Pedagogy for Digital Natives

Teaching for 21st-century skills demands students to embrace new forms of learning and knowledge in a place where some teaching methods have relied on the same traditional practices that question their effectiveness for the new digital-aged generation. Teaching is one of the main components of educational planning (Bidabadi, et al, 2016). Providing real-world experiences is the focus for many educators. In preparing students, instructional methods and strategies used are student-centered, visual, technology-driven, lecture method, facilitator style, and demonstrator style. More commonly schools are incorporating more technology as a tool for learning. Christensen & Eyring (2011) asserted, “Media reports make clearer every day, technology and social change threaten to undermine the traditional university’s dominance” (p 329).

Technology has started to impact the way education is delivered. “Kids growing up today is the love of embracing change; preparing students for the 21st century is preparing students for the workforce, is how do you get kids that have curiosity in the question disposition” (MacArthur Foundation, 2010, 0:23)? Although each method has its own pro’s and con’s, yet providing multiple strategies is important to ensure learning takes place.

Prensky (2012) purported, “ Despite all the focus that reformers place on testing, our hardest and most pressing educational problem is no raising test scores, but rather connecting our kids’ education to real life and to the fast-evolving world of the future” (p. 22). The ability to incorporate technology-based tools can expose real-world scenarios because we are able to connect the information to how students seek information on their own. Digital natives are born in a technology-driven world. They utilize some form of technology in everyday practice. Understanding how making these connections in instructional practice is relevant to today’s students is pertinent to engaging students with the material.

Current U.S. education places no importance on even knowing the individual passions, or interests, of our students and most teachers don’t ask; because they are preoccupied with teaching towards the test (Prensky, 2012). If the focus of education is primarily on preparing individuals for the workforce, how are we tapping into their interests and creative minds? Much of the expectations surrounding education are if we are truly preparing students for the workforce, but “to compete in this environment, the traditional university must change what it has historically valued and measured” (Christensen & Eyring, 2012, p. 391). Educational practices should be geared to tap into students' creativity and innovative minds. In doing so, instructional practices will need to go beyond the norm in order to foster an environment where learning is taught in a language that today’s generation understands.

By

Tamara Smith M.Ed

References

Christensen, C., & Eyring, H. (2012). The innovative university: Changing the DNA of higher education from the inside out. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

MacArthur Foundation (2010). Rethinking learning: The 21st century learner. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/redirect?v=c0xa98cy-Rw&redir_token=wscbyyO-Z3vA4hlc86NATsSz6gt8MTU0OTU4MTUwOEAxNTQ5NDk1MTA4&event=video_description&q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.macfound.org%2Fprograms%2Flearning

Prensky, M. (2012). From digital natives to digital wisdom: Hopeful essays for 21st century learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Shirani, B., N., Nasr, A., Rouhollahi, A., & Khalili, R. (2016). Effective teaching methods in higher education: Requirements and barriers. Journal of advances in medical education & professionalism, 4(4), 170-178.