Engaging the “On Demand” Generation
Remember waiting? We used to wait for our favorite song on the radio. We used to wait for a TV show to come on and watch it simultaneously with millions of people. We used to wait for our kids to come home without being able to text them. We used to wait for phone calls. We even used to wait for the dial-up modem to get online.
We don’t wait anymore.
My daughter is 7 years old. She doesn’t have to wait for much. If she wants to watch her favorite show, she can get hundreds of episode options on demand. Or she can play a game or access those same shows from an iPad. If my wife and I aren’t around to read to her, she can open up an ebook that reads to her as she turns the pages. That same iPad (or any other tablet) can let her practice writing, work on her numbers, or just give her a space to paint and be artsy.
Now, don’t get me wrong. She loves when I read to her. And would much rather do arts and crafts with my wife than an iPad. But that is not her only option. She is growing up and living in the “On Demand” generation. It’s a generation that has constant access to what we used to wait for.
LEARNING WITH THE “ON DEMAND” GENERATION
So how do we go about teaching this generation? Does telling these students that they’ll have to wait for the dinosaur unit, or read one specific book at a particular time, or stop with addition when they are ready for multiplication work? How will my daughter feel about a learning experience not tailored to her interests?
I for one, don’t want her to be frustrated with school because it is stuck in a 20th-century model. I don’t want her to “love learning” but “hate school.” And I definitely don’t want her to think receiving “good grades” is all that matters.
In order to engage today’s students we need to rethink our practice from the top down. Too often we focus on WHAT we want our students to learn, instead of HOW they will be learning those skills, and HOW they will be assessed.
The “On Demand” generation requires four specific answers to those questions:
How Will These Students Learn New Skills?
In an environment that allows for collaboration (with experts and peers)
By tinkering, making, creating, and failing
Face-to-face and online – in a space not restricted by time
Through their own interests and inquiries
How Will These Students Be Assessed?
Through products and presentations
Informal conversations and dialogue (online or in person)
By their grit and resolve, the process not the final result
In teamwork and collaborative situations
We can’t keep “preparing” our students for the next grade, or next test, or next anything. Quite frankly, we don’t really know what is going to be next. What kind of jobs is my 7-year-old going to be vying for when she’s 22? Who knows!
But I do know that she’ll need to work with people at that job. She’ll need to communicate, collaborate, and share her thoughts eloquently. She’ll have to bring new ideas to the table, and connect the dots. She’ll have to persevere through tough times and have the adaptability to keep moving forward. She’ll have to create and not just consume.
When I’m teaching at the university level, or going in and working with students, the same questions pops up time and time again when we talk about engaging today’s generation: What about the test?
Yea, what about it?
Sure, all of these students have to take some form of standardized test. And yes, as I mentioned in my previous post, I think it is ridiculous that so much of our system is geared around performance on a multiple-choice exam.
However, let me ask you a question that John Spencer and I share in our book Empower:
Would you rather have engaged learners who have experienced PBL, inquiry, and design sprints taking that test, or learners who have only gone through the motions of “taking practice tests” and low-attention driving “test prep” lessons?
The answer is obvious. Let’s teach above the test, and engage beyond the test. Otherwise, the on-demand generation will continue to see school as a place where we take lots of tests to prepare for lots of tests (instead of a place where learning lives and thrives).
