In this paper, I discuss the process of redesigning and teaching a mandatory, academic skill building course for students on academic probation at Mount Saint Vincent University (MSVU) in Atlantic Canada. The rationale for redesigning the course was to offer an alternative curricular framework, including instructional approaches, to course…

Some authors have stated that university students born after 1982 have been profoundly influenced by digital technologies, showing different characteristics when compared to previous generations. However, it is worth asking if that is a current observable phenomenon. Are those students born after the 80s really more familiar with ICT tools than…

More than a decade after Prensky's influential articulation of digital natives and immigrants, disagreement exists around these characterizations of students and the impact of such notions within higher education. Perceptions of today's undergraduate learners as tech-savvy "digital natives" (Prensky, 2001a), who both want and need the…

This article provides an update of the Digital Learners in Higher Education Research project. In Phase 1 of the project, concluded that there is no empirically-sound basis for most of the claims that have been made about the net generation. It also found there are no meaningful differences between net generation and non-net generation students at…

A growing literature suggests that there is a disjuncture between the instructional practices of the education system and the student body it is expected to serve, particularly with respect to the roles of digital technologies. Based on surveys and focus group interviews of first-year students at a primarily undergraduate Canadian university and…