A number of faculty have been interested in the intersection of Active Learning Classrooms and introvert/extrovert temperaments. The webinar,  Helping Introverts Thrive in an Active Learning Classroom, explores this issue.  Following are some questions that arose during the webinar discussion by NMC faculty and staff: 

Which is better, pushing people into an extroverted  role, or accepting and designing to promote introverted studies?

We can help students identify their orientation towards learning and use that information to make good choices.  NMC’s Career Planning and Preparation offer many tools and resources to help students understand how their personality can relate to their school and future career goals.

If students are learning actively, do they also learn how to focus and reflect on their own? Do we need to teach both?

Students struggle with this, and often are uncomfortable if they don’t ‘get’ something right away.  This happens in lectures and in group work.  Good instruction offers multiple opportunities to take in and process new ideas.  Modeling how this messy learning process occurs and making learning explicit as instructors helps students understand that it’s not magic.  We’ve just been learning this subject longer.

How do you tell if a student is paying attention?  Or, how do you tell if a student is NOT paying attention?

Many instructors define and assess this as participation.  An important conversation to have with your students is how you as an instructor defines what paying attention looks like.  This engagement can be anything from smiles and nodding heads to outbursts of excited answers, and is context dependent.

Can I do this alone?

What do you do when a student asks, “Can I just do it myself?”  And are they asking because they are introverted, or control freaks?  And does it matter?

Many times, helping students understand that the final product isn’t the only reason we are using group work.  Real life is filled with group work and communicating with others appropriately is often as important as knowing what you are doing.

How does our own temperament affect our own teaching style and the way we relate to our students?

Answers will vary.  Tolerance for noisy projects, chaotic classrooms, and answering student questions can be greatly impacted by our own preferences.  Know your limits and set healthy boundaries, so you can be refreshed and ready for your students’ needs.

How do we define introverts and extroverts, and recognize them in the classroom?

According to Nicki Monahan, the main factors affecting the introvert/extrovert temperament types are:  Stimulation <–>Energy, Social Contact <–> Solitude, and Orientation to your inner world <–> the outer world.  It’s not fixed, and may change over time.  Want to know more?  Quiet by Susan Cain is a good resource.

Can a student perform like an introvert in some classes and an extrovert in others?

One of the strategies we teach our students is to take advantage of the time of day they are naturally focused.  For some this is midnight ’til 3:00 a.m., or 6 – 9 a.m., or maybe even the hour after they exercise-whenever that happens to be.

Use the comment section below to agree, disagree, share resources, and battle it out.  Blogging facilitates both introverts and extroverts equally:)