I agree with that but make sure you put a time limit on the research, otherwise they will put some projects on the back burner.
Guiding them in the right direction, but allowing them to do it themselves.
Dawn,
these are great ideas & I really like the idea of the min Q&A sessions. I think these are great ways to break up the lecture & engage them with the material.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
Project based education, give them the basics and a direction have them create, design and debug projects. Set a time limit and guidelines on all components and of course be available for mediation or consulting.
I tend to get them into a lot of discussions, open ended questions, critical thinking type questions,etc.
Gen Y (my students) really enjoy field trips. They like to see what is actually happening in a business (Principles of Mgmt class). We went to Appleebees and then to Red Robin. At both places the GM's spoke with the class. They had to compare and contrast the techniques of each manager and pick who they thought was the better GM based off the speeches. They liked that a lot.
A great activity for Gen Y learners is to use technology such as Youtube in the class to enhance lessons.
Using more technology in the class room
The best way to engage Gen Y learners is to try to be their friend, be honest about experiences and lack of skills, and get their assistance to learn new technology and methods.
Some of the strategies I place in class are with the group projects. I place different ages together. With this type of set up, all generations learn together. The older ones learn new technology and the younger seem to learn a little more about discipline and self-reliance. The projects also incorporate PowerPoints, excel sheets and so on. These are needed traits in all business now days.
We engage our GEN Y learners here by assigning them projects that make them post pictures, blogs and feedback on our school social media site on the web.
ROBERT,
this is a great strategy as many career areas are rooted in project teams & so the students must learn to work in this environment.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
I have found that by asking students to relate the topic to a personal experiance and discuss it in class has worked well, that way they can have a real tie to the topic discussed.
I would have to agree with this. Gen Y students really enjoy the freedom of guiding their own education. As instructors we lay the frame work but they thrive when given the space to figure it out themselves.
I have found that it is much more than just a presentation of information and requesting feedback. Gen Y really needs to be "HEARD". They need to feel like you ARE interested in their success, for them to be successful. This can be engaging them through their preferred method of communication (i.e. technology), or as simple as listening to their questions and giving meaningful answers while speaking face-to-face.
I have tried both and found success with each!
The best strategy for me when working with Gen Y learners has been to assign group projects, that require progress updates and a final presentation. Assigning everyone in the group a task or role gives individual responsibility, but promotes team work and collective achievement in the end.
I like to have my students present case studies on topics.
I sometimes have them create a senerio and solve it themselves as group projects. This helps involvement and critical thinking skills.
Amanda,
exactly. We are not proposing to dumb down the education or to give in to their every whim, but have we taken the time to actually listen to them & what they have to say.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
Credie,
and many of them will find themselves working in the group environment or team based environment in their career fields.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
