Teaching the Millennials: One cynical GenXers view

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Teaching the MillennialsOne cynical Gen-Xers
view

• Stewart Brower, MLIS
• University at Buffalo
• Health Sciences Library

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What is a generation?

• A grouping of people, typically by birth years,
  that are defined by the historical and
  sociological experiences they have shared
• Howe Strauss, Millennials Rising

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Defining the Generations

• Four major generations are currently at play
  (war?) in the academic world
• Silent born 1925-1942
• Boomers born 1943-1960
• Gen-Xers born 1961-1980
• Millennials born post-1980

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Who are the Silent Generation?

• Introspective, intellectual, suffocated children
  of war and depression
• Famous Silents Colin Powell, Walter Mondale,
  Woody Allen, Martin Luther King, Jr., Sandra Day
  OConnor, Elvis Presley
• Stuck between the get-it-done G.I.s and the
  self-absorbed Boomers

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Who are Boomers?

• Defining events include the birth of television,
  the Civil Rights Movement, and fiscal prosperity
• Also deaths of President Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy,
  and Dr. Martin Luther King the Vietnam war and
  related protests and the Watergate scandal
• Boomers value health and wellness, personal
  growth, and involvement

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Who are Gen-Xers?

• Characterized by an economic and psychological
  "survivor" mentality
• Grew up very quickly amid rising divorce rates,
  latchkeys, violence and low expectations
• The Challenger explosion, AIDS, hostage crises,
  Desert Storm, Nike (Just Do It!)
• Independent, skeptical of authority, cautious in
  their commitments

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Who are Millennials?

• Result of a backlash against hands-off
  parenting a protected (coddled?) generation
• Columbine, Power Rangers, cell phones, DVDs, and
  9-11
• Theyre the most numerous, affluent, and
  ethnically diverse generation in American
  history. - Strauss
• Assumed technological savvy which may be true
  in many respects, but

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Millennials and Tech

• Grew up on videogames, PCs, cell phones
• Which means they never bothered reading the
  manuals
• Education takes the same path as Sonic the
  Hedgehog

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Tech Change Fragmentation

• Accustomed to rapid technological change in
  communications, and have come to expect this type
  of change in all aspects of their lives
• Postmodern conditions in which they have been
  raised, characterized by consumerism,
  superficiality, and knowledge fragmentation (no
  universal truth or single version of reality)

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What have Mils learned?

• Consumerism
• short-term convenience and expediency over
  long-term investment of time and effort (will
  compromise on quality to save time and effort)
• As a result, students will convince themselves
  that they are fulfilling all of their research
  needs by using the Web
• Superficiality
• Outward appearances emphasized over underlying
  mechanisms or meanings
• Will use a Web site without questioning
  authorship, depth of information, validity of
  content, etc.
• Computer literacy Information literacy

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• Knowledge Fragmentation
• Web is illustrative of this concept ubiquity of
  personal, or subjective, pages
• Students may consider the content of all Web
  pages on any topic to be equally valid
• Hyperlinks allow user to jump from page to page,
  further fragmenting knowledge acquisition
• (Millennials information adapted from Harley,
  Dreger, and Knobloch,
• The postmodern condition students, the Web,
  and academic library services. Reference
  Services Review, v. 29, no. 1 (2001)).

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Building a better BI

• Department and library faculty should design
  course assignments that better integrate critical
  thinking, and not simply library resources, into
  their assignments.
• Teach students evaluative skills for appraising
  all information resources (Internet sites,
  journal articles, etc).
• Mils despise busy work BI assignments and
  assessments must have purpose!
• Were not going to impress them with Boolean, so
  maybe we should stop trying

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Millennials Like

• Nintendo learning
• Group activities
• Puzzles and games
• INTERACTIVITY!!!
• Sit and listen is deadly
• Let them take the wheel!
• Small group and large group activities

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Things I typically stress

• Subject-centered learning
• There is no one right way to run a search
• Saving time by doing it right the first time
• The deep Web over the general Internet
• And especially You can always find me!!!

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One other thing about these kids
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They will tend to take more of the long view,
which reflects their optimism. They are prepared
to lay the foundation for something that comes
later.
They will listen when faculties tell them there
is a base of knowledge that they should have
QAs from Neil Howe and William Strauss, authors
of Millennials Rising http//www.millennialsrisin
g.com/qa.shtml
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Thanks for Listening!