Personality Traits in a Classroom - Article Example

? Personality Traits in a room Outline Introduction 2. Extraversion 3. Conscientiousness 4. Openness to experience 5. Agreeableness 6. Neuroticism 7. Conclusion Personality Traits Introduction Personality serves as the basic form of identifying and describing who an an individual is. In describing individual personality, one has to ascertain the things they like and those they do not like that helps understand themselves better. In this regard, human personality tends to differ because of this attribute hence bringing the differences that people possess. In essence, personality is a fusion of emotions, behavioral responses of an individual, and their attitudes towards life. Ideally, the different personality traits have led to tremendous study as it became an integral part of psychological studies. Additionally, the different personality traits facilitate diversity in thinking, feelings and individual behavior. Remarkably, personality is an inward attribute where no other individual may make one change their personality traits. In a classroom setup, teachers encounter various personality traits from the students they teach hence making them accommodating to every personality. Essentially, teachers chiefly practice psychology on a day to basis because the various personalities existing in their classrooms deserve a chance in accessing education equally. In this regard, this essay will delve on the various personality traits that exist within a classroom setting either good or bad. Further, the focus will be on how a teacher may accommodate the distinct personalities in their class in order to maximize the learning experience for all. In psychology, there are five principal domains that help in describing or determining various personality traits. This is a theoretical approach that researchers developed within the past fifty or more years. In essence, the five domains are broader categories of personality traits although researchers may not always agree on the dimensions that they provide. This is despite the existence of many literal support materials that provide facts on the appropriateness of these domains.In this regard, a teacher may notice all these domains in different students within their class, hence should be able to treat them as per their different traits. i) Extraversion Ideally, extraversion serves as the first domain in determining which encompasses the individual ability to be energetic, with positive emotions, and sociable. Additionally, this domain focuses on one's tendency to be talkative and have stimulation through the company of others.in a class, some students may portray traits like excitability and assertiveness that tend to be infectious (Carducci, 2006: 40). Essentially, those with these traits within a classroom may make it easy for a teacher to make learning achievable as they would bring excitement to the classroom. Additionally, students with this personality trait have no problem with expressing themselves hence making them most suited to ask questions in class. These students tend to challenge those within a classroom who have reserved personalities to participate in classroom activity. However, students with this characteristic may also provoke or look down upon introverted students by teasing them. These children may also make others cower and may also bully other students to fulfilling their wishes irrespective of whether they are appropriate or not. Moreover, those with this trait within a classroom bring a sparkle and energy to a learning environment because they keep them lively. On the contrary, they speak their mind and may at times not be mindful of the implications of their actions or speech. They are also assertive in their communication by answering questions according to what they feel is the right answer. In essence, they energize a class especially when a topic is boring and concentration levels have gone down as a result of this. The opposite of an extrovert is an individual who has reserved attributes and prefers to stay in solitude. These students tend to have no engagement with the external world and their happenings because they are shy. However, extroverts are noisy, more involved with the social world, and do engage socially with others and the environment at large (Carducci, 2006: 80). Moreover, extroverts in a class draw much attention to themselves as they seem comfortable with being the epic of attention. On the other hand, this nature of being the center of attraction makes these students to cope and perform well in group discussions hence making the class lively. This means that enjoy being in the company of others as they feel that others make their good side show. Therefore, a teacher should be more accommodating to students with this personality trait as they would help their class more fun. Additionally, teachers should allow these students to be themselves by mostly using them when they feel that a class needs re-energizing. Despite their outgoing personality trait, these students may do so only when a teacher permits as this may develop into mischief which would not provide a cordial learning environment. Therefore, teachers should control them to ensure that they do not inhibit the achievement of a suitable learning environment. ii) Conscientiousness Conscientiousness is another domain where efficiency, planning, and dutifulness reign supreme. This domain makes one to be positive about achievement through self-discipline. An individual with this personality attribute tends to have controlled impulse in that they articulate issues before actually putting them into play. These people have goals as their guide in achieving desired accomplishments in the long run. In essence, those that have substantive levels of conscientiousness have organizational skills and to be keen on details rather than focusing on completion of a task only. This means that they are not spontaneous in their acting out but are rather effective planners in order to achieve cognitive results. In a class setting, students with this personality domain are keen in performing academic or other school related activities (Anderman & Hattie, 2012: 311). In essence, they focus on planning on how they would attain a pass in their assessment tests by ensuring that they attend all their lessons and by constantly revising their study notes. Additionally, students that have systemic plans of how they would want to succeed in their tests create personal study timetables to which they strictly adhere to. This serves as an ultimate test to their self-discipline as it helps in control of impulsive student behavior. Studies show that this trait is common among school going children rather than adults that attend school. However, a substantial number of students that do not apply systemic planning in the execution of study tasks also exist (Anderman & Hattie, 2012: 301). Additionally, conscientiousness students are also able to trace their belongings with ease because they are