The expectations from teachers in today’s educational scenario are multifold. Not only do they have to ensure that the best curriculum is being taught, but they also have to ensure that they are using the best teaching practices, to make learning and teaching an enriching experience for students.
An add-on to this is the use of personality traits of the students, to deliver the lectures in the best possible way.
Psychology, especially educational psychology and personality psychology are now being well integrated to ensure that the children’s’/learners’ best potential comes out to the fore.
What is educational psychology?
It is a subfield of psychology that applies the various theories and techniques in an educational setting.
Anyone, right from a teacher, student, educator, academic coordinators, who have either a direct role or indirect role in a classroom, has definitely been affected by the theories of educational psychology. It is fast becoming a popular field because of the far-reaching implications—in fact, its principles are being used right from preschools to colleges, and even after-school programs, and companies.
One of the most important goals of this field of psychology is to make the teacher-student relationship a positive and well-structured one so that there are potentially good learning outcomes.
What is personality psychology?
Personality psychology is a very broad area that specialises in studying human personality traits, and involves the observation of the personality among different people and also how it differs from person to person.
Humans are inherently different. But, they all can be broadly categorised based on the personality traits and characteristics. It is these characteristics or traits that give an insight into the behaviour of individuals in any given situation or setting. Personality psychology examines all these aspects of human nature, individual characteristics and personality theories.
The results from the personality psychology are highly useful in diverse fields of education, business, healthcare, counselling, and advertising.
Personality Development And Education
Psychology highly influences every field involved in the learning and teaching process. In fact, educational psychology is the very basis or foundation of education.
Personality development, on the other hand, has a crucial role and also has a great educational objective. There are certain conditions of personality traits that are important in relation to the educational objectives and personality development.
A learner’s interaction with the environment and the self along with some social factors influence many outcomes. Learning is one of the outcomes that educators and teachers are primarily concerned with.
How does personality matter in education?
The far-reaching consequences of personality are slowly and steadily being recognised in the teaching fraternity. Personality traits of learners can be efficiently used to achieve the broad objectives of teaching, academics, and learning.
Here are some principles of personality traits and psychological principles that have a great effect on the learning outcomes of learners and students.
1) The cognitive functioning and learning ability of a student is highly influenced by the learners’ belief about his/her intelligence levels. Educators must first try and get an in-depth understanding of their student’s personality traits so that they can ensure that students have a positive belief about their intelligence levels.
2) Practice makes a man perfect. Acquisition of long-term knowledge and skills depends to a large extent on practice. Not only these assignments, formative assessments, practice problems, sample tests and activities help students to increase their knowledge and confidence. Teachers must design these assessments and assignments regularly to continue the learning at a steady and continuous pace.
3) Prior knowledge also has a great bearing on the learning curve of the students. Understanding of these aspects by educators and teachers help in formulating lessons that increase the conceptual knowledge of the students. This results in bringing out the desired learning outcome that is factually correct and not filled with misconceptions.
4) Feedback plays a vital role in learning consistently. Timely feedback by the teachers helps the students to correct or realign themselves and also motivates the learners. Motivating learners in a positive direction is the best outcome of good feedback session.
5) The creativity of the learner can be nurtured by giving ample opportunities to students through different projects, presentations, and demonstrations.
6) Helping learners set goals, which are both short-term and realistic is more beneficial and not overly challenging. Students/learners can benefit hugely when they set short-term achievable goals. This motivates them further to do their best, to achieve the next set of goals.
7) The emotional well-being of the learners has a considerable impact on the academic performance, learning, and development. And so, teachers/educators must look into the self-esteem, self-confidence of the learners.
In conclusion, there is no denying the fact that personality traits of learners can highly influence the learning outcomes. By combining the principles of educational and personality psychology in education, it is possible to bring out the full potential, of learners and students.
(Written by Aditya S)