Daniela Roman is an associate professor PhD at the Faculty of Socio-Humanistic Sciences, Department of Psychology, University of Oradea. She obtained her doctorate in Psychology at “Babeș-Bolyai” University in Cluj-Napoca in 2010. She is a lead psychologist with the right to free practice in educational psychology, school and vocational counseling, as well as a supervisor in the field, accredited by the Romanian College of Psychologists. She is a psychotherapist trained in NILD educational therapy – techniques and methods in the education of children with learning problems. She is currently the president of the National Association of School Psychologists. She has participated at numerous national, international conferences and grants, holds workshops and training programs. Her research interests are directed towards academic learning, educational psychology and family psychology, reflected by volumes and numerous studies published in journals with national and international impact.
She has contributed as author and co-author to several volumes, of which we mention: Learning styles in students (University of Oradea Publishing House, 2011), Family and its role in child education (Polirom, 2011), Socio-emotional development of the child and adolescent in conditions of incomplete parenting (2011), Psychology of play, (Sper, 2014), Game-Learning-Cooperation in the preparatory class (Didactic and Pedagogical Publishing House, 2016), Psychological interventions in school. A School Counselor’s Handbook (Polirom, 2019) and Learn to Listen (Polirom, 2019).
Challenges of learning for generation Z in the current educational
Challenges of learning for generation Z in the current educational context
Daniela ROMAN, assoc. prof. PhD. University of Oradea
Lioara COTURBAȘ, lecturer Ph.D. University of Oradea
All around the world education is the target of criticism because it does not deliver what it promises. Lack of motivation and low performance in children, along with additional emotional problems are only some of the elements targeted by the education crisis. Teachers around the world have to face a new challenge in the classroom: the emergence of Generation Z or iGeneration. This generation of teenagers is completely different from the previous generations and it is not always easy to find the appropriate teaching methods and strategies in order to help them become aware of and accomplish their potential.
This article addresses the need for objective representation of learning in the case of this new generation of students, of the processes related to school performance and to well-being. What factors influence learning, academic performance and the well-being of what we can and cannot change concerning practice, are the questions we have attempted to answer. Thus, we postulated that there is a relation between the classroom climate, the level of effectiveness, of well-being and school learning in middle-school students.
According to the data obtained, this generation that “lives and breathes” technology, “expects a teaching environment in which they can interact in a similar way to what they do in their virtual worlds”, involving a “request for instant information, visual forms of learning and the replacement of ‘communication’ with ‘interaction’, as Cilliers argues (2017 p. 195).
Thus, the encouragement of effort and the recognition of acquisitions help students to perceive the direct relationship between their work, the assimilated knowledge and implicitly the progress that leads to performance and success. The relationship with teachers, the way students are treated influences their school results, in the sense that they are more motivated to get involved in the accomplishment of school tasks when they perceive the teachers as being involved.
In conclusion, the study provides a reading grid of the way in which Generation Z, born in an integrated and globally connected world, where the Internet has always been available (Rothman, 2014, p.7), perceives learning, school performance and well-being. In addition, it brings important evidence and information in explaining the functioning and relation of the mechanisms involved in the well-being and performance of students in this generation.
The Romanian education system is outdated and should be adapted to the new current challenges. The teaching process in the case of students Z is a new challenge for teachers of any school subject, in promoting interactive lessons, meant to rise to the expectations of this new generation of students and to meet technological requirements.