Effective Communication and Collaboration Among Personality Types and Learning Styles Essay Example

Effective Communication and Collaboration Among Personality Types and Learning Styles Essay Example Effective Communication and Collaboration Among Personality Types and Learning Styles Essay Effective Communication and Collaboration Among Personality Types and Learning Styles Essay Melding of the Minds 1 Melding of the Minds: Effective Communication and Collaboration among Personality Types and Learning Styles Foundations for General Education and Professional Success/GEN200 Melding of the Minds 2 Melding of the Minds: Effective Communication and Collaboration among Personality Types and Learning Styles One of the challenges of working with any team lies in building relationships with the various members of the team, and to form a cohesive unit that communicates and works well together. It can be difficult to convey thoughts and ideas to those with personalities and learning styles different from oneself. However, with a little effort one can put this diversity to good use. Dr. Joyce Bishop, co-author of Keys to College Studying condensed personality styles into four basic groupings; the thinker, giver, organizer, and adventurer. Each individual will have characteristics from all of these groupings but will generally have dominance in a single personality type. This allows those who are aware of personality types to recognize and expand upon common characteristics with those they are working with. For example, the thinker is most comfortable with time to reflect individually on ideas presented, whereas the giver and adventurer enjoy working with groups; however, being familiar with personality styles, the thinker and the adventurer have the common trait of considering problems via non-traditional approaches. The giver will typically be the peace keeper in any group as they dislike conflict, and are good with communicating and negotiating. In addition, the organizer is likely to create flash cards to study by, which the giver can use to capitalize on their traits and teach the organizer. By having a variety of personality styles on a team it keeps balance, and allows various perspectives to be brought to the project. Similar to personality types, every individual has their own way of taking in and retaining information, referred to as a learning style. A learning style can be defined as A set of characteristics which make learning effective for an individual (Seckel, 2007, 22). It may seem that these varied learning styles may clash and create conflict working on a team together; Melding of the Minds 3 however, they can, in fact, complement each other nicely. Verbal learners will benefit from reciting the information they are learning to retain the information, the visual learner can build on this technique by listening to the recitation and putting the information into a word web, or arrangement he or she can use to visualize the details. Adding someone with a logical/mathematical learning style into this group adds another beneficial dimension. Logical learners and the visual learners complement each other with their ability to chart or graph the data or facts they are studying. The logical learner can see relationships between the facts, and the verbal learner can put these logical relationships back into a cohesive written document for presentation. The verbal learner will be able to write clear papers, the visual learner will add a visual appeal to presentations, and the logical learner will order the layout in an organized and clear manner. A well formed team, consisting of i ndividuals with a variety of personality types and learning styles can capitalize on the strengths of each individual, and allow each person to stretch him or herself to improve on weaker traits. By melding a group from these differences, the work product is likely to be more rounded, taking into account various perspectives. It will also produce more concise and interesting presentations. Although conflicts and difficulties may arise among the group, the benefits of multiple perspectives, thoughts, and ideas, greatly outweigh those difficulties. Melding of the Minds References 4 Seckel, S. (2007). Characteristics and Responsibilities of Successful e-Learners. Journal of Instruction Delivery Systems, 21(2), 22-26. Retrieved from Education Research Complete database.