Week 3 Generational Differences - Further Discussion

Week 3 Generational Differences (Further Discussion)

Professor Thomas C. Reeves, paper, “Do generational differences matter in instructional design,” offered a lot of controversy of questions to be considered as an educator; while continuing to inform me of the controversy of just what is meant by generational differences and what are the distinct differences between them.   The Reeves paper was helpful because it allowed a bird’s eye view of what many researchers are saying about generational differences in the workforce, as they relate to new instructional design, and technologies to accommodate generational differences.   I did, however, find it limited because it was not representative of enough groups within the generational differences.  All the surveys appeared to be of the elite or middle or upper middle class samples.  This again, reminded me of the limitations of the Prenske readings.  There was a lot of good interesting information, but it left me with a lot of questions of validity, or how do I transfer this information to use in my situation as an educator.

 Early in last week’s reading I began to wonder about what characteristics would pop up for those who are born at the start of a generation, or at the end of a generation?  I wondered additionally about this because in this week’s readings the chart listing the generational labels and dates clearly showed the various researchers with various start and end dates; as well as, various labels.  My wonder was, do the generational traits for those entering the period at the very beginning or end of a generation just stop, or when do they start for the particular generation?    I was relieved to read that Lancaster and Stillman (2002) were able to recognize this distinction when they coined the label cuspers, to refer to those who entered a generation on the edges. 

The work of Howe and Strauss (2000) were able to identify three important categories to distinguish generations, as perceived membership, common beliefs and behaviors, and common location in history; rather than just on birth periods, and this makes more sense to me.  These ideas are also in line with J.M.Twenge (2009), in her work “Generational changes,” et al; that generational changes are rooted in shifts in culture and changes in society.  She further notes that all persons who are a part of a generation will not be representative of the trend.  What I enjoyed most about the Twenge read is that, while she talked about her investigations that were compiled from other researchers, using cross-temporal meta-analysis using questionnaires; she analyzed a wide range of participants that included elementary, middle, high school aged students, and college student, instead of mainly young elite workers.

  As Twenge discussed the different areas, she was able to offer me explanations as to why students of today might behave a certain way and how I might best support them.  Another point had to do with understanding how students of today may need more explanation of the meaning and purpose of activities they are about do.  One of the suggestions was instruction delivered in shorter segments, while incorporating more technology.  Further, Twenge reminded me of something very important, that many of us may have forgotten, and that is we remember the loud mouth outspoken young people of the 60s and 70s, and even early 80s. So, this idea of students being more (me) oriented, overconfident, feeling entitlement, leisure time, and more; is something they learned from their parents, which reflect  growing changes in contemporary culture and trends. The GenX’ students are simply reflecting changes in culture and trends mostly passed on from their parents.