It doesn’t necessarily have to be a professor if you think it would be appropriate for a university setting.
This sounds like a nightmare for introverts or people with social anxiety. Not knocking on your style; if it works based on your experience, then I guess it does.
Getting students to interact with you (the instructor) on ANY level is nightmare fuel for introverts. I say this as the instructor AND a lifelong introvert (when I not teaching my topics I love).
Agreed, but based on OP’s comment, they were forcing students to interact with each other in a public setting (in front of the whole class). Instead of directly breaking the ice between instructor and students, they were doing it by having the students interact between themselves, with the instructor as mediator.
I am myself an introvert so I get that very much. The pairing is about trying to diffuse the anxiety. If I feel it is not working well, there are ways to mitigate the issue. For many exercises, interaction can be a nightmare for introverts. I was organising a role play in a master course and I know I would have hated that when I was a student, but I am trying to rely on my own experience to avoid huge mistakes and making people too inconfortable. It is important to read the room but also to experiment to see what works and not!
