1. Teaching the 21st Century Learner
Darla Runyon
Northwest Missouri State University
Dave Starrett
Southeast Missouri State University
Roger Von Holzen

2. Goals
Define 21st century learners
Discuss how we address their needs

3. Pop Quiz #1 What does this mean? ROTFL
Pneumonic for remembering the 5 plant cell types
Reserve Officers Training Florida
Record of True Foreign Languages
Rolling On The Floor Laughing

4. Bonus 1 What do these chat acronyms stand for? B4 LOL POS GNSTDLTBBB
CUL8R
KSUSHYGEMA

5. Bonus 2 What do these emoticons mean? ;-) >:-( ^5 (((((name))))
>:-(  ^5
(((((name)))) 
(::()::)
@[_]~~ 

6. Us vs. Them http://www.sciencemag.org http://www.brainpop.com

7. Terminology Chat Blog, Blogging IM Online To Google Text Messaging
Multi-tasking
21st Century Learner

8. Children age 6 and under…
Spend 2:01 hours / day playing outside
Spend 1:58 hours using computers
Spend 40 minutes reading or being read to
48% of children have used a computer
27% 4-6 year olds use a computer daily
39% use a computer several times a week
30% have played video games
Kaiser Family Foundation, 2003

9. By age 21… The average person will have
played 10,000 hours video games
sent 200,000 s
watched 20,000 hours of TV
talked 10,000 hours on a cell phone
spent under 5,000 hours reading
Prensky, 2003

10. Games & Simulations
Marc Prensky – data on learning with games (

11. The Natural Selection Game
Start Game
The Embryo Shuffler Game
Start Game

12. Technology & the New Learner
Do video games pose a challenge to education?
The time and money that students spend on gaming indicates pervasive role of entertainment in our culture
Insight into engagement, not entertainment
Video games challenge K-12 and higher ed to foster engagement in learning

13. Dependence on Technology
Are students becoming too dependent on technology to do spelling and basic arithmetic?
Technology empowers today’s students
They can add, subtract, divide, and multiply faster and more accurately than past students

14. Dependence on Technology
If a device can do something better, more efficiently, more accurately, or quicker than we can manually, why not use it?
Isn’t that the true purpose of technology (cars and electricity)?
Our focus must shift from the tools themselves to the capabilities of these new tools to empower students to do new things

15. The 21st Century Learner…
Born in or after 1982
Gravitate toward group activity
8 out of 10 say “it’s cool to be smart”
Focused on grades and performance
Busy with extracurricular activities
Identify with parents’ values; feel close to parents
Respectful of social conventions and institutions
Fascination for new technologies
Racially and ethnically diverse
Howe & Strauss, 2003

16. Today’s Learners… Digitally literate Mobile Always on Experiential
Social
Oblinger, 2004

17. Hypertext minds: Qualities
Crave interactivity
Read visual images
Weak reading skills
Visual-spatial skills
Parallel processing
Inductive discovery
Fast response time
Short attention span
Prensky, 2001

18. Learning Preferences Teams, peer-to-peer Structure with flexibility
Engagement & experience
Visual & kinesthetic
Things that matter
Oblinger, 2004

19. Learning Preferences Students want to learn through exploration
Looking for practical applications, real-world context
Focus more on applying classroom lessons to real-life problems, institutions, or organizations
Students want to be challenged to reach their own conclusions, find their own results

20. Learning Preferences
The new technologies can help create a learning culture in which the learner enjoys enhanced interactivity and connections with others
Central issue: How can technology be organized around student learning?
Use tools to help students think and communicate effectively

21. Students:
Multitasking
Pictures, sound, video
Random access
Interactive and networked
Faculty:
Single or limited tasks
Text
Linear, logical, sequential
Independent and individual

22. Teaching the New Learner
Multimedia format pervades nearly every part of life
Television
Audio
Animation
Text
Students live in a world of digital, audio, and text
They expect a similar approach in classroom
Faculty must abandon notion that a lecture and reading assignment are enough to teach a lesson

23. Teaching the New Learner
Teacher’s Role:
No longer the professor dispensing facts and theories
A participant in the learning process
Faculty role will be unbundled--teacher to mentor
Facilitate peer-to-peer learning

24. Teaching the New Learner
Must learn to communicate in the language and style of the students
going faster
less step-by-step, more in parallel
more random access

25. Teaching the New Learner
Instructional implications
Movement toward blended courses
More collaborative learning approaches
Continuous and formative assessment
Greater customization of course content to meet learner needs
Greater flexibility, user customizable materials

26. Teaching the New Learner
Interactive course site features
Online quizzes
Forms for providing feedback or asking questions
Online voting
Games
Features for sharing pictures or stories
Message boards
Forums for offering and receiving information
Features for creating/adding content

27. Teaching the New Learner
Diversity in structure, content:
singular unit should be kept short and alternating
Course redesigns must be systematic
Avoid incremental add-ons
Simply adding a few computer experiences costs more, is more work for the faculty, and adds to the students' burden
True innovations change rather than modify systems
Jack M. Wilson—Ten IT Commandments

28. Teaching the New Learner
Requires:
much less emphasis on the amount of material memorized
much more emphasis on making connections, thinking through issues, solving problems
Discard notion that schools can teach everything every student will need to know
Old model: primary challenge of learning is to absorb specific information

29. Technology & the New Learner
The amount of information grows almost as quickly as the new technologies
We process more information in 24-hours than the average person 500 years ago would in a lifetime
Oldest universities established by AD 1500

30. Technology & the New Learner
By the time today’s kindergarteners graduate from grade 12
information will have doubled at least seven times
technological power will have doubled itself nearly nine times

31. Teaching the New Learner
Learning now a life-long process of coping with change
The content of a particular lesson less important than learning how to learn

32. Faculty Training We need to have a new set of expectations of faculty
Foster a technology culture
Need for continuous faculty training
Reward innovation in technology-rich learning environments

33. What’s Next? More conversation Faculty development and support
A culture change!
Darla Runyon:
Dave Starrett:
Roger Von Holzen: