Share your experiences teaching Gen Z. What are their characteristics? What are some of the challenges? What strategies could be used to manage these challenges?
What types of technology do you use in your teaching practices to engage your students? Share any resources, links or strategies you have found to be effective.
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Education Perfect is a great resource to assign tasks to students for classroom activities or homework. It covers the curriculum from K to Year 12. Students can participate in competitive quizzes and are ranked against all children participating worldwide – great in my opinion, as they are given their rank, which can encourage them to complete more work to perform at a higher level. Students like learning using it, as the lessons and tasks are online, and cater to their need to use tech to learn rather than paper.
The opportunities presented by new and emerging technology provide us with so many options to engage learners with different needs. Often it is finding the right combination of more traditional and emerging stratgies that is the challenge to porvidng our leaners with the best possible experience.
I use TEAMS classroom with tools such as MENTI and Share Whiteboard, engaging online students is challenging, and actively engaging the students in class by using whiteboards and other tools has been beneficial in student engagement. Talking about the topic without some form of interaction loses the students within a relative short time and they do not retain the information.
I am currently teaching adults, I have not yet experienced teaching Gen Z. I am however, a parent of two young people born during this period.
The characteristics have been explained as – Tech Savvy, Prematurely Mature, Pampered, Empowered, Risk Averse and Protected. I agree with all of these characteristics to a degree. For me, the risk averse is an interesting space. My son is the one who is willing and curious. He feels the fear and does it anyway, when it comes to outdoor extreme sports. Then in other areas, he is, so, so scared to get it wrong. He does not want an audience if he doesn’t think he can do it, he often will not even give it a try.
This leads to the challenges, often not willing to give it a try.
The strategies I have and am continuing to trying to further develop include, reducing verbal dialogue about some of these important life lessons, according to me. I spam my children with messages via social media channels in the hope that some of the motivational and messaging I want to convey gets to them that way.
The technology I use in my teaching practices to engage students include Ms Teams, and Moodle. I am always trying to further develop these skills.
A very interesting read, especially because I’m teaching adults. Interesting what you are saying about empowerment and the expectations we have of children and the amount of choices and power we give them. And by this, I’m wondering how much they are learning about responsibilities and consequences. You also mentioned risk taking and over protection, and I wonder if this is mainly especially in a physical context? Maybe all the extreme sports being offered today is this a reaction towards all the overprotected play grounds?
I like using technology that can facilitate gamification in my classroom. Gen Z students like ICT-mediated games such as Kahoot, and Menti, to name a few.
But sometimes you need to be cautious about the fact that some students are not into a competitive setting. Or those slow learners and those without good digital literacy may not find interest in it. What’s worse, their confidence will be dented due to poor performance in the games.
Interesting and important point. I was just thinking of a private student I have, who is turning 14 now and will get her first mobile phone then, and have regulated time for internet use, because not all students are immersed in the latest technology.
I have also had the challenge of having older adults and GEN Z in one class and it can be tricky to stick a balance. Some older students struggle with technology which frustrates the younger students as I need to explain how to access different areas of technology multiple times
I used varied resources in my teaching, I teach adults and some youth. I find that Moodle is a brilliant tool which allows students to complete their assessments and interact with various videos, readings and quiz etc. I also find that MS Teams and Forms are interactive and helpful too. Covid has super fast forwarded the use of various technologies to enhance and engage students. That is good thing, but somewhat overwhelming at times.
I use similar technology, COVID made me learn a lot of new technology very fast. It was overwhelming at first and required many adjustments in our teaching styles
In my classes I can have a mix of mainly Gen Z Millennials and to lesser extent Gen X
The Z’s don’t respond well to listening “chalk and talk ” and respond well to electronic delivery in my case using MS Teams . They happily negotiate downloads ,uploads ,electronic quizzes but can fall short in reading and following instructions.
I try for a happy medium with changes between traditional methods and using technology ,though our delivery is becoming more and more technology based .
absolutely hearing you David! Agree, no likes chalk and talk any more!
The students that I have prefer paper based resources; however, we are gradually moving to using Google during the class, Kahoot to engage in quizzes and do some online interactive activities through PowerPoint
I think its important to provide a range of options for students – good on you Shaista for providing resources that are confortable and those that are fun and a litle more challenging!
The resources that I use in class as an addition to my teaching is “Moodle” which allows students to complete their assessments, resources and allows the teacher to track their progress.
I am too a Moodle fan Poppy, I am constantly learning myself, adding and shifting information. As I gain confidence, I am finding it better and better.
Moodle is great as a learning management system that can provide an instant respose to srduents – something that is valued by Gen Y and Z