 Without further ado, we are fortunate this evening to welcome Cori Ziegler, who is an implementation support facilitator with the Edmonton Regional Learning Consortium, and she will be our present presenter for the webinar this evening. Cori's been an educator for over 36 years, and prior to joining Edmonton Regional Learning Consortium as a facilitator, she's been a teacher, principal, supervisor, and a director with Edmonton Public Schools. So welcome, Cori. Thank you so much, Brenda, for that great introduction, and let's just get right into it. So the session this evening is titled Confidenties, The Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. And this is part one of a two-part series. And this evening, we'll address all the questions that you see there on this slide. And just as a reminder, this is a joint venture between Edmonton Regional Learning Consortium and the Alberta School of Council Association. Excited to have so many of you join us in this webinar this evening, and I hope that you find it informative and engaging. So our outcomes for today's webinar. The first question we will address is, what are competencies? And I think you've probably heard a lot about them. We'll talk about that. And why is the development of competencies important for your children? Who needs to be involved in supporting students' competency development? And when should teachers? And I think we should also add, in this case, when should parents support the development of competencies? And where should competency development take place? The last question, the how, we'll address briefly today. But the second webinar will certainly go into more detail in relation to the how. I'm going to spend what will seem like a lot of time on the first question, what are competencies? And throughout that first question, we will address the next four questions or the next five questions. But at the end of the webinar, I'll walk through those questions again just to wrap up our thinking in relation to what we discussed today. I always think it's important to get to know each other before starting a webinar. I'd like to get a sense of who you are, what your learning needs are. So I've created this poll for you, and I'm hoping that you'll address these questions with us tonight. So first of all, tell me, are you a parent of elementary children, K to 6, junior high youth, or high school youth? And if you could just type in your letter, that would be wonderful. So I see we're getting arranged here. We've got some A, Bs, and Cs. That's great. Nice to know we've got the range there. Looks like we have more elementary. We've got some who have children in both elementary, junior high. It's always interesting to have that range as well. Congratulations to you. That's always an interesting family dynamic. Okay. So I see we have mostly elementary, some junior high, and we have no high school or parents of high school youth with us this evening. So welcome to all of you. Now a sense of your understanding of competencies. If you could address this question for me, please. You have limited understanding of competencies. You might have heard about them a little bit, but really you don't know the names of the competencies. You don't know how to support the development of them. Some understanding, you've heard about them, perhaps. Or you have deep understanding. So give everyone a minute to address that question as well. And I see that we've got some A's, which is limited understanding. Some B's, that's great. And nobody with a deep understanding of competencies. So I think that you'll find these this evening informative. And for those that are B's, feel free at any time to add your expertise by chatting through the chat window there and sharing your thinking as well. Really appreciate that you join in in that way. Always like to, as well, begin a webinar with some ideas in relation to working together. And the first one is to be open to new information possibilities and to diverse views. So I'm hoping you'll approach this webinar with a sense of curiosity and see this as an opportunity for learning something new. And perhaps for those that view that were the B's that with some understanding, I might change your thinking a little bit around the competencies and your existing understanding. I hope that you're open to seeing competencies not only as what they are, but also in terms of what they could be in terms of a success for your children. I encourage you to ask questions throughout this webinar. I want this to be interactive. Every question is a good question. And I know for myself, in terms of my own learning sometimes, I can't move forward in my learning unless that question is addressed. So I'm happy to answer your questions at any time throughout this webinar. I'm sure our moderators, Brenda, will help me in terms of watching that chat window as well and reminding me when a question does show up. I encourage you to use those emoticons. We talked about them before the presentation began. But using emoticons keeps you engaged, but it also keeps all of us engaged. And I would love to hear and read your feedback throughout the webinar. Let me know if I need to slow down. Let me know if it's going to slow for you. Or if you're liking what you're hearing. It's great to share that with all of us. So let's begin. We're going to deal with the first question first. And as mentioned, this will take up a good portion of the webinar. And it's to take a look at what are competencies? And you may have heard about competencies from parents in other schools or perhaps from different districts, or you may have read about competencies and how they're being supported in other countries. And what you may have heard is that competencies are important. And generally speaking, no matter which district, which parent you talk to, which country that is addressing the whole idea of a competency-focused approach to learning, what Alberta has decided in terms of competencies are very much aligned to what we see across the province, what we see across Canada, and even around the world. So with that having said that, let's