Presented at the 2013 AAUP Annual Conference on the State of Higher Education.

1. 2013 ANNUAL
CONFERENCE ON THE
STATE OF HIGHER
EDUCATION
Gina Luttrell, PhD rluttrel@emich.edu
@ginaluttrell
Cracking the Neomillennial Learning
Code: Teaching in the Twenty-first
Century
June 14, 2013

2. Agenda
 Introduction
 Session Overview
 An Introduction to YOUR students
 Myths about Neomillennials
 What’s the Truth?
 Education at a Crossroads
 Pedagogical Shifts
 Intersection of Learning Theories
 LIGO Method
 Drawbacks & Criticisms
 A Peek inside my Classroom
 Final Thought
 Thank You & Questions!

3. Who is Gina?
 Gina Luttrell, Ph.D., rluttrel@emich.edu, @ginaluttrell
 Professor of Public Relations and Social Media at
Eastern Michigan University
 15 years as a PR practitioner
 Began teaching in 2007
 Research, publish and present in the areas of:
 Public Relations
 Social Media and
 Neomillennial/Millennial learning habits
 Forthcoming text book on Social Media (2014)

4. Session Overview
 Students are different.
 Our teaching needs to reflect newer learning styles.
 Neomillennial students (born 1981+) require a
transformative learning approach that goes beyond
content knowledge acquisition. This presentation
explores what can be done in collegiate settings to
better assess and educate the neomillennial students by
examining pedagogical shifts in higher education.

5. Let me introduce to you to your
students:
 Maddie Robinson, Entrepreneur
 High-school student today
 Inventor at age 8 by the age of 15 she was
a Business owner & millionaire.
 Jack Andraka, Scientist, Mathematician
 16 years old, Faculty at Singularity University, '12 Intel ISEF
winner, TED 2013 speaker
 Intel International Science & Engineering Fair for developing a
nearly 100 percent accurate paper sensor that detects pancreatic
cancer better than anything else out there--it’s over 400 times more
sensitive, 168 times faster, and 26,000 times less expensive than
today’s methods.
 Leading a team of 3 “kids” to develop the first handheld mobile
platform that can diagnose 15 diseases across 30 patients.
http://bit.ly/163KHZB

6. Let me introduce to you to your
students:
 Nick D’Aloisio, App Developer
 17 years old
 He was 12 years old when he
began developing apps
 Developed “Summly”
 Mobile news app powered by a text-summarizing algorithm
 Sold an App to Yahoo for $30 Million
 Emma, One Smart Cookie
 3rd Grader
 “Bring Back the Garden”

7. What are you going to do with
these students?
Millennials, Neomillennials

8. Myths about Neomillennials
 Lazy, selfish
 Unmotivated
 Disrespectful
 No work ethic, want to change everything
 Over-inflated sense of their abilities
 Lack emotional intelligence
 Don’t take criticism well
 Research on Neomillennials:
 http://pwc.to/13tvZbL dispels rumors
 http://bit.ly/11qPlvu interactive graphic sociology

9. What’s the Truth?
 There is evidence that Neomillennials are the
smartest generation ever. (Howe & Strauss, 2000; Tapscott, 2009)
 Between 1997 and 2005 the number of students
taking AP exams more than doubled and raw IQ
scores climbed by three points since World War II
(Tapscott, 2009).
 Neomillennial learners believe:
 being smart is a good trait to possess, and
 these learners see themselves as part of the success
of the future (Tapscott, 1999, 2009).

10. Education at a Crossroad
 Existing educational theories emphasize that
learning & development occur through specific
activities.
 Learning is:
 an individual process
 which occurs alone,
 With a definitive beginning and end;
 learning is best separated from other activities,
and
 that learning is the product of education.Wenger, E. (1998), Communities of practice: Learning. meaning, and identity,
New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

11. Education at a Crossroad
 Teachers are the link between pedagogical
procedures and the students’ learning.
 In this new learning environment students are
encouraged to be creative & critical thinkers (Shulman,
2004; Mezirow, 1997).
 Learning methodologies utilized by
Neomillennials points to a more self-directed
learning style, whereby the teacher encourages
and nurtures independent learning (Baird & Fischer, 2005).

