Personality Tests and PLNs: What do I bring to the party? And what did I forget?

    I love personality tests.  Actually, I wonder what trait a personality test would give to someone who loves personality tests?!?! I imagine it lines up with the “Openness to Experience” category as people who are more open light up at the opportunity to learn more about themselves and the world.  And what do you know, that’s one of my strongest attributes according to both the Five Factor Test from Psychology World and FiveThirtyEight’s Personality Quiz. As you can see from posted results below, my strongest characteristics are “Openness to Experience” and “Extraversion,” while my weaker suits are Negative Emotionality (Neuroticism) and Agreeableness. The third test I took is Clifton’s Strengths Finder Assessment by Gallup (results also posted below). This measures a person's strongest “themes.”

Results

FiveThirtyEight

Image Source: FiveThirtyEight

Psychologist World - 5 Factor Test

• Extraversion - 78%
• Openness to Experience - 96%
• Conscientiousness - 77%
• Agreeableness - 73%
• Neuroticism - 57% 
  

StrengthFinders Results

Image Source: Personal Use

• Individualization - The innate need to attach a personal story to your work
• Activator - The impulse to get started right away on a new idea one is excited about
• Learner - The love of new experiences and information
• Input - The determination to dive deep on a topic
• Ideation - Brainstorming and exploring new ideas  

Do I agree? 

    It may be confirmation bias, but I think personality tests usually do a great job of reading me.  All of the aforementioned tests put me squarely in the category of someone who loves to experience new things and then dig into them.  This is exactly who I am.  I love a good brainstorming meeting where new ideas are brought forth and ideas are explored.  In my current role as a coach, teachers have discovered this about me and use me often when searching for new ways to teach a topic or new ideas for how to approach student engagement.  If I don’t have much, I’ll dig into it to deliver. I love meeting with all different types of teachers (and people) and this shows in my extraversion scores.  I’m often on the teams, at work and in my personal life, that bring people together for any reason: to collaborate on new ideas, to plan for an outing, a committee to build culture, or to celebrate a colleague.  

Area to Strengthen

    However, I also understand (and agree with) the scores I’ve been given that need a bit of work.  While I love to provide my ideas on a topic, I can get lost in them and forget to listen to the other ideas around me.  This is reflected in my “Agreeableness” and “Conscientiousness” scores.  My preference is to take a new idea (mine if possible!) and then divide and conquer to execute the work.  This is not often conducive to true team play and collaboration.  If others have a differing opinion, I have a tendency to question or poke holes in what I might anticipate could go wrong.  I know this is an issue regardless of how graceful I am with it, and it’s exactly why I’m setting my personal Goal and Action Plan around it, specifically, my Agreeableness. 

Action Plan (3 Steps and Timeline)

    In order to increase my Agreeable nature, I’m choosing to focus on three particular steps in the coming trimester: Active Listening, Showing Empathy, and Choosing My Words Carefully. These three action steps actually share a lot of the same practice techniques, but I still believe they live in slightly separate realms.  Below are the following concrete techniques I will take for 30 days each. On that note, I’m going to try using the 30 for 30 approach from Sahil Bloom.

    He says to increase any skill, one should try practicing it for 30 minutes a day for 30 days.  He recommends this timeframe for learning anything new because 30 minutes a day isn’t very intimidating and 30 days is enough to solidify new learning into long term memory to create a viable habit.   Plus, the majority of my meetings are 30-40 minutes long, another reason why this structure can support my growth. 

    In order to increase my Agreeable nature, I’m choosing to focus on three particular steps in the coming trimester: Active Listening, Showing Empathy, and Choosing My Words Carefully. These three action steps actually share a lot of the same practice techniques, but I still believe they live in slightly separate realms.  Below are the following concrete techniques I will take for 30 days each. On that note, I’m going to try using the 30 for 30 approach from Sahil Bloom

First 30 Days

Active Listening 

• Focus on understanding: Pay attention to the speaker's words, tone, and body language.

• Avoid interrupting: Let the speaker finish their thoughts before responding.

