Affirming/Developing the StrengthsFinder Themes of Your Students

[Mark Pogue]

Have you developed startegies for helping students affirm, develop and apply their strengths? Help us create a bank of action items and hints for each of the 34 themes.

If you've read "Now Discover Your Strengths", you'll remember that the action items were written for the manager, helping them develop strategies to "manage" direct reports with each of the 34 themes.

Wouldn't it be great if a resource existed that provided those suggestions to educators.

Maybe you've had some successes you can share...or maybe you have suggestions on your own Top Five.

[Jay Killough]

First, as an educator, get to know the strengths inside and out. Read about them, read about all of them and then experience them by talking to others about their strengths.

I find that affirming/developing competition is a fun learning experience. Friends and students of mine who are competitive naturally respond to challenges quite well. For example, my student assistant is number 2 competitive and she hates to lose. When it came to planning our career fair, I told her that another student of ours had sent out x number of invites to the fair. She almost doubled it when she knew her mark to beat. She knew what I was doing too, regarding the appeal to her competitive nature.

Strategic is fun in career counseling because students and alumni will become extremely frustrated with their job search and no matter how much a student or alumni has exhausted his or her job search and tried everything they can think of, i tend to follow up with the, "what if you tried this approach..." where i give them another strategy which may or may not work, but it usually breaks new ground for them. If the student or alumni is strategic as well, we'll bounce strategies off one another sharpening the strength.

The above examples are specific, and based off the individualization strength, this month, Texas Tech is hosting StrengthsQuest month. Our SQ Advocates committee is sponsoring one hour a day everyday in February in the Playa Room in our Student Union to affirm and develop students' strengths. Each day, two strengths are highlighted in alphabetical order where an advocate with that specific strength will lead a discussion on how to affirm and develop that strength. We've invited 4,500 students who have taken SF this year.

I'm a WOO so most of my development and affirmation with students comes in face to face meetings or classroom presentations. As everyone knows, students develop at such a differing rate so I recommend taking the individual approach.

[David Brodersen]

Here are some strategies that I use with computer aided design and drafting students.
Clearly, it is very beneficial for one to know one’s strengths. However, it’s a bit difficult to develop his or her strengths in a vacuum. That is, many of my students give up exploring talent themes after taking the CSF because of all the work it takes in addition to learning subject material. For the first half the semester, students with similar talent themes are paired on the same project with the task of uniquely applying their strengths to foster project completion. In this way each student can observe how at least one other person uses strengths that are similar to their own. Additionally, the student can witness the moderating effect of the remaining four talent themes on the theme if interest.
It is also very beneficial for students to understand the strengths of others. The second half of the semester involves paring student with dissimilar talent themes. In this way students who have been asked to uniquely apply their strengths toward project completion can learn how unfamiliar talent themes can be developed into strengths. However, the project needs to be less rigorous than the one used in the previous example due to the potential of conflicts that can arise due to differing approaches.
Lastly, I encourage students who are having trouble with projects to seek out classmates who are successful and simply get help. For example, the students with talent themes such as Intellection, input, and learner tend to do better at computer aided design and drafting than those with inclusiveness and woo. By asking the student with woo to ask a person with intellection for help, it helps the person with intellection who may prefer to remain in his or her little shell to interact with others, and it helps the person with woo to realize that there is nothing wrong with not being able to solve a computer aided drafting and design problem as long as they are willing to identify those who are doing well and ask for help.

[Christy Khan]

Mark,

Thanks for posting this thread. I'm teaching a classroom management class to preservice teachers right now from a strengths-based perspective, and one of the challenges I've encountered is providing very specific things they can do to build strengths in each of their students. We're brainstorming as we go, and I'll be sure to share ideas with this group and vice versa.

Christy Khan
University of Kansas

[Mark Pogue]

Hi Christy,

I know this response is way overdue...but we just recently added the Teacher Action Items from the Gallup book Teach With Your Strengths. You'll see it as a new tab under the strengths tab on StrengthsQuest.

We're also working on collecting action items more specific to higher education professionals...more to come.

[Christy Khan]

I actually require Teach With Your Strengths as one of the books for the class...are they the exact same items or are there new ones?

[Mark Pogue]

Hi Christy,
Late again. Yes, the same as in TWYS. We are introducing a new collection of action items we've collected from higher ed folks at the conference coming up in a couple of weeks. We'll make those available to folks through the StrengthsInsight newsletter after the conference.

[susana drummond]

I am not sure where this tab is and I can not seem to locate it. Can you please direct me?

[Sherrill-Ann Mason]

While talking to students in a freshman class about goal-setting, we obviously talk about road blocks or barriers. I have found it useful to use a group activity where students are given a picture of a stream on one side and a jungle on the other side. Just above the pictures is a picture of a person who is trying to get to the other side of the stream or jungle. Below each picture is an empty box where the students can write the path they used to help the person to get beyond the stream or jungle. In that box they write what road blocks the person encountered and which themes helped them to think about how to overcome the road blocks and get to the other side. The idea of the stream (gentle) and the jungle (rough) is to get students thinking about how roadblocks come in simple/obvious ways or difficult/deceptive ways. It is important to put the activity in context by talking to students about how road blocks can come in all forms and fashion. Students are instructed to assume that something unseen can be lurking in the stream or jungle. What I find is that students become very imaginative about what can be in the seemingly "gentle" stream and ways to overcome what seems to be obvious danger in the jungle. This is a good awareness/integration activity for a freshman seminar class and is good for getting students to think of their own goals and how to think creatively of overcoming road blocks.

[Christy Khan]

Sherrill-Ann,

What a wonderful, creative way to talk about goal-setting! Would you be willing to share the handout with me?

Christy

[C. Nana Derby]

Dear Sherrill-Ann,

How are you doing? I just took a look at your post and simply fell in love with your approach....I couldn't agree with you more that it is a good awareness/integration activity for a freshman seminar class. I think this approach is easily applicable in all levels of study, especially in those schools that are yet to implement the strengthsfinder program on their campuses...kudos!

Regards, Nana

[Jeanne Craft]

Sherrill Ann this is such a fabulous way to make goal setting fun. I would appreciate if you would share your handout.
Thanks so much! [e-mail]

[Sherrill-Ann Mason]

Glad to hear. I would love to send you the handout, but I am out of the country and away from the college until mid August. Perhaps if it is not too late I can send it to you then. Take care.