12. Pedagogical Shifts
 Instruction is most efficient when students engage in activities
within an environment and when they receive appropriate
guidance (Baird & Fischer, 2005; Dede, 2005; Weisgerber &
Butler, 2005; Vygotsky, 1978).
 Four pedagogical shifts that educators should implement and
learn when attempting to effectively teach neomillennial
learners:
1. Co-Design: Developing learning experiences students can personalize
2. Co-Instruction: Utilizing knowledge sharing among students as a major
source of content and pedagogy
3. Guided Social Constructivist and Situated Learning Pedagogies: Infusing
case-based participatory simulations into presentational/assimilative
instruction
4. Assessment Beyond Tests and Papers: Evaluating collaborative, non-
linear, associational webs of representations; utilizing peer-developed
and peer-rated forms of assessment; student assessments provide
formative feedback on faculty effectiveness. (Dede, 2005) [italics in
original]

13. Intersection of Learning
Theories
 With numerous theories on learning (Asch 1968; Brown, Collins, &
Duguid, 1989; Dewey, 1916, Gagne, 1985; Mezirow, 1997; Piaget,
1977), none of which are used exclusively, educators can use a
combination of theories.
 Constructivist, behaviorist, and cognitive learning theories build
upon the next and intersect, continually keeping the learner at the
center. In online learning, knowledge is acquired through various
approaches including peer assessment, group projects, social
interaction, mentor/mentee support, email correspondence, online
forums and discussion, self-assessment activities, and detailed
directions of learning materials. Constructivis
t
BehavioristCognitive
Learner

14. Intersection of Learning
Theories
 Instruction is most efficient when students can
engage in activities within a supportive
learning environment and when students
receive appropriate guidance that is
supplemented with the right course materials
(Anderson, 2004; Claxton & Murrell, 1987;
Torres, 1993).
 For example:
 synchronous or asynchronous chat
 discussion forums
 email, podcasting, blogging, and microblogging

15. LIGO Method
 Nicol, Minty & Sinclair developed the LIGO
method to assess how learners interact and
communicate with other learners
 LIGO: The Learning: The Individual, The Group &
the Organization
 The LIGO method was structured around five learning
milestones tasks that were related to the main content
areas:
 curriculum design,
 models of learning and of supporting learning,
 student assessment,
 the learning organization,
 evaluation.
Nicol, D. J., Minty, I., & Sinclair, C. (2003). The social dimensions of online
learning. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 40(3), pp. 270–
280.

16. LIGO Method
 The LIGO method assumes that learners
construct knowledge through active
engagement with course materials, including
the text, and through interaction and dialogue
with others, supported by the aforementioned
learning theories.
 Behaviorist, cognitive, and constructivism
theories combined with the LIGO method
could assess the methods of learning via
online tools.

17. Drawbacks & Criticisms
 Too much multi-tasking, diverts attention & retention of
course material
 Assumption that students know how to use newer
technologies – social media
 The shift from traditional education principles is
causing controversy for many faculty members at
colleges and universities across the globe
 Some argue that a degree of unlearning needs to occur
regarding unconscious beliefs, assumptions, and values
about the nature of teaching and learning (Dede, 2005).
 Faculty & administrators will likely dismiss and resist
implementing technologies which incorporate synchronous
or asynchronous chat, discussion forums, email,
podcasting, blogging, and microblogging (Dede, 2005; Smith, 2010).

18. A Peek Inside my Classroom
 I flip my classroom as much as I can.
 At any given moment my students are:
 Texting
 On Twitter
 Using FB
 Shooting video,
recording podcasts, taking photos
 Blogging
 Developing websites & Prezi presentations
 Skype

19. Final Thought
 Neomillennial students have been raised in a
techno-driven, continuously connected
environment of interactive media, the Internet,
and innumerable digital technologies.
 To believe that today’s students has different
expectations and learning styles is not
unrealistic
(Baird & Fischer, 2005; Dahlstrom et al., 2011; de Corte, 1996; Dede, 2004; Dede, 2005; Dieterle et al., 2007; Smith, 2010).
 Will you rise to the challenge?

20. Questions?
Gina Luttrell, Ph.D.
rluttrel@emich.edu
@ginaluttrell
Thank You!!!