Abstract:

Many faculty groups talk about the difference in today’s students. To them it seems like a problem as they lament the old days. Maybe it is all a great opportunity. In a simplistic way this is all about four major factors that lead to a new and exciting future for education.

- Digital natives are in full bloom all over the world. When your students cried, they were, fed, changed, and handed a phone or a tablet with dancing characters on it.
- Universities will continue to receive Covid-19 children for a decade. The lost time in school continues to impact them and shape them into the future.
- Uncertain futures have always existed. However, the speed of change and the communication or problems everywhere rapidly makes uncertain futures more real to each young person in your class.
- Inclusion is important but are you talking only about multi-ethnic heritage, or do you mean inclusion of all economic ranges, of learning styles? What do you offer to those who are not word people, but picture people, oral learners, kinesthetic learners, or makers/builders? To the anxious, and shy? How does you class work for those of limited abilities?

Students seem to be seeking meaning and direction in their lives. Perhaps co-creating classes with your students is effective way to have the class more meaningful. You have to prepared to move at the pace that they are used to and to keep it lively and fun. Fun is the operative word here – they are used to snippets of movies, ideas etc. How do you make it fun for the digital natives? If you don’t, they will log on to something that is fun for them.
The covid children were socialized very differently than most of their professors were. The lost two or three important years in social development while they stayed at home to do schoolwork, play video games, watch t.v. etc. They seem to be hungry for contact for positive social interaction. How do you offer that in different forms.

What is the impact of the uncertainty of the world that they live in on the future of your students? Do they feel that they can do anything? Is what you are offering relevant to them? Do they see meaning in what you are sharing? Do they perceive how this can help them into the future with a job, with life, with dealing with the uncertainties that are sure to come.

It is time to move from what we know to what do they need to know? We often sit with a textbook and adjust old lectures to fit. Suppose you think of your job as a coach training them for life out in the world. What do they need to know about your subject at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century. You may want to argue that in the case of your subject only facts matter – however facts we get right off the phone in our pockets. Why does a young person need to know whatever is in your lecture? In 2023 is it our job to prepare them for life or for starting out in life beyond the university?

This paper explores a positive and optimistic image of the students of today. It looks at how you can help them to be more engaged in a meaningful class. It talks about the use of technology, play, and co creation with your students in the classroom.

Keywords:

Co-creation, Digital Natives, Covid-19 children, Uncertainty, Inclusion.