Keeping up with the Gen Z’s

As with most of my class, this first week has been an eye opener to say the least. From Blogs to wiki’s (still not too sure about these however I have one!) to a very handy tool, flip board. The expansive world of ITD in the classroom is beginning to show its entirely large and expansive head. It is so overwhelming yet at the same time entirely fascinating, and I would be lying if I didn't admit to being a little excited about what is next to discover.

I have been reflecting on just what to write about here and where to start and something my daughter said to me this morning was very interesting. She told me the teacher had changed the seating arrangement in her classroom and instead of sitting in groups they were now in rows…..”we can’t work together! There is no one to talk to about my ideas” and just that insight from a 9yr old told me that even at that young age the dynamics of the classroom and the ways that children want to learn have changed from when I was the same age. I would never had thought the same way I would have happily just worked by myself without the collaboration of my peers and not thought about it at all. This generation has moved forward not only by IT being introduced into the classroom as a tool but IT changing the way children think, learn and discover, students have realised that working together as a group benefits them all.

Watching the Sparks and Honey video I began to realise that Gen z has grown up with a different set of learning tools. Before the web we had libraries, you would go (by yourself) look up the information and off you went. Now students can gather information from all over the world from their own classrooms, they can watch videos about how to do and make things. They can talk to other students from the other side of the world and find out so much more up to date relevant information than we ever could. This is the way of Gen Z and the future and as teachers we need to ensure that we teach our students how to do this. We also need to ensure that as teachers we learn how to do this as well so we can utilize the tools available.

Judy Willis pointed out that for students to learn we need to keep them ‘curious’, by keeping them curious you will make them want to hear what you have to tell them. Learning is the key focus in the classroom and for Gen Z it needs to be at a consistent pace, using tools they interact with daily, and be done in a way that is best suited to the learners. By ensuring that you have the skills in ITD across the board you will be able to ensure that you keep interest up in the classroom.

Ken Robinson is worried that we are killing creativity in our students, that by the time they reach high school, they have lost the ability to be creative, purely because we have made making mistakes a bad thing. Personally I believe that making mistakes leads to focused learning, as a chef I use my mistakes (or near mistakes) to learn from and extend my thinking skills to create something better…..even when I have something that is good I’m always thinking of ways to change that. As teachers we need to teach this skill to our students! NEED to teach this. There is no better way to retain information than doing it wrong, working out what went wrong and working out how to fix.

The one thing that did stick in my mind though was from the Ken Robinson TED talk. He was talking about an interview he had with Gillian Lynne, a famous choreographer who in the 30’s was taken to a Doctor because she couldn't sit still in class. The Doctor told her mother to put her into dance and Ken asked her how it was when she first walked in? “I can’t tell you how wonderful it was. We walked into this room and it was full of people like me. People who couldn't sit still. People who had to move to think”. This was what had me nodding and thinking this is what we as teachers who are creating learning environments need to keep in mind about our students. AITSL has laid it out for us with the teaching standards however we as teachers need to refine our abilities to read our students and provide ways for them ALL to learn in our classrooms. I believe that the next 12 weeks in our ITD class will provide a great starting point and structure to begin to enable us to provide interesting and diverse classroom environments for our students.