• Paraphrase: Repeat what you've heard in your own words to ensure understanding.

Second 30 Days

Showing Empathy

• Put yourself in their shoes: Try to see things from the other person's perspective.

• Validate their feelings: Acknowledge their emotions, even if you disagree with their viewpoint.

• Express understanding: Let them know you understand why they feel the way they do.

Third 30 Days

Choosing Positive Language

• Use positive language: Avoid negative words that can escalate a situation.

• Focus on solutions: Rather than dwelling on problems, suggest potential solutions.

• Avoid blaming: Take responsibility for your own actions and avoid blaming others.

    I’ll be setting Google Task Reminders on my calendar to start and end each cycle.  I’ll also be copying the above strategies into each calendar appointment (that others can’t see), so when I pull it up before a meeting begins, I’m reminded of my goals.  Finally, I’ll set a task reminder at the end of each meeting I’ve chosen to focus on my goals to reflect on how I did.  The questions for each 30 day cycle will be:

Active Listening:

• Did I avoid interrupting the speaker?

• Did I paraphrase their key points to ensure understanding?

• Did I give the speaker my full attention without getting distracted?

Empathy:

• Did I try to see things from the other person's perspective?

• Did I validate their feelings and emotions?

• Did I express empathy and understanding for their viewpoint?

Positive Language:

• Did I avoid using negative or blaming language?

• Did I focus on solutions rather than problems?

• Did I choose my words carefully to avoid causing offense?

via NETFLIX on GIPHY

Connection to PLNs

Not to oversaturate the conversation with Sahil Bloom references, but I also love this piece of advice from him from his podcast The Curiosity Chronicle. He recommends that the best way to “level up” as a human is to surround yourself with the right people and “be the dumbest one in the room.” This is exactly what I want my approach to be when it comes to my PLN.  I want to follow people who produce ideas from perspectives that I would have never considered.  While I confirmed from my personality tests that I do, in fact, obsess over new, progressive ideas, I don’t have a tendency to always take the ones seriously that others initiate because I’m not as agreeable or conscientious as I can be.  I need to create a PLN that includes people that challenge me and those from industries and walks of life that are different from my own.  PLNs, especially those across the internet, offer me the chance to hear new ideas of those I would never encounter in my day-to-day personal or professional life.  They can get me out of my “silo.”  It's the reason I love Dan Meyer, founder of Desmos, currently with Amplify, and a leader in math instruction. We share different beliefs about AIs effect on education, but his ideas give me pause and make me think.  I need to find more people like him, and the only way to find new voices like that is to seek them out, or perhaps even more simply, let others talk more.  

    Instead of jumping in to share my opinion, whether it be in person or in my own head, let the idea simmer.  Hear it out.  Then, actually try it. Instead of shooing away the thoughts of others in favor of my own, I need to give them the space to breathe.  If I give those ideas a shot from my own PLN of colleagues, friends, family members, bloggers, authors, and podcasters, I may realize that they have credibility. It’s actually why, after writing about it, I’m very attracted to the idea of a digital PLN.  I’m a natural lurker on the internet anyway with an aversion to sharing my private ideas online for a number of reasons. The digital world, however, allows me to seek as many new ideas as possible without feeling the need to respond as I would if I’m sitting across the table from someone.  Then, if those ideas don’t end up jiving well with how I’m delivering them, maybe I can make them my own and find a happy medium because when I saw that agreeableness was my main goal, I immediately thought of compromise, and that’s a concept I can get behind.

Ages and Stages: My Relationship with Research

Ages and Stages 

A former principal (and mentor) of mine always helped put things into perspective using those three words - ages and stages.  How you see the world, what you’re ready to take on, your opinions and attitudes will shift based on your age and your stage.  What she meant was that we all travel through stages of life and it directly reflects how we interact with the world through the lenses of experience we wear.  The lens from which I saw the abundance of data and research in this assignment is directly based on my current age and stage; that of an instructional (tech) coach who consistently encourages teachers to continue to explore tech use in the classroom and that of a parent of two younger elementary children.  