talk about what they are. Competencies are combinations of attitudes, skills, and knowledge that students develop and apply for successful learning, living, and working. And that's quite a statement. And so I'd like to unpack that a little bit. When we say combinations of attitudes, skills, and knowledge, each competency has some related attitudes, some related skills, and some knowledge that your children need to know in order to develop that competency. This evening, we will look at the attitudes, skills, and knowledge related to each of the eight competencies that I will be talking about tonight. When students develop competencies, that's a key word here, develop and apply competencies. Development means over time. And it's not a one-shot deal. So it's not like a teacher will give a one-shot lesson in terms of their competency and then hope that it would be within your child's repertoire. When we talk about apply, we can apply competencies in almost any situation and anywhere. So when we talk about apply, we're thinking about it constantly. Where are we applying and using competencies? And they're necessary for successful learning, living, and working. To be confident in applying the competencies I talk about tonight is critical for success in life. So where did competencies come from? Where did this idea of competencies come from? Well, as mentioned, we're not the first country. We're not the first province to take a look at that. And so Alberta Education as part of the government of Alberta also decided that it was time in our educational, in the work of education, to take a look at what do we need to do in terms of shifting education for the future. And so the government engaged all kinds of people in an extensive consultation approach. Parents, you may be involved in that as parents, community members, employers from all fields, retired people, as well as students. And they asked them what they would like to see in education for the future. And through this consultation process, many ideas came up. And these ideas were put together in a document called the Ministerial Order on Student Learning. And this ministerial order is a legal document. And all teachers are expected to follow what's in this document. This document outlines eight competencies that our government believes are important for our students to develop over time. The competencies are based on international educational research, and as well reflect what was said in the in that consultation process, what parents said to us, what employers said to us, what community members said. And out of that came the idea of the eight competencies, as well as a continued focus on literacy and numeracy. And so in 2013, this document, this ministerial order became a legal document. And teachers are now focused on shifting to a competency focused approach, learning about competencies so that we start to see that on a more regular basis in all of our classrooms across the province. So let's take a look at the competencies. As mentioned, there are eight competencies. And I will look at each competency one at a time. We'll identify, as mentioned before, the attitudes, skills and knowledge related to the competency. We'll talk about what it looks like and sounds like in the classroom. I might give you some examples to go with it to help deepen your understanding of that competency. And as we talk about these, you'll start to see how these competencies are interrelated. And that in any situation, your child or yourself will use two or three of them almost at the same time. I will not, sorry. I will share these competencies in order, but not necessarily that the first one is the most important and so on. All of these competencies are equally important to develop well-rounded educated algorithms. So the first competency that we'll look at is critical thinking. And I'd like to read what's in that center card to you. It is the definition of what Alberti education believes are the key ideas related to critical thinking. Critical thinking involves reasoning and criteria to conceptualize, evaluate, or synthesize ideas. Students then reflect on their thinking to improve it. They challenge assumptions behind thoughts, beliefs, or actions. And students value honesty, fairness, and open-mindedness. So that's quite a complex set of sentences there. And you can see already that each of these competencies involves a lot of ideas. So let's unpack this a little bit and look at first of all the attitudes related to critical thinking. And that last sentence there on the card kind of alludes to the attitudes. Attitudes like honesty, attitudes like fair-mindedness, and open-mindedness. And to be a critical thinker, certainly you have to be open-minded. Then when we look at the scales related to critical thinking, we can talk about scales such as questioning, the ability to ask effective questions, the ability to evaluate, to think about our synthesis of ideas and evaluate what we've done there. The idea of conceptualizing all of these are scales related to the idea or the competency of critical thinking. And finally, what do students need to know? What are some of the knowledge concepts that students need to understand and know in order to be a good critical thinker? I want to share some examples with you. Of course, this is not extensive, just as the examples I gave for skills or the examples I gave for attitudes as comprehensive. In the time that we have in this webinar, it will only be a few examples, just to highlight and help you to deepen your understanding of this competency and all the seven others. So in terms of understanding, students will need to know and understand how to synthesize information. That's an understanding that they need to deepen and know before they can be good critical thinkers. Another example, students need to understand the concept of fairness. And if you think of your child living in grade one or in kindergarten, that concept of fairness is hard for them to understand. Over time, they deepen their understanding of that and their knowledge in relation to the simple idea of fairness. Actually, it's