The document discusses research on millennial generation college student expectations for their educational experiences and interactions with faculty. It describes student attitudes about wanting entertainment and fun in their courses along with challenges in relating to instructors. The research also examines theories of student development and recommends course designs focused on significant learning through application and developing students' human dimension.

1. The Challenge of
Technology
Future Technologies and
Globalization Trends
Foundational Material

2. Overarching Question
• Finding the balance between want and
need
– Students
– Faculty
– Institution (i.e. resources, mission)
– Outside factors (i.e. accreditation
agencies)
2

3. The purpose of the
Collegiate study was to describe
the expectations that
millennial generation
Expectation students had regarding
their collegiate
experiences, focusing
on student responses
about student-faculty
interaction and course
learning (Porter, 2007).
-Continuation of research
about teaching excellence
within a discipline (Denmark,
2002).
Chrystal Denmark Porter, Ph.D., Ed.S.

4. The Research
• Using traditional methods to design a course and deliver
course content through traditional formats may not, many
cases, be the best method instructors should use if they are
truly interested in the students learning process (Oblinger,
2003).
• Students view of their position
– Students may have the expectation that education owes
them in some manner for participating in the higher
learning process. According to Sacks (1996) the notion of
success is increasingly treated as a quasi-negotiable
exchange...some consumers of education seem to invest no
more personal responsibility in the transaction than a
McDonald’s customer buying a Quarter Pounder with
cheese.
4

5. The Research (2)
• Issue of Entitlement
– As more colleges & universities implement
business-like strategies to attract
students to their institutions, students are
becoming more keenly aware of their
return-on-investment (Levine & Cureton,
1998; Spiegler, 1998).
5

6. The Research (3)
• Role of Entertainment in Education
– Among the top three choices identified by students as
characteristics values in a college teacher, the instructor should
be entertaining, friendly and warm, and challenging. Many
students place a high value on being entertained (Sacks, 1996).
– If effective teachers are entertaining teachers, and today’s media-
saturated students expect to be entertained and cannot tolerate
boredom, then it is time to underscore the need for entertainment
in the classroom (Sacks, 1996).
– The term “edutainment” has been coined to describe the
phenomenon of combining traditional education with
entertainment activities. There is a growing group of instructors
who purposefully intend to provide entertaining activities as a
means to relay information to their students. Contemporary
trends may support edutainment (Porter, 2007).
6

7. The Research (4)
• Edutainment (continued)
– The modern system of higher education includes
salient features: an open and flexible system,
direct and easy access to every learner, a broad
based and futuristic visionary stream of learning,
edutainment and infotainment and student-
centered learning, that is more emphasis on
insight and knowledge than mere information
collection, new knowledge with a personal touch
and need and utility-oriented learning (Popli,
2005).
7

8. College Student Attitudes
• Stressed
• Disappointed
• Unstructured Activities
– Sleeping is a form of recreation, #1
activity
– Fun is in the club-and-bar scene
• Worried About Academics, but Bored
• Special
8

9. College Student Development
Theory
• Chickering’s Seven Vectors of Student Development
– Linear progression that students experience as they are
developing their sense of self and their identity
• Perry’s Scheme of Intellectual & Ethical Development
– Describes how students relate meaning to their experience
• Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development
– Designates three levels of moral reasoning or cognitive
processes that an individual may be operating in when he
or she is obliged to make decisions
• King and Kitchener’s Reflective Judgment
– Succession of events as students identify their personal
trusts, beliefs, and opinions
9

10. Classroom Strategies
• Creating Significant Learning Experiences
– Design of instruction is most crucial in
creating valuable and significant learning
environments (Fink, 2003).
– This is the area that few instructors
receive instruction.
– The way instructors approach their
teaching, the attitudes and behaviors they
specify, is related to student’s motivation
to learn (Archer & Scevak, 1998).
10

11. Classroom Strategies (2)
• Fink (2003) proposed that instruction
and course design should be motivated
by methods that encourage significant
learning.
• The goal the instructor has for
students in the course will likely
dictate the components that should be
incorporated in the course design
(Fink, 2003).
11

12. Course Design Outcomes
• Foundational knowledge
• Application
• Human dimension (learn something
about the self and societal
complications)
• Caring and learning
12

13. Porter (2007) Results
• Conversations
– Expectations were based on conversations with individuals
they trusted (i.e. peers, family, administrators, faculty)
• Challenging Course Requirements
– Self-assurance was gained as they successfully completed
challenging courses by learning new tactics that worked to
complete assignments with least effort and time
• Instructors
– Anticipated inability to relate, intellectual inferiority made
them uncomfortable and uneasy
• Technology
– No initial expectations, preferred format included
entertaining activities
13

14. “It’s amazing, yet we are
not amazed.” Kevin Kelly

15. "We have to get better at
believing in the impossible.“
Kevin Kelly

16. Change is About People,
Not Technology

17. Higher Education Dynamics
Top Down Bottom Up

19. Student’s Perspective

20. Instructional Perspective

21. Institutional Perspective

22. Now It’s Your Turn to
Describe the Impossible