Monday, September 16, 2013

Schoolhouse Review: Unlocking Potential with PeopleKeys

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I'm all about discovering the POTENTIAL that each day and each person has in this life so the StudentKeys Student Binder Package ($49) by PeopleKeys was ideal to help me identify the different strengths of my children and help them begin to plan for the future.  I've seen many tests that aid in determining how you learn and offer suggestions on your leadership style, but the StudentKeys Binder is the complete package.

 photo peoplekeys-studentbinder_zpsfbfc0afc.jpgDesigned for students ages 13 and up, the StudentKeys Binder is a 3-ring-notebook that contains SIX individual workbooks to help parents and students learn a bit about themselves.  A great way to determine how your student best learns and what type of career he/she may lean toward and succeed in, we've actually had a lot of fun working through the workbooks and seeing if the descriptions given were "correct" in our eyes.  And for the most part, they have been spot on.

Where has this been all of my life?  I'm forever trying to figure out exactly what each of my kid's "styles" are and I'm always second-guessing myself.  StudentKeys makes it easy.  Way back in the day when I was just the mom of one, we had a guest speaker at MOPS who walked us through a personality profile.  I was horrible at picking the answers for myself so I had to have my friends that were sitting beside me help me answer the questions.  (I think I didn't particularly want to be what I was leaning towards, so I was trying to "rig it.")   I heard a little of that same wishy-washy-ness as my daughter worked through her own profile with StudentKeys.  We determined that you simply needed to go with your very first answer and not worry over the rest.  As a matter of fact, the instructions reminded us that you should try to avoid over analyzing the questions and your responses.


For purposes of this review, I had my Senior fill out the entire binder of workbooks in an effort to see how they all fit together and in order to work to develop an overall plan for her life.  This was MOST BENEFICIAL as she prays over what to do next year and thinks about what she would like to focus on career-wise.  She really has no idea what she'd like to do for a career.  She talks about History and Art one day and then says she has absolutely no idea the next.  Although I realize it may change ten times before she graduates from college, I'd like for her to begin seeing where her strengths are and how they fit in with all of the many career choices available.

The six workbooks included in the StudentKeys Binder are:

  1. The Personality Style Workbook -- 18-pages that help you understand yourself through the DISC personality testing 
  2. The Perceptual Learning Style Workbook -- 22-pages that help you understand how you best learn:  auditory, visual, kinesthetic
  3. The Cognitive Thinking Style Workbook -- 18-pages that help you understand how you think:  literally, intuitively, theoretically, or experientially
  4. The Values Style Workbook -- 18-pages that help you determine your invisible motivators:  loyalty, equality, personal freedom, or justice.  This workbook helps you understand why you make some of the decisions that you do and  helps you understand the values of others and explains how to work well with all types of people.  (Just reading through this one helped ME understand WHY I feel the way I do and reminded me that it takes all types to keep this world going.)
  5. The Career Choice Workbook -- 26-pages that help you find direction in life.  This profile discusses viable career choices and helps you focus your talents based on your DISC style.  
  6. The Goal Setting Workbook -- 18-pages that help you plan your future.  This workbook does not contain a timed element.  Instead, students spend as much time as needed to set specific goals for careers, education, leisure, and personal life.  This workbook takes time to contemplate in order to realize the value of a timeline of dreams and hopes and plans.

The first five workbooks can easily be completed within an hour.  To begin our personalized assessment of my Senior, I had her sit down and work through the questionnaires in each in the order given.  Once she had answered the questions, we sat together to score the answers and chart her profile.  (Scoring charts and explanations are given within the workbooks.)  This was a very simple process and she could easily have done it on her own, but I wanted to be hands-on with her.  It was fun to read through the evaluations and we  have referred back to them in planning her remaining coursework for this school year.

I asked (and was granted) permission to share her results with you.  Here's what we found out about my Senior daughter:  her personality style is I (Influencing, Inspiring, Impulsive) and her learning style is auditory.  She's a theoretical thinker who leans towards personal freedom in values (which means she might need to focus on learning tolerance for others).  Her occupational style was an off-the-charts I and the Career Choice Workbook gave her some great ideas on where she might successfully focus her future.  Combined with this new understanding, the Goal Setting Workbook is working to help her realize her full potential.  Don't you just love that?

It was most interesting to see how all of this came together to present a complete picture of my daughter and I'm looking forward to using several of the workbooks with my other children.  Each workbook can be purchased individually and some are even available as an online evaluation tool with immediate feedback.

I can't wait to have my oldest daughter work through the Goal-Setting Workbook as she focuses on where she'd like her career to take her.  She's an Occupational Therapy major, but is not exactly sure on what she wants to DO with her life at this point.  She likes to dream, but struggles with figuring out how to get to the place of dreams.  I see GOD at work in and through her life and I feel like the Goal-Setting Workbook would help her put on paper some of what's on her heart.

I'd like for my Boy Scout to work through the Perceptual Learning Style Workbook and the Cognitive Thinking Style Workbook.  This is purely selfish on my part because as my only son, I'm totally confused by him all of the sudden.  I know that it will help me to teach him if I understand more about where he is coming from in life.  Ah -- the joys of motherhood.

I am planning to have my Princess work through the Values Style Workbook as soon as she is old enough.  She struggles with who she is and who she wants to be as she looks at herself through the eyes of those around her and not the eyes of JESUS.  I think this workbook would help her see that GOD's got this.  Truly.

I also think that it is a good idea to have all of our family work through the Personality Style Workbook.   I am interested to know how our personalities compare and how well we blend together as a family based on the DISC method.

I know I'd like for my children to have a better grip on who they are than I did earlier in life and I'd like for them to understand how using their GOD-given personalities will best make them successful in life.  HE created them just how HE wanted them to be -- and I'd like for them to be able to find the benefits in HIS PLAN.

It is my hope and prayer that my children will leave Long Leaf Academy and KNOW they have the POTENTIAL to be anything their heart desires.  I aim to give them that HOPE.  PeopleKeys offers great resources to help any parent direct their children to unlocking the POTENTIAL within.  The StudentKeys Student Binder Package helps students understand their strengths, transition from home to college and beyond, and make wise choices for life.  As parents, we must help provide the catalyst for the healthy futures of our children.  StudentKeys offers a fun way to do just this -- please share this with your children.




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 I was given the opportunity to use and review the StudentKeys Student Binder Package by PeopleKeys as a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew.   You can check out the Crew Review and see what other members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew thought of this and other products as well (or just click on the banner below.)


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