For many students, quiet time is key for the learning process.

The way in which certain instructional trends—education buzzwords like “collaborative learning” and “project-based learning” and “flipped classrooms”—are applied often neglect the needs of introverts. In fact, these trends could mean that classroom environments that embrace extroverted behavior—through dynamic and social learning activities—are being promoted now more than ever. These can be appealing qualities in the classroom, of course, but overemphasizing them can undermine the learning of students who are inward-thinking and easily drained by constant interactions with others.

Source: When Schools Overlook Introverts: Why Quiet Time is Important for the Learning Process – The Atlantic

While I will agree that working collaboratively is useful (I talked about the “flipped classroom” in a previous post), but I am an introvert and have rarely enjoyed collaborative work. As I get older, I am learning ways to do collaboration that work for me, and I have also learned that a crucial part of learner-centered instruction is finding multiple ways for learners to accomplish the tasks you have set out.

I have also noticed that a great many of the teachers I have met and many, if not most of the education professors I have met are extroverts. For some reason extroverts seem to have a great deal of difficulty empathizing with introverts. They see us as deficient somehow. Well, there are other ways to do these things besides theirs.

This is where my gamified approach shines.

By providing students with a wide variety of tasks from which to choose, students can choose ones that fit with their approach. Yes, they will have to learn to do all kinds of things, including things they don’t like, but do they ALWAYS need to be forced to do that? Of course not.

I give my students only one task where they have to work in groups, AND I provide them with tools that will allow them to work together without always having to be in the same room together. While this may not completely solve the energy drain that happens to introverts when they are made to work in groups, it helps.

Source: Why Schools Are Increasingly Neglecting Introverts

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