not a simple idea, it's quite complex. So a quick overview of critical thinking, but what I'd like you to do now is look at the question on the right. And I invite you to consider how are you or might you be using this competency right now as part of this webinar? And if you'd like, you can certainly put your response in the chat room or I'll give you a minute to think of your response to that and then I'll share my thinking in relation to that. So you might be thinking or evaluating what I'm saying that certainly I encourage you to be a critical thinker as you go through this webinar. Question my ideas. And I encourage you to do so. Evaluate what I'm saying, reflect on what I'm saying, challenge my assumptions and the statements that I make. Be a critical thinker throughout this webinar. I encourage you to do that and practice that. The second competency I'd like to look at is the competency of problem solving. And again, the card states problem solving involves selecting strategies and resources to move from what is known to what is sought. Students analyze situations, create plans of action and implement solutions. They evaluate alternatives and their consequences. And again, there's that word evaluate. You saw it in critical thinking. It is the skill again that comes up in problem solving. And you'll see over time how some of these concepts are repeated in different competencies. Students approach challenges with creativity, flexibility and determination. And so if we look at the attitudes related to problem solving, and you know, that whole idea of determination is a really important attitude to have in your problem solving. Because often it doesn't come, the solution doesn't come to you the first time you try something. And you need to have that determination and perseverance to solve the problem. And you need to be flexible. That attitude of flexibility is clearly important in problem solving. Resourcefulness, creativity are all important attitudes towards problem solving. And what might be some skills related to problem solving? Well, first of all, you have to be able to identify that there is a problem. What is the problem? Analyze it. And explore options related to that problem. Create a plan of action, implement it and evaluate your plan of action. Evaluate again, as I mentioned, is a skill that's repeated in this competency. So what about knowledge? What knowledge will our children need to know and understand? Well, first of all, I think that our children need to understand that problem solving involves many steps. I just outlined those steps for you. And then understand how to engage in each one of those steps. For example, identify the problem and then create a plan. They need to understand how to create an effective plan and then how to evaluate their plan, how to reflect on that. They also need to understand that problem solving can be hard work. And I just mentioned, will require persistence and determination. It also requires an understanding that problem solving means that success doesn't come at the first attempt. And that's a really hard one for not only students, but also for us as parents. Students, our children will give up quite easily. Not all students, I don't want to paint that kind of brush, but when it becomes difficult, sometimes the solution is to give up. So we really need to encourage that perseverance. But as parents, I know my natural tendency was often to jump in and not see my child struggle through the problem, want to help out as much as I can. And I needed to remind myself that it's through that struggle that our children really learn deeply. And we need to allow them the time to work through the problem on their own as much as possible. It is through that kind of experience that we have deep learning. I saw this visual here that you see on the right side of the screen on Facebook. It was posted by the Catholic High School for Boys. And I thought it was just so interesting. And it said, if you are dropping off your son's forgotten lunch, books, homework, equipment, et cetera, please turn around and exit the building. Your son will learn to problem solve in your absence. And isn't that the truth? How many of us have saved our children by bringing their lunch or bringing in their homework rather than asking them to solve their problem? And we all know that when they solve the problem themselves the next time they might remember their lunch or they might better remember their homework. For the next competency, managing information. And this time I'm going to ask you after I read the card to at least one attitude. So as you're listening to this, you may start writing in the chat box already an attitude that you believe is important to the development of this competency. So managing information involves organizing and using information for specific purposes. Students access, interpret, evaluate, there's that word again, and share information from a variety of digital and non-digital sources. They are ethical and effective in how they use and share information. Students value reliability, validity, and the integrity of the information. Again, you can see this is quite a complex competency. So organize and use information for specific purposes. And we know that we have so many different purposes for using information. Using it ethically, using it effectively, knowing your audience as you're using that information. So can you list at least one attitude? Can you put that in your chat room there that you believe is important to the development of this competency? I'll give you a minute to do so. If anybody has any ideas? Well, I can help you out there. Certainly the idea of integrity is an important attitude or value related to this competency. The idea of ethical use of information, valuing, and really exploring whether information is reliable, accurate, and valid. Those are all attitudes that we believe are important in terms of managing information. When we look at skills, certainly there are many skills related to managing information. How do you organize it? That's a skill. How do you evaluate the information that you read? And