Core Competency Reflection

Jooheon

Personal Awareness & Responsibility

Strengths: 

1. I can express my needs and seek help when needed.  

When I first came to Canada, I was facing massive struggles in adapting to the new
environment. Especially in the school setting, my language barrier prevented me from
learning and socializing with new people. However, I didn’t hesitate to seek help when
needed, and it made my school life much easier. When I expressed my needs, teacher and
my classmates kindly helped me. To be specific, when I was having troubles in signing to
school computer, I asked one of my classmates near me for help, and she taught me how
the school password system works. 

2. I understand learning takes patience and time. 

On my first day in physics 11 class, I was shocked by complicated formulas I have never seen
before. As I was concerned, my anxiety was growing, and it resulted in receiving lower
scores than I expected in the first two tests. At first, I couldn’t control the overwhelming
fear and despair of the failure for the unexpected outcome, and it made me think of giving
up the entire course. However, as I kept trying hard, I could witness my dramatic
improvement in my learning. My hard work ended up achieving A, and it gave me profound
teaching that learning often requires patience, but as long as I don’t give up, the result will
realize what I desire. 
 
Weakness: 

1. I take personal responsibilities for my choices and actions.  

At the beginning of grade 11, I used to be a very irresponsible person. Usually, I do my best
to fulfill my responsibility, but when something makes me overwhelmed, I tend to avoid it.
For example, I was given a team experiment project from my Chemistry 11 class and
assigned to collect information for the second part of the lab. However, at the time, I was
having hard time preparing for the math test, and it led me to avoid taking full responsibility
for my team. I only made a quick and simple research, which made our group struggle in
conducting the lab. 
 

Social Responsibility 
 
Strengths: 
 1. I can identify and appreciate different perspectives on issues and use and evaluate
strategies to resolve problems.  
I have improved analytical skills and potential to become a good listener, by actively taking
part in many debate sessions. For example, in social class, my group was provided with a
discussion topic that deals with historical events in the 19th century. I actively led our group
discussion as a leader and embraced the opinions of each member to organize the
information. By carefully listening to what individuals value, I managed to broaden my
perspective toward evaluating consequences and changes of the historical incidents. We
analyzed various factors contributing to the causes and effects of the given topic and
reflected our different view points. The approach led our discussion to reach successful
conclusion. 
 
2. I value diversity, defend human rights, advocate for others, and act ethically in all
my interaction, including online.  
I’m a person of ethical values, who believe that human rights should be protected under any
circumstances. To realize my beliefs, I created the poster that supported abortion in my
history class. Many pregnant women were deprived of rights to have body autonomy of
their bodies, and it significantly violated the basic human rights. My poster criticized all the
unjustifiable approaches against them, clearly explaining why abortion should be legalized. 
 
 
Weakness: 

1. I have positive peer and intergenerational relationships.  

I’m good at actively interacting with my close friends; however, I have been having troubles
in creating intergenerational emotional bond. For example, it is difficult for me to friendly
exchange small talk and conversation with my grandparents as I feel generational disparities
during my time study abroad. Since I often encountered outdated values, such as great
commitment to communities by sacrificing myself, and it made me to feel distance myself
from them as I don’t agree with their belief. 
 
 
Critical Thinking 
 
Strengths: 

1. I can analyze and critique my work and my learning  

I am good at analyzing what I have done for my work and learning, and if necessary, I do not
hesitate to criticize myself. For instance, in the last term, I received grade that didn’t reach
my expectation for my history project. I analyzed the given tasks again and endeavored to
find what I did wrong. It turned out I didn’t put enough examples for the specific historical
event. After I realized my weakness, I need to put more efforts, the quality of my work
started to improve. 
 
 2. I can assess my progress. 
When I examine my progress, I assess my improvement to find out where my enhancement
is focused on. As I said above, my work started to improve after I found out my weakness in
the history assignment. For the improvement, I concentrated on where my enhancement is
stunted, and it resulted in faster enrichment by putting more efforts on what I need. 
 
