Millennial students are students entering college after the year 2000. Neil Howe and William Strauss in their work, Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation (2000), describe millennial students using the following core personality traits:
- Special
- Sheltered
- Confident
- Team-Oriented
- Conventional
- Pressured
- Achieving
- Student-Faculty Contact: Millennials who have had sheltered lives and have
involved parents need to learn how to take responsibility for their own
learning, how to relate to authority figures and how to advocate for
themselves. Quality student-faculty contact can enhance students'
motivation and enthusiasm for their own educational experience.
- Reciprocity and Cooperation: Millennial students have grown up working in groups
and playing on teams. Since working with others can strengthen the
learning environment for all students, Millennials are more likely to
collaboratively work with their peers to enhance their own learning.
- Active Learning:
Active and engaged learning is another aspect of optimal student learning.
Using active learning strategies such as discussions, reflection
activities, group projects and cooperative problem-solving can deepen
students' understanding of course material and ability to apply new ideas.
Since Millennials have a team-orientation, they ought to greatly benefit
from active learning opportunities.
- Feedback:
Most research on improving student learning emphasizes the need for
prompt, frequent and constructive feedback from faculty to students. This
type of feedback can help Millennial students to more effectively understand
their strengths and weaknesses and lessen the pressure to achieve.
- Time on Task:
Students must devote adequate time and effort to their academic endeavors
in order to enhance the quality of their learning. Although Millennial
students are confident and achieving, they may underestimate the time that
is necessary for academic success. Faculty can help their Millennial
students to learn how to better manage their time and efforts in order for
them to achieve their academic goals.
- High Expectations:
When faculty set high expectations for their students' learning, students
will strive to meet these expectations that lead to enhanced
learning. Faculty can help Millennial students by teaching them to think
more critically and with more complexity, instead of just "teaching
for the test."
- Diverse Talents and Ways of Knowing: Students' learning styles differ, which requires
effective faculty to use a variety of teaching strategies. Millennials'
achievement orientation will be challenged by any type of failure. By
helping Millennial students to use different types of learning strategies
in different situations, faculty are helping these students to be critical
thinkers and adaptive learners.
It is critical to note that general group characteristics of Millennial students cannot accurately describe individual students. It is the broad understanding of the issues faced by Millennial students that can help faculty to create active, effective and engaging learning environments for his/her students.
Additional readings:
Carlson, S. (2005, October 7). The Net Generation Goes to College. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from
http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i07/07a03401.htm
Crone, I., & McKay, K. Motivating Today's College Students Peer Review 9 (1), 19-22.
Student Services California State University Long Beach. (2008). Meeting the Needs of Millennial Students. In Touch Newsletter 16, (1). Retrieved from
http://www.csulb.edu/divisions/students2/intouch/archives/2007-08/vol16_no1/01.htm
Stanford, D. (2009, February 2). Just Because They’re Young Doesn’t Mean They’re Tech Savvy. Message posted to
http://www.iddblog.org/
Wilson, M.E. (2004). "Teaching, Learning, and Millennial Students." In M.D. Coomes and R. DeBard (Eds.) Serving the Millennial Generation. New Directions for Student Services, no. 106. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
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