You may have the greatest teaching skills in the world, but if your psychology is not in the right place, it will somehow mess up your teaching abilities. Many teachers profess the importance of the human mind in teaching. It will likely be included as a module in your teacher’s training. Ultimately, the best way to improve your teaching skills is to understand your unique personality.
What Type of Teacher are you?
You know that the teaching profession provides an opportunity to impact the lives of many students, but you are not sure how to approach teaching. An overview of the kind of teacher you are will provide insights into the strategies you can use as you attempt to build strong relationships with your students, especially if you are teaching to young kids.
Teaching tends to fit into four personality traits: dominant, influential, steady, and compliant. These traits exert great influence in the way you approach teaching students. A deeper understanding of your inner individual will help guide you to promoting better classroom management, effective communication skill, motivation, and behaviour-informed teaching.
The dominant personality is more likely to excel in time and classroom management, and have greater value for students who value knowledge than those who don’t meet the grade. On the other hand, the influential personality profile has the charisma and engagement to charm students and relate to them through games, jokes, and discussions.
A steady personality is more patient and more likely teaching sciences or history through structure and process. This teacher sticks to the tried and tested methods of teaching rather than experimenting with newer methods. The compliant personality profile, on the other hand, has a rigid worldview, where most of the things they will teach will go over the heads of those they teach.
Out of all of these, there is no single trait required for successful teaching. A teacher can be successful regardless of their character trait. The key is to understand your personality and relate to your teaching style for better results. At the end of the day, their key qualities are being patient, effective communication, empathy, and listening skills.
Finding the Right Teacher Personality Test
The internet is littered with psychological proofing tools, while others are available in paperback form. Whatever test you choose, the goal is to help you understand your personality or evaluation yourself. A personality test requires a bit of due diligence, on yourself or your application, for the test to have value for its user. The Assessment Centre HQ is a great source of information on personality and assessment tests that big companies use to hire the right people and improve their work environment.
Before using the personality assessment, test for its reliability. If the results of the test are reproducible over many iterations, where the outcomes remain the same, chances are the test is reliable. This test will help you identify any bias in the rating process. In the end, the reliability test will speak to the test’s accuracy.
You are basically looking for a test that is relevant, useful, and fair. Keep in mind that the ideal teaching assignment is one that fits your personality and abilities. So if the personality assessment stats are not reliable, you might end up in the wrong job. Using a personality assessment can make you a better teacher if you can find a reliable one.
The Best Personality Test for Teaching Development
Thankfully, you should be able to access a personality test that has been tested in either the academic or institutional environment. The best assessment would be scientifically proven both reliable and valid. Be careful not to get sucked into the overlap that exists between these tests. A single test will hopefully give you the answers you are looking for.
The best personality assessment should help you understand how your personalities guide interactions with others. More precisely, it will help you understand how you will interact with your students and colleagues. Moreover, the test will reveal your leadership style and personality influences on your communication skills.
There are tests that are made specific to the teaching profession, while others are effective for improving overall recruitment process within an organization. A test that can measure unconscious behaviour to isolate the possible impact of the environment on personality, as well as offer customization to unique needs and applications will better serve you.
The Key Takeaway
The fact: teaching is tied to emotions. It is your subjectivity versus objectivity. If you can get to a point where your teaching is more objectivity than on subjectivity, you will be a step closer to consistently delivering your best to your students. This aspect is one of the reasons why personality tests are very helpful in improving teaching skills.
