence and competence. It also includes:  Thorough introductions to the general principles of drug administration and to pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic concepts Comprehensive explorations of oral drug administration and administration by injection Practical discussions of calculations for working out medicine dosages In-depth examinations of specific, commonly used drugs and individual medical conditions, as well as pain management Ideal for pre-registration nursing students and nursing associates, the latest edition of  Medicine Management Skills for Nurses  is an indispensable resource for anyone seeking practical and student-centered advice for managing medicines in a clinical environment.

Every successful organization needs high-performance teams to compete and succeed. Yet, technical people are often resistant to traditional «touchy-feely» teambuilding. To improve communication, performance, and morale among NASA’s technical teams, former NASA Astrophysicist Dr. Charlie Pellerin developed the teambuilding process described in «How NASA Builds Teams»—an approach that is proven, quantitative, and requires only a fraction of the time and resources of traditional training methods. This «4-D» process has boosted team performance in hundreds of NASA project teams, engineering teams, and management teams, including the people responsible for NASA’s most complex systems – the Space Shuttle, space telescopes, robots on Mars, and the mission back to the moon. How NASA Builds Teams explains how the 4-D teambuilding process can be applied in any organization, and includes a fast, free on-line behavioral assessment to help your team and the individual members understand each other and measure the key driver of team performance, the social context. Moreover, these simple, logical processes appeal strongly to technical teams who eschew «touchy-feely» training. Pellerin applies simple, elegant principles from his physics background to the art teambuilding, such as the use of a coordinate system to analyze the characteristics of team performance into actionable elements. The author illustrates the teambuilding process with entertaining stories from his decade as NASA’s Director for Astrophysics and subsequent 15 years of working closely with NASA and outside business teams. For example, he tells how the processes in the book enabled him to initiate the space mission to fix the Hubble Space Telescope’s flawed mirror. Free downloadable resources will help you: Identify your teammates’ innate personalities Diagram your culture (And compare it to your customer’s) Measure the coherency of your project’s paradigm (Get this wrong and you will be fired!) and Learn to meet people’s need to feel valued by you. Further, you can download and use Pellerin’s most powerful tool for influencing the outcome of any difficult situation: the Context Shifting Worksheet.

Essential Laboratory Skills for Biosciences is an essential companion during laboratory sessions. It is designed to be simple and give clear step by step instructions on essential techniques, supported by relevant diagrams. The book includes the use of particular equipment and how to do simple calculations that students come across regularly in laboratory practicals. Written by experienced lecturers this handy pocket book provides: Simple to follow laboratory techniques Clear use of diagrams and illustrations to explain techniques, procedures and equipment Step by step worked out examples of calculations including concentrations, dilutions and molarity Suitable for all first year university students, the techniques in the book will also be useful for postgraduate and final year project students and enhance the practical and theoretical knowledge of all those studying bioscience related subjects.

The book is a review of essential skills that an entry-level or experienced engineer must be able to demonstrate on a job interview and perform when hired. It will help engineers prepare for interviews by demonstrating application of basic principles to practical problems. Hiring managers will find the book useful because it defines a common ground between the student's academic background and the company's product or technology-specific needs, thereby allowing managers to minimize their risk when making hiring decisions. Ten Essential Skills contains a series of «How to» chapters. Each chapter realizes a goal, such as designing an active filter or designing a discrete servo. The primary value of these chapters, however, is that they apply engineering fundamentals to practical problems. The book is a handy reference for engineers in their first years on the job. Enables recent graduates in engineering to succeed in challenging technical interviews Written in an intuitive, easy-to-follow style for the benefit of busy students and employers Book focuses on the intersection between company-specific knowledge and engineering fundamentals Companion website includes interview practice problems and advanced material

The best-selling book for teaching basic life skills, fully revised and updated This book offers teachers and parents a unique collection of 190 ready-to-use activities complete with student worksheets, discussion questions, and evaluation suggestions to help exceptional students acquire the basic skills needed to achieve independence and success in everyday life. Each of the book's activities focuses on specific skills within the context of real-life situations and includes complete teacher instructions for effective use, from objective and introduction through optional extension activities and methods to assess student learning. The book includes numerous reproducible parent letters which can be sent home to help parents reinforce these lessons while children are away from school. A revised and updated edition of the classic book for teaching basic life skills Includes 190 complete activities with reproducible worksheets, discussion questions, and evaluation suggestions for developing independence Offers ideas for developing practical skills to deal with identity theft, cell phone manners, budgeting, eating healthy meals, using credit cards, time management, and much more Mannix is the best-selling author of Social Skills Activities for Special Children, Writing Skills Activities for Special Children, and Character Building Activities for Kids

An accessible guide to the main reasons pumps fail—and what can be done about it Workhorses in many different industries, including the oil industry, water industry, chemical industry, food industry, and pharmaceutical industry to name a few, pumps are a vital contributor to maintaining and increasing the flow of production. In fact, the pump industry itself is a multi-billion dollar global business. Taking the unique approach of addressing both pump operators and pump designers, Pump Wisdom explains the causes of failure in centrifugal pump function—whether it's pump selection, overlooked installation criteria, or the accumulation of small deviations—and maps out remedies with well defined methods that target specific issues, rather than focusing on technical generalities and theory. Clearly written and concise, Pump Wisdom relies on proven tactics for reducing pump vulnerabilities and correcting imbalances between hydraulic assembly and mechanical assembly. In addition, it supplies sound tips for detecting and rectifying risky shortcuts taken by pump designers and manufacturers. Pump Wisdom also: Provides a concise explanation of how pumps function Details the specifications to be considered when purchasing a pump Provides tips on the installation of centrifugal pumps in process plants Written in concise language that avoids excessive mathematical treatment Explains pump hydraulics in easy to understand terms Emphasizes the mechanical aspects of pumps with coverage on bearings, seals, impeller trimming, lubricant application, lubricant types, and more Pump Wisdom sheds light on the techniques for stabilizing pump performance and maximizing pump efficiency. Its concise format allows readers to strike directly at the heart of the problem—and helps them devise strategies to prevent costly failures before they occur.