Getting Started with The Visual Guides

How Do You See Yourself?

Student Self-Reflection of Core Competencies

GETTING STARTED

Teacher’s Guide
How to Use the Visual Guides

Created by
Chris Castellarin

Dedicated to all the teachers that ask, “How, do I get my students to understand what doing a self-reflection is really all about?”

And to all the students who ask, “What is it exactly that my teacher wants me to do on this self-reflection thing?”

I hope this visual guide helps.

Our goal - is to make education better.

Copyright Notice: Please respect that this program was the culmination of hundreds of hours of work spread out over three years. The Core Competency Visual Guides online and the PDF Student worksheets are the intellectual property of Chris Castellarin and protected by copyright law.

Who the Program is Meant for:

The program was created with Kindergarten as well as, Grades 1 to 3 students in mind. It is designed to be very structured in format but also very flexible for teachers to pick and choose whether they want to use all parts of the guides and all parts of the student work-booklets or only certain pages.

At these primary grade age levels we know from research that most young students will learn largely from visual images and cues. The visual guides were designed therefore, to allow students the opportunity to listen, watch and view picture storybooks, colourful photo images, clip art images and video shorts related to the 20 core competency statements.

PDF documents accompany the on-line material. Teachers print off the PDF student work-booklets (one for each of the six core competencies - also with three separate title pages to correspond with use during Fall, Winter or Spring implementing twice per week in order to complete the program three times in a school year instead of only once or twice during the school year). See timeline suggestions.

What are the Core Competencies?

The Core Competencies are sets of intellectual, personal, and social and emotional proficiencies that all students need in order to engage in deep, lifelong learning.

Students develop Core Competencies when they are engaged in the “doing” – the Curricular Competencies – within a learning area. As such, they are an integral part of the curriculum. While they manifest themselves uniquely in each area of learning, the Core Competencies are often interconnected and are foundational to all learning.

Before students enter school, development of Core Competencies begins at home and then continues throughout their life. Students encounter opportunities to develop their competence in formal and informal settings. They move from demonstrating competence in relatively simple and highly supported situations, to demonstrating independence in more complex and varied contexts. Competency development does not end with school graduation but continues in personal, social, educational, and workplace contexts.

Students, teachers, and parents/guardians share responsibility for the ongoing development of Core Competencies. Each group has its own considerations.

Unpacking the Three Core Competencies

Communication - The Communication competency encompasses the knowledge, skills, processes and dispositions we associate with interactions with others. Through their communication, students acquire, develop and transform ideas and information, and make connections with others to share their ideas, express their individuality, further their learning, and get things done. The communication competency is fundamental to finding satisfaction, purpose and joy.

Thinking - The Thinking competency encompasses the knowledge, skills and processes we associate with intellectual development. It is through their competency as thinkers that students take subject-specific concepts and content and transform them into a new understanding. Thinking competence includes specific thinking skills as well as habits of mind, and metacognitive awareness. These are used to process information from a variety of sources, including thoughts and feelings that arise from the subconscious and unconscious mind and from embodied cognition, to create new understandings.

Personal and Social - The Personal and Social competency is the set of abilities that relate to students' identity in the world, both as individuals and as members of their community and society. Personal and social competency encompasses what students need to thrive as individuals, to understand and care about themselves and others, and to find and achieve their purposes in the world.