Eva marques core competencies reflection sept.

28, 2023

Personal awareness and responsibility

Strengths:

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

Since elementary school, I have never been scared to ask for help with an assignment or lesson that I did
not understand fully. Having the confidence in yourself to not be scared or feel judged to ask for help is
something extremely important and should be developed quickly at a young go to further carry that
habit as you grow up. Currently, I believe that I am able to effectively ask questions that will benefit my
learning and increase my success within the class.

2. “I understand that learning takes patience and time.”

During the last couple of months of grade 11, I decided that I was going to take pre-calculus 11 in
summer school since I realized that I was going to need it for post-secondary. Since starting high school, I
have had a difficult time in my math classes as it took me longer than others to understand a concept,
this was a huge insecurity for me. Because of this I felt that I was never able to do higher level math and
so that is the reason for me taking foundations 11 in my grade 11 year. However, I decided to challenge
myself and do pre-calculus 11 since I felt that if I put my 100% effort, I was able to do it. While in
summer school I encountered many obstacles and I wanted to give up, yet with the help of my teacher I
was able to get past the challenges and receive a good mark in the class. Now I recognize that patience is
a key factor to success and without it you won’t receive the outcome you deserve.

Weakness:

1. “I use a variety of strategies to manage my personal well-being.”

Since a young age, I have always experienced anxiety when I comes to my academics. I get extremely
hard on myself and at times become easily overwhelmed. I need to start brainstorming and
incorporating healthy strategies that will help manage my personal well-being. With being in the IB
program and it being my senior year of high school, there is a huge workload from all classes that I have
to organize. Additionally with the pressure of making sure that I get amazing grades in all of my classes in
order to get into the universities that I want my mental health becomes extremely vulnerable and I lose
faith in myself. This is why I need to strategize and plan my days where I have time for my studies but
also time for myself.

Social Responsibility

Strengths

1. “I value diversity, defend human rights, advocate for others, and act ethically in all my
interactions, including online.”

With being raised in a multicultural environment, the matter of diversity and human rights is a topic
commonly talked about. I believe that I am able to identify and discuss this topic in public settings,
defending my beliefs and the perspectives of others effectively and respectfully. Both for school
assignments and in social environments, I consistently take into consideration people’s feelings,
perspectives and beliefs making sure that everyone is felt seen and heard.

2. “I have positive peer and intergenerational relationships.”

This is something that I believe comes easy for me. I was raised and emersed into my Portuguese
culture since a young age where I was taught to treat everyone with kindness and respect no matter
who they are or how old they might be. In Portuguese culture respecting your elders and having a
maturity level to depict and navigate either stressful situations or environments that need to be
handled with immense amount of responsibility is something exposed quickly. This is why I can have
a mature conversation with people of any age. I am able to confidently express my thoughts and
perspectives while maintaining respect and maturity towards others.

Weaknesses

1. “I am aware of my community and environment and work independently and collaboratively for
the benefit of others.”

I agree with this statement to a certain extent. I think that I can work independently, however at
times I can get distracted easily and don’t use my time effectively. When I am doing an assignment
that I am not fully interested in it takes me a lot longer to finish rather than an assignment that I am
interested in. I still get the assignment done to the best of my ability, but it takes me 1 hour instead if
20 minutes. This is something that I am working on as I recognize that not all things in life I am going
to enjoy. Some things will be mandatory and will have to get done one way or another. If I train my
mindset and change my perspective on this, then I can easily apply this skill into my everyday life
further into the future.

Critical thinking

Strengths

1. “I can analyze and make defensible judgements, draw conclusions and consider a variety of
perspectives.”

With being in the IB program, teachers are consistently asking us to collaborate and brainstorm ideas
connecting to a certain topic. Having multiple personalities and voices contributing to the same
assignment all at once can become overwhelming and easily chaotic, yet over time we have all
developed collaboration skills that allow us to consider and include a variety of perspectives within
discussion. Growing up I have always been a quiet student, keeping my thoughts and opinions to
myself and rarely sharing. At times I still feel like this however I have noticed that since being
involved with IB the ability for me to open up and work with others has expanded. My confidence
with public speaking has gone up tremendously and I am able now to generate ideas clearly in a
collaborative setting.

2. “I can ask good quality questions, gather relevant information, and come up with well-developed
conclusions.”

As a student I am very committed to making sure I hand in something that I am proud of. Over the
years I have overcome my fear of asking questions and now make sure that if I don’t understand a
 concept or what the assignment is asking to ask my teacher or peers. Before any assignment. I
organize and plan how I want the outcome of the assignment to be. If secondary research is needed,
I prioritize gathering relevant information that will help me complete the assignment before
anything. Additionally, I take my time to ideate my conclusions for assignments. Strategically
articulating and connecting ideas to be relevant to the assignment.

Weaknesses

1. “I can assess my progress.”

One thing that I am working on when it comes to my assignments is recognizing my academic

progress. At times, I rely on teacher feedback in order to assess how I am doing in a class. This may
be because I value immensely my teacher’s opinion and want to know directly what I must do to
grow as a student. However, I am working on trying to recognize my strengths and weaknesses and
knowing how I can improve them for my benefit. If you can’t identify what your struggles are
yourself, then you can never open up to new possibilities; this is why I want to strengthen being able
to assess my own progress in class whilst having teacher feedback in the process.

