From the profile of an INTJ, or “Architect.” Click for the website by NERIS Analytics Limited, which includes a free test and explanation of these personality classifications.
Getting Things Done, Part 1
You are reading this post because you need to organize the academic stuff you have on you. That word, stuff, comes from a root meaning “to equip,” and that’s the idea: You equip yourself every day in order to deal with school and the work it requires. You gear up.
Start with a frank assessment of how you do that. This is an inventory of your equipment, so to speak. You are going to empty your bag, metaphorically and literally, and then use the resources of our makerspace to improve or replace what you find.
① Physical Organization
Start with that literal backpack, bag, locker, etc — the physical place where you keep your stuff. Empty it, and then sort the papers, notebooks, vintage Trapper Keepers, and so on. It’s not just about whether you can find the materials you need. You’re looking to improve whatever system is in place, or to create a system where there isn’t one.
Work with peers who are more organized. Analyze and compare their systems to yours (or your lack of one). What does it all look like?
② Digital Organization
You probably have a number of tabs open right now, as you read this instructional post. Start there: How do you keep track of what you’re reading and studying online? Do you have a system for organizing those tabs? What do you bookmark?
While you’re considering the browser you use for online work, review the plug-ins and apps available to you. Snap&Read Universal and Co:Writer Universal are strongly suggested. I use Lightshot to take screenshots for feedback and instruction. Those three links will take you right to the Google Chrome extensions pages to install them, and there are plenty of folks who can show you how they work.
You have also been given an updated list of digital resources. It will be in your email, in your opening-day materials, or posted somewhere else alongside other resources.
After the browser, you should consider specifically your use of Google, especially Google Drive and Gmail. Do you have a system of folders in Drive to keep your work clear and accessible? Do you use filters to sort email? How do you keep track of assignments, announcements, and instructional posts?
③ MAKERSPACE Organization
The first two categories will help you in every facet of academics. So will this one. The makerspace is built on universal skill, straits, and knowledge; you should always keep your understanding of that universality as organized as your workspace.
Start with what a Humanities makerspace is. Do you know what authentic questions govern our work? If not, review them, memorize them, and consider them whenever we start a new unit or lesson.
Your main online focuses are Schoology (formerly Google Classroom — which means replacing any reference to Google Classroom with Schoology) and any interstitial instruction, especially on this site. Between just those two digital resources, you have everything you need to maximize your success in here. To what extent do you use the ramiform resources available to you to direct your in-class learning?
Finally, review the profiles, skills, and traits that govern your learning. Every choice you make produces evidence, and every piece of evidence can be organized and evaluated in a consistent and predictable way:
Grade Abatement Profiles
Universal Skills and Traits
Step-By-Step Guide to Assessment
There are dozens of interconnected resources that deepen this universal stuff. Remember what I wrote at the beginning: That word, stuff, comes from a root meaning “to equip.” These universal skills and traits are as functional when equipped as you allow them to be.
④ SWOT ANALYSIS
A SWOT analysis (an analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) has is its own post with its own assignment:
You will be formally assigned a SWOT analysis when and if we decide it’s necessary. That sort of decision will be made as a class, because the focus is on your role in a larger group or system. What sort of resources are available to you? How do your personal strengths and weaknesses help or hinder you in the space?
Done methodically, a SWOT analysis will help you stay organized. It will also bring you some personal clarity and potentially a new sense of self-efficacy.
Getting Things Done, Part 2
As an important connected lesson, we should talk about your personalities. Your self-awareness and sense of self-efficacy are tied to that amorphous idea — what your “personality” is — and you can gain some important insights by assessing yourself.
Before doing absolutely anything of this kind of self-assessment, make sure you know what the Forer effect is:
No online test dictates who you are. Understanding the Forer effect is one way to ward off taking these things too seriously.
These sorts of tests can help, though, and here is why: When we’re talking about how you organize yourself in here, we’re really talking about you as a whole person. A personality test, especially one steeped in good research, might be useful, if you are cautious and remember how powerful the Forer effect is.
Onto one of these tests. Start with an introduction to one concept we can use. Then jump right into the test itself:
It will give you a four-letter code and a detailed explanation of what those letters mean. Use that to generate thoughtful discussion and writing. You will probably gain some insight into yourself. Just remember to be metacognitively vigilant about anything a website tells you, especially when your goal is self-improvement.
To emphasize the need for caution, read this article, plus the linked article from Vox that appears in the second paragraph:
This is a nuanced look at the issue. The idea is not that a personality test gives us inaccurate or useless information. It’s that you should use the data to inform self-analysis you’re already doing through a workspace like ours. You’re gathering language and ideas that help clarify concepts.
I have long thought of myself as an INTJ, for instance, but I see more and more of myself in the description of an INTP these days. I don’t need to take the test itself again; I can read through the differences and apply that knowledge to myself. Since I believe those differences are crucial to my development as a teacher, I have a starting point for meaningful metacognitive discussion and writing.
It’s the same for you. You want a sense of yourself as a whole person:
This kind of self-assessment is organizational because it can generate forward momentum. It can improve the efficacy of other elements of your approach to learning. If you take this online test — or any others; here’s a much lengthier one called the IPIP-NEO that some students have said taught them about themselves — be sure you read all the context and explanation the site provides, keep the warning of the Forer effect in mind, and then do some reflective and metacognitive writing and discussion.
There are more such tests and self-assessments. Take as many (or as few) as you like, collect the data, think critically about what they tell you, and build it all toward some sort of self-expression — anything from poetry to a personal narrative.
Below are a few tests students have reported helped them:
From the profile of an INTP, or “Logician”