we know that in many cases what we see on the web is not accurate. How do you share information in a way that honors the audience that you're sharing it with? And how do you use information ethically? So when we talk about that whole idea of the reliability of information and the validity of it, it reminds me of this little video that, not video, it was an advertisement about the House Hipple. I don't know if any of you have seen that on TV, but it absolutely, you would believe that what is shared through that TV commercial is real and it is accurate. The way they portray the video, this little tiny House Hipple talking about what it eats, where it sleeps, it's done so professionally. The speaker sounds so confident in terms of what he's saying that you would almost believe it's true. But we all know it's not. We all know little Hipples don't leave their homes. And so managing information means we need to, we as adults and our children, we need to question and analyze information. We need to check it against other sources. Does it say anywhere else anything about hungry hippos? And not just believe that just because of the professional way they've communicated that that information and that advertisement is true. And we all know how advertisement can be misleading. And if there's one thing we can do with our children, it's to encourage them to question, to validate that information with another source somewhere off, to check out who is the source and why are they communicating in that way? Important competency, which is only one aspect of course, the managing information, but one I'd like to highlight this evening. Another aspect of managing information is that whole idea of organizing all the information that comes at us, organizing our appointments, organizing content that comes out of the meetings that we attend, organizing our children, getting them to all the events that they have. We as adults need to know how to stay ahead of that information overload and manage all that comes to us at the speed of light. The ability to effectively organize and make sense of so much information is a skill that not only us as adults needs to continue to refine and perfect, but also our children. And we need to start that with them at a very early age, all the way up to adulthood. And we know there are many apps out there and technology can certainly help in terms of managing information, but with technology also comes the idea of the delivery of so much information. And some of it's accurate and some of it's not. And so it can be a bit of a double-edged kind of support for us. It can be good, but it can also create more challenges for us. So the next confidence is creativity and innovation. And if we read that card, it says creativity and innovation involves generating and applying ideas to create something of value. So first of all, it's generating ideas and then applying them in some way. Children, students recognize opportunities to apply ideas in new ways. They are open to and playing with ideas. They take risks and they adapt to changing conditions. Students demonstrate optimism and initiative and ingenuity. So this is a really unnecessary skill for our children today, especially when we look at when they graduate from school, they enter the world of university or the world of work. And we think of the challenges in our economy. We think of the challenges in our political system, in our environment. We need creative and innovative ways of dealing with these challenges. And so when we look at attitudes related to that, certainly ideas related to the attitudes are risk-taking. Take the risk. Let's try this out. Let's see where it goes. Optimism, believing that the ideas that you have will work in some way. Taking that initiative and being creative in relation to that skills. I'm going to turn it back over to you and see if you can identify at least one skill that is important to the development of this competency. And I invite you again, if you'd like, to put your ideas in the chat room. Can you see based on the card there are any skills that you think are important to the development of this competency? Original thinking. Thank you, Interjeet. Absolutely. It's a skill that we need, the original thinking outside the box. Anyone else? Ask questions. Absolutely. Thank you. Certainly asking questions leads to creativity. Why are we doing this this way? What other ways could we try this? Thank you. Others might be the skills and terms that will use your imagination. Perseverance. Yes, thank you, Dragana, for sharing that. Manipulate ideas. Play with it. Adox and explore. One of my questions is for you, but my name is just Dragana. Okay, thank you. Sorry. Apasana, thank you for your introducing real-world problems, problem scenarios to students. Absolutely. That real-world connection is so important to all of this. Challenging them to answer those problems, you are banging on with that. Okay. So thank you for sharing your skills related to creativity and innovation. And I'd like to just hone in on one area of knowledge in relation to this competency, and it's really discussed in the next slide here. Our children need to understand the difference between creativity and innovation. And creativity is really the thinking process. It's about idea generation and being creative is being able to generate or come up with ideas. So it's like that brainstorming where every idea is a good idea. Let's keep generating ideas and see what comes out of that. The innovation piece is the productive process, and that adds value to the idea, which otherwise would just remain a mere idea. So innovation can be described as creativity implemented. It's putting the idea into practice. And so creativity is wonderful, but without moving into the innovation, it stays where it is. The next competency is the competency of communications. And let me read the card first. Communication involves sharing ideas through oral, written, or nonverbal media. Students engage in formal and informal exchanges with others. They consider how culture, context, and experience impact messaging. Students demonstrate