Image Source: Third Space Learning

My Coach Hat

As the only instructional coach in my building, I also wear the hat of tech coach, kind of by choice, because I enjoy it.  From that lens, Project Tomorrow published multiple reports that connected directly to our current building initiative that I’m helping lead, student centered learning.  The 2023 report of Student Experience using Tech in Learning was of particular interest as the students reported wanting exactly what the concepts of a student centered classroom provides.  

The majority of students never responded that: they enjoy being told what to do or what to work on, to have no choice in their learning, or to complete their work for their teacher rather than a real-world audience.  Instead, the report notes that students say that their best learning is: social, collaborative, has an authentic context, choice driven, provides agency, and 65% of respondents understand that it helps them develop their creative skills.  They understand that 21st century opportunities for them require them to be creators of content, not just consumers.  53% want games to be part of their education as that is how they experience so much of their world.  They see the jobs their older siblings are getting as social media designer, video game programmer, design project manager, etc, and they aren’t the jobs of their parents or grandparents. As Common Sense Media notes, with no surprise, screen use is up 17% from 2019-2021 and it will only continue to become a larger part of the “classroom” and the workplace.  Students see this too.  They know what skills the world is asking of them, maybe even more than some of their teachers who only know the classroom, which progresses at a snail’s pace compared to the private sector. 

In good news, the report goes on to say that teachers are executing this technology in ways that support this 21st century learning with 60% using this for collaboration, and 59% using it to build project based experiences, and almost 50% teaching programming.  It’s invigorating! 

In my experience, if teachers can agree on one source of data as truth, it’s the students, so this report was encouraging for our school improvement plan this year. 

Note: Many student centered learning principles are similar to the skills needed in today’s work place. I have a hard time seeing that as coincidence.

Image Source: LinkedIn

Image Source

  

My Parent Hat

I’d be remiss if I didn’t see these reports through the lens of my most important two students, my two boys, as I’ve never know parenting without the tech of today.  I’m particularly fascinated with the PEW research that states that 71% of parents are concerned about the amount of screen time their kids have, but 84% are confident they know how much is appropriate.  Those numbers are… funny.  If 84% know what’s good for kids, why are 71% concerned there is too much.  It’s either because parents know they’ve gone over the limit with their kids and don’t now how to stop it, or they choose to because they need to and it’s easier.  I fall into both of those categories as a parent.  I’m grateful for the research though because it helps me feel like I’m not alone and that if people know it’s an issue, then hopefully things are being done to counter it.  Hopefully. 

In the meantime, I’m particularly grateful for outlets like Common Sense Media for providing grounding tips and encouragement to help manage it. 

Image Source: Common Sense Media

 

Research Matters! (ish)

It’s crucial in my role to present data and research to teachers when we try to introduce new ideas, strategies, and ideas.  On the flip side, they’ve been beaten over the head with the phrase “best practice” and have all lived through the current media and political cycles in which misinformation has started an all-out war with  “facts” and “data.” It’s becoming easier and easier in today’s world to bend stats or find (or create) a “research study” that proves exactly the opposite of anything.  What teachers can hang their hats on are their experiences.  No one can take away from them what they see happening in front of their own eyes and whether or not it’s effective.  The key to fostering buy-in is building the relationship before delivering the facts. If they trust you, they’ll dig in.  Whether it’s their instructional coach providing it… or their dad.

Active Learning: It's Their Classroom, Not Ours

 Would you want to be a student in your own classroom? It’s a simple and direct question that can often be hard for adult educators to answer, perhaps for a couple of reasons.  One, it’s hard to remember what it was like to be in the bodies and brains of whichever age students we are teaching.  It requires loads of empathy (or a “Family Switch” experience), and empathy can be hard when you see 140 students a day.  Two, it can feel defeating.  Many teachers know what their students need and want to learn at a higher level, but it’s beyond the scope of what many have in their teacher’s toolbelts or simply too much work than they may be able to give at that particular time. So they fall back on the more traditional ways in which they were taught, and what feels simpler and more comfortable.  

