Confronting Generational Divides

At least four different generations are involved in the educational process as instructors, administrators and support staff, and students. This population has diverse world views, goals and values based in large part on their past experiences and the economic, political, social and technological climates they encountered on their path to adulthood. Not unexpectedly, tensions arise when the generations don’t understand each other. Focusing on the positive strengths that each generation offers is an effective approach, both at the personal and institutional levels. Certainly, a desirable goal would be to interact across generational divides in a mutually beneficial way.
Institutions that achieve an effective balance among educational participants learn from each generation’s past experiences and understand the barriers encountered by members of the generational groups working and learning together. They believe that a creative and positive approach can resolve most issues and lead to a productive learning environment. These institutions recognize that “no one generation has better values, they only have different values.”
Bridging the Generational Gap – Colleagues in the Workplace There are some general approaches that can assist in bridging the gap between colleagues among faculty and administrators. For example:

• Know who you are talking to and which generational climate influenced them
• Learn to accept and appreciate others’ perspectives and approaches
• Learn to cut bureaucratic rules or to explain necessary policies and procedures
• Keep up with and use appropriate technology and tools
• Focus on mutual goals and make everyone feel included in the process

Bridging the Generational Gap – The Students Not surprisingly, studies indicate that learning preferences are often tied to a student’s generational identification (Schroeder). For example, Schroeder’s study of 4,000 students, using the Myer-Briggs Indicator, found that over 60% preferred a sensing mode approach focused on direct, concrete, practical experiences. The majority of students preferred an immediate application, whereas the approach frequently endorsed by faculty focused on a presentation of theory before application and practice. Similar findings (Skiba and Barton) indicate that Millenials prefer a constructivist approach with discovery, active engagement and multiple options.
In the student realm, many educators routinely stress that the learning process should be “meaningful” or “authentic” but fail to take into account how to achieve these objectives for a diverse student body. A second challenge we face is how educational providers can effectively engage and teach students across generational divides. The opportunities, of course, allow us to learn from others’ experiences and employ creative and effective approaches to providing educational experiences that are rewarding both to the providers and to the learners. Thus, we need to be aware of generational differences and address them to the degree practical while also expecting members of the various generations to modify their generational-based expectations and actions. Similar to the caution in last week’s discussion of learning styles, part of our mission may well be to assist students in working outside their comfort zone and being successful in ways that are not “second nature” to one of their generation.
References:
Dobrovolny, Ken (2006). Generations at work. ISPI-Front Range Workshop handouts.
Schroeder, C.C. (1993). New students: New learning styles. Change, 25(5), 21-26.
Skiba, D.J., & Barton, A.J. (2006) Adapting your teaching to accommodate the net generation of learners. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 11(2), 15. Retrieved from the Academic Search Premier database.
-- Ken Switzer, Ph.D.

Are Learning Styles getting in the way?

When you first look into the process of developing a course, online or otherwise, one must, of course, identify the course objectives, and then think about how to appeal to the learning styles of your potential students in order to help them meet these objectives. Sounds pretty straightforward, right?

Appealing to learning styles is code for providing enough variety in methods of instruction and interaction so that every student and his or her accompanying learning style has a chance to engage with the content. Many instructors I meet are daunted by the prospect of developing content that will purportedly reach each student equally. First of all, there are more than a few learning styles inventories out there—which one should we choose as gospel? One person’s aural learner is another’s Type 2, and yet another’s aggressive dependent…how to choose?

While I would never dispute the fact that providing variety in course content and activities is necessary for us to get to know the student and to keep the student engaged, I have to wonder if, in the absence of a technically skilled team of learning object designers and developers, one can ever comfortably claim that all content is presented with such variety as to allow all students to learn in the manner that is most comfortable for them? I would secondly wonder how deep the learning is if students are consistently given material that appeals to their learning style and therefore never get practice with the challenge of working in arenas that might not fit their immediate learning style, but that might be a better mirror of  how such subject matter is treated or acted upon in the real world. For instance, a debate is a debate, and providing a drag and drop for kinesthetic learners to use when debating would be kind of useless. But, kinesthetic learners will be faced with the necessity of verbal reasoning and presentation in the workplace, so a debate isn’t the worst thing that can happen to them. Isn’t our real mission as instructors, besides being subject matter experts, one of helping students find ways to operate and succeed in environments that might not be intuitive learning spaces for them?

Tracking Student Learning Outcomes – Do we have to?

Since joining eCollege, I’ve had the opportunity to discuss accountability and tracking of learning outcomes with university leaders from across the country.  The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACS-COC) Annual Meeting this weekend will be yet another opportunity to listen to academic leaders share about the variety of approaches that are being implemented. Interestingly, a majority of workshops for this conference deal with assessment and student learning outcomes management.

In an earlier blog entry I discussed today’s prominent higher education accountability campaigns.  A key challenge for these programs is to find ways to standardize outcomes to provide a means to compare one institution’s performance against another.  This comparison is what potential students, parents, and employers want to see.

Agreeing on learning outcomes is usually more challenging for decentralized programs where individual faculty make decisions about what should be taught as opposed to many online programs where content is standardized and consistent across sections.  Nonetheless, with strong leadership I’ve seen on ground programs come up with creative solutions to this challenge as well.

Accountability is one area where online programs have a distinct advantage over traditional brick and mortar institutions.  Stakeholders from deans to accreditation teams don’t have to wonder what went on in an online class because the content, the discussions, and all deliverables should be readily available in the learning management system.

Even the naysayers would agree that there has been a shift from teaching to student learning in higher education.  More advanced schools are motivated by how an assessment program actually informs improvements in student learning while less mature organizations are simply trying to comply with stricter accreditation criteria.  A second characteristic of stellar assessment programs is that students themselves are aware of their accountability for achievement of learning outcomes at all levels within an institution and can access their progress in real-time or at the end of each term.

I’ll wrap up this week with some questions to ponder along with an invitation to contact me if you’ll be attending the SACS Annual Conference this weekend.  I’d love to meet peers who are engaged in conversations about how to handle management of student learning outcomes on campus.

• Are summative end-of-program portfolios sufficient evidence of student learning for accreditation teams?
• How granular should measurement of student learning outcomes be (program, course, task)?
• Who should ultimately own accountability for student learning on campus (senior leadership, academic leaders, students)?

Brian McKay Epp, M.Ed.

Academic Trainer and Consultant