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Professional Competency Self-Evaluations

Sara Munčs

As per the requirements of the MATL Program, Self-Evaluations for the MEES
Professional Competencies have been conducted throughout my teacher training
specifically in December 2018, April 2019 and June 2019.

Please click on the links on the competencies to bring you to the specific sections of this
document where my self-evaluations can be found. Use the link in the header to return
to this title page.

• Competency 1
• Competency 2
• Competency 3
• Competency 4
• Competency 5
• Competency 6
• Competency 8
• Competency 10
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Competency 1 : To act as a professional inheritor, critic and interpreter of knowledge or

culture when teaching students

Acceptable.
This course has enabled me to become much more familiar with the QEP and the
progressions of learning in science and technology in order to design lessons that meet
the content requirements of the curriculum. I am definitely aware of and comfortable
with the program specific knowledge that needs to be taught. The lesson plans we have
had to create throughout the semester, as well as the LES have given me good practice
at developing Big Ideas that interconnect required science content in a meaningful and
useful manner. We also practiced developing Big Ideas that promoted the construction
of scientific understanding in our students in EDTL 625. In EDTL 520 we definitely
learned about the importance of questioning our personal perspectives, and having
been given the opportunity to reflect on how my perspective has changed over the
course of one semester, I have a firmer grasp on my own limitations. Reviewing and
reflecting on our microteachings i n this course definitely demonstrated to me the
manners in which I critically approach the content I am teaching the students. I think I
also need to work on integrating student perspectives into my lessons. The idea of
making learning culturally relevant to our students has been important and emphasized
in all of our classes, but since we have not yet had the opportunity to teach actual
students I am uncertain of how well my lesson plans have managed to do this.
December 2018
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Competency 2 : To communicate clearly in the language of instruction, both orally and

in writing, using correct grammar, in various contexts related to teaching.

Thorough.
Throughout my internship and St Thomas, and something that was further emphasized
during EDTL 604 this past April-June, it has become clear that being able to
communicate with your students using language, terminology and expressions they
understand is of utmost importance in order for them to be able to execute tasks as per
your instructions and be evaluated on these tasks. Teaching will never be successful if
we do not clearly communicate our lesson goals and our expectations for their learning
and evaluation to our students. During my internship, I had got into the habit of
presenting an outline to my students at the beginning of class, and as a result of my
learning during EDTL 604, I will definitely be adding a learning goal (or goals) to these
outlines in clear language that makes not only the goal clear, but also how this goal will
be accomplished since the goal will be tied to a task. I have become quite proficient at
phrasing these lesson goals as evidenced by our lesson plans in our LES on the
circulatory system.
Making language clear in the rubrics used to evaluate our students is also of utmost
importance, and a skill that I developed during this course. A rubric is useless if it is not
expressed in a manner that our students will understand and this is something that
should always be at the forefront of our minds when designing rubrics. A great strategy
to ensure this is to actually work with our students in order to design rubrics. If the
students are involved in the process of determining what is important and what they
should be evaluated on they are more likely to take responsibility to ensure that they
meet the requirements they themselves helped to outline.
June 2019

Thorough.
I definitely am strong at communicating according to the rules of oral and written
expression of the English language. This course has definitely given me ample
opportunity, through the microteachings to practice communicating ideas precisely,
concisely and efficiently. In particular, since the microteaching classes were so short, it
was good practice at managing time and communicating ideas effectively in a short
period. Something I still need to work on with regards to this competency is using less
advanced language, in particular with my future students. I also need to work on paying
better attention to student uses of science vocabulary and making sure I understand
whether they are using certain words correctly or not and scaffolding their vocabulary to
correct terminology when appropriate.
December 2018
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Competency 3 : To develop teaching/learning situations that are appropriate to the

students concerned and the subject content with a view to developing the competencies
targeted in the programs of study.

