Personality Colours in the Classroom

Myers Briggs
The Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)  measures the preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions.  It's a comprehensive test and quite involved since there are 16 different personality types defined in this test. You can see these 16 types in the image to the right. 

It's complicated. I took a leadership course in which we determined our Myers Briggs personality type.  We spent two of the four sessions just getting a handle on comparing and contrasting the four aspects:

• Extraversion with Introversion
• Sensing with Intuition
• Thinking with Feeling 
• Judging with Perceiving

By far, the  most rewarding part of the course was working with purposefully diverse teams and experiencing first-hand the interaction styles of all personality types.

Personality Colours
I use Personality Colours test extensively in my classroom. The four colours in the test simplify the sixteen types of the Myers Briggs:

• Blue for the Harmonious
• Orange for the Adventurous temperament
• Green for the Curious
• Gold for the Responsible

Right now I am teaching one very ‘orange’ class. More than 80% of my students in this science class of mine are ‘orange’. This means that they tend to be extroverted, outgoing, active, and kinesthetic learners.  

I am a green/gold personality, so the enthusiasm and natural inclusiveness of my students came as a welcome surprise to me. I am continuously warmed by their sheer willingness to participate in activities and their extremely positive response to our classroom lessons of inclusivity and respect.

Knowing that this class is orange helps me find solutions to their natural busy-ness in science, a subject that works on developing the green/gold personality traits. For example, it helps me to be understanding when an ‘orange’ student asks yet again to be let out for a drink of water (really a walk and a destressor). It also helps me create assessments that involve their kinesthetic tendencies, such as setting up laboratories as stations activities.
 
In addition, knowing their personality colours really helps my students.  It helps students understand why they like to do the things a certain way,  and why sometimes a different choice makes more sense for them than their peers. It helps them understand why some subjects come naturally to them to see that even if another skill or subject does not seem as natural, it is still important and worth the effort to learn. Personality colours also helps me to create a purposeful teamwork in the class. I purposefully pair complementary colours or diverse colours, so that my students can gain a practical understanding of their own strengths in relation to the strengths of their peers.

I feel that I as a teacher have a great role in teaching personality colours. I think the tests of the personality colours are remarkably accurate for me. They reflect how I think about me, my preferences and what I make a priority. Personality colours provides a framework in which my students can reflect on their strengths and develop strategies for their areas of need.

Try them:
Myers Briggs - Test, YouTube video
Personality Colours - Test, YouTube video
A Personality Colours handout for the classroom handout