Digital Natives and the Education System

To further support my thesis, the learning styles and "language" of digital natives is making traditional classroom lectures ineffective, I’ve added two additional resources to my readings. The Net Generation goes to University? by David Cameron of Charles Sturt University, and The ‘Digital Natives’ debate: A critical review of the evidence by Sue Bennett, Karl Maton and Lisa Kervin.

The Net Generation highlights the digital natives beginning to enter college and the challenge educators face trying to teach them. The Net Generation poses a unique challenge, because they are fascinated with technology, like to multitask and expect fast interaction. The article highlights the differences between the learning preferences of digital natives versus the teaching style of traditional educators, also known as digital immigrants. One of the main differences in the natives learning preferences versus the teachers’ training methods is the natives’ preference for random access to information rather than step-by-step learning. These emerging differences have made educating digital natives a hot topic in the education community.

The ‘Digital Natives’ Debate highlights the opposing views of the existence of true digital natives. They classify the new generation of learners as students that have grown up with information and communication technology (ICT). Some educators argue that the classification of digital natives is too hasty although they acknowledge there are significant differences in today’s students learning styles and traditional educators’ knowledge of technology. The authors claim that the debate of digital natives is based on two main components: 1) A distinct generation of digital natives does truly exist and 2) The education system must change in order to remain effective in educating upcoming students.

Several key points in both articles exist. First, in The Net Generation, the author explains that digital natives prefer “twitch speed” which is a hectic approach to gathering information, as well as random access to information. Some theorists, including Marc Prensky the leading advocate, argue that these preferences will require educators to use gaming formats as instructional resources in the future in order to get through to digital natives. This claim is supported by research that shows the digital natives learn differently and their brains develop different from their predecessors.

Secondly, in The ‘Digital Natives” Debate, the authors highlight the fact that the educational system is in a panic to restructure education, but the panic attack may be unwarranted. They suggest that although the learning styles of upcoming students is changing, more emphasis should be put on teaching students how to conduct thorough effective research using technology. They stress that the natives’ tendency to want immediate answers has weakened their ability to conduct meaningful research and sort through inadequate or irrelevant research and that their critical thinking skills has been weakened as a result.

Finally, the last key point of the readings is crucial – there is limited empirical evidence to support the anecdotes of some educators and that more thorough research needs to be conducted before radical changes in curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and professional development take place.

These findings and others will directly support or disprove my thesis that the learning styles and ‘language’ of digital natives is rendering traditional education ineffective.

This week’s readings have left me with a couple of questions:
- Is exhaustive research necessary to prove that the learning styles of the Net Generation are significantly different and provoking change in teaching methods?
- Are some theorists correct in assuming that upcoming teaching methods must incorporate gaming methods to be effective?