The document explores generational differences among students, focusing on today's digital natives who have unique characteristics shaped by historical events and technological advancements. It highlights how these students have high expectations but face significant challenges, including a disconnect between their aspirations and reality. Additionally, it emphasizes the need for educational practices to evolve alongside technology to effectively engage this new generation of learners.

1. Not As Savvy As You’ve Been Led To
Believe: What Do We Really Know About
The Students In Our Classrooms Today?
Michael K. Barbour
Farrington College of Education

4. Generational differences:
the theory that people born
within an approximately 20
year time period share a
common set of characteristics
based upon the historical
experiences, economic and
social conditions,
technological advances and
other societal changes they
have in common

5. Generational Boundaries
• GI Generation “Greatest Generation”
– Born between 1901 and 1924
• Silent Generation
– Born between 1925 and 1945
• Baby Boomers
– Born between 1946 and 1964
• Generation X
– Born between 1965 and 1980
• Today’s Student
– Born between 1981 and 2005

6. Historical Influences
Boomers:
• Civil Rights
• Sexual Revolution
• Cold War
• Space travel
• Assassinations
Gen X:
• Fall of Berlin Wall
• Watergate
• AIDS
• Desert Storm
• Energy Crisis
Today’s Student:
• School shootings
• Oklahoma City
• Internet
• 9/11
• Iraq

7. This Generation’s Numbers
• 60 million - largest group
since the Baby Boomers
(72 million)
• 3 times larger than
Generation X
• Teen population is growing
at twice the rate of the rest
of America
• Made up 37% of U.S.
population in 2005

8. Today’s Student: Which Fit Your Students?
Gamers Digital Natives Socially
Conscious
Disdain Previous
Generations
High Expectations Spoiled Rotten Respect
Intelligence
Value Diversity
Expect Incomes
Exceeding Parents
Experiential
Learners
Optimistic and
Positive
Family Oriented
Collaborative Nomadic Inclusive Have More Friends
Healthy Lifestyle Clueless Direct More Liberal
Achievement
Oriented
Media
Consumer
Patriotic More Conservative
Value Balanced
Lives
Multi-tasker Confident Entitled

9. Today’s Student
• Generation Y
• Echo
• Net Generation
• Neomillennials
• Generation NeXt
• Millennials
• Generation Me
• Digital Natives
• Generation txt

10. Echo generation
Foot, D. K., & Stoffman, D. (1996). Boom, bust and
echo: How to profit from the coming demographic
shift. Toronto, ON: Macfarlane Walter and Ross.

11. • Children of baby boomers
• Digital technology has had a
profound impact on their
personalities, including their
attitudes and approach to learning
• Generation gap has become a
generation lap
Tapscott, D. (1998). Growing up digital. The rise of the net
generation. New York: McGraw Hill.
Tapscott, D. (2009). Grown up digital: How the net generation is
changing your world. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Net Generation

12. Millennials
• “…today's teens are
recasting the image
of youth from
downbeat and
alienated to upbeat
and engaged.”
Howe, N., & Strauss, W. (2000).
Millennials rising: The next great
generation. New York: Vintage
Books.

13. Digital Natives
• Common in the media
• “Our students today are all ‘native
speakers’ of the digital language of
computers, video games and the
Internet.”
• “As Digital Immigrants learn – like all
immigrants, some better than others –
to adapt to their environment, they
always retain, to some degree, their
‘accent,’ that is, their foot in the past”
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, Digital immigrants. On the Horizon,
9(5). [Online]
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants – Part II: Do they
really think differently? On the Horizon, 9(6). [Online]

14. Generational Differences and Training
• Thomas Reeves (University of
Georgia) completed a funded
literature review on generational
differences
• Most generational differences in the
literature were based on no or
flawed research
Reeves,
T.
C.
(2008).
Do
genera)onal
differences
ma1er
in
instruc)onal
design?
Paper
presented
to
ITForum.
Retrieved
on
March
13,
2009
from
hCp://it.coe.uga.edu/
iGorum/Paper104/ReevesITForumJan08.pdf

16. “Today's young people
have been raised to aim
for the stars at a time
when it is more difficult
than ever to get into
college, find a good job,
and afford a house. Their
expectations are very high
just as the world is
becoming more
competitive, so there's a
huge clash between their
expectations and reality.”

17. • In 2002, 74% of high school students
admitted to cheating whereas in 1969
only 34% admitted such a failing. (p. 27)
• In 1967, 86% of incoming college
students said that “developing a
meaningful philosophy of life” was an
essential life goal whereas in 2004 only
42% of GenMe freshmen agreed. (p. 48)
• In 2004, 48% of American college
freshmen reported earning an A average
in high school whereas in 1968 only 18%
of freshmen reported being an A student
in high school. (p. 63)
• In the 1950s, only 12% of young teens
agreed with the statement “I am an
important person” whereas by the late
1980s, 80% claimed they were
important. (p. 69) Jean
M.
Twenge

18. Twenge, J. M.
(2009). Generational
changes and their
impact in the
classroom: Teaching
Generation Me.
Medical Education,
43(5), 398-405.

19. Oblinger, D. (2003). Understanding the new student.
EDUCAUSE Review, 38(3), 36-42.
“When asked
about problems
facing their
generation, many
millennials
respond that the
biggest one is
the poor example
that adults set
for kids.” p. 36

21. “The number one
thing to realize with
the Millennials is
that as a whole they
reflect much more
parental
perfectionism than
any generation in
living memory.
Colleges and
universities should
know that they are
not just getting a
kid, but they are
also getting a
parent.”

23. What Else Do We Know?

24. Another Common Myth:
The Master Multitasker
• Memory
encoding
and memory
retrieval
weaker in
teens when
attention is
divided
Naveh-­‐Benjamin,
M.,
Kilb,
A.,
&
Fisher,
T.
(2006).
Concurrent
task
effects
on
memory
encoding
and
retrieval:
Further
support
for
an
asymmetry.
Memory
&
Cogni)on,
34(1),
90-­‐101.

25. Other Multitasking Studies
• Herath, P., Klingberg, T., Yong, J., Amunts, K., & Roland, P. (2001). Neural
correlates of dual task interference can be dissociated from those of
divided attention: an fMRI study. Cereb. Cortex 11, 796 – 805.
– longer time
• Fisch, S. (2000). A capacity model of children’s comprehension of
educational content on television. Media Psychology, 2(1), 63-91.
• Lang, A. (2000). The limited capacity model of mediate message
processing. Journal of Communication, 50(1), 46-70.
– simultaneous tasks limit memory
• Just, M. A., Kellera, T. A., & Cynkara, J. (2008). A decrease in brain
activation associated with driving when listening to someone speak . Brain
Research, 1205, 70-80.
– less likely to remember

26. Today’s Students & Technology
• Today’s students’ technical
knowledge is broad, but
shallow
• Skills differ by academic
program; deepest in
engineering and business
• Technical fluency
does not equal
maturity
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ers0506/rs/ers0506w.pdf

28. Schools today are
beset by a new
generation of
learners whose
skills and
expectations derive
from growing up on
the net.

30. Keeping
pedagogy
ahead of
technology
is an
ongoing
struggle.

31. This is especially true in education!

34. “Lecturing still
absorbs more than
half to two thirds of
various departments’
teaching practices…
These traditional
forms of teaching
seem to have been
relatively untouched
by the enormous
investment in
technologies.”

35. What should
we expect
our students
to learn in
the 21st
Century?

36. Do
today’s
students
really
want to
learn?

37. Focus on undergraduate education
• Participating Institutions: 621 colleges and universities
participated in NSSE 2013. 1,554 have participated since
2000.
• Student Participation: 371,284 students completed NSSE
in 2013. Approximately 4 million

38. NSSE Results
• Work
expectations
for students:
– 10-15 hrs
in class
– 25-30 hrs
studying

40. NSSE Results
• School Work Reality:
– 17% study 5 hrs per week or less
– 26% 6-10 hrs
– 22% 11-15 hrs
– 16% 16-20 hrs
– 9% 21-25 hrs
– 4% 26-30 hrs
– 4% >30 hrs

43. NSSE Results
Percentage of students Percentage of professors
0-10 13
11-20 28
21-40 24
41-60 15
61-80 11
81-90 2
91-100 -
Can’t say 7
Percentage of professor who think that their
students come to class fully prepared

45. NSSE
Student
faculty
Interaction
High
Academic
Challenge
Time
On
Task

46. What Else Do We Know?
http://www.decliningbydegrees.org/

47. The most
“shocking”
discovery is the
“non-aggression
pact” between
instructors and
students.
What Else Do We Know?

48. What Else Do We Know?

49. The traditional standard for an average
performance was a C, but students now
expect Bs for putting out a modicum of effort
that produces mediocre work, and As if they
do any more than this. Failure is a thing of
the past in many schools.

50. Grade Inflation
http://gradeinflation.com/

51. Grade Inflation
http://gradeinflation.com/

52. Grade Inflation
http://gradeinflation.com/

53. Two Key Points
• Introducing
technology alone is
never enough.
• Big gains in
productivity come
when new
technologies are
combined with new
ways of doing
business.

54. Two Key Points
• Introducing
technology alone is
never enough.
• Big gains in learning
come when new
technologies are
combined with new
ways of teaching.

55. Your
Questions
and
Comments

56. Director of Doctoral Studies
Farrington College of Education
Sacred Heart University
mkbarbour@gmail.com
http://www.michaelbarbour.com