Reflect on your personal development of these THREE identified competencies as you train to become a teacher. For example, what do these competencies mean to you? Why do you think these competencies are important and how do you see yourself developing in them?  Are there specific challenges that you face as you seek to develop these competencies?

My personal reflection on the development of three identified competencies from the Graduand Teacher Competencies Framework (GTCF) over the course of my education in NIE.

Professional Practice: Cultivating knowledge with reflective thinking 

Over the course of my NIE education as well as my experiences with teaching in schools, I have come to see the utmost importance of reflection in the teaching profession. As what one of my colleagues shared, "Teaching is an ongoing reflective process; you need to constantly re-evaluate your teaching methods after each lesson, and therein lies the challenging joy of the profession." Reflection takes place at a pedagogical level, as we grapple with whether group oriented learning approaches or teacher-centric delivery methods for our students; and also at the level of subject content, where we constantly revise and re-evaluate our subject knowledge amidst new changes in the curriculum and in the academia. For History (my discipline) especially, the field is constantly changing with new interpretations of historical events, and one has to keep abreast of these changes.

To remind myself of the importance of reflective thinking in the cultivating of knowledge, I aim to have constant reflection sessions with my colleagues in the future as I enter into the workforce proper. Within these sessions, we can exchange ideas of how to reinvent our teaching methodologies, or simply to update ourselves with the latest changes in the academic disciplines that we are in. The exchange and bouncing off of opinions within these group discussions will certainly aid in the accumulation of greater ideas for our teaching.

On a personal level, I will attempt to upkeep a reflection blog on my website to constantly remind myself of the possibilities of improving my pedagogical and content knowledge. Through writing and sharing on the web, I believe I can achieve greater coherence in my reflective thinking about teaching.

Leadership & Management : Working with others: Working in teams 

Development in NIE has constantly focussed on a collaborative work setting that mirrors the actual professional environment that we will face when we become teachers in the very near future. Through these collaborative work groups, I have come to appreciate the importance of the cooperative dynamics behind teamwork, and to understand how each member's contribution to an assignment for instance, can greatly affect the final output of our work. In team work, whether it is to finish an assignment or project, team members not only need to perform our roles appropriately, but also help to ensure the other group members perform their roles to the best of their abilities. This can be a suggestion to them about the limitations of their opinions and ideas, or ensuring that they keep up to schedule with the course of work. This becomes even more pertinent when we are in a leadership position, as we need to really make sure that the entire operation is smooth with our coordination and delegation of work. Leaders of these teams also need to be empathetic to the opinions of their group members, and to give due recognition when group members give an excellent effort. This was made apparent to me during my GESL stint in NIE, where I had fantastic group leaders that managed to synthesized the ideas of all our group members and to come up with a firm direction for our service learning endeavour.

Personal Effectiveness: Knowing self & others: Understanding & respecting others 

As I go through the various courses of Educational Psychology in NIE, I come to grasp the absolute importance of knowing my own philosophies and beliefs about my discipline and the profession, to ensure that I have a clear sense of direction and purpose when I become a teacher. As I enter the profession, one of my biggest aims is to actually get a better understanding of my strengths and limitations; this essentially is to help me understand my own character better so that I can leverage on my own personality to become a better teacher. For instance, I would like to understand my own temperament better, as this will greatly aid my classroom management and disciplinary skills.

To me, a greater challenge will be to respect and acknowledge the opinions and beliefs of other teachers about the profession or my discipline, as I am rather opinionated about these matters. For one, by being able to respect the teaching beliefs of other fellow teachers, I envision that I will be able to open up myself to more possibilities in discovering new pedagogical methods, or even to be more aware of the needs of the students. The school setting also demands a collaborative work environment that necessitates the modern day teacher to be absolutely comfortable in working teams, and this means that I have to constantly remind myself of the importance of developing an appreciation for the personalities and ideas of others.