Over half the class has many questions to ask, however the overwhelming social anxiety and fear of being judged trumps any desire to clarify their knowledge of math.
At an academic level, quite often many students report that participation is worth around 20 percent of a student’s grade. Because of this, many students say they are walking away with poorer grades because of their lack of self-confidence to participate in class.
Social anxiety disorder is the third largest mental health problem in the world, according to U.S. epidemiological studies cited by the Social Anxiety Association. According to the association, government data reveals that social anxiety impacts around 7 percent of the population, for the general public, the chances of social anxiety developing into a disorder is 13 percent.
Lee Emery graduated from Mohawk College this year with a diploma in architectural technology. Emery says he failed a building code class twice because of his low participation grade, participation in Emery’s class accounted for 20 percent of his grade.
According to Washington University in St. Louis, some students who do not speak often in class are reflective learners. Reflective learners typically develop ideas and questions in their minds before speaking them aloud to a classroom.
“Personally I am an extroverted person and don’t mind asking questions in class; however not everybody has outgoing personalities and might feel timid to express their confusion,” said Kevin McGee.
Other students can be classified as shy students who do not feel comfortable participating in class at least initially.
“I am an extroverted person; however, participating in class is not something I enjoy. A lot of kids judge others when speaking because in their minds what I say is not at their intellectual level,” said Nico Franchi, a junior. John Spencer, a teacher at an Urban Phoenix School, stated that students who participate frequently are classified as active volunteers. This type of student usually speaks as they think instead of formulating an idea beforehand.
Teachers are encouraged to help quiet students to speak up and to occasionally ask the most extroverted students to hold back from commenting in class in order to provide more opportunities to others to speak.
Spencer conveyed from his past experiences that many of times, introverted students just need extra time to think through their thoughts and craft sentences before sharing them aloud.
“As a student, I was an eager hand-raiser. I spoke up. I shared my opinions. I wasn’t particularly quiet. Inside, though, I was terrified. I didn’t want to be caught off-guard, forced to share my thoughts to an entire class without having the chance to think through things on my own. For this reason, I developed a strategy. When a teacher first started talking about a particular topic, I’d jot down five of the best questions I could conjure up,” said Spencer.
In one of Spencer’s blog posts, he states that the key to having an actively participating class is to ahead-of-time have conferences with the anxious students and to create encouraging strategies to help them participate.
Veronica Heintz, a teacher at Carlmont High School stated that in order to increase class participation, shes implements new types of learning styles and participatory activities that are friendly to everyone.
“As I am not completely comfortable speaking in front of large groups myself, I try to find ways that would make me feel comfortable participating and hopefully that will help and empower students to participate,” said Heintz.
Izzy Bruguera, a junior, tries to participate in class as much as she can despite fear of judgment from her fellow classmates.
“I try to be an active participant in class as much as I can, some teachers and students are intimidating, however in the end my education is what matters,” said Bruguera.