On a similar path to that of Christy Price, I have been shaking my head a lot about our younger crop of students, because I see so much lack of success among such bright people. In many ways, Price’s article supported my understanding, but even after reading it, I remained disillusioned: it sounds like all will be solved if I make things less boring. Trouble is, my classes aren’t boring, and my students admit that. I still have lots of D’s at the end of the semester.
I have read a great deal over the last several years about “Millenials” or the so-called “Net Generation”, beginning with EDUCAUSE’s 2005 book Educating the Net Generation and ending with Price’s article and a more current Educating the Net Generation from the University of Melbourne. I have given several presentations on what our students need in terms of instruction to match their learning styles, while at the same time experiencing joy in the energized classroom and despair at their grades. There has also been an ongoing struggle regarding their unwillingness to meet deadlines, deadlines which I need in order to control my heavy workload. As a result, I have built much flexibility into the deadlines themselves, but then I feel awful when the students fail the class because they can’t catch up on the work.
Well, after four years, these students are not only in my classroom, but in the workforce. When I read Business Week’s A Saner Workplace, I felt I understood a bit better, and could connect the academic world to what’s “out there”.
For several years we have been told that the Millenials need technology to educate them, because they are so techno-savvy. A lot of us have come to realize that such technological proficiency may be true when it comes to their cellphones and keeping tabs on their friends, but it doesn’t translate to using technology for learning. As dana boyd wrote, “Teens are not familiar with RSS feed readers or aggregators like Del.icio.us“, the types of tools that might be used for research.
We’ve also come to realize that many students care more about how they are treated as individual persons than they do about the course material, whether they learn anything, what grade they get, or whether they transfer to university. For those “cool” professors who are always ready to use different methods and adapt to changing conditions, these students have continually mystified us with their casual attitude toward their educational progress. More importantly for our working conditions, they have continually demanded that they be allowed to ignore deadlines, to submit work when they want.
Last year Pam Cox-Otto spoke to MiraCosta’s employees about teaching this new student, and humorously explained how the worldview of Millenials differs from that of Baby Boomers. Most professors apparently are Boomers, though I am actually on the cusp between Boomer and Generation X. Like the boomers, I will “work for pizza” and help out the company. Like the Gen X’ers, I am relaxed in the classroom. But here’s what she told us that Gen Y (Millenials) really wants: friends, working groups, parallel careers, and… flexibility.
The Business Week article “A Saner Workplace” is an excerpt from Womenomics: Write Your Own Rules for Success by Claire Shipman and Katty Kay. It doesn’t focus on Millenials or NetGeners, nor does it really focus on women, though it seems to. But it is talking about how some workers would trade some pay to get lower hours, and want to be able to telecommute or have flexible work time. What I think my students want is flexible everything. This is why so many who are not suited to online learning take online classes anyway. We have plenty of students who do not have the independence or self-discipline to learn online. They then compound a misunderstanding (that online classes will take less time) with the demand that they be able to do the work whenever they want.
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Not only do I understand the insistence on controlling your own time, I am with the Millenials on this one. My desire for flexibility is almost as important to my working life as the joy in making distance education less distant through designing my own classes.
Although students who fail the online classes sometimes do so solely because they mistake flexibility for less work, most fail for the same reason on-site students fail. While I cannot yet tackle the reasons they don’t watch their grades or focus on their future, I can see their work habits causing missed deadlines. Our working society, past college, is apparently changing as people demand more flexible working conditions. This is an extension of what my students are doing: trying to get a better deal for themselves out of a system that is heavily structured, that wants to control their time.
But this play for control also seems to be based in an assumption of negotiability. My students take too many units, and don’t do their work on time, because they assume it’s all negotiable anyway, and they can just opt out if it doesn’t work. Womenomics refers to “changing priorities” and “more freedom”. The article refers particularly to dual-income couples, but gets into the generational issue, as consultant Bruce Tuglan is quoted:
They are going to be the most high-performing civic-minded workforce in the history of the world, but they are also going to be the most high-maintenance workforce in the history of the world.
I can tell you from the classroom, they already are. What they lack in academic skills, they make up for in unsupported confidence in their own abilities (likely developed through having their “self-esteem” protected at all costs, the “everyone gets a medal” soccer team syndrome). Even with those bright students who possess solid academic skills and personal determination, I still have to make provisions as things come up in their busy lives in order for them to succeed. They’re high maintenance whether they are good students or not.
My colleagues in educational technology and research firmly believe that this generation should be catered to, that curriculum should be developed around their desire to use flexible means to fulfill learning goals. Price agrees, promoting multimedia and approachability. As I dance in the no man’s land between my firm belief in the necessity of a historical base of canonical learning, and my desire to move toward offering free-form web-based research based on individual needs, it is helpful to me to see how the operational patterns of this generation are playing out in the real world.
