Monday 3 October 2011

E/I B.A.

Universities are packed with clever people running them. But are any of them really thinking about designing learning processes?
Just recently I have had a revelation.
At school I did well, very well. At the A level stage, especially. The learning model was broadly: read some stuff, talk about it, debate it, form an argument, defend it, sometimes write it down. Suited me down to a tee. I'm an extrovert. I get fired up by these exchanges. Result? Excellence (without blowing my own trumpet too hard).
Fast forward to University. Learning model? Go to lectures which are utterly without interaction. Go to seminars which are also mini lectures, without debate. Go to tutorials (which I thought were meant to embody a level of exchange, but disappointingly didn't). Stop going to all of above as they are a waste of time, especially for someone with my learning style. Spend time alone reading. Spend time alone thinking. Spend time, even in lectures, alone with the input of the lecturer. Spend time alone witing. Take part, in short, in a learning process designed by and suited for, introverts. Result? Mediocrity and disengagement.
Now I grant you that other delights than academic learning also played a part in my University career - pubs, girls, jumping out of planes, periods of sheer indolence. But I wonder about the learning design and its impact on my motivation.
Let's assume extroversion and introversion are relatively evenly distributed. Can it really be that University life can be so designed to frustrate approximately half of the population?
Perhaps things have changed in this respect in the thirty odd years since I attended. I really, really hope so. But I fear not.
If not, here is a view. The key predictor of degree class (especially in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences) will not be IQ, but extroversion or introversion measures. And the educational opportunity will be scandalously missed or compromised for about half the entire student population.

1 comment:

  1. The majority of bosses I have worked for have all been extroverts, who call a spade a spade. Only two of the 22-bosses I have worked for made me aware that they had been to university (whether through the e-mail signatures or certificate on his office wall).

    I would beg to differ on the ratio of extroverts/introverts.....by the very nature of the character traits I would say that extroverts would be about 1 in 10..... Or maybe thats just an understated 'British' trait :)

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