Week 6: Oct. 1st: Neo Millennial and Web2.0 Learners-CITI Score Debate Panel

This week, we need to recommend one person to represent our group to debate on the CITI Panel. We need to discuss the most Controversial points, the most Interesting points, the Technology fact points, and the most Important points. After discussion and idea exchange through email, our group proudly recommends Sharon to be our debater for the “Planning for neomillennial styles” article. Actually, everyone did a great job.

This panel consisted of different perspectives on Neo Millennial and Web2.0. This include employers’ perspective on basic knowledge and applicable skills for new entrants to the 21st century U.S. workforce, simulations of implications for investments in technology and faculty, opinions from K-12 educators, and a general perspective of literacy in the 21st century. Each aspect has a focus and way of thinking.

One of these aspects was mentioned from Chris Dede. He has a website that includes video clips of his MUVE, River City. The URL for the site is as following:
http://muve.gse.harvard.edu/rivercityproject/view/rc_videos.html.
The Introduction and Tour of River City clips describe River City and what students are expected to do in the simulation world.

I collected some controversial points and listed them below (words in italic type are my thoughts):
• Neomillennial learning styles – Are they really learning styles or are they merely “different strengths for learning”?
• On page 10 of my printout, Dede indicates that some of the shifts (technological and personal/professional development) are “controversial for many faculty because they involve ‘unlearning’ almost unconscious beliefs, assumptions, and values about the nature of teaching, learning, and the academy.”
• Dede states that situated learning is a “powerful pedagogy” that enables students to transfer their knowledge about one situation to another. In today’s No Child Left Behind system, though, is it possible for teachers to incorporate situated learning activities into the curriculum?
• Dede states that situated learning is used much less for instruction than behavioral or cognitive approaches that is because creating tacit, relatively unstructured learning in complex real-world settings is difficult. Though it seems that situated learning can contribute to more “transfer” than conventional instruction, situated learning is still a simulation ultimately, and it is not the real world. So could we successfully replicate contexts in the real world of behaviors in simulated environment? How could we compare these two things?

Important Points

• In immersive environments, students feel invested in the situation and motivated to solve the problem.
• Dede argues that “students were most effective in learning and problem-solving when they collectively sought, sieved, and synthesized experiences rather than individually locating and absorbing information from some single best source” (p. 6).
• Table 1 on page 8 outlines the benefits of learning styles enhanced by mediated immersion in distributed learning communities. Examples include fluency in multimedia and active learning, just to name a few.
• Faculty will increasingly need capabilities in: co-design, co-instruction, guide social constructivist and situated learning pedagogies, and assessment beyond tests and papers.
• On page 3, Dede states that situated learning is important in part because of the crucial issue of “transfer”. Learning in well-designed digital contexts can lead to the real world replication of behaviors successful in simulated environments.

By reviewing the questions raised in class, such as “Is this generation ready to work?”, “What do educators can do?”, and “The most important and controversial points are?”, I could conclude that teachers should provide enough commission to help students learn how to adapt in the real world. Besides, encouraging students to work with others and talk about things on their own is also important. It is worth to provide social tools and educational games, and design situated learning for students, though it is time consuming and may cost a lot. No child left behind is still the backbone of the age of Neo Millennial and Web2.0, so all of us as educators should try hard to incorporate technology in our classrooms because today’s children are accustomed to a high-tech world (i.e. Ipods and playstation). Last, Dr. Bonk’s lectures on next Generation, Millennial, and New Millennial students, learning style-R2D2 (Read, Reflect, Display and Do), etc. help us quickly review these issues. Among these issues, I particularly agree with the finding of next generation has characteristics that own rapid-fire information consumption capability, can’t concentrate on things, and that view their job environment as a place to grow. Interesting, I also found these characteristics on me.