12 Aug, 2015

Try This: Discover Your True Color

By |2021-08-19T18:48:01-04:00August 12th, 2015|Categories: Miscellaneous|Tags: , |0 Comments

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During my college resident assistant orientation, we went through multiple leadership and staff building exercises. One assessment that stood out most was the True Colors™ assessment.

True Colors™ * is a personality test developed by Don Lowry in 1978. Originally created to categorize four basic learning styles to identify the strengths and challenges of these core personality types, True Colors™ helps us to understand different personality temperaments.

The concept behind True Colors™ is we aren’t put into the box of one, with the understanding that our personality traits are fluid and can adjust based on our environment or circumstances. True Colors is a way to understand the how our behaviors and motivations relate to our own to increase camaraderie, improve communication, and limit potential conflict.

This was particularly useful when I started working with my fellow RAs. When we took True Colors, we were excited to see that we each embodied one of the four personality types: Orange, Gold, Green, or Blue. After a while, we would refer to each other by color only, and when conflict arose or when we came together for meetings and to plan activities for our residents, we were able to understand why someone made a particular decision as well as how to work together.

True Colors™ can be used by college residential staff, supervisors, teachers, and more. I would venture to say that it’s particularly useful for school social workers, counselors, teachers, and anyone else that works with younger people as it can help you tailor your lesson plans and weekly counseling sessions based on the color of the young people you’re working with.

One thing worth mentioning: While you may dominate in a particular color, there’s no better or worse color. Each color is design to compliment the others, and you can flow in and out of your dominant color throughout your lifetime. Before reading on, I highly recommend you take the assessment. Here’s the official link to purchase True Colors™ for your staff or students. It includes the assessment as well as a detailed report of your colors by ranking and cover different areas where your color can come into play such as an work environment, school, childhood, time management, and how others may perceive you. Here’s a sample report. (And  no, I’m not affiliated with True Colors™.)

If you want to take the exam without purchasing, check out this assessment based on True Colors developed by Lone Star College, or the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill’s version created by the university’s Department of Campus Recreation.

Once you take the assessment, come back and read more about the colors:

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21 Nov, 2012

Program Monitoring & Evaluation: Leveraging Your Strengths and Smoothing Out the Hiccups

By |2021-08-19T18:00:07-04:00November 21st, 2012|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: |0 Comments

Overwhelmed? You don’t have to be!

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You’ve figured out the Who, Why, When, Where, What, What For, and How of your program or workshop. You know what it means to be S.M.A.R.T. about your goals. You’ve tested out creative ways to get your objectives across. Finally, you’ve considered gathering feedback during your activity implementation. If you haven’t done any of this yet and would like to know more about how to do this, check out the four proven ways to increase the effectiveness of your program and workshops, and come back to this blog post.

If you have read it and/or have implemented some of the strategies I mentioned above, great! I hope that you found them useful, whether you are a seasoned nonprofit professional or someone who wants to provide meaningful programs and workshops for your community. Now it’s time to get to the second part of the equation. Let’s shift the focus to a separate but equally important issue: finding out if what you’re doing is actually effective.

So, how do you do figure out if what you’re doing is effective? You monitor and evaluate.  Monitoring and evaluation are the best tools in your arsenal that can show you are moving in the right direction, or if you’ve hit a snag somewhere. Here’s a breakdown of each one, how they work together, and five key things to keep in mind when monitoring and evaluating your program or workshop so that you can continue to leverage your strengths and smooth out your hiccups (because we don’t believe in weaknesses!)

Monitoring and Evaluation: What Are the Differences?

Before we get into the differences between monitoring and evaluation, here is why each element is important: (more…)

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