respect, empathy, and responsibility when communicating with others. And when we think of communication, we often connect it to the traditional way of teaching, where we look at reading and writing as forms of communication and speaking and listening as forms of communication. That's very much a part of the language arts curriculum in our schools, and it's addressed every day. But we're taking this a little bit further in terms of looking at some of these other ideas in terms of culture, context, experience, and how that impacts our messaging. And the whole idea of culture is a big one, especially as our world becomes smaller and our classes become multicultural. Understanding other cultures certainly helps in terms of effective communication, for example. So, attitudes related to effective communication, certainly we see the idea of demonstrating respect, appreciating that respect in return, the idea of empathy, and responsibility when communicating with others, and certainly being open to other ideas, as I talked about right at the beginning of this webinar, being open to the possibilities and keeping that open mind as you listen to others. Skills in relation to the or the competency of communication, listening is a big one. And listening certainly can be in two parts. Listening to understand and really to be present and just listen, or listening to respond, which is a different skill, because then you're listening to provide some kind of response back. In some cases, there is no need for a response. You just need to be present and allow the other person to communicate. In other cases, there is a need and they've requested that response from you. So, in terms of turning it over to you, and I'm so appreciative of the fact that you're engaging in this with me together, do you think you could share with me one concept or one understanding, one bit of knowledge that your child will need to know in order to develop the competency of communication? And then I'll just give you a minute to think about that one and add to response. They need to understand the values, feelings, and opinions of others, and are they valid? Absolutely. Thank you for that, Julia. Great response. Heather, so I'll just give you a minute. I know some of you might be curiously typing, but it's not showing up yet. Yes, Lorraine, thank you. There's a form and structure to effective communication. Absolutely. When you think of the different modes of communication, even if it's on hard copy, a letter versus an essay versus a report. So, yes, they need to understand those different forms and structures. Developing, listening skills, and students as much as they're speaking skills, very important. I agree with you 100 percent. Nonverbal communication and body language, you are bang on there. So important to be watching for that as well. And I'll talk a little bit further about that on the next slide. So, the question on the right side of this slide asks you to think about a recent experience that demonstrated the value of good communication skills. And you might think of one in terms of communicating with your husband perhaps, communicating with your children. The one that I'd like to share with you is the use of email. And I find that sometimes what I put in my email is so misinterpreted because there's no body language, there's no emotion, there's no tone of voice that goes with it. And so I'm so careful when I communicate on email because I know how quickly it can be misinterpreted. So just building on that, communication certainly does include spoken words, nonverbal gestures, signs, and symbols. And when you look at this, if we start on the looking at the flowers, giving flowers to somebody is certainly a form of communication. It does send a message. And then if you add to that a verbal comment saying, oh, you're pretty, it sends another message. And so the receiver of that, which will be that lady in the middle, you can see that she's watching and she's sending a form of communication as well. So in those three visuals there you can see the spoken words and nonverbal gesture, the signs and the symbols, and how they all connect to communication. The use of media is also a channel for communication. And we see social media is just exploding. And it amplifies our communication or not again. And so when we look at that kind of communication, culture, context, experience, our background knowledge impacts our message, how it sends and how it's received. Younger children understand messaging differently from an adult. And our experiences as adults shape how we interpret the message. And so even a single word, I think, for all of us that are in this webinar this evening, could interpret it differently. And I'll use the example of the word celebration. For some of you, that word may mean a ceremony or a nizant, such as upcoming Christmas or Hanukkah. And it's a celebration. For some of you, it might be the marking of a lock's milestone, such as the birth of your child or your child graduating from high school. And for some of you, celebration might just be that Friday afternoon get together at the end of a work week and join each other's company that way. So communication is complex. And voice tones, I see that comment there absolutely are so important. The tone I use in the webinar here really enhances the messaging or can detract from it, depending on the tones that I'm using. So looking at the next competency, collaboration. And if we read that card, it says involving working with others to achieve a common goal. And if you think of your children, especially when they're younger and working together to achieve a common goal, this already is complex, isn't it? Not always, but it can be. Students participate with each other, exchange ideas, and share responsibilities. They respect competing views and nurture positive relationships. Students are adaptable, willing to compromise, and value the contributions of others. So again, the attitudes related to that one, there's quite a few there, a sensitivity to others that you're collaborating with. You need to build a sense of trust in order to collaborate