An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education notes that students aren’t able to work independently as much these days, especially for significant and complex work such as research projects. Glad to see they got the memo.

 

The article’s initial approach is to frame this as a “problem” that needs to be “fixed,” which has me wondering: why are generational differences in learning proclivities problems? And why are they problems of learning (students can’t work in the same way) than of teaching (our current modes of teaching aren’t adequate to the needs of our learners)?

 

I grant that being able to navigate a complex issue independently is an important life skill to develop, and I agree that students would benefit from having more of this life skill than they currently do. In fact, I think that teaching them to become independent learners is one of the most important skills that college can give to students. I understand that their disengagement is informed by a host of very real deficiencies and challenges that repress their academic and personal flourishing: stress, insufficient academic preparation, increased life demands, jobs, servile approaches to learning. The list goes on.

 

And.

 

I also suspect that there are affordances here that we are missing. Our students are motivated by different priorities than they once were. They care about the world differently today. They want the tools to become change-makers and drivers of positive solutions. They want to learn how to encourage flourishing for themselves and for others, to become people who nurture cultures of care. They want to “do” something with their learning. They want to be in the communities and industries that they will one day fully join as professionals and citizens.

 

Their disengagement from our classes is, in other words, a behavioral request: they are asking us to leverage these strengths in our classrooms. The “problem” is also an invitation.

 

As I approach my classes this semester, I’m wondering how my students and I can ground our thinking in application, collaboration, and mutual care. For me, this looks like offering assignments that build bridges into communities and professions, typically known as “authentic assessments.” It also includes offering group work that cultivates teambuilding as well as knowledge development. It means teaching study skills like annotating, notetaking, and even arranging their study environments with intention. It means following up with methods of accountability that sometimes revive old practices: in-person quizzes, exams, journals. I am transparent with students about the purpose for these exercises: I want to teach them how to learn independently.

 

By reframing “problem” as “invitation,” I have the opportunity to deepen both my pedagogy and my understanding of my own field, and even imagine my way forward in both.