chapter 7

• Education demands a healthy environment conducive to effective assimilation of knowledge and skills learned
• Barriers to education can take a variety of forms. They can be physical, technological, systemic, financial, or attitudinal, among others
• Main barriers to education concerning students, teachers and institutions

  • Student factors
  • Institutional factors
  • Teacher factors
• Student factors


  • Physical disability
  • Negative attitudes and stereotypes
  • Poverty
  • Students' capabilities, personal beliefs, and values
  • Schooling is irrelevant to realities
• Institutional factors


  • Inadequate physical facilities and funding
  • Philosophy, vision, mission of schools
  • Weak legal framework around education
  • Issues of safety and security inside and outside school
  • Accountability movement
  • Perceived lack of support
• Teacher factors


  • Teachers' qualifications and values
  • Knowledge, skills and values of the teacher
  • Inadequate professional preparation
  • Lack of certification
  • Encroachment of other disciplines
• Generational differences influence teaching and learning due to social and technological factors
• Generational differences in relation to teaching and learning

  • Baby Boomers (Current Workforce)
  • Generation X
  • Millennials (Generation Y)
• Baby Boomers


  • Comfortable with delayed gratification
  • Want positive feedback
  • Technology and education are overwhelming
• Ways of considering generational differences in teaching

  1. Personal awareness of each faculty members

  2. Technological competence through training and assistance

  3. Design specific learning activities to motivate the students

  4. Computer and technology expertise, comfort with group and communication skills

  5. Encourage use of electronic media

  6. Talk about flexibility and variability of experiences and assignment

  7. Encourage balance from the beginning

  8. Spell out expectations clearly

  9. Develop general plan for providing feedback

  10. Clarify use of technology

  11. Indicate sitting time with active time

  12. Inject fun whenever appropriate
• Martin Luther King, Jr.: 'The ultimate measure of a person is not where one stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where one stands in times of challenge and controversy.'