effectively. And you need to approach collaboration with a positive attitude. Otherwise, the collaboration certainly will break down in terms of skills. Knowing how to participate effectively. Knowing how to share responsibilities and not take over all the responsibilities or not under failure responsibilities. So doing your part is an important piece. Compromising and supporting each other, all skills related to collaboration. And knowledge. I think that knowledge in terms of understanding different cultures will help to enhance the collaborative effort. Understanding, for example, what compromise means, how do you compromise is an important skill and understanding, understanding how to share responsibilities, and how to set meaningful goals helping your child to collaborate is something you are most likely, as mentioned, very familiar with. Your child, when they were younger, interacted with family members, perhaps with cousins or with in community events. And then they moved into classrooms and you can see how the collaboration now becomes more complex. Different players at the table, different students, different cultures, different experiences. And then as they move into the world of work, that idea of collaboration takes on a whole new meaning. But it certainly is a skill that our employers of the future will see as critically important. This document here comes from the conference board of Canada. And if you look at the third column, you will see that idea of work with others as a critically important concept. And when our children are hired in the future, it is a competency that will be looked for in terms of hiring people into their business or into their company. And you can see there's one, two, three, seven bullets there related to working with others. If you look at the middle column, you'll see the idea of responsibility and adaptability. And we talked about how those are part of collaboration, positive attitudes and behaviors. We talked about that as part of the collaboration competency. And if you look in the first column, the ability to communicate. Well, communicate is a competency in itself, but effective communication certainly does help with collaboration as well. The ability to think critically of competency in itself, but if you can bring your critical thinking to the collaborative effort, you enhance that as well. And you see how that becomes interrelated. That thirst for lifelong learning and managing the information that comes at you is important as well. So this one addresses so many, this whole document here addresses so many of the competency that just wanted to highlight that for you in terms of what our children need to be successful in the future. So cultural and global citizenship. If we read the card again, it says involves actively engaging with cultural, environmental, political or economic systems. Students acknowledge First Nations, Métis, Inuit, Francophone or other perspectives when taking action on local or global issues. They advocate for the dignity and well-being of individuals and communities. Students value equity and diversity and believe in their capacity to make a difference. Already you see the attitudes there, equity, diversity, that belief in themselves is a critically important piece to this as well, that they make a difference, that they can contribute, that they can be citizens that enhance the community they live in, the society they live in. The skills related to citizenship, cultural and global citizenship, acknowledge different perspectives, be open to that, advocate for each other, take action, take that initiative and evaluate impact in terms of the actions that you take. So examples of knowledge, well certainly much knowledge is needed in relation to that. Learn and understand the many different systems within our world. You can see they're listed there. There's the global, the cultural, the environmental, political or economic systems. We need to understand them and how they interact and influence each other. They also need to understand complex ideas such as reconciliation and I know we opened up this webinar addressing that are acknowledging that we're on Treaty 6 territory and that reconciliation is certainly something that's moving forward within the province of Alberta. They also needed to understand what does it mean to be a content-reading citizen. So again a very complex competency and when we look at global citizenship, let's just unpack that a little bit more. It's about the awareness of others outside, well first of all outside of our classroom, outside of our school, outside of our province and then outside of our national borders. That awareness is important. The practice of cultural empathy is different from sympathy and that practice of cultural empathy, understanding their place and then understanding where we come from. The cultivation of principled decision-making to solve those global problems that no single nation can solve alone and as we become smaller and smaller that becomes much more critical. And the acknowledgement that the peoples of the world are one people. We're enriched by individual differences but united by a common bond of humanity. And you can see that Brenda is adding the links to some of the sites where you will find more information in relation to the concepts that I've talked about and I encourage you after the webinar when you have a little bit of time to explore those a little bit more deeply. So looking at the final competency then, personal growth and well-being involves managing emotional, intellectual, physical, social and spiritual aspects of living. And often when we think of well-being we just look at our physical or emotional part of that but it is all of those pieces put together. It's the idea of students setting learning, career or wellness goals and working towards them. They draw upon their strengths to develop interests, skills and talents and again students are reflective that's again that evaluative piece. Resourceful, optimistic, you've heard that word before and strive for personal excellence. So again if you want to identify at least one response