Generation next

Photo from LSE Library on Flickr

Most of the students starting university at the end of summer 2017 were born around the turn of the century. They will have no memories of the 20th century, which just happens to be the same century their lecturers were born and educated within. It's a sobering thought.

The class of 2020 may have expectations about learning which run counter to the ethos of the traditional university. These young people - sometimes referred to as Generation Z, or Centennials - will redefine our understanding of learning, and will challenge the way university education is conducted.

It's safe to claim that much of higher education is firmly rooted in the past, reflecting colonial history, traditional values and 20th (or even 19th) Century pedagogies. The latter is perpetuated consistently and guarded jealously. Lecturers tend to teach in the same way they themselves were taught. This might be seen as a generalisation, because there are some pockets of innovative pedagogy to be found in every large education institution. Yet innovative pedagogy in higher education is not prevalent, and academics are generally reluctant to change their methods.  This is due to a number of factors, some of which are discussed in this Time Higher Education article. The lecture in a tiered amphitheatre to large groups of students remains the norm, and undergraduates are expected to learn mainly by listening and reading, before sitting examinations or writing lengthy essays to test their knowledge. The guardians of this knowledge are the academics. Students are often dissuaded from using technology unless they are in a designated area such as an ICT suite. It's a cycle that is repeated across three or more years of undergraduate study, and at the end the student hopefully emerges with a degree in their chosen subject.

Nearly two decades into the third millennium, we need to question the effectiveness of this process, and ask whether a degree from a university still equips people for higher level work. What will this new generation of learners think about their university experience? What will they need in a world of work that is increasingly dependent on digital technologies?

In my 20 years working as a lecturer in higher education, I have heard many times that it's not so much the subject studied, but the key graduate skills acquired, that makes a degree so important. Whether it's science, the arts, technology, law, medicine or engineering, graduates should all leave university with a standard set of skills that enable them to practice safely and professionally. The skills include the ability to apply their knowledge reflectively, think critically and analytically, communicate effectively (written and verbal), solve problems creatively, adapt to change, manage and organise time, work independently and collaboratively, and be enterprising. It's sometimes hard to see how listening in lectures, attending seminars, and sitting exams promotes these skills. I am left with the impression that in many cases, graduates adopt these skills almost in spite of the didactic, hierarchical and rule bound regime of university.

Ultimately, how many graduates actually secure employment in their chosen sphere of interest is the measure of success. Some professions have a better track record than others. The future of work will heavily feature knowledge working, where people will be working on the move, using technology to connect, communicate and create. Work will polarise between high and low skills level employment. As global management consultants McKinsey and Company rightly identify, jobs in the near future will increasingly come under threat from artificial intelligence and robotics. Those who thrive in the new, emerging economies of this century will be those who can use their minds and their knowledge to create new ideas, to solve problems, to open up new markets. They will be the workers whose skills and knowledge cannot be replicated easily by technology. The next generation, those currently embarking on their university careers, must be able to confront these challenges, and turn the threats into opportunities.

Generation Z are the first generation who have had been exposed to networked technology from birth. They carry their personal technology around with them and know how to use it to connect and to communicate. They are self-aware and conscious of their image, due to a lifetime of public exposure on social media. They are acutely aware of the social context of their lives, and prefer to learn together with their friends. They are the nodes of their own production and they value peer feedback. Whether or not they have a shorter attention span is open for discussion (I think it is dubious), but lecturers still need to engage these students, and maintain their interest. It makes sense to help students to engage more deeply in their university studies using the technology with which they are familiar. Lecturers who ignore the potential of personal technology and rely solely on traditional methods will miss an important lever for engagement. The future of university education in the UK does not look particularly bright right now. Official figures show a 4 per cent decrease in applications for the 2017 student intake.


Generation next by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.