Louis Arias – Staff Writer
Gen Z was born into a different planet. The post-911 generation does not know a world without the Internet or Google. In America, they grew up with live shooter drills since they were 5. They realize that entire species are disappearing and they’re all too familiar with climate change and “the world is dying” narrative.
DSC’s 11th Annual Academic Excellence Symposium is another step DSC is taking in preparing its professional staff to address the challenges and opportunities of educating a generation that thinks of higher education differently. The theme for this year’s event was “Institutional Outcomes: Building Bridges to Student Success.”
With regard to the symposium’s theme, DSC’s Director of Planning and Professional Development, John Brady, said, “We designed it as a day of conversations about innovative practices that support student success through four different institutional outcomes.”
Each of the event’s concurrent sessions focused on one of four different skillsets: critical thinking, communication (reading, writing and exchanging information), cultural literacy and Informational and technical literacy. These are also the formal, institutional goals of the College.
2019’s keynote symposium speaker was Jaime Casap, Google’s “Education Evangelist.” According to FutureSource Consulting, this tech giant’s lead in the education market and mind share is currently pushing 60 percent.
Google’s G-Suite and Classroom are designed to complement their low-priced Chromebooks. The multi-national tech company is well aware of the fact that as digitization replaces jobs, people with higher skill levels will be needed.
Casap stated that Generation Z values experience right from the beginning of their education. They don’t necessarily buy into the traditional 4-year college model. They want to see outcomes and see them fast. He noted that this upcoming’s generation’s challenge of dealing with unprecedented levels of automation and robotics requires it to be fluent in today’s language: computer science.
The challenges of a radically different job market can only be met by a generation equipped with problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration, an ability to learn quickly and creative skills. Google believes that technology is the key to get these next college students ready to meet those challenges.
When it comes to objections experienced teachers may have when presented with untested and
radically different learning technologies, Casap discounted that notion. He redirected the conversation towards the inadequacy of standardized tests, saying, “How many kids have taken Spanish classes throughout high school? Did anyone ever learn to speak it through them? Teachers are not the problem. The current system is.”
Professor Luke Sui, who teaches computer science classes at DSC’s Advanced Technology Center, attended the event again this year. A couple of weeks after the symposium, Sui recalled what he learned from the symposium workshops he attended.
“I remember the speech from the man from Google and he was right. No matter what profession you have, accounting, healthcare, etc., everyone is going to need some computer training so they know how to get what they need.
“I teach mainly programming classes so a lot of what was discussed really doesn’t apply in my case. There some things that are helpful because we have to be sensitive to student’s beliefs and culture, but I think that a lot of it is just a matter of using common sense,” he said.