Millenials: New Learning Styles
Are there generational differences in how people prefer to learn? This article from the Chronicle of Higher Education reports
on research done by Richard Sweeney, university librarian at the New
Jersey Institute of technology says “yes.” I am squarely in the boomer
generation, so it is hard for me to judge how accurate this is. Could
those of you who read this blog who are “Millenials” weigh in and let
us know if you agree with these certainly gross but interesting
generalizations?
Explore posts in the same categories: E-Learning, Learning 2.0 ServicesBorn between roughly 1980 and
1994, the Millennials have already been pegged and defined by
academics, trend spotters, and futurists: They are smart but impatient.
They expect results immediately. They carry an arsenal of electronic
devices –Â the more portable the better. Raised amid a barrage of
information, they are able to juggle a conversation on Instant
Messenger, a Web-surfing session, and an iTunes playlist while reading
Twelfth Night for homework. Whether or not they are absorbing the fine
points of the play is a matter of debate…..
He was walking through the library one afternoon when he noticed a
student watching a video of a lecture given by a popular professor of
mathematics. Mr. Sweeney assumed that the student was in the
professor's course, but the student bashfully told Mr. Sweeney that he
was in another professor's class. “He reluctantly went on to describe,”
the library director says, “that he could learn the material better
from this professor on this video.”
It was then, Mr. Sweeney says, that he had the first inkling that
students these days are more apt to take control of their learning and
choose unconventional, technological methods to learn better. He talked
with the director of distance education and learned that the largest
percentage of distance-education students at the institute were
students already on the campus.
Soon he noticed more and more students gathered in groups at tables in
the library, passing around information on their laptops, pulling
information off the Internet, and learning together.
“In some cases, they weren't going to class,” he says. “This was their
class. They elected to work in a group and skip a particular class,
which worried me.”
But he was looking at it from his own perspective, he acknowledges.
From their perspective, he says, the behavior was simply “practical”:
how to learn the material as fast as possible, with the least hassle.
“The technology was a huge enabler for them to be able to do the things
they do differently,” he says.
Mr. Sweeney then embarked on research about the generation, reading
what other scholars and commentators had to say about the newly dubbed
Millennials…..
Sitting in his office, its walls covered with pictures of his six
children (two of whom are Millennials), Mr. Sweeney ticks off some of
those differences:
“They have no brand loyalty,” he says. They “accept as their right” the
ability to make choices and customize the things they choose.
They are more educated than their parents and expect to make more
money. “Many more have changed majors and expect to change jobs and
careers,” Mr. Sweeney says. But they often wait until they are already
well into a major or a career track before they decide to make a
change, he adds.
Playing with gizmos and digital technology is second nature to them.
“They like portability, and they are frustrated by technology that
tethers them to a specific location,” he says. Studies show that
Millennials don't read as much as previous generations did. They prefer
video, audio, and interactive media.
They multitask. “They are much more likely to mix work and play than we
are,” he says, “playing a game or chatting while they are doing an
assignment.”
“In grade school, they were pushed to collaboration,” which explains
the popularity of group study in college today, Mr. Sweeney says. “The
collaboration,” he adds, “is both in-person and virtual.”
Moreover, “they want to learn, but they want to learn only what they
have to learn, and they want to learn it in a style that is best for
them,” he says. Often they prefer to learn by doing.
Marc Prensky, a video-game designer and futurist whom Mr. Sweeney cites
in conversation and in articles, would take these notions further. The
Millennials, or “digital natives,” as he prefers to call them, feel
hemmed in by an educational system that continually looks to history,
that does not take young people seriously, and that squelches
creativity, a key characteristic of Millennials.
“What we're really losing is the sense of why kids need an education,”
Mr. Prensky says. “The things that have traditionally been done
–Â you know, reflection and thinking and all that stuff
–Â are in some ways too slow for the future. … Is there a way
to do those things faster?”
