Ever wonder if you share too much on Twitter? Andrew Careaga introduced me to a clever little application that creates a cloud of your Tweets. (He knows a lot about music too, you should follow his blog if you are not already.)
I passed a blurry eyed student as he was on his way to a final exam this week. He was gripping a Red Bull in each hand. And I was reminded of this final exam diagram shared by one of our peer mentors.
I am currently exploring research directed toward identifying if Psychological Type preferences affect student success at a research university. My interest is in determining if there is correlation of Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI) preferences as a gauge of academic success in college. This idea originates from my work as a type practitioner and instructor of a first-year seminar course. Through my annual lectures introducing the MBTI to link personal preferences and learning styles, I quickly detected that my student population was overrepresented in some type preferences in comparison to national samples. Additionally, I found a higher number of students with specific type preferences demonstrating academic difficulty in the first college year.
My personal experience with type is that early in my career, I began to detect interpersonal roadblocks and miscommunication, particularly in the workplace, related to what I later learned were my type preferences. As I further researched type and my own preferences, I began to see opportunities for enabling students to understand more about themselves in the transition to college. As I was already an experienced first-year seminar instructor, I sought academic training to become a type facilitator to add type education in my course. I began administering the introduction to MBTI in my first-year seminar class and to date have assessed the type preferences of more than 700 students in the seminar course during their first semester of college. My goal is to complete a longitudinal study of the academic success and graduation completion of students administered the MBTI in their first year to determine if students with specific type preferences have more academic difficulty in their path to a degree. Ideally, this information will provide early identification for students who may require enhanced programming to meet their academic needs.
Related to this research, I have found type awareness to be extremely helpful in my own relationships, work, and communications. Type has become a touchstone for me, a frame of reference that allows me to dissect and review difficult relationships, expectations, and communications that may occur with others. My knowledge and use of type has been therapeutic in allowing me to recognize that we don’t all interact, process information or produce decisions in similar manners. And our differences make us stronger.
November always seemed to me the Norway of the year. ~Emily Dickinson
That Emily. Always a kidder.
Happy Second Anniversary to the eighteen and life blog! Traditional anniversary gifts of china or cotton are now being accepted. Or not.
Thanks for your encouragement. And thanks for sticking around and reading.
A countdown of your top-5 favorite posts of the last year:
5. Gridiron Challenge and Support
4. Laws of Physics and College Transition
1. Digital Storytelling: Adventures in the First-Year Experience
There are some days that throw us off balance. How we react to those days is how we define ourselves.
We are in the midst of a One Week of Twitter assignment in our first-year seminar class. This is my favorite tweet of the week (so far).
May you wear no socks in the shower today.
and what’s on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
and rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we’ve been told and some choose to believe it.
I know they’re wrong, wait and see.
Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.
We celebrate a year of #SACHAT this week, our regular water cooler gathering of student affairs colleagues. Each Thursday we take time to pause in our busy workday to share thoughts, ideas, best practices, gripes, and whatever else in 140 characters.
It has been transforming (and frequently laugh out loud funny!) to read the touching accounts of our community members reflecting on their #SACHAT experience. I recall the blank stare that I likely gave Tom Krieglstein when he pitched this brainstorm over a cup of coffee in late summer 2009. The path that we have traveled in such a short time is amazing.
I was certain that I would expound something about MBTI and Type here, but really, at #SACHAT, we are about sharing resources. We are about Challenge and Support (shout out to Nevitt Sanford). And most of all, we are about community. So it is easy to connect what we do to Ernest Boyer and his six principles of community.
The #SACHAT community is…
Purposeful: We share goals to develop our colleagues, our students and ourselves.
Open: Freedom of expression is uncompromisingly protected and civility is affirmed.
Just: Individuals are honored and our differences are what make us great.
Disciplined: Individuals accept their obligations to the group and guide behavior for the common good.
Caring: #SACHAT is a place where the well being of each member is supported and where service to others is encouraged.
Celebrative: We know why we ritually gather around computers, laptops and Smartphones each Thursday at Noon and 6:00 p.m. CST for this goat rodeo™ which has become our student affairs tradition. It is why we celebrate this entire week. And it is why we don’t believe anyone who claims social networks have “weak ties”.
Lurk, Learn, Drink the Kool-Aid.
Love to you all,
Debra
eighteen and life 