New Generation of Learners!

The ELI conference started out yesterday with a fantastic presentation by Rick VanEck of University of North Dakota.  As all great presenters at the beginning of a conference do, he laid out a vision of the conference and why it is important.  As the focus of the conference is immersive learning environments, the title of his talk was “Generation G and the 21st Century: How Games are Preparing Todays Students for Tomorrow’s Workplace.” He said a couple of things that really stuck out to me. 

How Technology has changed our learners
Right at the beginning of the presentation he came right out and said that schools/institutions as a whole are out of touch with the way technology has changed the students arriving today.  He gives a rough definition of technology that I found quite insightful. 
 

Technology is what becomes available AFTER you were a teenager.

By this definition radio is technology for those born in the 1920’s-30’s.  TV for those born in the 50-60’s.  Internet for those born in the 80-90’s.  But those entering education today don’t have anything that is new to them. NOTHING is technology to them because they are comfortable with all of it!  Because they grew up with the internet, not to mention all those other ‘technology’ devices, they are intricately familiar with them.

This generation is absolutely saturated with media and stimuli from dozens of sources at once.  Because they love games and gaming, it is easy to dismiss th as flighty, spoiled, unwilling to work… but they are probably what we are going to need in the 21st century.  They are constantly on the cutting edge and innovating.  They are all about interaction, collaboration and engagement.

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Old Learning / New Learning
The way we teach and learn has looked the same for thousands of years… it’s still in place… but it just looks different than we’re used to.  People still interact and learn from one another.  People still need to learn skills and facts.  There is still built in feedback and assessment.  Everything is just packaged different than we are used to. 

• Play is naturally employed, effective learning program (think of the way kids learn!!)
• Play requires interaction and participation!! (Engagement)
• Benefits of PBL (Problem Based Learning)
• Situated Cognition and Learning - “anchoring authentic context to learning” - Knowledge relevant in the field in which it is applied!!
• Questioning, Cognitive Disequilibrium, Scaffolding

Things that we see as useless may actually be very important learning tools!  (Facebook, YouTube).

Why our Current Model Doesn’t Work
Students only typically have one stimulus in our teaching environment.  Much less than the dozen or so they have in a gaming situation. 
 

Fact - #1 reason for dropping out of high school - BOREDOM!

There is a large population of students that are falling through the cracks, not because they are not smart enough, but because they are not being challenged.  This old world way of teaching is not engaging them.  All you have to do is look at the copious amount of literature (websites, blogs, chat forums, and even literary guild’s in some cases) available online to see how gaming is motivating students.  They are not getting any money out of their work.  They do it because they find it rewarding.

Rick ends his presentation with a strong statement, which I will mimic here.  Learners are changing and so the way we educate them also has to change.  LEAD, FOLLOW, or GET OUT OF THE WAY!!

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