What’s often lacking in those classrooms is the concept of active learning.  This is a pedagogical approach that places students at the center of their education and emphasizes the demands of the 21st century, where critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication are essential skills.

Why Active Learning Matters

Active learning is more than just a buzzword; it's a fundamental shift in how we approach education. It recognizes that students are not passive recipients of information but active participants in their learning journey. Students take ownership of their learning, which leads to increased retention and understanding.

When students collaborate on projects, solve problems, and express their ideas creatively, they are honing the critical thinking, communication, and problem-solving abilities that are essential for success in today's world. But just as importantly, they are motivated and care about the process of their learning, which they need.  As we know about Gen Z, they need a cause and a reason to learn.  Paraphrasing one of my favorite bloggers AJ Juliani, the generation in the seats in front of us today watch their idols on YouTube making millions of dollars teaching people how to put on makeup, shoot trick shots with ping pong balls, and play public pranks.  Compliance learning does not have the same teeth it once did.  They need more convincing to care about what they’re being asked to learn, and the way they learn it needs to be interactive.  They want to be creators, designers, idea makers.  We just need to provide the spaces to do so. 

Save the Last Word for Me: A Discussion Protocol

Image source: personal use

Image Source: Colin O'Neill

One effective discussion protocol that supports active learning is "Save the Last Word for Me." In this approach, each student brings a response to an open-ended question or an annotation from a text to a discussion of 3-5 students. The steps involved are:

1. Person A shares their post-it.

2. Everybody else shares their thoughts about Person A's Post-It.

3. Person A gets the last word on explaining why they picked that idea to share.

4. Repeat so all group members get a chance at being the "sharer."

By giving each student a chance to share their thoughts and insights, "Save the Last Word for Me" fosters active participation, critical thinking, and respectful dialogue. It also allows students to connect their personal experiences and perspectives to the material being discussed while hearing the thoughts of others to compare against their own.  

Image Source: Catlin Tucker

This week’s topic hits home at a perfect time for me as we’re about to dive into our school’s instructional goals this year with grade level teams.  Our leadership team consisting of admin and teacher leaders chose strategies that all focus on a student centered classroom with questioning and discussion strategies being the focus of our first cycle of learning.  We hope to collaborate to build our teacher’s capacities for facilitating student led conversations.  

One of the first steps is providing protocols and structures (see  Save the Last Word for Me)  for kids who aren’t ready to dive into organic, open ended conversations with each other… which is nearly all of them. 

Image Source: The Danielson Group

Save the Last Word for Me was one of my most effective discussion strategies when I had my own ELA classroom. It taught students how to stop and listen and often created a space for disagreement, which was the perfect opportunity to impart lessons on counterclaim, civil discourse, and how to respectfully disagree with someone.  One variation I leaned into was the incorporation of consensus building at the end of the discussion to share out with the class.  This required some students to bend a bit on their opinions in order to get their groups final thoughts to a place everyone could agree on.  

When we look at the final column of “excellent” in Danielson’s model, we see an abundance of student centered descriptions.  The Danielson Group may not explicitly reference “Active Learning” in its rubrics, but it’s fairly obvious that they, and probably Charlotte herself, value it as a (the?) defining factor in meaningful learning. 

My Digital Map: Am I a buyer or a renter on the internet? Depends on the tax rate...

When I began teaching in 2011, the “digital native vs digital immigrant” conversation was happening, if not necessarily using those terms.  At that time, there were no teachers who were digital natives, as the youngest of us (myself included) still had a semblance of what the analog world was like without the internet.  The digital natives we spoke of were our students.  I started my career in Chicago Public Schools, phones weren’t as ubiquitous in the population I worked with in the early 2010s.  Many demographic groups were still being priced out as iPhone didn’t even hit all carriers until 2013 and.  It wasn’t until about 2013-2015, where we saw that phone ownership and usage reached over 50% of the population and download speeds were less than ½ of what they are today. 