Creative thinking

Strengths

1. “I can create new and unique ideas that may provide new perspectives that influence how
people think about topics.”

Through collaborative discussions and creative writes, I am able to effectively express my thoughts
and opinions on certain topics while contributing to one’s perspective. At a very young age, I quickly
recognized my admiration towards creative and critical writing. If I wasn’t able to verbally express
myself, I successfully did it on paper. One thing that I love currently is having open and intricate
discussions with peers on a topic in class. Not only am I able to articulate what I am thinking, I am
able to hear and understand someone else opinions further strengthening my own knowledge on a
topic. I think this is something that I can do easily as I have gained the confidence over the years to
clearly provide ideations that can benefit everyone around me.

2. “I can take my ideas evaluate, develop and refine them and make something productive out of
them.”

Similar to the previous statement, I am able to identify and separate my ideas, supporting them with
secondary relevant information that can help the audience illustrate and comprehend the idea
themselves. Individually, I have a very fast mindset that is continuously thinking of new ideas and
opinions, especially during an assignment. With my ideas, I am able to branch out into other topics
connecting each strand to each other, further incorporating that idea into an assignment or interest
that I have.

Weaknesses

1. “I can persevere, and understand, that failure can be productive.

This is something that I am working on each day. When I am in stressful situations or am put into an
overwhelming environment, at times I try to hide away and avoid any of my obstacles rather than
overcoming challenges. This isn’t because I am scared of challenges, this is not the case at all. In fact, I
think that suce4ss comes after challenges and that if you don’t encounter any obstacles, you have not
pushed yourself to your greatest self. I am scared that by acknowledging the challenge it will make the
situation worse and not help my situation. I am a sensitive and emotional person and so my emotions
can take over my mental well-being that affects my academic abilities. This is a weakness that I
continuously recognize and ma working at slowly. I understand that in the future there will be even
harder challenges that will come at me, and I will need to be able to know how to overcome them.

Communication

Strengths

1. “I can listen, learn to contribute meaningfully to discussion and debate, consider different
perspectives and build consensus.”

In multiple of my classes, I am always applying my collaborative skills into lessons. Having the ability to
properly discuss and comprehend a topic is extremely important, as it will help you expand your
knowledge. During these discussions, I am able to easily breakdown each statement and gather
information that will benefit me in the future. Knowing how to consider others’ opinions and
perspectives in a professional setting is a skill everyone should have as in future job settings you are
constantly being introduced to new topics and are asked to work with people you have never worked
with. An example of this is in my geo class. At times, my teacher will give us a statement to agree with or
disagree with. We all pick a corner in the classroom (strongly agree, agree, strongly disagree and
disagree), and debate with each other on why we believe what we believe. We must provide relevant
information that supports our statement but as well listen and considers other opinion that are coming
from the different corners.

2. “I can work with other students to plan, inquire, and solve problems.

I believe that I easily collaborate with other students, working together to make sure we do what is
asked. I think that when you are asked a problem-solving question, having multiple opinions and
perspectives being included in discussion will allow new possibilities to be brainstormed. This will further
expand the definition of what is being asked and will make sure that everyone’s voice is being heard.

Weaknesses

1. “I can reflect on the processes of learning and share what I have learned.”

Something that I struggle with at times is sharing my learning. I am a very conservative and private
person and so I don’t like people knowing or hearing about my private life. However, in social and
academic environments being able to open up and express your achievements is something that should
be normalized as our achievements are things that we are proud of. In class I am trying to be more vocal
and say what my positives and negatives are during my learning.

Personal and cultural identity

Strengths

1. “ I understand how what I value has and will shape my choices.”

 I believe that the way I was raised has influenced my opinions and perspectives on certain topics.
The environment we are introduced to at a young age affects us very quickly since it is one of the
first things we are exposed to as a child. A main aspect of this is my Portuguese heritage. Since I was
born, my family has always followed the Portuguese culture. My grandma is extremely catholic and
with being raised with her I was exposed to the catholic religion at an early age. This has influenced
my perspective on religion has my family and i consider ourselves Catholics. Additionally, with being
a part of a big family, the importance of loyalty and respect has always been the number one thing
to consider during every moment of my life. During social events I am always polite and respectful to
those around me, being understanding to the environment around me.

2. “I know my strengths and what makes me unique.”

Everyone is unique in their own way. Whether that be appearance, personality, cultural beliefs, and
values or simply what their favourite food is. Being unique is a beautiful thing that should be normalized
within modern society and that is what differentiates people. In my day-to-day life I am able to identify
my strengths both personally and academically, applying them to my benefit. For example, academically I
know that I am able to quickly annotate a poem with detail. I use that to my benefit during assignments
as I can manage mt time and know which parts I need to spend more time with.

Weaknesses

1. “I understand how to use my strengths and abilities to my advantage, and I can explain how I use
them to contribute to my community.”

With being a private person, I never really express what I feel my strengths are as I am afraid to be
judged. This is something I want to change because I want to be able to publicly help my community
and contribute my ideas to the benefit of the community.