There is no doubt that American society has changed drastically in the past 30 years or so, especially in the area of education. Technology has altered the way students are taught, as has the increasing cultural diversity and the rising stress on the importance of it. There is a fairly large generational gap between the current generation of students, labelled by the Beloit College Mindset List as the “Internet Class,” and the faculty born before 1980 who teach these students because of the increasing technology and cultural diversity. Faculty has had to adapt to these new conditions and students have had to adapt to the faculty’s differing methods of teaching. However, at the root of the relationship of older faculty and newer students lies a basic goal: educating students.
Perhaps the most prominent difference in the faculty born before 1980 and the current generation of students is the almost exponential rise in technology. Then, personal computers were a rarity. Today, students from elementary grades on may receive iPads to keep and learn with. Then, it was blackboards and chalk. Now, boards are smart and are connected to computers. The current generation of students has grown up with the technologies that faculty born before 1980 for the most part are still learning. This gap affects the way faculty teach in the classroom. They can accept and embrace the new technologies in the classroom, use them as new learning tools, or reject them and stick with their old ways of teaching. The students, therefore, have to adjust to the facultys' decisions. Technology has had a large effect on the way faculty born before 1980 and students today interact, teach, or learn.
Almost as prominent in the differences in perspective of faculty born before 1980 and students today is that culture and diversity have become more important. There is a wider diversity of cultures and races evident in the university, with more international students coming to the United States for college and more immigrants to the United States attending college. The stress on the importance of embracing diversity and other cultures is fairly recent. Many faculty born before 1980 grew up in an era of racism and where cultural diversity was almost unknown. Now, many of the papers students bring home have English on one side and Spanish on the other side. Also, in the classroom, faculty must be more careful with what they say in regards to other cultures. Books, even, have come to include more cultural diversity through the addition of more information on other cultures. It is a topic increasing in importance, especially with the election the first African-American president, and is incresingly affecting the way faculty born before 1980 relate to current students.
In spite of all of the differences between the faculty born before 1980 and current students, one main idea has stayed the same: the goal is to educate students and help them become successful. Although there is more of a distance between students and faculty, as with online learning and new technology, it is still the top priority of faculty to educate students. The methods are merely what vary between generations. Technology and cultural diversity aside, students still learn the elements on a periodic table or how to find the derivative of a certain equation. Students still have to read books, even if they are on an eReader. What lies in the center of the relationship between faculty, born before 1980 or whenever, and students is simply educating students.
As society continues to change, so will the relationship between faculty and students. Today, there are differences between students now and faculty born before 1980 in technology and cultural diversity that affect the way faculty teaches student. However, whatever means they use, faculty still have the main goal of educating students.
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