Image Source: Consumer Affairs

Suffice it to say, I clearly remember my 8th grade class of 2016 as being the first group of students whom I would call “digital natives.”  They had a relationship with the communities of the internet, sometimes tighter than those in their classroom or neighborhood.  Students who would have otherwise been left on the “fringes” without anyone to connect with within the building had more life in their step.  They had friends they spoke of online (whether their parents knew of them or not), and they had a community in which they connected with.  Snaphcat had reached over 100M users, and they were in my classroom. 

SnapChat usage over time
Image Source: Business of Apps

Since then, the language has changed a bit, but the intentions feel similar. David White has coined the terms “visitors and residents” rather than “immigrants and natives,” but as we see in this Psychology Today article from 2014, the vibe is the same.  Visitors get what they need from the internet.  They achieve their tasks and move on with their lives, rarely engaging.  Residents are contributors to the internet and the communities therewithin.  

Who am I? 

Here is my digital map as a 41 year old father of two, and to be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about it.  

Image Source: Personal Use

Based on this exercise, I am 1000% a visitor of the internet, and that has been almost completely intentional.  There was a time in my life, back in my 20s when I started teaching middle school, that Facebook was huge, Twitter was pretty much what it is today, Instagram was on the rise, and SnapChat had a stronghold.  I had accounts in all of them. I was active in all of them.  I looked to post and build a following, and I love scrolling others’ pages.  Needless to say, my digital map would have looked worlds different than it does today.  I think our digital maps reflect our ages and stages in life. What do we have the capacity for and what (or who) are we willing to give the time to? And also, and maybe most importantly, how does it make us feel?

I can’t say that I was surprised by much of it. However, a major takeaway of mine is how much more variety I have in my personal digital life than in my professional, and that’s something that I think I’d like to work on. I am someone who really enjoys new tools and resources. If it’s recommended, I’m going to create an account, but without a classroom of my own anymore to experiment with these new instructional tools, and working with a teacher base that is still a bit raw from all the "flashy" pandemic tech, I end up sticking with the same tried and true resources and tools I use 80% of the time.

I am beginning to wonder what professional social media have to offer again at this stage in my life, but frankly, it's pulling the trigger of reactivating my accounts and re-curating my feeds that dissuades me from digging in. I remember how much time I once spent on those sites seeking ideas and engaging in conversation, and I also remember the slight feeling of incompetence I had when I saw how productive others were. There was also the FOMO I had if I saw a bunch of others trying out a new idea that I had no idea how to fit in my day to day. I wanted to try everything. That being said, with a decade more experience, I have my expectations more aligned now for what's feasible and realistic, so I may be able to strike that balance a bit better.

I did, however, think I would be almost fully a digital visitor based on the concept that I don’t create and contribute to any communities online really, save a couple of travel apps and social media in a closed space (family and close friends only).  Yet, when I glanced at a few of the resources, mainly this chart below, I realized that I definitely blur the lines.  I do all of my banking and shopping online, read, watch video, stream, and set up profiles all over the place.  I do not check my social media every day or post opinions ever.  I believe my students would call me a “lurker” - HA!  

Image Source: Joint Information Systems Comittee (JISC)

Professionally, I stick to the GSuite, Canva, a few favorite websites like Edutopia and DitchThatTextbook, and software resources our district has invested in such as IXL, a reading and math digital learning platform and HMH's "Into Literature," our school's literacy resource.  Personally, it’s a bit more all over the board with apps that tend to focus on entertainment, productivity, food, and health.  

Personally, I feel in my bones that I’m more of a digital resident.  I navigate the internet with ease, enjoy my curated corner of it, and would turn to a YouTube video or online article before a book or analog source when researching or learning something new.  That being said, I’m missing one of the key components of holding residency on the internet - a voice.  If I don’t have a presence and take part in the social aspect of the internet, am I actually a resident? If that’s what makes me a resident, do I actually want to be? Right now, based on my experiences, my answer is no.  I’m OK with just visiting, but 15 years ago my status was very different, and a year from now, it might be as well.