Raise Your Hand, Raise Your Game

Even in high schools with small class sizes and approachable teachers, plenty of students don’t participate in class. They may be attentive, and they’ll do their homework and study for the exam, but they don’t comment or ask questions. They learn the material but regard participation as extra. 

But it’s not. It turns out that participation is a skill, and it's closely connected with student success. I had this realization during a recent visit to Maastricht University, a school in the Netherlands that embraces this conviction through an educational model it has developed called Problem-Based Learning (PBL). The theory behind the method is that active learning leads students to be more engaged and motivated in their lessons and helps them retain knowledge. Maastricht has constructed an entire seven-step PBL methodology on the basis of this theory that students practice and implement to guide their learning over the course of their study program.

The PBL model is fascinating and future-forward, but may not be for everyone. But its essential premise that participation is integral to learning is well-established in higher ed  – so says the IB learner profile, which associates active participation with a capacity for analytical and critical thinking – and its conviction that participation is learnable is cause for joy. Even if you’re a student who’d rather not speak up in class, you can do this!

So why should you? Some teachers give credit for class participation, or even require it as part of a final assessment, so, at a minimum, there’s that. But beyond grades, it’s personal. Asking questions or seeking information that helps you relate the material to things you think are important can make the material matter more. It can make learning feel relevant, which is empowering, and help knowledge stick. Participation certainly creates a livelier class experience, since it means there are more voices and viewpoints at play. And, by definition, it makes learning more of an active process and less a mechanical task of absorbing information to simply reproduce it during exams. Human beings thrive through interaction, not rote learning. 

Many students object that they’re not comfortable speaking up or fear they’ll say something stupid in front of their peers, and that they’re doing well in school as is and getting along just fine. But this is why it’s so important to grasp that participating is a learnable skill, and that, even beyond school, it’s a skill for life and career. One Maastricht student I met described herself to me as shy and said she worried that her class contributions wouldn’t be valuable, but over time she became less reserved and more self-confident, and found that these strengths served her well beyond the classroom. Another said that learning to be comfortable asking questions felt like a higher-level function that helped him approach professors and ask for the information and services he needed to navigate a complicated freshman year. One student said that developing these interactive skills in high school helped her feel confident when sitting at a table as a member of a brainstorming team during her first internship. Research confirms these individual stories and shows that students who learn to participate develop essential core skills, including the ability to present a point of view, work as part of a team, tackle problems, and think critically about information. In an uncertain world, these are skills that will help students succeed as they transition from high school to uni to job to career. 

It seems paradoxical that students will compulsively like, follow, comment, and reply to content online, and yet will shrug at the idea of participating in class. Maybe the latter takes more effort, and it can be hard, at first. But the rewards now and for the future are huge. Learn to raise your hand, and raise your game.

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