Teacher Personality Traits Activities
Teacher personality traits activities can lead to a better understanding of those that you work with and thereby increase your ability to communicate effectively. Although the results of these types of activities are not to be taken seriously, they do generate a lot of conversation and opens up discussions about who we are and why. The key to success with this type of activity is to follow up with group discussions and as the mediator not to allow any personal attacks.
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Show Your True Colors
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Carolyn Kalil has a free personality test that you can have your teachers take on her website True Colors. The test takes about 15 minutes and is free.This test breaks personalities down into four separate categories, by colors. The results are fun and give a little insight into each of the colors you test out to be. It also has suggestions for better communicating and understanding between the colors. The results are that you gain a better understanding of the type of personality you are and work with as well as being aware of the things you do that may annoy a person with another personality type.
Team Building Personality
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Another fun activity is to break your teachers into teams of four and give each team the same materials to build something like a tank or car. Chances are the art teacher will have enough Erector or Tinker Toy pieces that you can borrow them rather than purchase new ones. This activity is timed and must be observed by a team leader so that she may provide feedback as to who did what during the exercise. The expected outcome is that one person will usually take charge, another will become the organizer who sorts the parts, another person will try to supervise and typically one member will sit back and observe passively. After the time is up, the first team who put the tank together is to discuss the various personalities of each participant. There is usually a group where there is an aggressor who put the tank together themselves and everyone else just sat back. The idea is to get the groups talking about how they felt they participated or why they did not and the dynamics of the group.
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Myers Briggs Personality Test
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Personality Pathways has the Myers Briggs Personality Test online. As team leader you could ask the teachers to take the test online individually and have them print out their results and share at a specified meeting, or you could print out the test and have them take it as a group. This personality test talks about introvert versus extrovert and takes very little time to take. It is the discussions which follow that will consume the majority of the activity. Group teachers by the results and have open discussions regarding the test and what they believe it tells them about themselves and the others they work with. Discuss how this information will be useful to them as teachers.
The Personality Game
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Michael Education Foundation has a free online game that is fun for everyone involved. There is a quick test which will tell you which of the seven categories you fit into. The test takes only minutes, but the results are fun and will conjure up all sorts of feelings and emotions. Once the teacher has taken the test, there is a paragraph which tells them all about themselves and what role they are and what they can actually do with the information.
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References
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