When classes started at Mohave Community College on Aug. 22, both full- and part-time instructors were armed with new information about how to achieve the best results with their younger students.
Dr. Mark Taylor was a guest lecturer at the faculty orientation sessions. He talked to faculty from throughout Mohave County about the differences among the four generations you typically find in a community college.
Faculty is primarily from the Baby Boomer generation (born 1946 through 1964) and Silent/Great generation (born prior to 1946), with a few Gen Xers (born 1965 through 1982). Students are primarily Gen Y (born 1983 through 2001), but there are Gen X and late-end Boomers enrolled at community colleges, as well.
As Taylor pointed out, these generations have different frames of reference, influences and motivations in their lives, and different responses to authority and peers. What it takes to motivate and educate one generation, will not work on every generation.
To briefly describe these differences, Silent/Great generation people are self-sacrificing, hard-working, respectful of authority and generally conservative.
Boomers are work- and goal-oriented, competitive and self-reliant. They believe they can change the world, and they challenge the status quo and authority.
Gen Xers are independent, resourceful and self-sufficient. They are technologically adept, flexible and place a high value on work/life balance.
Gen Ys are technology savvy, family centered, achievement oriented, team oriented and crave attention. Taylor said, “They expect choices, value their own opinion, value ability and talent over effort, are sensitive, defensive to criticism and it is difficult to get them to take responsibility for their outcome. If they don’t do well – it’s your fault and they are victims.”
These traits can lead Silent Generation and Boomers to feel that today’s young students are lazy, unmotivated, distracted and narcissistic. With the right teaching methods, however, instructors can see significant improvement in student outcomes.
Taylor’s solution is to shift from “a teacher-oriented system where the instructor lectures to passive students, to a learner-centered process in which students become more actively involved in their own education.
“People have known for a long time that college students learn more when they are actively engaged in learning via hands-on practice,” Taylor said. “Higher-order and lasting learning will never be effectively reached by passive students who spend class time listening to faculty deliver content.”
He said students need to see how the material they are learning is applied in life. To accomplish that, he recommends moving content out of the classroom. In other words, assuring that students have read or researched material on their own, reserving classroom time for application of the information or skills.
In conjunction with the focus on application of knowledge, he recommends a testing process that requires a project or exercise where the content is woven into a real-life outcome. This type of testing puts a greater burden on the student and faculty, but produces improved learning and retention of knowledge.
Taylor also stressed the importance of improving students’ “future orientation” – helping them to see themselves completing college, in a preferred occupation, moving along a career track to a pinnacle of achievement.
Dr. Mike Rourke, MCC’s dean of instruction, said, “Taylor’s concepts and techniques were well received by the faculty. There was a lot of conversation about incorporating methods for holding students responsible for their outcomes.”
MCC President Dr. Michael Kearns said, “We heard Dr. Taylor present at a Higher Learning Commission conference and thought the message was right for our faculty. We are very happy he accepted our invitation. His presentation was very informative, lively and timely – just one week before the start of the fall semester.”
Dr. Taylor has worked with more than 200 schools in 38 states, made presentations at state, regional and national events and consulted with business clients like 20th Century Fox, Wal-Mart, the University of Tennessee Hospital and the U.S. Army.
He holds a bachelors degree in psychology and biology, a master’s degree in social work and a doctorate in counseling, all from the University of Arkansas. He is the author of numerous articles on “Teaching Generation NeXt.”
Cutline: Dr. Mark Taylor addresses the faculty at Mohave Community College on techniques for teaching students from the multiple generations that attend community colleges.
As a faculty member who attended the session, I take exception that the talk was well received by faculty. In fact, there was no evaluation of the talk given to faculty to give the college this impression. This year’s meeting was a step backward to the time of talking heads being paraded in front of the faculty. I find it ironic that the speker used none of the techniques he mentioned in his talk and that the college is not embracing the learning centered model that Dr. Kearns keeps parroting out and does not use in the administrative running of the college. This is evident in that there was no evaluation of the objectives of the evenings activities.
I attended this meeting and all I can say is that I’m not convinced that this guy knows what he is talking about. In fact, I’m not even convinced that he’s ever been in a classroom before. He told us to videotape the lesson so that the students could watch it at home. Then assign something that made them watch the lesson, and then mark them absent if they didn’t do the assignment. Marking students absent for not doing their homework is ILLEGAL.
The last straw occurred when he told us to go out and spend $100 on an i-phone so that we could record our lessons. We don’t have that kind of money! Maybe he doesn’t realize it, but we are in the middle of a DEPRESSION. Some of us are starting the semester after having been unemployed for several months, and he tells us to go out and just drop $100 like that!
If MCC wants me to purchase an i-phone, they had better be the ones who pay for it.
To even allow this crack-pot 5 minutes of our time says two things to me:
(1) MCC does not value our time.
(2) This was a book promotion for which certain individuals are probably getting a kick-back for.
The Generation Y students behave the way they do because their parents behave that way. I know this because their parents are often my students.
Where does he get off telling me how to do my job? I am referencing his condescending remark, “Don’t tell me what you know! Tell me something important!” Look, I understand that something can be said about how prepared our students are for the work-place. However, he doesn’t seem to understand that we are required to follow a curriculum. Failing to follow that curriculum means we get fired, and it also places our accreditation in jeopardy. For him to berate us for doing our jobs only revealed his ignorance about the teaching field. Perhaps he can get away with the things he wants us to do, simply because his institution has granted him tenure? Most of us don’t get to do as we please.
I think this a marvelous idea but from what I have seen faculty does not want to learn how to teach to the new gereration.It is unmind full that in this day of education that the majority of MCC teachers have not even leaped to include technology.Technology is the front runner and the ones that are not onboard will be left behind.
Wonderful article. This is accurate information in general, and helpful even for parents. Thank you.