Teacherscribe’s Teaching Tip #12
If you know, let me know. Please.
The article linked above focuses on a couple unique factors of this current generation of learners.
First, unlike every generation before them, they are a “Just in time” style of learner.
What this means is that – unlike us, who were a “Just in case” style of learner – we learned things in school “just in case” we ever needed to know it or use that skill. And there are many benefits to this. I’m glad I learned how to type in high school, even though I thought I’d never have a job that required me to type.
But there are negatives too. But I did memorize a lot of dates and historical figures in social studies and psychology that are now useless to me since I once memorized them but never learned them.
So this current generation of learners knows that since content is distributes so freely across so many different platforms, they can learn what they need not “just in case” but “just in time.”
Case in point: When students need to create a blog in my class for a scavenger hunt, if they have never been taught how to create a blog (as previous generations would have), I would just leave it up to them to figure it out and learn it “just in time” for the due date. They can use blogger, Google Sites, Weebly, or whatever they wish. And students – using Youtube, texting, Google, or whatever – will go about learning how to do it.
This happens to me whenever I’m doing something around the house or with the vehicles. If I need to change the headlight on our Highlander, I watch a Youtube video. 25 years ago, I’d have to consult my father and we’d figure it out (probably breaking a few headlights in the process). But the fact that the content is distributes so freely across so many platforms (I literally have my phones sitting on the Highlander’s battery playing the tutorial via my Youtube app as I change the headlight).
The benefits: I can learn so many things at a moment’s notice.
The negative: I don’t retain nearly as much. For example: I had to watch the same Youtube video for two years before it finally sank in on my when it came to changing the headlight. The same is true for when I want to tie a Trinity knot for school. Way back in 1996 when I had to tie my first tie, I practiced in front of the mirror for hours just to tie the rudimentary “four in a knot” style tie knot, following a long with a pamphlet I had been given at Nordstrom’s in Bemidji. Now, though, I can just prop my phone up on my wife’s dresser, Youtube the correct video, and tie my Trinity knot quickly. This has gone on for three years now, and I haven’t yet memorized the process.
This “Netflix generation” of students (and all future generations) has no basis for understanding information that isn’t readily and immediately available. These students have come to expect high-quality content—on demand, anytime, and anywhere.
This drastically changes how I have to present material to the 25 kids in front of me every day in every block.
How do you juggle “just in case” learning vs. “just in time” learning?
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