Hi everybody, and welcome to Teaching Tip Tuesday
brought to you by the Center for Inclusive Teaching and Learning here at UWSP. Teaching and
learning exist as part of an interaction between people. To be effective everybody's got to be
engaged. So when we're teaching, we focus on what the learners in the class are experiencing.
We're always trying to gauge the engagement of our students. Are they focused? tuned in? rolling
with it? or are they bored out of their minds? But there's often a
subset of the class that stymie's
us - the quiet students. Today, I'd like to talk about them and how we as instructors should
be considering them in designing our courses. It's easy to tell that students are engaged when
they're animated and talking freely and because the behavior of quiet students is usually the
opposite of this, instructors often misconstrue what's going on. Students who are reticent to
participate verbally in class are sometimes viewed as unprepared; that they don't tal
k because
they don't know what's going on or that they're unengaged. They aren't talking because they aren't
paying attention. The truth is these views though coming from a natural contrast aren't accurate.
Reticence to participate actively in discussions can stem from other causes. For example, many
students who are reticent to participate verbally in class may be introverted. You may be familiar
with Carl Yung's on "Psychological Types." He drew a distinction between introverts who focus
their attention internally on their thoughts and feelings and extroverts who focus externally
on other people in the outside world. Introverts tend to be energized by solitary activities and
drained by social engagement. The reason these students aren't participating by speaking is that
it's exhausting and not within their comfort zone, although they may be very engaged in actively
listening and contemplating what's going on around them. Similarly, quiet learners may be
shy. Shyness is a b
it different from introversion because it tends to stem from different
forms of social anxiety, low self-esteem, and impostor syndrome. These folks are holding
back because they're terrified. What if they say something stupid or wrong or what if they
stutter or can't be heard? Like introverts, they can be very engaged, they just aren't chatty.
Interactions between these personality factors can make it almost impossible for some students
to engage in class in the ways that you might optimall
y envision and that's because we often
pitch our courses to the more common extroverted personality. Academic culture tends to favor
being talkative and comfortable in the spotlight, being highly engaged with the outside world, being
fairly light-hearted, thinking while speaking, being gregarious and outgoing, bold, and
assertive, being comfortable with large groups of strangers and maintaining energetic,
enthusiastic, quick-thinking decisions. But studies have indicated that up to 40% of c
ollege
students self-identify as more shy or introverted. That means that they're likely to be more quiet
and reticent, more reflective and introspective, a little bit more serious, at least in the academic
context, not necessarily comfortable speaking until their thought process has been completed.
They may prefer more solitary activities and be more cautious in social engagement. They tend to
prefer smaller gatherings of known individuals rather than large groups of strangers. They tend
to make deliberate decisions that are based on analysis. So for these students, our classrooms
may not be the most welcoming environment. Like many other non-dominant groups, in order to be
successful quiet students have to adapt to the extroverted norm. While it's important that,
regardless of personal dispositions, we learn to operate outside of our comfort zones, the
more that people are forced to do that the more drained, stressed, and burdened they become. The
message we are often unin
tentionally sending is that this way of being is bad. This can exacerbate
feelings of not belonging in addition to adding cognitive and emotional load to our students. Best
practices in inclusive teaching include valuing the lived experiences and personalities of ALL
students. Making your classroom a safer and more pleasant place for the introverted and shy to be
their genuine selves can increase their sense of belonging and their success. So, how can you help
those quiet seemingly passive
onlookers? First, mix it up. Consider the diversity of how students
process material - internally versus externally. When designing assignments, provide options for
reflections on thoughts. This is geared toward those shy and introverted students in addition to
the ruckus discussions which are geared toward the extroverts. Don't reduce your understanding
of class participation to extemporaneous speaking. Recognize that some students are very
actively engaged when listening to others. Allow
participation by submission of questions or
reflections in writing before discussions. You can incorporate these and validate the
student's thoughts by reading them as part of the discussion. This validation may help some
of the shyer students to gain social confidence and may open them up to voicing their ideas during
class. Second, provide support. If extemporaneous speaking is required of students because of
the nature of your learning outcomes, you can provide reflective questions in ad
vance so that
internal processors have time space and quiet to prepare for discussion. That will make it easier
for them to speak during class. Encourage the students who are having difficulty with speaking
in class. If your students falter while speaking, provide kind prompts. Find something to commend
if they have spoken even if they've given you a wrong answer. That way they will feel welcomed
and encouraged to voice things without fear of being reprimanded for being wrong. Normalize the
difficulty some learners have with the spotlight and that social engagement can be draining.
Finally, emphasize a growth mindset. Practice always makes better. For students who are reticent
to participate, the longer they avoid it and the more they avoid it, the harder it becomes. But by
gradually easing into it, occasionally speaking, trying to say just one thing, they will get
better. They will become less sensitive to those fears and anxieties. Third, provide
choices to students. When
the form of work is not relevant to assessing student achievement
of learning outcomes. Allow the students to pick the format that they're most comfortable with in
demonstrating their learning. Finally, although I recently encouraged including group work in your
courses because it can be very helpful to those who are more collectivist and those who process
information socially, remember that it may be more difficult for those shy and introverted students.
You may want to allow divided labor
in group work. Some people are really great at prep, others are
great at speaking. Don't require that all of the students do everything. This can help to limit
the burdens that this type of work is putting on some students. Students benefit when they feel
that they belong and that they're accepted as they are. Being mindful of shy and introverted
students will make your courses more inclusive. And that's this week's Teaching Tip brought to
you by the Center for Inclusive Teaching and Learn
ing here at UWSP - your one-stop shop for
teaching support. Visit our website to schedule a consultation for help with course design,
learning activities, assessment, or pedagogy.
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