Examining Millennial Characterizations as Guidance for Choosing Classroom Strategy Changes

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Nov 2013

This project reports exploration of the expectations of the students in my large public Midwestern university about learning processes and their teachers. Its objective was to help ground my own reflections on whether and how the pedagogical changes proposed to accommodate the Millennial generation are appropriate for my students and for me. Data were gathered through a survey (n = 204) based on the literature and specifically focusing on claims made about the Millennial generational group. I then sought to identify additional issues and to hear the students’ own reflections on teaching and learning through three focus groups. Results indicated that some student responses to items reflecting generational characterizations were consistent with stereotypical claims, but some were not. This paper then presents my reflection about how results inform how I might proceed as I seek to support learning in my students.

A PDF file should load here. If you do not see its contents the file may be temporarily unavailable at the journal website or you do not have a PDF plug-in installed and enabled in your browser.

Alternatively, you can download the file locally and open with any standalone PDF reader:

https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1397&context=ij-sotl

Examining Millennial Characterizations as Guidance for Choosing Classroom Strategy Changes

International Journal for the Scholarship of Millennial Characterizations as Guidance for Choosing Classroom Strateg y - Examining Creative Commons License Creative Examining Millennial Characterizations as Guidance for Choosing Classroom Strategy Changes Tracy Russo University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas, USA Abstract This project reports exploration of the expectations of the students in my large public Midwestern university about learning processes and their teachers. Its objective was to help ground my own reflections on whether and how the pedagogical changes proposed to accommodate the Millennial generation are appropriate for my students and for me. Data were gathered through a survey (n = 204) based on the literature and specifically focusing on claims made about the Millennial generational group. I then sought to identify additional issues and to hear the students’ own reflections on teaching and learning through three focus groups. Results indicated that some student responses to items reflecting generational characterizations were consistent with stereotypical claims, but some were not. This paper then presents my reflection about how results inform how I might proceed as I seek to support learning in my students. Introduction Inundated by stories in the popular and academic press about the learning needs of contemporary college students, many student-centered instructors are working to change their teaching strategies and methods. They are responding to arguments that the characteristics of Millennial students are different enough from previous generations that successfully teaching them requires revising pedagogies and tools: extensive use of digital technology, team learning, short blocks of information presentation, integrated games, music and video, and very specific, step-by-step instructions for assignments. This urgency for change is heightened by pressures on higher education. Colleges and universities must respond to reduced funding, criticisms about rising costs and claims of poor costeffectiveness, a shift of emphasis from arts and humanities to science and technology, increased anti-intellectualism, and questions about the value and mission of higher education. Students, and their parents, increasingly are characterized as consumers who have the right to define what their educations should be like and that they want technology and other changed practices in the classroom. The result for many faculty members is pressure to use every possible new tool to meet these conditions. While I find many of the arguments about this generation of college students compelling and consistent with my own experience, I have struggled with how I should respond. How can I select tactics that are consistent with my teaching and learning philosophy, with my subject material, and, importantly, with the needs of my own students? How much time and energy should I commit to changing my teaching tactics? Changes, however appropriate, must inevitably take time away from my other professorial responsibilities, and the pressures there have increased, not abated, in response to the challenges my own university faces. To help me formulate my own response, then, I sought to better understand my own students. This project sought to explore the expectations of students in my large public Midwestern university about learning processes and about their teachers. I began with a survey based on the literature and specifically focusing on claims made about the Millennial generational group. Then, to identify additional issues and to hear the students’ own reflections on teaching and learning, I conducted three focus groups. This paper reports on that project and then reflects about what it tells me and how I might proceed as I seek to support learning in my students. Literature Review Millennial Students Most articles in the press group the 15.6 million undergraduate students in college (U.S. Department of Education, 2007) with members of the Millennial generation. The term Millennial has come to describe individuals born between about 1982 and 2000 (Hoover, 2009; Howe & Strauss, 2000) , although the dates vary. Smola and Sutton (2002), for example, set the dates as 1979 and 1994. Although this group represents some 80 million individuals (with that number growing due to immigration) (Coomies, 2004) , many authors treat the group as a single homogeneous entity. Neil Howe and William Strauss in 2000 assigned seven “core traits” to the group. Millennials are, Howe and Strauss argued, special, sheltered, confident, team-oriented, conventional, pressured and achieving. This argument clearly caught the imagination of marketers, teachers and administrators in higher education, and authors in the popular press (e.g. Pew, 2007; Gaudelli, 2009; Rampell, 2011; Samuelson, 2010) , the popular literature (e.g. Alsop, 2008; Strauss & Howe, 2007; Tapscott, 2009; Twenge, 2006; Winograd & Hais, 2011) and empirical (...truncated)


This is a preview of a remote PDF: https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1397&context=ij-sotl

Tracy Russo. Examining Millennial Characterizations as Guidance for Choosing Classroom Strategy Changes, International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 2013, Volume 7, Issue 2,