What motivates you?
How do you like to learn?
In what environment are you at your most productive?
Students don’t always get asked the questions above, especially not students who may be in the early or middle years of their secondary education. With so much emphasis placed (understandably) on what students are learning, teachers and guidance counselors don’t always have time to stop and think about how they’re learning it.
BridgeU began with the premise that careers and university guidance needs to be as personalised as possible if students are to make informed decisions that will equip them for a labour market currently undergoing unprecedented change.
But before a student (especially those in lower or middle years) can decide what they want to do with their lives, they need to know more about who they are.
This kind of self-awareness is arguably the cornerstone of that informed decision making we mentioned earlier. Before students can even begin to contemplate their career pathways, it helps to understand what drives them and what motivates them.
And of course, this kind of information helps teachers and guidance counselors too. A guidance programme that is tailored to a student’s strengths and needs is more likely to bring out the best in that student.
For example, it’s easier to set expectations and deadlines for your students if you know a bit about what drives their productivity. It’s also easier to offer students insightful and empowering career advice if you have data that tells you about how they like to work.
With this in mind, we are pleased to announce our partnership with Keys To Succeed. Working with Keys to Succeed, BridgeU will be offering our partner schools access to online assessment tests that are designed to help students identify their strengths and gain the valuable self awareness they need to improve their decision making process.
Keys To Succeed is an international company, offering a range of online assessment tools that allow students to gain a better understanding of their personality, skills and learning needs.
Our partner schools will have access to three assessment tools as part of their BridgeU account. Students at BridgeU schools will be able to take the following three tests:
No, not currently. These assessment tests will not be built into the BridgeU platform. We are offering access to KTS separately. If your school wishes to purchase access to KTS, your account can be set up by your Customer Success Manager.
Your CSM will also be able to offer advice and support on how to use these assessment tools as part of your school guidance programme.
Yes. Students in every year of your school can use these assessment tools, though we’d recommend starting with students as early as possible.
Within the KTS platform, a school counselor can set up their notification settings to receive an email when a student completes a test. They will also be able to view students’ overall activity with assessment tests in their KTS dashboard, as well as view any assessment reports.
Each of these three assessment tools is designed to give a student more self-awareness of their strengths, skills and preferred learning styles. Let’s look at each of the three tests in a bit more detail.
The Personality Type test is designed to give your students a better overview of who they are and how their personality impacts their learning, approach to their work and their ability to problem solve.
Students taking the test are presented with a series of statements and asked to choose which they think better summarises their personality. When students have completed these questions, they are then presented with their own bespoke personality profile.
When they have completed the Personality Assessment, students are presented with a series of career groups and families and asked to rate their level of interest in different careers.
Finally, this information is fed into a final report, which students can access in an easy-to-use dashboard.
The Personality Type test helps students to understand themselves along four key dimensions.
How do your students interact with the world around them? Are they more introverted, preferring to focus their attention inwards and enjoying tasks that require deep concentration? Or are they more extroverted, preferring to seek out the opinions and company of other people when solving problems?
How many of your students would consider themselves Sensors, preferring to work on real, practical problems and having specific and realistic direction in their lives? By contrast, how many of your students are Intuitives, who need to use their imagination and prefer work that requires theory and speculation?
You may have some students who are Thinkers, preferring to solve problems logically and who are more motivated by achievement. Or alternatively, some students might be Feelers, who are more motivated by work that is personally meaningful and aligned with their individual values.
Students categorised as Judgers may prefer work that is more structured, where they can make clear decisions and operate in a more predictable environment. Meanwhile Perceivers are more likely to prefer flexible work situations and fewer rules and procedures.
Finally, students can use their Personality assessment results to explore relevant careers, with KTS offering them a list of compatible career families and pathways.
This test helps students to understand that there is more than one type of intelligence, as well as giving them an idea of what their strongest intelligence is. To give a few examples, students may have strengths in any of the following areas.
Students must complete a series of questions designed to assess where they believe their intelligence lies.
Upon completion of the Multiple Intelligences assessment, students can see a dashboard showing which of nine possible intelligences they rank most highly for.
Students can use information from their Multiple Intelligence assessment to set actionable goals, allowing them to build on their intelligence strengths. Again, students are shown potential career pathways which align with their test results.
This final test will help students to gain a better understanding of how they learn and in what environment they are the most productive. Students are presented with a series of statements and asked to what extent they agree/disagree.
At the end of the test, students are given a report about their learning preferences, based on a number of criteria.
This report gives students an insight into which of their senses they are more likely to use when absorbing information. For example, some of your students could be more visual learners, preferring to absorb information through reading, pictures or diagrams.
Meanwhile, other students may be auditory learners who are better at taking in information through listening and discussion.
This test aims to help students determine what environment they learn best in. For some, it will be important that they work in a quiet environment, with minimal distractions. For others, their productivity may be linked to what time of day they are working. Some students may like sitting still when they’re learning, others may prefer moving around.
What are the underlying factors and drivers that affect how students learn? How are your students motivated?
For example, some students may find that they are more reliant on a teacher or counselor to motivate them, whilst others are strongly self-motivated. Whilst some students are happy working with minimal structure, others may crave it.
In partnering with Keys To Succeed, we’re ensuring that our schools have access to data-driven insights at every stage of their guidance strategy, with numerous benefits for students and counselors.
Your students will be able to approach their university and career planning from a position of greater self-awareness and understanding of their personal strengths, work preferences and intelligences. Not only will this help make them more productive and happy as they progress through school, it will give them better insights into what career path is most aligned to their preferences.
With these assessment tools, counselors can help their students by offering university and careers guidance that is informed by relevant data and clear, defined goals.
As well as working with students to think about how their personal strengths and preferences will translate into the world of work, counselors can use KTS tools to guide students towards relevant career pathways. This, in turn, will give your school a better foundation for providing truly personalised university guidance.
Leave a comment
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *