PERSONAL Lecture 9

DEVELOPMENT IN IT
DIVERSIFY YOUR LEARNING
STYLE
Your success in the classroom will depend on several
factors:
How well you know your learning strengths and
weaknesses
How fully you embrace personal responsibility for
your actions
How effectively you relate to your instructors and
classmates
How actively you link current performance to your
future plans and dreams
DIVERSIFY YOUR LEARNING
STYLE
To evaluate where you stand right now, place a check
mark next to only those items that apply to you.
I know my greatest strengths and weaknesses as a
learner.
I have a preference for learning through the sense of
seeing, hearing, or touching.
I can describe types of learning experiences that are
easiest for me.
I know how my personality and background influence
my classroom success.
DIVERSIFY YOUR LEARNING
STYLE
I make specific choices about when to study at a deep
versus shallow level.
I relate to and work well with students from diverse
backgrounds.
I respond strategically to different teaching styles.
I have started out on the right foot with my classes.
I know how to solve problems I may have with
instructors.
I can describe career options that fi t with my learning
style.
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING
PREFERENCES
People differ in how they like to learn and
think about ideas.
Four distinct ways based on David Kolb’s
(1984) work on experiential learning are:
Learn by doing
Learn by reflecting
Learn by critical thinking
Learn by creative thinking
LEARN BY DOING
Individuals with active learning preferences fare
better when they learn by doing through problems or
games and simulations.
They like to apply principles through fieldwork, lab
activities, projects, or discussions.
Active learning approaches also tend to appeal to
people with refined intelligence in spatial skills and
bodily awareness.
LEARN BY REFLECTING
Reflecting here means having an opportunity to compare incoming
information to personal experience.
Reflective learners prefer classes such as the humanities, which tend to
be rich in emotional content.
Reflective learners often show preferences for learning through auditory
sensory channels, because these situations provide a manageable mode
of sensory input that can then be enriched and made more memorable
through the personal examples the learner produces through reflection.
Reflective learners often demonstrate strengths in intrapersonal and
spiritual / existential intelligences.
They often set reasonable goals and achieve them.
LEARN BY REFLECTING
Reflective students take time to respond to and reflect on the quality
and accuracy of their answers (Kagan 1965).
Because they’re good at problem solving and decision making, they
like to set their own goals for learning (Jonassen and Grabowski 1993).
Whether or not you are primarily a reflective learner, you can probably
improve your learning by noticing connections between what you’re
studying and your own experience, and by staying aware of your
learning goals.
Learners who reflect carefully about ideas may not be the quickest to
answer questions in class, because a question may provoke a great
deal of thinking and remembering before the learner can arrive at a
conclusion.
LEARN BY CRITICAL THINKING
Critical thinkers like learning situations that encourage them to
grapple with ideas in ways that push beyond memorizing facts.
They enjoy manipulating symbols, figuring out unknowns, and
making predictions.
They like to analyze relationships, create and defend arguments,
and make judgments.
Critical thinkers often are good with abstract ideas, even in the
absence of concrete examples or applications.
Classes that are theoretical in nature or that emphasize logical
reasoning, model building, and well-organized ideas are especially
appealing to critical thinkers.
LEARN BY CRITICAL THINKING
Good critical thinkers perform especially well in courses that
appeal to verballinguistic, logical-mathematical, and
naturalist intelligences.
They are comfortable in lecture-based classes that primarily
rely on auditory sensory channels, although they also can
exercise critical-thinking strategies in other learning
situations to make course ideas more engaging.
Debates and other opportunities to exchange ideas appeal
especially to critical thinkers.
LEARN BY CREATIVE
THINKING
Creative thinkers thrive in learning situations that offer
opportunities for unique personal expression.
Although humanities and arts classes in particular develop
creative thinking, creative opportunities can be found in other
courses, too.
Creative thinkers prefer to write stories, brainstorm, solve
problems in original ways, design research, and so forth.
They think holistically, meaning that they try to consider a
broad range of information in their problem solving.
LEARN BY CREATIVE
THINKING
They may even enjoy violating the rules if it helps them come
up with a unique solution or viewpoint.
Creative thinking is the hallmark of artists who demonstrate
musical and spatial intelligence, respectively relying on
auditory and visual sensory processing.
Creativity also underlies the development of new theories,
research strategies, novels, and computer games.
That is, creative thinking can be expressed in all domains of
multiple intelligence.
PERSONALITY FACTORS
Personality, the sum of an individual’s enduring personal
characteristics, also influences learning effectiveness.
Five Factor Personality Model
Many psychologists today believe that five basic personality
dimensions are consistently demonstrated across cultures (Costa
and McRae 1995).
