Quiet | Part 2: Learning

Last week, I reflected on the impact on my leadership style of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, by Susan Cain. This book also made me reflect on each of my teaching and training roles, as an English teacher, EAL specialist, school senior leader, education adviser and inspector. I have always favoured and indeed promoted collaborative learning. In fact, I have been an active proponent of it, despite group work being my least favourite learning context. However, social learning theory appeared to support the type of engaging learning contexts I promoted in my classroom. I couldn’t deny the cultural learning exchange collaborative learning facilitated for EAL learners or the increased motivation enjoyed by the boys in my class whilst preparing for a writing task. It fitted the bill for my dream of what learning should be: dynamic and fluid rather than dry and didactic (dare I say doctrinal?), facilitated rather than led. And far be it from me to dispute the Zone of Proximal Development; I have seen it in action, witnessed the benefits to my students.

Quiet made me take a step back and reflect.

Susan Cain’s research revealed that between a third to a half of the population are introverts or identify themselves as more introverted. By their very nature, introverts prefer a quiet space and time for thinking, creating and for reflection. Whilst I am hardly promoting the return of Victorian-style classrooms, I do think that collaborative learning has been over-used, and at times, inappropriately applied, to the detriment of our introvert students.

Collaborative learning contexts have become the gold standard for outstanding inspection ratings, without careful consideration of whether the mode of learning is best suited to the learning outcome. Collaborative learning has been associated with go-getter teachers and progressive subject departments. For the longest time, Ofsted positively rated the identification of learning styles, as defined by Visual, Auditory or Kinaesthetic (VAK) learning styles on lesson plans. And, very often, teaching styles favoured kinaesthetic learning as a positive behaviour management strategy, well facilitated by collaborative learning. It appears those of us who favour group learning in our classrooms are not alone; Cain's research showed that an overwhelming majority of teachers do.

In contrast, each of us has witnessed the success, in terms of student motivation and achievement, of a more traditional teaching style in our schools. We have all been taught by or taught with teachers who skilfully and artfully guide learning and achieve outstanding progress and attainment measures for the majority of their students using a teacher-led approach to learning. A quieter, more gentle context perhaps; not the dictatorial classroom you might be envisioning. Does it suit all students? No.

So what is the middle ground? How do we facilitate our Quiet students’ need for “individual thought”, their need for time and space to create and reflect? Can writing always occur collaboratively? Should problem-solving in Maths be supported by peers? How do we transfer the skills learned in a socially constructed environment to independent application? (Afterall, the current examination system still requires that independent expression of knowledge and understanding.) Well, for me, that is where the true skill of facilitating learning materialises: knowing where and when to employ a group dynamic as opposed to creating space for independent skill acquisition or a quiet moment to reflect.