TeacherStrong:
www.leadership.illinois.edu
Understanding & Playing to your Strengths as an Educator
Gayle Spencer, Ph.D., Director
Jeff Yacup, Assistant Director
www.leadership.illinois.edu
How would you describe yourself?
Who do you want to become?
How will you get there?
What leads to your success?
What's next?
As a New Teacher...
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Five Clues to Talent
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Weakness Fixing...Wrong Assumptions
All behaviors can be learned
- If you try hard enough you can do it!
- If you can dream it, you can achieve it!
People seen as the best get there the same way
Weakness fixing leads to success
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Strengths Building...Right Assumptions
- Some behaviors can be learned. Some are nearly impossible to learn.
- The best in a role deliver the same outcomes but use different behaviors.
- Weakness fixing prevents failure. Strengths building leads to success.
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The Strengths Philosophy
- Spend most of their time working in areas of strengths
- Have learned to delegate or partner with someone to tackle areas of non-strength
- Use their strengths to overcome obstacles
- Invent new ways of capitalizing on their strengths
"One should waste as little effort as possible on improving areas of low competence. It takes far more energy to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence"
Peter Drucker
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Resources for Discovering your Strengths
Text
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StrengthsQuest™
www.strengthsquest.com
Resources for Discovering your Strengths
Text
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Via Survey of Character Strengths
www.viacharacter.org/Survey/Account/Register
Resources for Discovering your Strengths
Self Reflection/Group Reflection
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Think back to your best day as an educator...
Your Best Self
What happened?
How did you respond?
What made your performance exceptional?
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My Perfect Classroom
Gayle Spencer (gspencer@illinois.edu)
Jeff Yacup (jtyacup@illinois.edu)
www.leadership.illinois.edu
290 Illini Union
leadership@illinois.edu
(217) 333-0604
Thank You!
TeacherStrong
By Jeff Yacup
TeacherStrong
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