Professor uses Twitter, Slack, and Zoom to reach Generation Z students

Generation
Z is rewriting the playbook for higher
education.
Santiago
Bluguermann/Getty

• The oldest members of Generation
  Z, born in the late 1990s, are changing the way colleges
  teach their students.
• An Ohio State professor quoted in The New York Times
  uses Twitter, Slack, and Zoom for tasks like taking attendance
  and holding office hours.
• The changes reflect Generation Z’s digital
  upbringing.

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Generation
Z is the most tech-savvy cohort in history.

Defined as those
born after 1997, Generation Z is growing up in a world where
smartphones, social media, and content-streaming are ubiquitous.

And now that the oldest Gen Zers are attending college, they’re
rewriting the playbook for higher education.

One professor revealed to The
New York Times the extent she incorporates technology into
her class. Nicole Kraft, a journalism professor at Ohio State
University, told reporter Laura Pappano that she takes attendance
for her class via Twitter, posts coursework on the
instant-messaging app Slack, and holds office hours on the
video-conferencing app Zoom at 10 p.m., “because that is when
they have questions.”

Kraft told the Times she doesn’t even use email in her class,
except to teach her students how to write a “proper” one, because
“that is a skill they need to have.”

Kraft’s methods aren’t the only changes at Ohio State. According
to The Times, Ohio State issued 11,000 iPads to incoming students
this year and designated 42 courses as “iPad required.” And the
school is designing an app that students will use to plan and
schedule their courses, check their grades, and even campus maps
and bus routes all in one.

The changes reflect how Generation Z is
diverging from the millennial generation. A full 95% of
American teenagers today have access to a smartphone, and 45% of
teens said they’re online “almost constantly,” according to a Pew
Research Center
survey. Teenagers today spend an average of
two and a half hours a day on their phones, according to
psychologist Jean Twenge.

As Generation Z continues to come of age, it seems clear that
colleges are going to have to adapt to their students’ changing
behaviors.

Read the full article at The New York Times »