for all three of the questions below I'd be happy to take a look at your comments. Can you identify an attitude? Can you identify a skill or a knowledge related to this competency? Give you a minute to do that. And as we're waiting I can just talk a little further that well-being is more than just a healthy body, its body and mind and well-being is impacted by many, many different factors on this next slide here. There are health related factors such as hunger, physical and emotional abuse, chronic illness and all these factors can lead to poor performance. Lorraine has said consider other perspectives absolutely and I see the emotional intelligence and the social quotient all of those are so important to becoming a healthy student and the well-being of not only ourselves but of others. Thank you for sharing those. Health risk behaviors such as early sexual initiation, violence and physical inactivity are consistently linked to poor grades and test scores. And so you can see how growth and well-being is an important competency. Apasana said the attitude of lifelong learner and focused on long-term goals in the bigger picture. Yes and goal setting certainly is a critical piece to this competency. Positive mental attitude thank you Rajeev for that. Again that whole idea of a positive approach to life leads to success absolutely. Thank you for sharing your thinking. So that is a quick overview of all eight of the competencies. Again in the very short hour that we have together I can only give you a bit of a quick overview but I encourage you again to go back and review the webinar, review the links and of course join us for part two of this to continue to deepen your understanding. So we have several other questions that I want to address very quickly now to wrap up the webinar. I know I talked about many of these ideas throughout the first part of the webinar but I want to be specific and intentional around addressing the questions. So why is the development of competency important? And it's about success for our children and of course it's parents that's what we want. We want them to be successful and lifelong learners and active citizens. And I think that was just said in terms of the chat room that lifelong learners and I see another comment here about being reflective, identify personal values and knowing yourself. If we know ourselves, if we know what's important to ourselves it contributes to our success and contributes to our ability to be active citizens. So thank you for sharing your ideas there. It's also about our future and our children are going to be the future artists, the future scientists, thinkers, innovators and leaders of the future. And they will be tasked with solving the problems of today while imagining and creating the new tomorrow. So as mentioned already several times throughout the webinar, competencies are critical for equipping our children with the knowledge, skills and attitudes that they will need to navigate their personal journeys and learning, living and working. So competencies are not just for school and it kind of addresses another question that we'll be looking at. Confidenties are for life and they're for everyone. So when we look at our changing social context, when we look at population growth and mobility, the ever invention of new technology, the globalization, all those issues confronting our society and those are listed there. And if we look at just the example in the news today around the approval of the pipeline to the diversity in terms of opinion that that approval has caused, that's just one example of the issues confronting our society. And that idea of that increasingly interdependence and competitive world, Alberta needs to stay on the leading edge of that competition. And through competencies, I believe we will and our children will help to solve all of these challenges that we see listed here. I'm pretty passionate about the idea of competencies and supporting the development of competencies. And when I think about any child starting in kindergarten, learning about competencies, this is reinforced at home. It's reinforced every grade all the way up to grade 12. Just think how strong these children will be when they graduate from grade 12. They will take on the world and they will be successful. I firmly believe that. So next question, who needs to be involved in supporting students' competency development? And in this case, I have a poll for you. So I'm going to ask that you participate in this poll. And if you could select the groups that you believe should be involved in supporting students' competency development. Should these students helping each other? Should it be school councils, parents, principals, and teachers? What about elders and cultural leaders? Or should it be the job of trustees and school districts leaders? Or do you believe it should be all of the above? And if you could just type your letter in beside your name, that would be great. I see a lot of E's coming up. You're just such smart people. Yes, I see lots of E's coming up. And so if we look at the poll results, I think we'll just give you another minute there. Absolutely. So yes, we've got most of you saying E. And some of you, if we flip back to the screen before, some of you believe school councils, parents, principals, teachers. But most of you would say E. And I would have to agree with you that, yes, it will take all of us. I think that it is very much focused in school, but supported through everyone, your children will become very strong in terms of their competency development. Of course, principals and trustees have an important role to play. But competencies are best developed within the context of authentic and realized situations. And even though educators are continually striving to create those authentic, realized conditions for learning and move away from a worksheet approach, it is the realized situations that create meaning and result in deep learning and deep understanding and deep confidence in using the competencies. And that's for you as parents and the surrounding community have such a strong role to play. Your