The Austin Independent School District has seen it all:  segregation, desegration, Viet Nam, women’s lib, bell bottoms, mullets and now texting.  Through each decade, AISD has prepared generations for their futures and reflected those generations’ demands. 

In this article, we offer a glimpse of AISD through the years and a vision for how AISD will be evolving to help Generation Z and beyond reach their fullest potential.  The slideshow tells our story through photos—as computers got smaller, the population of our student mushroomed.  Caroline Sweet, 2011 AISD Teacher of the Year discusses the impact of Generation Z in the classroom and AISD Director of Technology John Alawneh offers a vision of where AISD classrooms will be heading in the next few years.

A New Kind of Lesson Plan: Gen Z in the Classroom
An interview with Caroline Sweet.

During a recent discussion in bilingual teacher Caroline Sweet's classroom, the conversation turned to potato eyes after the fourth-graders saw the term referenced in a fiction book they were reading.

What are potato eyes? What do they look like? The students needed to know before moving on to something else. A simple explanation wouldn't do.

"Just show us," they told Sweet, insisting that she go online.

So Sweet called up a photo on her computer and projected a large image of a potato on the screen in her classroom, and the students touched where the eyes were and got to see exactly what their book meant.

All the students in Sweet's Metz Elementary class are considered Generation Z (born between the mid-1990s and today). All were born in the 21st century. Like other Gen Zers, Sweet's students expect answers. And they expect them now.

"[Finding out about potato eyes] is something simple," said Sweet, who is AISD's 2011 Elementary School Teacher of the Year. "They expect to not only know what it is, but see it and experience it in a real way they can understand."

Gen Z expects you to find the answers, she added.

The 21st century student, Sweet has noticed, doesn't adhere to the idea of working independently and turning in something. "They expect to be able to collaborate, communicate and create with their peers, not in isolation," she explained.

After six years of teaching Generation Z students, Sweet says these students expect to have multi-sensory experiences in the classroom. Not doing so can cause students to tune out and disengage.

Sweet's fourth-grade students blog on their class website, text homework questions to her and access each other’s writing assignments online. They don't simply write a paper for Sweet and turn it in, as in generations past. Their writing sparks dialogue among classmates, who enjoy posting comments on each other's work. Many of her students access their classroom blogs through mobile devices such as phones or game consoles.

John Alawneh, AISD's executive director of technology, has also noticed the differences between Generation Z and previous generations.

"Generation Z students want to be valued and expect participation," he said. "They need to feel as if they are contributing and someone is listening."

By posting comments on each other's work, they are contributing and included in the process.

And being a part of the decision-making process, Alawneh added, is key to Gen Zers.

Handing over some leadership or decision-making power, though, can make some teachers and adults uncomfortable. And Sweet explained that in some cases the digital divide between Gen Z and those who are teaching Gen Z can be large.

"As teachers we have to change the way we think," Sweet said, referring to teachers who hesitate to incorporate technologies they don't fully understand.

"We need to allow the children to be experts and take the teacher on the learning journey with them as they start to learn the technology," she said. "There’s fear from adults about what goes into technology and the consequences of using it. But I think if we go on the learning journey with Generation Z, then the fear will subside as parents and teachers see the benefit of collaboration and communication and the way it links our world together."

Creating Tomorrow's Classroom for Today's Students
An interview with John Alawneh.

Sitting behind a classmate among rows of desks is gradually becoming just a memory for AISD students. Classroom designs are adapting to new physical and virtual learning environments in an attempt to keep up with students of a new era — Generation Z.

Generation Z students (born between the mid-1990s and today) are demanding strong collaborative environments, according to John Alawneh, AISD's executive director of technology. So, while AISD makes physical adjustments such as adding more round tables in the classroom to emphasize group settings, it's also implementing new technologies for Gen Zers who expect to work closely and communicate with their peers in and out of the classroom.

"If these Generation Z students cannot connect with each other, it can feel like solitary confinement to them," Alawneh said.

It's important not to block this connectivity when Gen Z students come into a classroom, he said. Otherwise, it becomes difficult to engage them.

Gen Z students don't want to just listen to someone lecture at them, Alawneh added.

They expect to be able to express themselves, he said, and want their contributions to be valued.

Since 2008, AISD has invested significantly in wireless technology in all its schools to keep students engaged in the learning process. After a recent upgrade, AISD's wireless connections can now support everything from multimedia applications to video conferencing, making the mobile experience throughout the school district equal to or even better than accessing a desktop computer, Alawneh noted.

Though AISD has implemented much new technology in its schools, preparing Gen Z students for the future can be challenging.

"Every time you move an organization of this size [toward a new technology], it requires a lot of resources and funding," Alawneh said.

For AISD, moving to a new technology also means having the time and money to train staff and teachers how to use it effectively and to educate parents about the new technologies and their safety.

In the coming decades, Alawneh sees the lines between physical and virtual learning environments blurring in AISD classrooms.

Already, AISD is testing a project called AISD Smart Cloud Computing with six schools. It would make every AISD online resource that's now available in the classroom available from anywhere and from any device. Students would no longer have to be on an AISD computer on the AISD network to access all the software that the school district licenses.

"We’ve opened the gates," Alawneh said. "This is a major technological change that satisfies the needs of this generation."

AISD hopes to implement this change in all schools in the coming year.

Alawneh believes there are pieces of the classroom of the future already in place at many AISD classrooms, but the resources are not yet consistent.

For example, he sees all future AISD classrooms having video conferencing capabilities and good quality sound systems for presentations.

"The classroom of the future is not a science fiction world," Alawneh said. "We want to make [the technologies that are] available outside, also available inside the schools."

AISD classrooms of the future, he said, will have no physical boundaries. Rather, he added, future classrooms will create an environment where everyone is a teacher and a student, learning and working together.