Each dimension represents a continuum.
The mnemonic you can use to remember the five dimensions is
OCEAN:
FIVE FACTOR PERSONALITY
MODEL
O = Open to experience
High O people are adventurous, imaginative, and unconventional.
They tend to enjoy classes where they can experiment with new ideas.
Low O people are conventional, conservative, and rigid in their thinking,
preferring more highly structured learning situations.
C = Conscientiousness
High C people are hardworking, ambitious, and driven.
They tend to have developed work habits that score great grades (Noftle and
Robins 2007).
Low C people are pleasure seeking, negligent, and irresponsible, making
them more vulnerable to being placed on probation or being suspended.
FIVE FACTOR PERSONALITY
MODEL
E = Extraversion
High E individuals (extroverts) are high-spirited and energetic, thriving on the
continuous opportunity that college provides to meet and work with different people.
Low E individuals (introverts) are reserved and passive, tending to seek less social
stimulation to do their best work.
A = Agreeableness
High A people are good-natured, trusting, and helpful.
They tend to be well liked and respected and may have an easier time negotiating
positive outcomes to conflicts.
Low A people are irritable, suspicious, and vengeful.
They are less likely to get any breaks when negotiating because they tend to
approach conflict with a hostile attitude and low expectations of others.
FIVE FACTOR PERSONALITY
MODEL
Low A people are irritable, suspicious, and vengeful.
They are less likely to get any breaks when negotiating because they tend
to approach conflict with a hostile attitude and low expectations of others.
N = Neuroticism
High N individuals suffer a variety of problems related to emotional
instability, such as anger, depression, and impulsiveness, that can create
constant chaotic conditions that can threaten academic survival.
Low N individuals adapt well, tolerate frustration, and maintain more
realistic perspectives.
They tend to have developed personal resources that can help them
garner success and rebound from failure.
FIVE FACTOR PERSONALITY
MODEL
Robins and colleagues (2005) examined the impact of college
on personality dimensions.
They compared how personality changed from the onset of
college through graduation and found that students’ self-
reports described increases in openness, agreeableness,
extraversion, and conscientiousness as well as decreases in
neuroticism.
College not only changes your intellectual profile but your
personality as well.
MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE
INVENTORY (MBTI)
Another popular approach to understanding the role of personality
in academic success is the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI)
(Myers 1962).
The MBTI assesses four dimensions of personality functioning by
measuring responses to a series of questions that ask for a
preference between two alternatives:
1.Extraversion/Introversion (E/I)
2.Sensing/Intuiting (S/N)
3.Thinking/Feeling (T/F)
4.Judging/Perceiving (J/P)
MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE
INVENTORY (MBTI)
Extraversion/Introversion (E/I) measures social orientation.
Extroverts (E) like talking with others and taking action.
Introverts (I) prefer to have others do the talking. (This is similar to
the “open to experience” dimension addressed in the Five Factor
Model.)
Sensing/Intuiting (S/N) explores how students process information.
Sensors (S) are most at home with facts and examples; they are
drawn to realistic, practical applications.
Intuiters (N) prefer concepts and theories, which can give greater
play to imagination and inspiration.
MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE
INVENTORY (MBTI)
Thinking/Feeling (T/F) emphasizes how students make decisions.
Thinkers (T) like to take an objective approach and emphasize logic and
analysis in their decisions.
Feelers (F) prefer emotion to logic; they give greater weight to the
impact of relationships in their decisions.
Judging/Perceiving (J/P) taps how students achieve their goals.
Judgers (J) prefer clearly defined strategies to achieve their goals and
may jump to closure too quickly.
Perceivers (P) like to consider all sides to a problem and may be at some
risk for not completing their work. (This also taps characteristics similar
to the “openness to experience” dimension in the Five Factor Model.)
MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE
INVENTORY (MBTI)
Your personality profile can be configured from your preferences on
the four dimensions of the MBTI.
The test captures your style using a four-letter code that
communicates your preferences on each dimension.
For example, the ENTJ code reveals an extrovert with a preference
for an orderly pursuit of concrete details but a reliance on intuitive
decision making.
In contrast, the ISFP represents the style of someone who is drawn
to solitary activities, relying on facts and emotions.
MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE
INVENTORY (MBTI)
Students with these contrasting styles are unlikely to be equally
happy in any class.
For example, consider how students with different personality
styles might relate to a highly structured classroom.
Structure would be much more appealing to the introvert, who
relies more on orderly process, than to the extrovert, who prefers
spontaneity; the extrovert would have to do much more work to
adapt to the highly structured classroom.