Thorough.
EDTL 604 as well as EDTL 609 have given me great experience designing a unit
following backwards design principles. That is developing learning situations thoroughly
based on the progressions of learning and which will enhance the acquisition of the
targeted competencies both subject specific and cross-curricular. No learning situations
can be developed until we have a clear idea of where we are headed in terms of
competencies and content. Furthermore, in order to ensure that the learning situations
and later the evaluation situations are appropriate for our students we must ensure to
plan ample time for our students to practice what we will be evaluating them on and give
them explicit feedback to shed light on their progress towards our targeted goals.
In the creation of our LES for EDTL 604 we had to do exactly this: determine our goals
and the acceptable evidence for the evaluation of these goals and then design ways in
which we could scaffold the accomplishment of these goals by our students and give
them feedback about their learning along the way.
In EDTL 609, we also learned how important it is to be able to differentiate our learning
situations by process, content and product as well as according to interest, choice and
readiness. We learned a number of different strategies to accomplish this such as tiered
learning, 2-5-8, tic-tac-toe, choice boards, cubing, etc, some of which I got the chance
to test out in a short contract I acquired teaching math and which really did promote
engagement in the learning activities on the part of my students.
June 2019

Acceptable.
During this course, I learned about a varied number of collaborative learning techniques
that helped give me strategies to approach learning in diverse manners. By reviewing
and reflecting on my microteaching experiences I was also better able to see what
worked and what did not, helping me to better anticipate obstacles in the future. EDTL
625 also really helped me, see how important planning for misconceptions and
misunderstandings is and how to anticipate manners to overcome them. As we became
much more familiar with the progressions of learning and the QEP in this course, I do
feel much more confident about planning lessons and units around the subject specific
content and competencies in an order that is coherent and relevant to the students. I
think, that I still have work to do in terms of diversifying my planning to my students
particular needs. Hopefully, as I get into a classroom and am faced with specific
situations I will be able to apply the strategies we have learned about in class
successfully.
December 2018
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Competency 4: To pilot teaching/learning situations that are appropriate to the students

concerned and to the subject content with a view to developing the competencies
targeted in the programs of study.

Thorough.
During my placement teaching science at St Thomas High School, I had the opportunity
to pilot a variety of different learning situations in my classroom. One of my main goals
at the beginning of the internship was to focus on giving students time to elicit their own
ideas about science content and to listen to these ideas in order to better guide student
learning. One very effective way I found of doing this, was through an approach called
PEOE (Predict, Explain, Observe, Explain). In this approach students would be given
the opportunity to predict and explain their reasoning for phenomena before conducting
demos or experiments, thus engaging students in the learning situation from the
beginning. Students must therefore reflect and make connections with prior knowledge
before even witnessing scientific phenomena. By engaging students in this prediction
and explanation step, they are encouraged to rely on their knowledge as well as that of
their classmates to interpret information. When the students share their predictions it
also gives me, the instructor, an idea of the gaps that will have to be filled when I direct
them towards an explanation of the phenomenon they are witnessing. Having the
students engaged with the phenomena, also provided a great task for students to
accomplish and kept them focused on learning instead of focused on note taking or, as
happens all too frequently, distracted from the material at hand. Overall, this is a
teaching situation that succeeded quite well for me in the classroom and that I plan to
continue to employ in my future as an educator.
April 2019
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Competency 5: To evaluate student progress in learning the subject content and

mastering the related competencies.

Acceptable.
EDTL 604 has given me many tools and techniques in order to evaluate student
progress and the mastering of competencies. Primarily, this course has emphasized the
importance of formative feedback and of building opportunities to give this kind of
feedback into unit planning. Being transparent about expectations and how students are
performing with regards to these expectations is of utmost importance for good
evaluation to take place. I feel like my ability to give good and useful formative feedback
has dramatically improved as a result of this course. When designing exit slip questions
for instance, I now realize how important it is to keep in mind the goals of my lesson and
think about what kind of question would offer good evidence as to whether or not these
goals have been accomplished. When designing unit plans in general it is important to
have a clear idea of the goals of the unit and what would constitute good evidence for
accomplishing these goals. These goals and evidence you are looking for then need to
be explicitly communicated with the students. Some key strategies I am looking forward
to implementing in my next stage include:
• Backwards design of goals, evaluation and learning situations
• Sharing learning goals with my students
• Involving students in the creation of evaluation rubrics
• Providing my students with formative feedback on a regular basis
June 2018
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Competency 6: To plan, organize and supervise a class in such a way as to promote

students' learning and social development.

Thorough.
Throughout my placement at St Thomas I certainly developed a number of strategies in
order to ensure the smooth running of my classroom activities. One such strategy that
worked well for me was that of sharing an outline with my students for that day’s classes
activities. Sharing this outline allowed my students to be aware of my expectations for
the class and of how they would be expected to behave in order for the activities to
unfold as planned. When students knew what to expect of the class, they were more
likely to match their behaviour to the expectations. I also honed my abilities to anticipate
potential organizational problems in my lesson and, therefore, to ensure that these
problems would be overcome. For instance, I planned a number of round robin activities
in my classroom where students would have to circulate in groups from one station to
the next, spending a limited amount of time at each station. Reviewing the order that the
students must visit the stations in prior to beginning and checking to make sure the
order was understood, as well as having a timer prepared ahead of time that would run
for the correct amount of time and restart for each rotation without my having to readjust
it proved to be invaluable for these round robins to operate smoothly. When the
organization was there, I could focus all my time being an instructor and facilitating the
learning of the students rather than ensuring that the organizational instructions were
being followed.

