The Postmodern Paradox
Teachers and Learners in Conflict
Steve Darn 2007
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The Global Context
• The replacement of the ‘prototypical student’
by the disengaged, entitled, consumer student
• The unwillingness to take on adult roles,
creating a ‘protracted adolescence’
• The importance of technology
• The pressures of internationalisation
• Public criticism leading to externally driven
reform
• No ‘jobs for life’
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Who are they?
• Born 1945-62 Baby Boomers
• Born 1963-78 Generation X – ‘anything is
possible, as long as you're willing to throw
money at it’ ‘disaffected and directionless’ ‘I
want my MTV’
• Born 1979-99 Generation Y
• Born 2000+ New Silent Generation ‘withdrawn, cautious, unimaginative,
indifferent, unadventurous and silent.’
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Generation Y have grown up
with
• The Internet and
the World Wide
Web for the
general user
• DVD
• Digital Audio - Mp3,
iPod
• TiVo DVR devices
• PCs requiring few
keyboard skills
• HDTV
• Sophisticated
computer graphics
• Broadband Internet
• Cellular phones
• Camera phones
• Digital Cameras
• Instant messaging
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Generation Y
• Respond to visual stimuli
• Have great hand-eye coordination
• Are able to multi-task
BUT
• Have a concentration span of ten
minutes or less
• Have a poor sense of real time
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Generation Y Learners
• Do not like school
• Expect entertainment and are easily bored
• Are not into books, reading or study
• Are not motivated to do "school work”
• Have a consumer mentality and want to
negotiate
• View education as a commodity to be
acquired through purchase
• See education as being passively acquired
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Generation Y Learners
• Have poorly developed developmental
goals
• Possess lower academic skills
• Function at lower cognitive levels
• Expect academic success with little effort
• Believe they are entitled to good grades
• Benefit from ‘grade inflation’
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What we provide
• loosely organised, unfocused curriculum
• undefined learning outcomes
• classes that emphasise passive listening
• lectures that transmit low-level
information
• assessments of learning that demand only
the recall of memorised material or lowlevel comprehension of concepts
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What we provide
• Instuctors who have not been taught
how to teach
• Teachers as ‘Experts’
• Teachers who are comfortable with
reflective learning. Students prefer active
learning.
• Baby Boom generation teachers.
• Traditional classes, academic processes
and products.
• Short term academic goals.
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Learner Outcomes
• Good reading comprehension
• Poor analysis or application skills
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Poor problem solving and reasoning skills
Poor appreciation of scientific methods
Poor memory and reasoning
Poor language skills
Focus on performance goals over learning goals
Surface learning over deep learning
A lack of general and global knowledge
Poorly developed higher level cognitive skills
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A Conclusion
In fact there is limited
evidence of a significant
difference between students
who take courses and
students who do not.
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A Paradigm Shift
‘The significant problems we
face cannot be solved at the
same level of thinking we
were at when we created
them’
(Albert Einstein)
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Defining Objectives
‘Any instructor who is not
familiar with Bloom's
taxonomy of educational
objectives should be
hornswoggled.’
(Dr. Mark Taylor)
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The Learning School
“an organisation that
facilitates the learning of
all its members and
continuously transforms
itself.”
(M. Pedlar)
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The Learning School
• creates substantive change in individual
learners.
• engages learners as full partners in the
learning process. Learners assume primary
responsibility for their own choices.
• creates and offers as many options for
learning as possible.
• assists learners to form and participate in
collaborative learning activities.
• defines the roles of teachers by the needs of
the learners.
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Technology
‘they have told me that they don't
want personal contact with their
instructors. They have stated that
they want to "be left alone" to
merely complete assignments and
get the work out of the way.’
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Technology
‘A sense of ownership of learning is
one of the traits of successful online
learners, and I feel concern that
students are signing up for online
classes out of convenience, without
any understanding of the trade-off
they are accepting for the benefit.’
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Fundamental Changes
• The student-teacher relationship
• Student and teacher
responsibilities
• The students
• The teacher’s role
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Overcoming Obstacles
• Change instructor beliefs and
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behaviour
Diversify instructor skills
Provide environment and technology
Train learners
Provide administrative support
Make changes in academic scheduling
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The Teacher’s Role in Change
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Identify external goals
Create student ownership of goals
Offer learning options
Provide a variety of learning methods
Act as a resource
Assess against external criteria
Concentrate on higher levels of learning
Increase activity in learning
Give meaningful assessments
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Acknowledgements
This presentation draws on the work of
• Mark L Taylor (Arkansas State University) Generation Next
• Terry O’Banion (LICC) - The Learning
College
• Lion F Gardiner (Rutgers University) Research into change in education
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Thank you for listening
www.stevedarn.com
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