Inclusive academic teaching and personality diversity of students

In academic educational settings, personality diversity in the Extraversion/Introversion dimension seems to be
a form of diversity that has not been amply addressed, though some research has been done. This may lead
to exclusion of certain personalities from the teaching process.
Recently, I carried out an innovation teaching project with the goal to explore how the educational design can
be adapted to better take into account the diversity in personalities as regards the Extraversion/Introversion
dimension. Concretely, the goal was to design the teaching meetings in such a way as to create inclusive
meetings that are positive and comfortable experiences not only for people with extraverted personality
traits but also for people with introverted personality traits, and that stimulate to participate and interact
actively in the teaching activities.
The teaching was designed in a co-creative way with the students from the start. Several feedback methods
were implemented and woven into the teaching process. The opinions of the students were in this way
used to adjust and steer the teaching. As part of this, two questionnaires were implemented. The results
of both questionnaires show a preference of most students towards non-traditional teaching methods,
tools and techniques that don´t entail verbal interaction in groups, but instead give room for other types
of communication and interaction, such as the use of an anonymous online tool to write instead of speak
and “backchannel communication”, and a disinclination towards verbal participation in groups. There were
significant correlations found between some of the preferences and the short Extraversion scale.
I will present the innovation project, the teaching tools and methods used, including the feedback methods
and results, and discuss implications for an inclusive educational design that takes into account personality
diversity as regards the Extraversion/introversion domain