Trends in Trades Education
New Insights: What new insights have you gained in terms of the variety of roles that adult educators play (related to your topic)?
The topic of research was originally intended to be about the changing face of the new generation of trades’ students. However there is very little research or any articles about how trades students are no longer the farm kid who worked on the tractor, or the suburban kid who had a dirt bike. In fact there was virtually nothing about where trades students are coming from these days.
It seems that the majority of articles and reports are about primarily two things: Kids don’t see trades and a good choice and there are lots of jobs if you want to work hard. Neither of which was the intended topic.
After having a hard time finding any articles on the topic, and then my partner dropping out, I began to look at the students I am seeing in my own short time as a trades instructor.
95% of the students have never touched a tool. It is surprising then that they would embark on a trade that requires such basic skills. Most of them though aviation was neat and they like airplanes. Which is also a common trait among all aviation professionals, but most of us started farther along the skill set.
I asked a few old time instructors when they started noticing a change in the students. The general trend was about 10 years ago. So that would put the generation born after about 1985-1990, being that the average age is about 20 for new students.
It is not all that surprising, computers took off then and today all the kids are very technology orientated. They want to have everything available digitally, they buy text books in PDF format and bring iPads to class. So all this had lead me to a few realizations about my role as an educator.
http://www.bcchamber.org/policies/addressing-skills-shortage-through-secondary-trades-education-2014
New Insights: What new insights have you gained in terms of the variety of roles that adult educators play (related to your topic)?
The topic of research was originally intended to be about the changing face of the new generation of trades’ students. However there is very little research or any articles about how trades students are no longer the farm kid who worked on the tractor, or the suburban kid who had a dirt bike. In fact there was virtually nothing about where trades students are coming from these days.
It seems that the majority of articles and reports are about primarily two things: Kids don’t see trades and a good choice and there are lots of jobs if you want to work hard. Neither of which was the intended topic.
After having a hard time finding any articles on the topic, and then my partner dropping out, I began to look at the students I am seeing in my own short time as a trades instructor.
95% of the students have never touched a tool. It is surprising then that they would embark on a trade that requires such basic skills. Most of them though aviation was neat and they like airplanes. Which is also a common trait among all aviation professionals, but most of us started farther along the skill set.
I asked a few old time instructors when they started noticing a change in the students. The general trend was about 10 years ago. So that would put the generation born after about 1985-1990, being that the average age is about 20 for new students.
It is not all that surprising, computers took off then and today all the kids are very technology orientated. They want to have everything available digitally, they buy text books in PDF format and bring iPads to class. So all this had lead me to a few realizations about my role as an educator.
- I have to understand that these kids are very short on basic skills, and I have to expect that it will take some time for them to get up to speed. I cannot expect that they will have any great understanding of things mechanical. It will take some time for them to develop the ability to look at a situation and see what makes something work and how it can not work.
- I will have to spend a great deal of time taking making the students feel comfortable enough to say they “don’t understand. “ Make them feel that it is ok to not know the answer and feel free enough to look rather clueless. It will only help them if I can make them feel comfortable enough to ask for help.
b) Trends: What are some trends in your field (related to your topic)? How are you preparing to address these trends?
The new trends are definitely the changing student and their dependence on everything electronic. They all seem to study better if the power points are available on line. If there is a video they can watch, or there is a PDF for their ipad.
The way to prepare for this is going to be two pronged; Firstly, I will have to get with the technology. Fortunately I am a first generation technology guy, I had a DOS computer and can remember windows 3.1, so I am pretty good with computers, but still don’t like them as much as I should. None the less, I will have to put everything online for the students to download.
Secondly, I have to reach my students and get them to look up from their phones and start learning how to listen and comprehend. If I can get them to just unplug for a few hours a day it will be so much better for them.
c) Web-Conference: Reflect on the Web-Conference experience. How was it? What was one thing that you learned about from your learning partner?
Well the web conference did not happen because my partner dropped out. But in the short time we did communicate we both had the same feeling about students: There not the same one we were 20 years ago. Times seems to have changed so much in a few years, I am starting to feel like my parents when they talked about students. (My father being a university professor). We both thought that it would be great to look into the idea of changing students, and both of us came up empty handed in our research. I have a feeling there’s a field of study here for some PHD candidate, to look into what’s happing with the latest generation and trades, other than simple not wanting to go into them.
Related Articles:
http://www.bcchamber.org/policies/addressing-skills-shortage-through-secondary-trades-education-2014