The implications for instructional methods and strategies used in higher education start with digital natives having a vast amount of information at their fingertips and exposure to many different teaching methods. Fact checking is faster mostly more accurate and certainly faster than going to a library and having to look up information “the old way.” Some students are extremely visual and learn better through video, others are auditory and can now “read” a book with Audible and other book reading applications. According to Christensen and Eyring (2011) “[t]he changes are rapid and offer more to our students than was previously available to older generations” (p. 326). Further, technological and social change threatens to destabilize the old-style university’s dominance.
Students will be enticed away from traditional pedagogical learning with the advent of technology and will have additional options and paths that were never offered before. For example, every semester a student can choose to study at home or at a campus, they can take a semester off to explore internships. Additionally, they can customize their courses to fit their preferred learning style, they can choose fully face-to-face, fully online, or a mix of the two.
There is a collaborative side for faculty that allows them to reach across borders and engage with other faculty at any university in the world to gain new perspectives and enhance their teaching. Bowen (2013) poised the thought that with the age of technology a university faculty could devote more time to promoting “active learning,” more timely feedback, less time grading and giving the same lecture countless times. Additionally, diversity is increased with easier access from more students around the globe and finally slower tuition rate hikes as costs are stabilized (Bowen, 2013, p. 44). Instructional methods are evolving and for the better.
Bowen (2013) stated that “we found no statistically significant differences in standard measures of learning outcomes (pass or completion rates, scores on common final exam questions, and results of a national test of statistical literacy) between students in the traditional classes and students in the hybrid-online format classes” (p. 48). Further, student diversity blew the idea that only exceptionally well-prepared, high-achieving students can succeed in online classes. Most students in the study he referenced came from families with less than $50,000 family incomes, half were first-generation college students and fewer than half were white (Bowen, 2013, p. 49). This information suggests that the changes that need to be made in our instructional practice can and will increase effectiveness.
Prensky (2012) stated digital technology can be used to make us smarter and wiser. Further, he stated “[d]igital wisdom is a two-fold concept, referring both to wisdom arising from the use of digital technology to access cognitive power beyond our usual capacity and to wisdom in the use of technology to enhance our innate capabilities” (p. 202). The amount of available information to enhance our instructional practice is never-ending and is being added to on a daily, even an hourly basis. The changes that can be made are simple, integrate the old with the new, enhance our understanding of how digital natives brains are being trained and taught differently so we can meet them on their level and enhance learning for all.
References
References
Bowen, W. G. (2013). Higher education in the digital age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Christensen, C. M., & Eyring, H. J. (2011). The innovative university: Changing the DNA of higher education from the inside out. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Prensky, M. (2012). From digital natives to digital wisdom: Hopeful Essays for 21st-century learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
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