Understanding Education Differences Through Generations From Traditionalists To Millennials-Generation Analysis

Knowing the learning styles and common characteristics of each generation will help create understanding and show the differences that each generation share in not only learning style but in life itself. The reason that this is important is because learning style changes from generation to generation. Understanding the differences can help educators to better teach the generations according to their needs. The issue is that educators are teaching the current and future generations, in a way that suited the needs of older generations such as the Baby Boomers and the Traditionalists, when the style of teaching should suit the needs of current generations. Information was collected from databases, journals, and studies. In the article “Understanding
Understanding the common characteristics, learning styles and traits, and impact of technology on education is essential in teaching each generation of
Kwok-Wing Lai and Kian-Sam Hong (2015) discovered that the technological differences in generational learning has affected the learning styles of each generation. Millennials typically use technology more in learning and understanding than any other prior generation. Generation X does use technology in their education, but not as extensively as Millennials. Generations before Generation X do not use technology very heavily. Millennials often use more up to date technology such as smartphones and laptops and Generation X uses the internet almost as much as Millennials. Millennials use music devices such as an MP3 or Ipod much more in an academic setting than their Generation X counterparts (Hong and Lai 2015). They often rely on technology for education while Generation X still knows how to use technology but in most cases does not choose to use it in an education setting. Outside of school, Generation X does tend to use more technology than when they are in school but so do Millennials. Even though the younger generation spent more time on technology than the older, it was not necessarily used for educational purposes (Hong and Lai 2015). Some of the differences in use of technology do not greatly impact learning styles and education, such as the use of smartphones, social media, and music devices, in which both generations used heavily. Most students are highly skilled with using online