Platform feature: Persona Profile
The Persona Life Skills online learning platform now features an improved and upgraded Persona Profile (sign-in required) where students can discover more about their own personality, and others in their group, all in one place.
30-Mar-22
By Dr Leila Khouja Walker, Chief Product Officer, and Pete Read, CEO
In the Persona Life Skills social-emotional online learning platform, students can now access their personality insights, invite friends to answer the Persona personality quiz, see the personalities of other people in their group, and check their adaptability level – all from the same Persona Profile screen.
Having an understanding of your own personality, and that of others, leads to better decision-making and more productive relationships, resulting in more mutually positive outcomes in interactions with other people. Your adaptability – the ability to adapt your thinking, communication and behaviour with different people – is key to this.
In Persona Life Skills, students discover and explore all these aspects of their lives. Their unique mix of personality styles is mapped out in Persona Insights – based both on their self-view, and how other people view them. Where the Personas of other people in their group are focused, is shown in Persona Community. And in Persona Adaptability, they find out to what extent they meet their own and others’ needs when interacting with friends, classmates or colleagues.
It’s simple too! When a student views their Persona Profile screen they will see the three options – Persona Insights, Persona Community and Persona Adaptability – all helping to provide an ever deeper understanding of ‘self’ and ‘others’.
Persona Insights
In Persona Insights, students answer a series of questions about how they think, communicate and behave, in social and learning contexts. These questions are rooted in robust behavioural science and have been developed by the Persona team specially for teenagers. (To learn more about our personality insights framework, please read this blog.)
Once completed, students can then see a visualisation of how they see themselves in terms of the Persona framework – their Self Insights.
Students can invite any other student in their school with a Persona Life Skills account to answer the personality quiz about them. In the Invitations screen students also see any invitations received from other students in their school.
These Friends Insights provide an additional valuable perspective on their unique mix of personality styles. Remember, personality is really more about how others see and hear us than about our own view of ourselves, so peer input is invaluable to understanding ‘self’. We have purposely designed all our questions so they are non-judgemental and cannot cause harm or upset. We do ask everyone to be honest and open so the results are as accurate and useful as possible.
Also in the Persona Insights screen, students can find a detailed commentary on the results of all the personality questions answered, as well as tips and suggestions on things to be mindful of, what to watch out for when under pressure, and unhelpful behaviours to avoid – all based on their unique mix of personality styles. We call this their Growth Areas.
Some of the Persona Insights questions relate to social situations and others to learning situations, so a student can toggle between Social and Learning to see how their personality differs between these two contexts. We will soon be adding a third context Work.
As a student works through the learning modules they will often be asked to look at their Persona Insights, to encourage them to reflect upon how their knowledge of ‘self’ could help them to adapt their thinking, communication and behaviour in order to manage any situation or challenge that may arise.
Persona Community
In their Persona Community screen, accessed in one click from Persona Profile, students can see where the Personas of other people in their group are focused, compared with their own Persona.
Once they have learned a little about the characteristics and preferences of people with different personality styles, this community information helps students understand how they could adapt to socialise, learn and work more effectively with others, taking into account both their own and others' unique mix of personality styles.
As with Persona Insights, students are able to toggle between Social and Learning contexts. In a platform upgrade coming soon, they will also be able to see the Work context.
Persona Adaptability
Persona Adaptability, the third dimension of the Persona Profile, enables students to understand the importance of being sensitive to other people's priorities and preferences as well as their own, measures their own capacity to adapt their thinking, communication and behaviour in different situations, and provides some tips on how they could improve.
Students start finding out about their Adaptability level by answering a set of questions on how they tend to respond in various social and learning scenarios. When they have answered all the questions, they will see their level and range of Adaptability on a linear scale.
As with Persona Insights, students can toggle between Social and Learning contexts to check their Adaptability level in different situations.
They are also provided with a helpful commentary, along with Growth Areas advice, helping them to improve this critical skill for wellbeing and employability.
Go with the flow
All three aspects of the Persona Profile are integrated into our teacher-facilitated and self-directed learning modules, so by following the learning journey mapped out on their Persona Life Skills homepage, students will progressively build up their Persona Profile as they go along, and be guided to apply the knowledge as they work through units.
So, as their teacher, just let your students go with our ‘learning flow’ – taking the pressure off you to plan and prepare, and giving you more time to interact and learn with your students!
With a Free account your students have access to Persona Insights and Persona Community, and teachers can also discover their own Persona Insights. A Paid Subscription is required to access Persona Adaptability, and teachers' Persona Community.
Persona Education offers free access to its Persona Life Skills e-learning platform for secondary schools and colleges interested in developing their students’ social-emotional life skills, to boost wellbeing and employability. To find out more please get in touch – we would love to talk to you!
About the authors:
Dr Leila Khouja Walker has been working in the education sector for 25 years. An ex-teacher and pastoral deputy head, she is now a respected edtech and pedagogy thought leader, leading development of the personality insights based social-emotional learning platform Persona Life Skills, at the Bristol based edtech company Persona Education Ltd.
Pete Read is on a mission to boost the wellbeing, employability and success of young people globally. Pete started Persona because he wanted to introduce the benefits of personality insights that he himself had experienced, to teenagers, at an age when they increasingly need help with getting to know themselves, understanding others, developing social-emotional life skills and making better decisions in the life challenges they all face.
