Get Your Students Hired
Julie,
What a great posting. Your thoughts are expressed well through you writing and it gives us much to think about. Thanks.
Dr. Eileen ,
Yes, these are generalizations to help us understand others better, but many of us (including me) cross generations. But, we are all encouraged to work to understand our students.
John,
Our experience many times gives us a different outlook iand ideas dea on how to interact and communicate with others. Understanding our students helps us interact/communicate with them. Thanks.
John,
Our classroom whether online or F2F is an opportunity for leaning from other. Keep up the good work.
John,
Yes, the better we understand our students the better we can provide information in a various ways. Keep up the good work.
Stephanie,
I always tell students to be proactive in their communication and if that have any questions they have they must ask early. They should not wait until they are confused about many things, but ask as soon as one thing may be unclear. Keep that communication going!
I find that teaching students how not to plagiarize is a topic that many students have difficulty with. Furthermore, depending on the generation that a student belongs to, he or she may need extra guidance on how not to plagiarize.
Baby Boomers and Generation X have a different concept of authors than Generation Y. Due to social media outlets, internet publishing, easy means of copying and pasting information I have found that Generation Y does not sometimes fully understand the concept of single authorship. The result can be lots of unintentional plagiarism as students are tempted to copy and paste material without proper attribution. Baby Boomers need help with the constant plethora of sources on the web and the various ways we have to cite them.
I recently came across the notion of "Digital Immigrants" vs. "Digital Natives" (Prensky, 2010).
Digital natives are students who like Generation Y consider acronyms like TTYL, LOL, BRB, ROFLMAO as part of a native language (Prensky, 2010). On the other hand, Generation X and Baby Boomers are coming to this language in later years (Prensky, 2010).
I think that this distinction is fascinating. No matter how comfortable I am with technology I have a fundamental difference in how I interact with technology vs. Generation Y and Baby Boomers.
The job of an instructor is to assess differences and teach to the audience(s) in her classroom.
Reference
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital game based learning. St. Paul MN, Paragon House.
While I think it is impoprtant to know what different generations are like, we can play this up too much. I am a Baby Boomer and yet technology is my life and has been for decades. My children are both Gen X and while the description fits my son it definitely does not fit my daughter and the same thing is true of my grandchildren who are in Generation Y. The description fits the boys but not the girls. Rather than trying to use differentaited learning to meet student needs based on their age, I prefer to use the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) that provides different options but lets all learners choose which works best for them. The school I work for does not believe in giving out students' ages so as instructors we can not prepare differentiated learning by age group.
Class,
Hello. It’s important to understand the role generations play in communication in the online community since students from different generations are likely to communicate in different ways and have different levels of experience with technology. Some have little experience working with computers whereas others have a lot of experience working with computers.
Regards,
John Halstead
Hello Russell. Your comment about communication being an effective learning process for both the instructor and students is interesting. I agree that we can all learn from each other. I learn many valuable things from my students.
Hello Samantha. I agree with you as to the preferred method of communication. Many older students would much prefer a more personalized communication, rather than simple electronic correspondence.
It is important to understand the skill sets of various generations so that we may better communicate with them, and provide them with a valuable learning experience. Different generations have different technological abilities, and we are likely to have a wide variety of generations enrolled in any given course.
The only way to effectively communicate with all of the students is to be aware of these differences, and to present all course materials, assignments, and discussions in a manner that will make each student in class comfortable.
Understanding the different generations is helpful in both instructor-student communication and moderating student-student communication. In discussion board postings and group projects, older students can get frustrated with younger students who don't communicate well, know it all, and wait to the last minute. I try to encourage early and frequent communication with the groups. For my communications with students, it helps with understanding where I may have to explain more on certain concepts to one student versus another.
David,
Right. We are not all like but considering all information to understand our students is essential. Thanks.
Arijana ,
All those in each individual generation are not exactly alike but it is good to consider the generalities. Thanks.
Generally but not always, the categories of technology dictate the learning personalities of generations. I was born before pantyhose was invented. Telling a student that sometimes helps them understand how different technology has become in a short period of time.
David
It is very important to understand the generation since that is going to help with communication, Not all generations prefer same way to communicate and not every mode of communication we use today is going to be effective for all students. We need to understand who they are and what they need in order to be successful and do our best to accommodate such a good learning environment regardless of age and communication preference.
Kimberly,
You are right. Students can be borderline between generations - I actually am. But, there are generalities as well. It's just good to understand your stuff dents. Thanks.
William,
It is important in general to understand your audience, in this case, your students. Right on.