By MELIANDAYANI (IUP Accounting Education 2016)
The Millennial Era is not something new at this time, where in this era all aspects of life have developed rapidly. The generation in this era is called the millennial generation as a substitute for the term generation Y (GenY). According to social researchers, millennials are those born between 1980 and 2000, which means they are currently around 15-35 years old. This generation is a special generation, because they are much different from the previous generations. Starting in terms of education, the use of technology, ethics, morals and culture as well as mental resilience. They were born in an era where everything is sophisticated and advanced, where information can easily be received with the sophistication of technology, fashion and lifestyle that are far from the previous generation. Modernization was accepted and developed rapidly.
In the world of education, the learning process is no longer relevant if it is still using the old standards and curriculum. This is certainly a challenge for educators, in this case teachers and prospective teachers, where they must be able to keep pace with the rapid growth of this special millennial generation. Most of today’s millennial generation can be seen that they don’t like reading books and are more interested in lingering in front of their cellphone screens, whether surfing in cyberspace or enjoying playing games. In addition, they can also do more than one activity at the same time.
The millennial generation has very different characteristics from the senior generation and of course requires different treatment. So as a millennial teacher, you must be able to adapt to millennial students. Teachers in this era are those who are always connected to technology every day. All learning resources are easily obtained through applications and the internet. The learning media used have also started to vary, both with direct and indirect learning models using e-learning software such as Google Classroom, Edmodo, Padlet, and so on.
The challenge as a teacher in this millennial era is that they are required to have global competence. This means that teachers are not only experts in their fields of knowledge, but also must be able to master in all fields, such as having the ability in media literacy, proficient in the use of digital technology, proficient in the language and not only mastering Indonesian but multilingualism and other abilities that support the teaching and learning process to be more fun and easily accepted by millennial students. Here the teacher must be able to adapt the learning to them. So that teachers must be more creative and flexible in educating and teaching in schools.
The learning model presented in the classroom is no longer only with the lecture method, but also directly practiced and supported by various interesting media or can also use videos, music, android, and so on. Learning models that can be applied are Problem Based Learning, Project Based Leaning, Open-Ended Experiential Learning Cases, and so on. All of these models focus on the direct activities of students in which they play an active role in learning.
In this era of the millennial generation, it is balanced with an increasingly sophisticated digitalization process and the 4.0 industrial revolution, in which teachers must be able to adapt to circumstances, be able to think far ahead and dare to think outside the box so that students do not feel left behind by their times. The sophistication of this technology is not completely bad by using it properly, so teachers in the millennial era will be able to answer challenges easily.
Thus, millennial teachers must be ready to face the challenges of today by understanding the right learning model and in accordance with the needs of the millennial era. Millennial teachers must be smart and superior where when the times are different the generations are different so the challenges and handling are also different. So it is hoped that teachers will still be able to handle students and not be left behind with the ability of students to follow the development of their generation.