Musings on Educating the Introvert

"Okay, so if everyone would like to get into groups of 4 or 5,  we'll get going on our team projects..."  

     A sentence, spoken at ANY point in my education, that would send my stomach into knots and my brain immediately running, its hair wildly whipping around its face, as it screamed and tried to exit my skull, bouncing around until it collapsed in a depleted heap.  Instead of the quiet contemplation of the concepts just taught, my brain could now only focus on what I was going to SAY, how the group would perceive me, and the major energy that was about to be sucked out of me by the "group dynamic."
 
     Flash forward to my daughter, now fourteen.  All through school the comments from teachers would come pouring in:  "Annie is extremely bright, but we'd like her to talk more in groups and in class discussions."  Several times, she actually got points taken off her overall mark because she rarely contributed in class.

     There is, and has been for decades now, a growing trend toward group or cooperative learning.  Teachers are attending conferences, pro-D days, and work-shops, teaching them how to facilitate group learning.  It has been widely accepted that this is a superior way to teach and learn, and I am embarrassed to admit, as a psychology instructor, that I mindlessly adopted that group-think for quite a long time.  Many of my assignments were done at least in pairs and usually in groups of up to five people.  This is especially absurd given that I am a card-carrying introvert.  During my under-graduate experience I would actively avoid classes that included group presentations or speaking a lot in class.  I found myself feeling emotionally and mentally drained by faculty meetings, wondering why, when I actually had a lot of thoughts about the agenda items, I stayed quiet and went home with my thoughts still held captive on my own copy of the agenda. The fact that it was so easy for me to see my quiet, contemplative style of thinking and being as a defect is a testament to how pervasive this extrovert bias has become.

     Enter Susan Cain, with her book called "Quiet" - about the qualities, needs and skills of the introvert trying to function in an extrovert society.  It would be an understatement to say that the book resonated with me...it spoke to me in ways that allowed me to accept myself as someone who ultimately loves to spend her time quietly, in thought, embracing her solitude or in company with a few close friends or family.  At the same time, it walked quietly over to my depleted, little brain from the first paragraph, offered it a hand up and set it to thinking about ways to engage other introverts in meaningful learning experiences in class.


     So, what did I do?  As often happens, when you have an emotional response to this kind of exciting self realization, I rushed past the middle and found myself on the other side of the pendulum. No. Group. Work. EVER. But this isn't the solution...this is just reverse discrimination. The extroverts gain clarity, enjoyment and energy from the group experience.  Why do they deserve to be denied a meaningful  learning experience?  The natural solution seemed to be to develop assignments that could be done either alone or in small groups.

     This works very well conceptually, but is not as easy as it looks, in practice.  I observed introverts being approached by other students and being softly coerced into joining a group.  It appeared that the other students were acting out a concern for the other student being "left out."  So strong is our belief that group trumps individual, the introverts were now experiencing even MORE pressure to join.

     So, when I return to campus following my maternity leave, I have a plan - in my introduction to the course I will talk about the differences between introverts and extroverts and their different needs with respect to other people.  I will use this to explain the rationale behind allowing people to work in groups or as individuals and the importance of respecting those differences.  I'm hoping this sets up a classroom climate that allows for all types of learning to take place.

    I would love to hear from other educators about how they deal with this in their face to face classrooms AND their online classrooms - how would this work with MOOC for example?  As always, thanks for reading.  :)