orderly. On the contrary, students who lack this trait tend to misplace their belongings and end up causing arguments since they blame others for their predicament. They are messy and leave their personal effects of importance lying around carelessly by forgetting to place them where required. For a teacher that has students with this behavior, they need to communicate the vital reasons for putting items in their proper places so as to avoid blame- shifting in the class. In order to accommodate people with this trait in a classroom, a teacher should also communicate the achievable benefits of an individual planning ahead. The achievement of this complementing factor would be through designating specific locations in a classroom that students may store their items so as to avoid conflict. Through this, the class would be accommodating and influence learning for the students with the help of the teacher. iii) Openness to experience In this personality trait an individual appreciates the various experiences that may affect them directly or indirectly. In essence, the idea of openness to experiences portrays the intellectual inquisitiveness by being appreciative of variety and diversity. This appreciative trait varies from art, imagination, adventure, emotions, and a variety of other occurrences (Starko, 2012: 33). Sequentially, the curiosity levels portrayed by individuals with this trait tend to trigger the intellectual aspects of students making them susceptible to the acquisition of knowledge. These students have creative abilities as compared to those that do not have reserved approaches to living as they are relatively more aware of their emotions. Moreover, these students have unconventional beliefs and may not be staunch believers in traditional aspects of interest development. They do not regard sciences and arts as complex subjects but are of the view that they are interesting subjects. Subsequently, these students may incorporate difficult words in their writing as compared to students that have conservative and change resistant traits. This makes them able to grasp information faster hence making them be on top of their class in their examination scores (Starko, 2012:25). In this regard, a teacher should allow students with higher artistic and imaginative personality to make good of their personality as they would gain cognition and awards. This will in turn challenge other students in a classroom to work towards creating names for themselves. iv) Agreeableness Ideally, this personality trait depicts cooperative and compassionate treatment of others rather than being suspicious and pessimistic. This trait allows for the creation of social harmony as they tend to focus on peacefully cohabiting with others in society. Additionally, these individuals have the willingness to compromise, are generous, and friendly as a way of allowing the interests of others to prevail rather than their own (Hoyle & Leary 2009: 48). In a classroom, agreeable students have excellent team work skills rather than leadership skills. They are not assertive because of their compassionate nature but are relative followers to what the team or group in a classroom. Additionally, they have a more optimistic view of life as they tend to have cordial relations with other students in a classroom. They are not selfish as they factor the interests of others before their own, hence making them easily swayed due to poor judgement (Hoyle & Leary 2009: 50). Subsequently, students with this trait may have poor judgement hence allowing students with other outgoing personalities to triumph over them by giving information that may not be true. For a teacher, they need to communicate the consequences of riding on the opinions and judgements of others as being assertive would encourage equal entitlement to learning opportunities. v) Neuroticism Neuroticism is the other domain which makes an individual to have sensitivity in terms of experiencing unpleasant emotions, such as nervousness, depression, anger, and being fragile. It is a term that many refer to as low pole because of the portrayal of emotional stability. This personality couples with the aspect of vulnerability and too much worry that creates emotional instability and irritability. Additionally, this personality creates intolerance to stress hence making individuals susceptible to depression and creates a bad temper within them. Subsequently, individuals with this personality develop an emotional irritation from minor things without factoring in the cause for the irritation. On the contrary, researchers have found neuroticism direct linkage to extraversion as one speaks their mind without factoring feelings of other individuals in a classroom (Bergin & Bergin, 2012: 243). In learning facilities, students with this personality tend to lose their cool when they acquire poor grades as they consider the efforts they put into their exams and then end up failing. They feel discontent with themselves hence making them look down upon their lives because of minimal accomplishments. If unnoticed, these students may end up slipping into clinical depression where the role of the teacher slips into the forefront. For instance, a teacher should serve as a motivating factor for students with neuroticism personality and encourage them to work harder rather than give up on the hope that they would succeed if they put in extra effort. By using this tact, a teacher will enable a student to continue learning rather than quit school because of the encouragement given. This will in turn reduce the chances of the students with neuroticism personality slipping into clinically termed depression (Bergin & Bergin, 2012: 307) Conclusion A teacher spends a significant amount of time with their students hence making them know them better than their parents would. Arguably, they are more likely to point out the various personality traits existing in their classrooms and strive to relate to them as per their unchangeable domains. Moreover, a teacher should also strive to nurture the positive personalities and improve on the negative traits because they have the capability to do so. They should also encourage accommodate aspects for themselves and the students with different personality traits. In so doing, a teacher will maximize the learning experience for all because they would serve as catalysts towards complementing the diverseness of personalities. References Anderman, E. M. & Hattie, J. (2012). International Guide to Student Achievement. London: Routledge. Bergin, C. A. C., & Bergin, D. A. (2012). Child and adolescent development in your classroom. Australia: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning. Carducci, B. J. (2006). The psychology of personality. Oxford: Blackwell. Leary, M. R., & Hoyle, R. H. (2009). Handbook of individual differences in social behavior. New York: Guilford Press. Carducci, B. J. (2006). The psychology of personality. Oxford: Blackwell. Starko, A. J. (2012). Creativity in the Classroom.Oxford: Taylor & Francis. Read More