Category Archives: Core Competencies

Where I’m From Essay

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My Paper

The Writing Process

During the process of writing my essay I learned a lot of new things about myself and my writing. I enjoyed interviewing my family and learning new things about them, which really helped me understand them a lot more. I also enjoyed having peer editors to see new perspectives of my writing, and what could be done better as well as where changes can be made. It was surprising to learn many new aspects of my family’s lives that I didn’t know about until now. It was difficult taking quotes and incorporating them into an essay in a way that flowed well. However, I overcame that struggle by using the prompts or question I had asked in the sentence to make the quote fit smoothly within my paragraphs. During this assignment, it was easy for me to build off of points in a way to make it clear, interesting and engaging to read. Lastly, this assignment has taught me that looking at something from many different perspective can be beneficial to many aspects of a task or assignment. For example, when completing an assignment, you can improve your writing or research by having someone else look over it to catch any mistakes you may not have noticed and give ideas on how to make your writing more concise or clear.

Core Competency Reflection

I can contribute to and work with criteria to improve my own work; evidence of that is I’m able to use the criteria to plan out how an assignment will look as well as how to meet all expectations of an assignment, in order to improve my learning and skills. My learning and skills improve when I’m more observant and analytical of what needs to be done and make sure I accomplish what I need to for specific tasks.

I show that I value feedback from others in my group by always verifying what they wrote and how I can incorporate their perspective and feedback into the task at hand. During my essay writing process I specifically showed this when we completed peer edits. In order to fully understand how I can improve my writing and essay, I made sure to ask my peers what they wanted to see through their edits if I was ever confused about what they had written.

My strategies for collecting relevant information for specific tasks include reviewing the information I’ve collected, and connecting research to the specific task to check if there is any correlation or relevance. I first re-read my writing or research to check if it all makes sense and relates back to the topic. If the information seems out of place I either to to find ways to connect it to my previous research or I’ll just remove it from the task if it’s just unrelated information. In order to determine if the information I’ve collected is relevant or not I try to see how quick and easily I can connect it back to the original idea. If it’s too confusing and complicated to relate back I just remove that information due to its lack of relevance to the task presented.

I respectfully advocate for my needs by always asking for support when I need it, and planning out what I need to accomplish so that I can set aside adequate amounts of time for myself to complete them. If I ever find myself in need of assistance I’m always willing to reach out to someone whether it be a teacher, peer, or friend. I always try my best to resolve any issues or struggles I’m facing on my own first, but if I cannot figure it out on my own, I know I’m capable of asking others for help when I need it. The next thing I do to advocate for myself is planning what I need to complete and when it needs to be done by. This allows me to give myself enough time to complete any and all tasks I have. It also prevents me from having to rush to get things done, which only results in stress and prevents me from completing my best work.

One goal that I have moving forward is to discover new ways to re-focus myself when completing tasks and assignments. I have a few techniques right now but I still find myself ending up distracted from the tasks I was supposed to be completing. I think this goal would be beneficial for me due to its ability to help me in all areas of my life. Whether it be school, work, or just miscellaneous tasks, staying focused is very important. So, in order to figure out new ways to re-focus I’ve been trying out different things like listening to music, or changing my work environment and seeing which actions help me re-focus as well as stay focused at the same time.

Chemistry Acid-Base Titration Lab

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During this lab, the purpose was to titrate the HCl solution with an unknown concentration of NaOH solution. A titration is a method used to determine the unknown concentration of a solution by adding a solution with a known concentration into it to trigger a reaction and establish or calculate the concentration of the solution.The titration used in this specific lab was to calculate the unknown concentration of hydrochloric acid using a known concentration of sodium hydroxide. The endpoint of a titration is observed when the colour of the solution changes depending on the indicator used. During this lab, the indicator used was phenolphthalein therefore the endpoint of the titration would be when the solution become a shade of very light pink. In order to confirm that an endpoint of a titration has been reached the solution must remain the shade of pink for a minimum of about 30 seconds for the titration to be considered complete. In our lab the results for the concentration of hydrochloric acid was 0.1487M. To calculate our concentration we used the average volume of NaOH used (14.87mL), converted it to litres, calculated the moles of NaOH and used that number to find the moles of HCl and then divided that by litres of HCl to determine the molarity/concentration of the solution.

