Speaking Up in Class
Jessica Bacal, Director, Center for Work & Life
Barbara Brehm-Curtis, Professor, Exercise and Sport Studies
Floyd Cheung, Associate Professor, English Language and Literature
Eighteen students attended.
First generation students make up 19% of Smith
student body; the “speaking up” workshop included
18% first generation students.
International students make up 11% of Smith
student body; the “speaking up” workshop included
18% international students.
Students from under-represented minority groups
make up 16% of Smith student body; the “speaking
up” workshop included 22% under-represented
minority students.
We’ll keep collecting data to see if
there’s a pattern in who attends.
For now, it’s just something to think
about as we consider this issue and
share strategies for engaging quiet
students.
The Center for Work & Life,
Clark Hall 3rd Floor
“I want to participate in
class without doubting
what I have to say. I
want to avoid rehearsing
what I’m going to say in
my mind over and over
again.”
“I want to feel
comfortable and
confident contributing
ideas to classes and
proposing questions.”
“(I want to) voluntarily raise
my hand and speak in class
at least once every day. I
need to be assertive about
my opinions and must work
on projecting my voice so a
room full of people can hear
me.”
“Speak UP in every
discussion class
(remembering that I
shouldn’t censor my
speech so I have the
correct answer, but just
say what comes to
mind.)”
“Ask more questions in
class. Be brave enough
to share my opinions and
interpretations in my
literature class.”
What’s wrong with quiet?
“The glory of the disposition that
stops to consider stimuli rather than
rushing to engage with them is its
long association with intellectual and
artistic achievement. Neither E=mc2
nor Paradise Lost was dashed off by
a party animal.”
- Winifred Gallagher, science journalist (as quoted in the article,
“Shyness: Evolutionary Tactic” by Susan Cain, The New York
Times, June 25, 2011)
There’s nothing
wrong with quiet and
rumination.
Not every class
provides a forum for
discussion.
But it’s clear that
some students want
to speak-up more.
that
talking helps you learn:
“Articulating and learning go hand in
hand, in a mutually reinforcing
feedback loop. In many cases,
learners do not actually learn
something until they start to articulate
it -- in other words, while thinking out
loud, they learn more rapidly and
deeply than studying quietly.”
“Managers expect that employees
have the capacity to confidently bring
their ideas, analyses, and
recommendations to the table, and to
comfortably engage with colleagues in
productive debate. Feedback from
Praxis supervisors suggests that this
is an area Smith students at times
struggle with.”
- Stacie Hagenbaugh
Director, Career Development Office
Smith College
In first section of the
workshop, Floyd and
Barbara shared “a
professor’s
perspective.”
In the second section of the
workshop, students did an
exercise adapted from Patty
DiBartolo’s work on public
speaking anxiety, and the
students set specific goals.
I will see my professor
and tell her that I have a
hard time speaking-up
but want to talk more.
Speak at least once in
next French class.
Do the reading more
carefully and jot down
more comments (be able
to predict what kinds of
questions will come
about).
Student feedback:
•The part where we got to read over professors’
email responses was the most helpful. It felt like
I was getting direct responses from my
professors regarding my problem of not being
able to speak-up in class. I also became more
confident after reading that; now I realize that
most of the professors are willing to help me
overcome the issue and also are willing to
provide concrete advice for me.
Discussion: What are your strategies for
working with quiet students?
“To assist quiet students, and to teach
vocal students important new modes
of learning, I now make time for
occasional silence in my classes by
assigning in-class writing and building
deliberate pauses for reflection into
our discussions.”
- “What’s the Problem With Quiet Students?
Anyone? Anyone?” Mary M. Reda, The Chronicle of