About Me

Education, the knowledge society, the global market all connected through technology and cross-cultural communication skills are I am all about. I hope through this blog to both guide others and travel myself across disciplines, borders, theories, languages, and cultures in order to create connections to knowledge around the world. I teach at the University level in the areas of Business, Language, Communication, and Technology.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

A Generation of Teachers

I realized yesterday as my son was teaching me how to text (yes, I couldn't figure out how to text on my phone!) that not only is this a generation of learners, but also a generation of teachers. I see this all the time in my class (online and face to face) and with my children and their friends.

So how are they different from my generation? My generation looked to the teacher for answers. Ultimately, the teacher was the expert who would "teach" us how to do things. If we don't know how to do something, we go to an "expert" who will know how to "teach" us how to do something.

What I noticed about my children's generation is that they take direction from the person who wants to know how to do something, asking a lot of information. I was impressed with the fact that my son asked me if I knew how to do "X", then showed me how to do it, then had me do it. He didn't always have the patience to let me make mistakes and have me try it again. Rather, being a typical teen, he looked at me in disgust and showed me again how to do "X". I find this is the same process my students use (with out the disgust) when showing something to their classmates.

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