A survey last year by IdeaPaint
found that the education industry gets low marks from its millennial employees on
using brainstorming meetings to generate ideas as well as on supporting collaboration
among co-workers.
“Millennials are rapidly expanding
the traditional college classroom, demanding more online learning solutions and
a more collaborative atmosphere between students and teachers,” Zach Cutler,
founder of the public relations firm the Cutler Group, wrote in The Huffington Post.
“If higher-education institutions take note, they’ll be ready not only for Gen
Y, but also for the upcoming Gen Z.”
According to Cutler, millennials stay
in school longer and colleges and universities need to be doing more to attract
students into master’s programs. Institutions have also been slow to take
advantage of massive open online courses at a time when millennials are
becoming more comfortable with online learning.
Higher ed needs to find new, more
collaborative approaches to learning, Cutler said. A study by New York
University found that student retention rates were much higher when learning
was more collaborative rather than simply a lecture or reading. Retention rates
jumped to 90% when students were put into a teaching role.
“Millennials
want to play a more active part in their own learning, and the best way to
speak directly to these students is to put away the PowerPoint slide and get
students more fully immersed in work,” Cutler wrote.