One area which I am still developing in this competency is that of establishing methods
to address inappropriate behaviours exhibited by students. The culture at St Thomas
includes assigning detentions as punishments for inappropriate behaviour, but I was not
always consistent with my application of this punishment which can become problematic
in the long run if warnings are not followed through with punishments. Sending students
out of the classroom was another method which I used with some success, however
this had to be planned carefully in order to make sure there would be time to leave the
classroom and address the student in question one on one. One hope I have for my
future placements is that I will have the opportunity to lay ground rules down explicitly
with the students so that it is clear under what circumstances behaviour will be punished
to avoid the issue I had of consistency.
April 2019
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Competency 8: To integrate information and communications technologies (ict) in the

preparation and delivery of teaching/learning activities and for instructional management
and professional development purposes.

Thorough.
During my Winter 2019 internship at St Thomas, I found multiple ways to integrate ICT
into my lessons. As all of our classrooms were equipped with Smartboards, I often took
advantage of this technology in order to have the students participate in the solving of
problems in front of the class. This was a particular asset during review sessions, when
everyone would be working together on a review package in preparation for a quiz or
test. The advantage of smartboards, over the traditional whiteboard was that all of the
information could be easily recorded to look back for evidence of how students are
thinking, or even to share with students for studying purposes. Of course, however, it is
always important to have a back up method for presentation, in case there are technical
difficulties.

As St Thomas has chromebook carts that can be booked ahead of time for specific
lessons, I would plan specific lessons around the students having access to ICT as well.
For instance, I used an Explore Learning Gizmo to introduce students to a more
conceptual topic on lightwaves which allowed students to experience refraction and
dispersion in a manner that wouldn't have been possible in a traditional lab ksetting. Of
course, when students have access to the internet, it does become a challenge to make
sure that they stay on task and are able to redirect their attention to me, as opposed to
the computer application when necessary.

In terms of sharing information, working in a google drive has proven invaluable to be

able to share lesson plans, worksheets and support material with my CT, supervisor
and other teachers that I cooperated with for instance during interdisciplinary or grade
wide projects.
April 2018
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Competency 10: To cooperate with members of the teaching team in carrying out tasks
involving the development and evaluation of the competencies targeted in the programs
of study, taking into account the students concerned.

Advanced.
Cooperating with members of the teaching team in order to evaluate students was
certainly emphasized during EDTL 604. Since in Quebec, we should be evaluating
students’ abilities in subject specific and cross-curricular competencies it is important to
be in touch with other members of the team to make sure that everyone is on the same
page in terms of communication with each other and with the students about
expectations. One excellent strategy for collaboration and sharing that was emphasized
during this course was the idea of Professional Learning Communities. By starting
professional learning communities in our schools this could be a great way to ensure
that we are presenting a united and consistent front to our students.
June 2019

Advanced.
During my placement at St Thomas High School during the winter 2019 semester, I had
the opportunity to participate in the delivery of two interdisciplinary projects while
teaching Grade 9 and 10 science classes. In grade 9, the students conducted an
interdisciplinary project in tandem with their English class and in grade 10 the project
was in tandem with their mathematics class. In order to appropriately prepare our
respective students for these projects, communication between the science and English
and science and math departments was essential.

Participating in the planning meetings and engaging appropriately at these meetings to

ensure everything about what students would have to deliver for the project and by
when was clear to everyone was supremely important. Anchoring sessions to determine
how the projects would be evaluated and to ensure both departments were on the same
page about how to evaluate subject specific content from the two subjects being
addressed in the project were also essential.

Working with other teachers to ensure the success of individual students was also
necessary at times. For instance, a number of my students had science tutorial time in
the St Thomas Learning Centre (TLC) and making sure I kept the TLC teacher apprised
of the content we were covering and the performance I was seeing from the students in
the TLC classes was necessary. Overall, the internship opened my eyes to how
collaborative teaching has to be in order to ensure the success of our students.
April 2019