Teaching to the Net Generation

This week was all about exploring the characteristics and implications of teaching the new "Net Generation." I was the facilitator this week, and therefore it was my responsibility to summarize the numerous readings and videos that discussed the "digital natives" present in today's classrooms. 

The readings and videos for this week focused heavily on the characteristics and implications of teaching the new “net generation” of learners. The “new” students of today are considered neo-millennials or “digital natives,” meaning they were born into the digital world. However, many of today’s teachers are considered “digital immigrants,” or individuals who were not born into the digital world, but have adopted aspects of technology. A common theme among both the readings and videos for this week is the idea that educators are not prepared to teach to the learning styles of these “digital natives.” Along with the changing face of today’s students, comes the changing definition of what it means to be literate.

Literacy no longer involves simply being able to read and write. Students must possess new “literacy” skills in order to survive and succeed in today’s digital world. Skills such as judgment, negotiation, appropriation, play, transmedia navigation, simulation, collective intelligence, performance, distributed cognition, visualization, and multitasking are essential to participating in digital contexts. Students are engaging with technology on a daily basis and expect to be able to utilize these technologies within the school setting.

Through his book, “Teaching Digital Natives – Partnering for Real Learning,” Mark Prensky suggests a pedagogy known as “partnering.” Through the partnering pedagogy, students and teachers work together, each focusing on the part of the learning process they do best. For students, this means finding and following their passion, using whatever technology is available, researching and finding information, answering questions and sharing their thoughts and opinion, practicing, when properly motivated (e.g., through games), and creating presentations in text and multimedia (Prensky, 2010). For teachers, this means creating and asking the right questions, giving students guidance, putting material in context, explaining one-on-one, creating rigor, and ensuring quality (Prensky, 2010). Partnering moves away from direct instruction, lectures, memorization, and multiple-choice tests and towards a more collaborative role between students and teachers, in which students are motivated to learn by following their individual passions. Although this pedagogy is a major shift from current educational philosophies, the positive effects on students’ learning are well worth the time and effort.