Generation Edge: Changing our minds about the students we teach

In school today we are teaching a new group of students who are very unique from previous generations.  They are smarter, faster, and more capably equipped than any generation that has ever lived on this planet, and yet, they have challenges all their own that we must adjust for in order to ensure their success.  Below are some of my thoughts on how my students are in particular in comparison to all the discussion of Generation Edge - the newest and most exciting group of young minds our world has ever seen.

In the classic article "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants..." Prensky claims that technology is an integral part of students' lives today and I agree.  My students in particular were essentially 1 year old when smart phones first came to the market, and as such, they are used to the interactivity of apps, the immediacy of content, and the all-around power that a phone provides to their every day lives.  They are used to getting their information fast, and as such, many students have attention issues in class, as they have difficulty staying focused on a single topic for a long period of time.  As teachers, we need to adapt to our changing students, rather than expect them to conform to our policies.  Sarah Fudin mentioned that it is easier for students to multitask than in the past, and that research shows that students brains may be changing to adapt to the level of stimuli they now interact with on a daily basis.  One way I see this happening in my classroom is in the amount of students requesting to listen to music while reading an article or working on a project.  Many will in fact try to keep one headphone in even while working in a group situation where they have to listen to their classmates and respond in order to be effective.  While this would be incredibly distracting for me, some students do appear to function better in this way, most likely because they grew up in this environment and utilize a similar method to their studies at home.

In her article "Close to the Edge", Caroline Fletcher stated tried to identify other characteristics of this new generation of students.  One she mentioned was that they were more independent than previous students.  At my level of instruction, I would tend to disagree with her.  In my 7th grade classroom, my students seem to want verification that they are doing things correctly quite frequently.  I would attribute this to two factors: one, video games and apps today give instant feedback, and secondly, many over-rely on their technology today, meaning that when they have to try something new and challenging on their own, they feel uncomfortable in the unknown.  Another misconception that Fletcher has is that students were less likely to be willing to share their information online because they have been taught so often to be careful and safe when interacting online.  Amy Lynch also claimed that they valued their privacy much more than in the past.  While the safety message has sunk into some students, I think that more than ever teenagers today are involved in inappropriate behaviors online, because the consequences feel different than in face-to-face interaction.  They may be more private in terms of their willingness to let adults know what they are up to, but I have had several situations each year now where students send inappropriate pictures to each other, engage in bullying behavior, or simply look up adult materials that they are probably not fully ready for yet.  This leads to real consequences in behavior because students may not have the wherewithal to self-monitor and control their choices appropriately.  Lastly, Lynch speaks that Gen Z students are more pragmatic than their predecessors, but I think this applies just as much to my generation as my students.  I wouldn't hesitate to look something up on YouTube for help, and I think a reasonable amount of students would prefer to do the same rather than to be told how to do it all of the time.  I try to make adjustments with this as much as possible by leaving a question for my students to answer, rather than to give them every tool to accomplish a task.  Many times, students would rather dive in and trouble-shoot along the way, rather than wait and be warned about every possible consequence.  This can be a good thing however when issues are taken into account ahead of time and as a class we understand that we need to be willing to fail sometimes in order to eventually achieve success.

Following with its predecessors, the article, "Generation Edge: An Early Look at America's Youngest Generation", agreed with many of the same sentiments, but one thing that stood out to me was that it claimed that this generation of students could create authentic and meaningful relationships with people online from great distances apart.  I would agree that as technology improves, we can essentially communicate with anyone anywhere at any time with ease, and children of today are very comfortable with this fact.  When I was younger, I was always afraid that we might move away from my hometown, and I would lose contact with good friends, but in today's world there is less a fear of this than ever before.  Students communicate all the time with their peers or relatives digitally, and I don't think that they find it unusual at all.  In fact, I fear slightly that today's students may be more comfortable interacting via a text message than they are in real-life, where the stakes feel more devastating and real if they are rejected in some way.  This can be a great thing for businesses where the next generation may be called upon to make conference calls or to work collaboratively with a team of workers from other locations on a regular basis.  As teachers, we must be willing to acknowledge this as well, and some ways I think we are doing that is by engaging in online blogging activities with partner schools, scheduling presenters to Skype into a classroom rather than to come visit, or to engage in virtual field trips rather than physically leaving the building.  Costs only continue to rise for transportation, and our society is getting busier and busier- some of these digital resources are so effective because they offer a free experience to our students that we may not be able to afford them otherwise, and since they are so comfortable in these environments, real opportunities exist to engage them in different ways.

Finally, its easy to say then that younger teachers have an advantage today because we are more used to the capabilities of technology, but I have seen wonderful colleagues learn and adapt their styles based on their willingness to take on the challenge, so that is a simple excuse.  In reality, we have the obligation to adapt and adjust to the needs of our students, because they and their parents are our customers, and we need to make sure that we are doing everything in our power to help them learn in whatever approach works best for them.  Later in his article, Prensky mentions that gaming is a great option to make learning engaging for students, but this is not the only tactic to deliver content effectively today.  While I have played games with my students at times, it is also perfectly appropriate to mix in a lecture or a myriad of other tasks as long as the proper expectations are set and we make every method to make our work meaningful and important to our students.  This happens by setting appropriate expectations early and being very clear to students about the 'why' - Why do they need to learn this?  How will it help them in the future?  I think my biggest growth as a teacher from my first year to my seventh has been in this area, where I am explicit each day about what we are up to and why we need to do it.

Our students are still in school to learn, and while they may bring their own unique batch of challenges, they also present opportunities for us that have never existed before.  We need to learn their styles, individualize our instruction and be willing to change to the needs of our learners in order to help them achieve the highest levels of success.