This post is part of a series of posts on teaching to different personality type indicators as found in the Myers Briggs Type Indicator. To see more, head here.
According to Myers Briggs, when you are making decisions, you use two functions. Thinking and Feeling. You’ll use both through the whole decision-making process, but one will primarily take over. This blog post is to solely focus on the Thinkers.
Some traits that can define a Thinker:
Logical
Looks at the statistics
Analytical
Truth seekers- even if it’s hurtful
Everything needs to turn out equal
Can put the problem before the person
How to support a Thinker in the classroom- They need objectives. They need a target goal written somewhere clearly for them to know what the purpose of the work is. They also thrive on conversations with others. Whether this is in a group setting or one-on-one will depend on if they are introverted or extroverted. But they need this conversation because they want to bounce off every possibility and all of the information that they can.
How to help Thinkers in your classroom grow- challenge them to think about others in their decision-making and how it affects peers.
Thinkers are a big part of the classroom. You can easily pick them out by holding a class meeting talking about a problem in the classroom that needs a solution. They’ll be the kids talking about how to fix the problem, not who will fix the problem. They’ll bring forward the analytical, sensible ideas that don’t involve the feelings of the whole classroom.
Have you been able to pick out the Thinkers in your classroom?