I am not at all sure that self-directed learning will be profitable for individuals who confuse controlling their own time with doing less work, assume everything is negotiable, and can’t understand why anyone would write a blog for any reason other than helping friends keep up with ones personal life.
But there is a bright side to all this. Perhaps their unreasonable demands will lead to increased flexibility for people like me. For example, I’d really love to teach fewer classes and would happily take less money, but I am committed to minimum of 15 units per semester with 40 students per class. Maybe if I continue helping them along with increased flexibility, they can help me too, and I can afford the time to individualize their learning paths. Then they can work when they want.
I’m always glad to see you post about stuff like this.
The notion of the “digital native” or the “millennial,” as the individual who has grown up around technology and is naturally in-tune to it as a normal part of their lives is an interesting idea, but I’m finding over time I’ve begun to place less and less stock in the concept than I used to.
Like you said, there are elements where technology is very common place – like cellular phones. However above and beyond that I’ve read enough research papers that argue there is no consistency in what is used, or how it is being used – to start to think that there is no such thing as a digital native. Certainly there are comfort levels with technology, but this does not equate to a natural inclination to learning with it.
One paper (can’t remember which) suggested that distinct demographics exist within younger generations, and that usage habits within these demographics may bear some similarity – but across the demographics the consistencies are no where near as pronounced.
So I certainly wouldn’t say that millennial need technology to learn. I do think that technology can be beneficial to the learning process though – but it all depends on the context.
As far as the notion of flexibility and self-direction go, I’m glad you brought this up to because it’s something I’ve been grappling with for a while as well.
Certainly I’ve grown to embrace self-direction, as have you and many of our colleagues. However I also recognise that self-direction is not necessarily innate to the individual – at least not after going though years of traditional schooling that teaches you to stop, look and listen to the instructor and essentially hand-over control over your decisions to someone else.
I think self-direction is something that is learned – like a skill or an attribute. Without it – and particularly without a recognition of the very personal aspects of it, and the idea that it’s your learning journey, your education, it’s up to you to motivate yourself and challenge yourself – without having had this epiphany I suspect the motives that drive students to seek more flexibility are driven by more superficial aims.
I’m not sure whether there was a point to that part…if there was I’ve lost it :S
Anyway I’m in two minds about how much flexibility to afford to students with deadlines. On the one hand, when flexibility is given to a student who is really in the groove and on to something really inspiring it can really empower them to aspire to greater depths and sieze hold of their learning potential.
But when the flexibility is expected – as you say – because the student just can’t prioritise, lacks time management skills, or just couldn’t be bothered doing the work – to me that’s a very different matter that deserves far less accommodation and consideration. Ultimately when students sign up for a course, they commit to it – most importantly they make a commitment to themselves to try and learn something. And if they don’t want to learn why on earth are they taking the course?
To me it should naturally be assumed that they are prepared to deal with the requirements of the course – including deadlines. Life happens amongst all this too of course, but when you decide to learn something it just needs to become a priority.
I had more to add here but I’ve just lost my train of thought so I’ll stop here for now
Great post as always!
Cheers,
Mike
Hi Mike!
You wrote, “On the one hand, when flexibility is given to a student who is really in the groove and on to something really inspiring it can really empower them to aspire to greater depths and sieze hold of their learning potential.”
My professors did that for me, right up to my thesis, and I do it for any student who really has a dream they need to follow. I’m happy to support self-direction when a person who already has the motivation and skills and they just need somewhere to do their thing.
You also wrote. “And if they don’t want to learn why on earth are they taking the course? ” My answer to that one may well be another post, but I have a number of students taking my classes to stay on their parents’ health insurance (which requires full-time registration at college, but is confirmed long before final grades), a few who just need somewhere to be, and many who simply expect that they will transfer to university and are just jumping through the hoops till they somehow magically get that great job and make lots of money. With the economy the way it is, a lot of them are still living at home and their parents have made college enrollment a condition of staying, or at least not paying rent!
Thanks, as always, for responding. Now you’ve got me thinking, as you use the word “technology”, about the many technologies of the past. We expect them to understand the technology of print, and many of them don’t have that skill either….
Interesting blog, but it’s missing an important part of the equation: Generation Jones, born 1954-1965, between the Boomers and Generation X. This is the cusp between Boom & X which you mention.
Google Generation Jones, and you’ll see it’s gotten a ton of media attention, and many top commentators from many top publications and networks (Washington Post, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) now specifically use this term. In fact, the Associated Press’ annual Trend Report chose the Rise of Generation Jones as the #1 trend of 2009.
Here is an op-ed about Obama as the first GenJones President in USA TODAY:
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20090127/column27_st.art.htm
And this page is a good overview of recent stuff about GenJones:
http://generationjones.com/2009latest.html
@hbdt45 (given the topic, perhaps the numbers represent your age? if so, it’s mine too!) thanks so much for introducing me to the concept of Generation Jones. As a historian, I may find it a little bizarre to make generalizations around such a tightly dated group, but the ideas are very useful!