COMPETENCY BASED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN

Name: Matthew Kennedy

Date: November 25, 2016

Selected professional competency/ies requiring development and brief explanation:

Professional Competency 7: To adapt their teaching to the needs and characteristics of students with
learning disabilities, social maladjustments or handicaps.
I always do my best to support students who face any kind of difficulty in my classroom by responding to
their individual needs and interests as much as possible, and I will continue to strive to make my
classroom even more accessible, supportive, and inclusive in the future.

Professional Competency 9: To cooperate with school staff, parents, partners in the community and
students in pursuing the educational objectives of the school.
Adult education students are not entitled to the same resources and levels of support as students in youth
sector education, and so collaboration with staff, families, and community partners is absolutely crucial
for supporting students in the classroom and providing them with the educational services they require.

Professional Competency 10: To cooperate with members of the teaching team in carrying out tasks
involving the development and evaluation of the competencies targeted in the programs of study, taking
into account the students concerned.
I participate regularly in department and PLC meetings at school, but I feel that our various departments
can work even more closely together in the areas of curriculum mapping, development, and execution.

Professional Competency 11: To engage in professional development individually and with others.
I have a strong commitment to professional development, but could benefit from more training in
frameworks that support inclusive education.

Strategies for development of selected competency/ies. Brief rationale and timeline:

Professional Competency 7
I will build upon the research that I have completed in my MATL capstone project which highlights
ways of making adult education more inclusive, especially for students with cognitive disabilities by
developing workshops and conference papers on inclusive frameworks (such as UDL, DI, and RTI) and
their application in adult education, which I will submit to the QPAT (2017), LCEEQ (2018), and
AQIFGA (2018) conferences.

Professional Competency 9
I am currently developing three different opportunities for professional development at my centre in the
areas of boundaries, relationships, and sexuality for students with special needs. I am coordinating a
workshop with the West Montreal Readaptation Centre wherein a social worker will provide us with a
workshop on personal space. An employee of AJOI will also come to school to co-animate workshops
and discussions with staff and for students. Finally, two consultants from our school board will provide a
FLASH workshop in January of 2017.

Professional Competency 10
Currently I am involved in a project (funded by a Professional Development and Innovation Grant) with
consultants and teachers who are involved in various social integration programs across the province. We
meet monthly to reflect on the curriculum and to collaborate on the development of learning situations
and accompanying assessment tools. We will continue to meet throughout the school year and will, I
hope, write a new grant application in the spring in order to fund further, related initiatives.

Professional Competency 11

This spring I will be attending a 3 day conference in Quebec City on Response to Intervention. I
am currently attempting to recruit other teachers to attend as well, because RTI requires a
school-wide approach to implementation. An RTI model at my school will help systematize and
monitor how we provide ongoing academic support to our students.