Weakness: 

1. I understand the purpose for my work and consider my audience. 

In the drama class, I failed to satisfy the given criteria for my performance, and it resulted in
a low grade. I had to create an educational video clip, but the work of my group didn’t
include any educational contents but just funny things that occurred in those days. I got C+
for the project, and it gave me the teaching that I need to comprehend what I essentially
need to do to satisfy the requirement of the audience or teacher. 
 

Creative Thinking
 
Strengths: 
 
1. I can persevere and understand that failure can be productive. 
I use my failure as an opportunity to examine my growth and bring improvement. When I
messed up Trigonometry test in the math class, I analyzed areas that show my weakness
and mistakes and tried to persevere overcoming trials and errors of having success
achievements. It encouraged me to study harder and I got better grade for next tests. 
 
2. I can create new and unique ideas that may provide new perspectives that
influence how people think about topics.  
I sometimes think of inspirational ideas that give impression to others. For example, I was
assigned a creative writing project that requires creating a story under the theme of act of
kindness. To effectively visualize what kindness symbolize, I went through a group
discussion that deals with using literary devices, which powerfully deliver the main message
of the story. The idea sparked many of our creation and led to successful contribution to
inspire imagination of others. 
 
Weakness: 

1. I can use the environment around me, including others, and my unconscious mind
to generate new ideas.  
I am bad at examining the surrounding environment around, which leads to fail in applying a
good variety of creative thoughts in generating new ideas. When the teacher gives us an
assignment, I’m highly inclined to analyze it by myself rather than making reference to what
other think. It often limits myself to inflexible thoughts and discourages me to make further
advancements. 
 
Communication 
 
Strengths: 

1. I can work with other students to plan, inquire, and solve problems. 
I play a significant role in the group project, encouraging other group members. For any
assignment teamwork is required, I’m good at spiriting up my team fostering friendly and
productive atmosphere by letting all the members share what they think about the given
assignment. For example, in the discussion activity for the book we read, I organized specific
plans and questions for the debate session and encourage others to actively join sharing our
opinions regarding the theme of the author. After gathering what we thought, I embraced
an every individual idea to successfully complete the project. 
 
2. I can reflect on the process of learning and share what I have learned. 
 As I learn something, I reflect on what I have acquired and make notes for learnings that
brought advance to my studies. On top of that, when my friend asks me to share what I
understood during the class, I don’t mind to sharing my ideas with others. For example,
when one of my friend asked me to help him for making up chemistry class he missed, I gave
him well-organized note I made. 
 
Weakness: 

1. I can engage in deep and meaningful inquiry for a variety of purposes and
audiences. 
Although I’m good at leading my team, my weakness is in analyzing a variety of purposes
and audiences. For example, when I’m given a group assignment or a class project, it makes
me start the project first without preparational steps that should be done to undergo deep
and meaningful inquiry process. Therefore, it often leads to misunderstanding of purposes
and audiences for the given project. 
 

Personal & Cultural Identity 

 
Strengths: 

1. I know my strengths and what makes me unique. 

The beginning of my new education in Canada was glowing with successful achievements in
Math class. I realized that I have highly developed numerical ability and outstanding
analytical skills. It functioned as a main factor that contributed to finding my genuine
aptitude for computer science, which spurred me to aim majoring in further studies in the
university. 

2. I understand what is important to me. 

The most valuable thing to my life is my family. They are always staying with me, providing
me with powers to overcome the hardships I face. For example, when I arrived in Canada,
new social settings came to me with ever-growing anxiety and fear. However, my mom and
my sister were highly supportive of what I had to go through. With warm-hearted messages,
they upheld my perseverance to overcome adversities of an unfamiliar educational setting. 
 
Weakness: 

1. I understand that culture is a broad concept that includes things like my

geographic 
region, nationality, sex/gender, age, ethnicity, sexuality, language, and religion. 
My birth country is Republic of Korea (South Korea), and I spent most of my childhood
there, which made me confront difficulties of understanding a broad spectrum of culture.
For example, I often encountered discomfort having a communication with the elderly
speaking English. In Korea, younger people are to express respect for the elderly using
honorific language with indirect expressions. However, in Canada, I felt uncomfortable in
that there’s no difference in speaking to friends and speaking to the elderly. Without an
honorific style of language, many people tend to express their feelings with straight forward
language.