Kim Matias

Education Specialist Candidate for CSULB

Competency Narrative #5

There is always room for growth. This has been my motto for a

couple of years now. However, this motto coincides with, You can always do

better. The latter quote pins a negative outlook on who I am as a person. I

am always hard on myself for almost everything that I do. When it comes to

managing the teaching and learning environment in my classroom, teachers,

administrators, staff, parents, and when I worked in RSP, students, have

given me countless positive notes. However, despite all the positive

comments Ive heard in the past two years, there is so much I still need to

do. Setting high standards for yourself can be a positive thing so long as I

dont let myself get beat down by having impossibly high standards.

Ive grown a lot in the past 7 months Ive worked at Spectrum. When I

first started my ratings for everything in Competency #5 should have all

been 1 or worse. For example, I was put in a system where it was hard to

promote interaction and relationships among my students. The system did

not foster much community between students. The system relied on a

grouping system that made it so that lessons were difficult to administer to

students who were on the same cognitive level as each other. I did not think

much of it until only a month or two later. However, overtime, I was able to

create a more nurturing environment for my students. While I did not

completely take away the system that I was told to put in place, I created a

grouping/pairing system that made it easy for students to be able to work

with like-minded peers, but also made it easy for students to be able to

communicate to each other. While this is definitely something I have been

congratulated on, I do know that I still have this feeling that Im still not

doing enough.

I can now honestly say that I have more experience in behavior plans

than most teachers at my level. I have dealt with more problem behaviors in

my 2nd year of teaching than most teachers on his/her 2nd-5th years. While I

can confidently say that, I am not where I want to be. Like the rest of the

artifacts in this portfolio, my 560 Case Study was created in a controlled

environment. I was able to create a behavior intervention plan through a

very robust rubric from my professor. I will not have that same rubric for the

rest of my life. However, I do have an IBP that I helped create with the help

of a behavior analyst. My Case Study and IBP are almost perfect because I

received help. Im not sure if I can achieve the same success on my own, but

if I am able to meld the steps I used for both to create my own easy-to-follow

procedure, I may be able to replicate the IBP for future students.