The students have spoken

Posted on by

Learning

“A new study of U.S. college students asked them what they think education will look like in the years to come. What they had to say could affect your association’s meetings and education strategy when it comes to attracting these next-generation attendees.”

The Associates Now article by Sam Whitehorne is a good insight into what Generation Y / Millennial students, not educators, think the future of education should be. Based on research from Millennial Branding called The Future of Education the study shows how students who have grown up with the Internet and online ‘personas’ perceive education now and in the future.

Highlights of the report include:

  • A quarter of students feel unprepared for the working world and almost two thirds of students believe that it’s both their college’s and their own responsibility to be prepared for the working world. 
  • Three quarters of students want to study by themselves, whilst only a fifth want to study with friends and classmates in person.
  • Four fifths said they are interested in advanced or postgraduate degrees. When asked why, over half said it would make them more employable and a third said they would gain professional connections from the qualification.
  • Half of the students surveyed said they don’t need a traditional classroom to learn, but over three quarters said that they found it easier to learn in a traditional classroom environment than purely online.
  • Just under half those questioned thought that online learning would provide them with courses of the same or higher quality than a traditional face-to-face course.

Dan Schawbel, founder of Millennial Branding, says of the report:

“Millennials understand that the future of education is online, and since they were brought up with the Internet, they are prepared for that change. Education should not be a one size fits all model because everyone learns differently, regardless of age, occupation, and location. More online courses should be offered to cater to those who learn better in a virtual classroom.”

So, are you engaging the students in the course design process or are you designing what you think will work? If you are or have engaged the students in the design stages of a new or reworked course, how did you do it? Were there problems or did it run smoothly?

Image source: Just one minute by pennstatenews (CC BY-NC 2.0)