Buret Titration Volumes
Initial Volume Reading= 0.14 ± 0.01mL
Final Volume Reading= 14.96 ± 0.01mL

Throughout the time that this lab was completed, communication was a large part in the success of it. Being able to work alongside and discuss what steps must be taken in order for this lab to work is really important and my partner and I were able to work together in order to help each other complete the lab to the best of our abilities. We communicated by doing things like reading out the amount left in the buret in order for us to have an estimate of how much more NaOH needed to be added and not move too fast. My partner and I also divided the roles amongst us in order to be efficient and work together to ensure the results come out as successful as possible. Lastly my partner and I were also able to communicate with our teacher if we ever needed guidance or assistance of w were ever unsure about something regarding the lab, resulting in a successful titration lab.

Law Core Competency Self Assessment

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Should our criminal justice system be more punitive or rehabilitative? Why? 

I believe that our legal and criminal justice system in Canada should continue to focus more on the rehabilitation aspect of crimes as well as the behaviours of those committing said crimes. I think that it would be beneficial to prioritize and focus on correcting behaviours and observing common indicators of criminal behaviour and assessing it within our criminal justice system. There are definitely exceptions to this based on specific and much more violent circumstances, for example murder cases etc., however for those who have committed lower level crimes, I believe should be given a chance to prove that they understand the consequences of their actions and receive sentences that correlate with that, instead of an immediate harsh sentence in prison.

I can analyze my own beliefs and consider views that do not fit with them. 

I have shown my ability to interact with others and take their opinions into consideration and see where they come from, no matter how different they are many times throughout this course. I also always make an effort to include others and their perspectives and also try to encourage them to speak up and make their thoughts heard. Lastly, differences in opinions I think also makes you look deeper into your own due to the fact that there may be people who disagree, which is to be expected but may also prove to be beneficial to everyone involved in the conversation, topic, etc.

Spanish Core Competency Self Assessment

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Personal Awareness & Responsibility

Spanish Unit Test

In order to get the grade I wanted on this test, I had to use my time effective and efficiently in order to get the work done and study in order to prepare for it. This shows personal awareness and responsibility because I took responsibility and knew I had to create time to be able to prepare and study for this test in order to succeed, I also made smart decisions whilst studying in order to prioritize what I need to study and what areas I needed more support in. Alongside personal awareness and responsibility, I demonstrated critical and creative thinking as well.

Biology Core Competency Self Reflection

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Communication

My Artifact: Button Dichotomous Key

During the course of creating this artifact my partner Lily and I worked well and were great with how we communicated. We demonstrated communication by actively working together and providing ideas to help support each other and the success of our assignment. Our communication helped us work together, as well as listen to each others ideas and how we can build off of each others to create work that we equally contributed to. Through this activity my communication skills were strengthened and I saw that I’m able to work alongside others in order to create work that covers all aspects discussed within a group. In our group we discussed the similarities and differences of the buttons and how we thought that we could separate them, we also reached out to our teacher when we felt we needed extra support in our assignment. Although a few of our opinions on the characteristics of the buttons didn’t fully correlate, we managed to work together and find similarities between our opinions and work from there.

Socials Core Competency Self Assessment

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Critical and Reflective Thinking

In Socials 10 this year I am able to go through all assignments and reflect on my thinking or creation of any task and assignment and figure out ways that my thinking can be more descriptive and detailed and show my work or thoughts in a better way in order to excel and complete / hand in my best work. In order to do that I question and challenge aspects of my work in order to see it from different perspectives and create better work overall. If I do find any discrepancies within my work I’m able to redesign and create new ideas while still following the criteria and conducting new ideas. To show my ability to do this I’ve selected a poster project I created on the Persons Case with a partner. This project shows my critical thinking abilities because this project required a lot of re-evaluating in order to condense our project to meet the limited word count. To do that I went through all my work and questioned if it was really adding any new or different information that hadn’t been covered and figuring whether or not to include it or not. I was also able to look at this assignment from different perspectives to understand many of the aspects included even any subliminal ones that may not be noticed at first.

Core Competency Self-Assessment

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Collaborating in CLE 10

In CLE 10 this year I’m able to contribute during group activities with peers and share roles and responsibilities to achieve goals. The artifact represents collaboration because it was created by a group I was apart of an presented informally to the class. This can be shown during our informal presentations where we are given a set or questions or scenario to work in a group and create something on our sheet of paper and present it together. All group members must do their part in order to get the assignment done and shows everyone’s ability to work together while within class. Collaborating is a helpful skill thats applicable to almost any aspect of your life. You must be able to work alongside people whether it be in a school setting, a workplace, and just in general. I believe that I have this skill because I’m continuously able to work and create things while working with other people in order to get a task done, no matter how close to the person I am. Through the artifact that I chose, I learnt that collaborating doesn’t just mean being able to work alongside others, but also being able to collectively complete a task together while putting in your best effort to help any group you’re apart of create something.