support of competency development at home, that's sports events, on trips, wherever you and your family go in whatever you and your family are doing. So find those meaningful opportunities to connect with others, especially elders and cultural leaders, which is also very critical. Attend cultural events within your community. And get to know people whose language isn't the same as your own and understand their culture. So experiencing life beyond your family unit and learning from everyone who crosses your path will help you to learn different points of you, will broaden your perspective, and that's you to think differently. And of course, we'll build development of that competency to the communication piece, the collaboration piece, critical thinking, problem solving, citizenship, all of them are developed by engaging with everyone and everywhere. So when should teachers support the development of competencies? And I want to say not only teachers, but all of us. When should we do that? And of course, you already know the answer now or all the time. Absolutely. Teachers support from kindergarten to grade 12, which is outlined in the ministerial order on student learning. All teachers are expected to support competency development and design learning activities for students to apply and develop competencies in relevant situations in relation to the learner all kinds that need to be addressed. And students and children use and develop competencies when they encounter unfamiliar or challenging situations. Confidence is how for children to draw upon what they know, how they think, and what they can do. So where should competency development take place? I think you probably know the answer to that one already, everywhere. Any place you go across a variety of learning context, both within and outside of the school. So through competencies, students develop and connect key aspects of knowing, thinking, and doing everywhere. And how can I help support my child's competency development? Well, here's some things for you to try over the next month or so. I would suggest that you engage in ongoing reflection to deepen your own understanding and application of competencies. If you want to support your child's development of competencies, I think it's important that you know them well yourself. So on a regular basis, ask or discuss with your partner, which competencies did you apply to your work life, your work or life today? So thinking of this webinar, which competencies did you apply? Well, you applied effective communication, critical thinking, you can probably list many others as well. But reflect on that and think about how that competency is deep in learning or understanding for you. Other ideas. I would encourage you to talk to your child's teacher on how they teach competencies and what you can do at home. I would talk to your child about the skills, knowledge, and attitudes that are related to the competencies. And I would encourage you to use the words, use the word problem solving, use the word citizenship, so that those words become second nature to them. And do things together that use one or more of the competencies. Plant a meal together, learn new gains together, encourage them to be part of a team or to discuss local or local issues as they come up in the news, as you're watching the news report or reading it in the newspaper. So that ends the webinar today. And I encourage you to attend part two, which is supporting your child's development and use of competencies. That webinar is on January 18th and there will be two of them repeated. The first one at 9.30 and the second at 8.30 and the easy again. And I would just like to close by thanking you for participating in the webinar today and for the opportunity for me to share information about competencies with you. As mentioned, it is something I'm absolutely passionate about and I truly believe it is what our children need to be successful in learning, living, and life. I hope that you found the webinar informative. And over the next few months, I challenge you to begin reflecting on your application of competencies and begin using that language with your children. And you have those links, as mentioned before. I encourage you to explore those ideas further. And I hope to see you on January 18th. Thank you so much again and have a good evening. Thank you so much, Cori. That was a wonderful presentation. I actually had a question a little bit earlier in the presentation. The competencies overview at VQ, I've just got it right here. The link is broken on this one. Do you have a recommendation as to how we can get a hold of this information? Competencies over at Frequently Asked Questions. If you go to the, if you Google Alberta Education and then Google Competencies Overview Frequently Asked Questions, you'll get to that site. Okay. It's from Alberta Education. Yeah. Terrific. Does anybody have any questions for Cori before we wrap things up? Excellent. We've got some wonderful comments coming through. We do have a question here. So these competencies have been already incorporated in the Alberta Education System. And a great presentation she says as well. Thank you for your comment. And absolutely, teachers are already looking at infusing integrating competencies into the current programs of study and becoming more intentional on shining a light on the competencies versus just that content that has been addressed in the past. They're using the content actually from the curriculum to support the development of those competencies. Hope that answers your question. Terrific. It looks like it does. Do we have any more questions? We have time for a couple more before we hang up here. All right. Well, it doesn't look like we've got anybody else typing. So I want to say thank you again, Cori. That was a wonderful presentation. And I thank everyone for joining us this evening. And we look forward to part two of this presentation. Have a great night, everyone. Thanks very much. And as you're exiting the presentation, all you need to do is click the X up at the top right hand corner. Thank you all again for joining us.