In my 20-year-long journey through the academic community, I have carefully observed the transition of demographic dispositions of students to refine my perception of their learning styles . It is to be noted that the present generation of teachers mostly belong to the “ Generation X ” born between 1965 -1979 and the students belong to “Generation Z” comprising those born between 1995 and 2010, which means that the oldest are about 24 and are just entering the workforce.
New-age classrooms
The generational disparity has lead to the transition in the way the present generation communicates, learns, handles money, values relationship, sequences its priorities and manifests intrinsic social virtues. Deloitte’s eigth annual millennial survey shows that Indian millennials and Gen Z are among the most optimistic. The 2019 report is based on the response of the survey of 13,416 millennials across 42 countries, including India. According to the report, “the traditional markers of achievement are no longer valued by millennials and Gen Z”. I am sure that any sensitive, responsible and passionate teaching fraternity all over India would vouch for this observation. The competence of students in constructing knowledge through a facilitated approach is gaining momentum. I have personally witnessed this among the so called mediocre students branded apparently by conventional assessment being successful in the world of work and have felt ashamed at having evaluated them as weak students. Comprehensive evaluation of students as is practised in CBSE and international schools in India should be extrapolated to college.
My second observation about these digital natives is that the quest to become an entrepreneur is on the rise. This needs to be correlated with the augmented spending power of the Gen Z kids which often inhibits their academic progress for want of part time jobs to meet their financial needs. Drawing on this limitation to convert it into constructive outcome needs a programme to outsource peer tutoring, baking, making microvideos for e-content, maintaining library records, data entry, laboratory assistance and creating a web page. This could be accomplished through competency mapping in college thus facilitating career decision among students. The Government of India has launched this programme for government colleges alone. This support, if extended to government aided colleges too, would make education less onerous.
Third, their cognition is not directed towards abstract conceptual learning; rather it is pointed towards learning something that finds cutting edge application. Just facilitating construction of knowledge from contextual issues and consequently promoting “conceptualisation” witnessed transformative experiences among students in my teaching career. Project Based Learning (PBL) integrated into the curriculum for assessment would appeal to the present generation.
Skill-based learning
My inference from the status of knowledge economy reveals that the need of the hour is not about knowledge retention but is mostly on skill sets for interpreting data. Gen Z is mostly pragmatic than conceptual, skill oriented than knowledge seeking. Curriculum and pedagogy that resonates with this ideology acquires recognition as can be witnessed from the overwhelming admissions for non-conventional courses that seek skills over conventional courses in colleges.
I realise the need of leveraging the proximity of Gen Z kids towards gadgets for learning, based on the adage “Make them own and manage their learning”. I realise that the mode of knowledge transfer happening among these Gen Z kids is through visuals than auditory learning, including infographics, simulations, interactive drag and drops, games, interactive demos, snippets and schema or texts and tweets. Wikipedia reading mode of acquiring required knowledge has proliferated due to micro learning features. Have government aided colleges adopted the learning management system (LMS) developed to integrate these aspects as a part of teaching and assessment?
Finally, I observe that this generation handles relationship in an unpredictable and undefined manner leading to scores of issues related to psychological instability that hampers learning. Parental attitude of being over protective has a depressive bearing on students. Perception of self image as it is insinuated from the selfie culture and lack of privacy is still a debatable issue. This generation has witnessed faster technology in its pinnacle and has no patience to deal with peer group or mentors. The strength of developing network through gadgets and personal collaboration is a healthy attribute inherent to the Gen Z kids and is a part of 21st century skills to be facilitated for constructive development.
The writer is an Associate Professor and Head, Department of Chemistry, Madras Christian College, Chennai. wilson@mcc.edu.in
