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Thursday, August 19, 2010

Millenials: They Have Different Learning Needs

 

drzreflects.com                   
In the UNI workshop on our Liberal Arts Core, I mentioned the need for educators to consider our students' needs and address them - not the other way around. 
 At UNI the average undergraduate student is 21 years old. This places this audience right in the middle of the Millennial Generation. 
Don Tapscott completed $4 million worth of research into the millennial generation and shared his results in his book, Grown Up Digital.   Many of the attendees of this workshop asked me for the citation so I am placing it on here on my blog.  This is a quick and easy post and I will write more in-depth  at a later date, but here are some links to his books and YouTube videos.

Books:
Videos:
I will be adding additional resources in the near future.

What is your opinion about the needs of millennials?  Is it a valid issue or should we ignore it and make our students learn how to adapt to our teaching styles?

Can you add additional resources in your comment?  Click Comments link below.
photo:amazon.com

1 comment:

  1. So I will be the first comment on this post:-)

    As a GenX person who considers myself a digital native I like Don's work, although his stand point forgets the generational gray areas. Like my millenial sister is less digitally savvy then I am as a GenX person who has been online since there was an online to be on. I suppose the issues are the same for those who are digital natives verses digital immigrants regardless of age or generation. I often find it funny when I as the professor ask students to use digital know how and they are lost on even the most basic skill sets. As much as they use facebook and texting many of them get rather uncomfortable when you ask them to take digital risks and create things using Web 2.0 or digital multimedia tools. This is interesting for me, because I am often the most digitally native and competent member of the classes I am teaching and I am not an IT or an Educational Tech. expert.

    I would love to share another author, who I am sure you know the work of as well, but who is very critical to this topic. Clay Shirky and especially his new book: "Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age." (2010)

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