I agree with Leonard. I also have students who seem distracted and with short attention spans. I think that this is because they are largely the instagram generation. They seem scattered in their focus and often tangential in their questions and comments. There is still a group of traditional, prepared students who are committed to learning and achievement but there is a contingency that are not using their ipads and laptops for taking notes but are trying to multitask - learn while surfing the internet or chatting with their friends. This is partially a consequence of the fact that they don't believe in learning for learning sake and are not convinced that their education will benefit them when they look for employment.

 I think one of the biggest problems with university lectures is being able to meet all the varied learning styles and needs of the students. The difficulty of that task increases according to the number of students enrolled. The larger the class, the harder it is to make it an interactive experience. 'Lecturers' can use different techniques: pictures, video and audio, and demonstration if applicable. Assignments can also be varied and include written papers, posters, oral presentations, etc., and both individual and group projects. 

Everyone has their own teaching 'style' and methods that they prefer to use. However, we must be willing to step out of comfort zone for the benefit of student learning.

As Bonnie hints, put yourself in the shoes of the students and then rethink the question.

Thanks Bonnie and Alan, this has already been done (what do students perceive as critical while starting a study, see Bosse et al. 2014).

Now, we want to focus on the teacher’s perspective, because we want them to participate in the change from teaching to learning. For this it seems to me to be appropriate to address them with regard to their worries and needs, their problems and the aspects of studying which they consider critical, such as Allen names:  large classes limiting an interactive experience, finding their own teaching style ...

At the moment, the patterns in the patterntool (p2t) are already associated with the requirements students perceive as critical, a supplement to the problems of teachers would improve the accessibility of proven solutions/patterns.

http://p2t.userblogs.uni-hamburg.de/ueber-p2t/

• Lack of time
• Large classes
• Lack of good support staff
• Student consumerism (the push-button generation student as customer)
• Cost of transport, cost of books
• The "infinite possibilities" in the syllabus
• The lack of research experience in student intake

I think, when it comes to planning of your teaching (lessons, seminar sessions, but also courses etc.) one huge challenge is to learn about a good sequencing of activation, group work, input-phases etc., although this might apply only to curricula which are very flexible with respect to the instructional scenarios. In a fully-fledged PBL-curriculum you don't have to wonder how to sequence things, because they are already sequenced, of course...

As a university lecturer in a developing country, I face many challenges related mostly to inadequate infrastructure, very high number of students and the difficulty to reach the required scientific databases in addition to the administration and financing  issues.

Regards

SM Najim

The major concern is teaching students who do not prepare for class by reading the text material.  This creates a small group who are knowledgeable and a larger body of students who are hearing the subject matter the 1st time in class and thus have tons of questions that slow progress.   

I agree with Leonard. I also have students who seem distracted and with short attention spans. I think that this is because they are largely the instagram generation. They seem scattered in their focus and often tangential in their questions and comments. There is still a group of traditional, prepared students who are committed to learning and achievement but there is a contingency that are not using their ipads and laptops for taking notes but are trying to multitask - learn while surfing the internet or chatting with their friends. This is partially a consequence of the fact that they don't believe in learning for learning sake and are not convinced that their education will benefit them when they look for employment.

Interest of learning is going to be dead form the students of this generation especially for developing countries . To hold the concentration during lecture is the biggest challenge for a lecturer  . 

I think if you have prepared your lecture that you are going to deliver to students then there will be no problem for a lecturer, although you have large no. of class. But if you have not grip on your topic then the small class will become the large class for you.

Its all about what type of preparation of lecture you have.

Have you considered the ways university professors, both new and seasoned, are prepared to teach the diverse digital age students of today?  Do they knw hw students learn and what motivates them as individuals?  Student engagement is an overriding issue for all instructors but few are prepared to form the relationships that help them knw each student's needs and interests.  Most instructors do not believe it is part of their job to motivate students so they blame the students and attrition is high.  See:  https://www.routledge.com/Learning-to-Learn-International-perspectives-from-theory-and-practice/Deakin-Crick-STRINGHER-Ren/p/book/9780415656245 and http://www.apa.org/education/k12/learners.aspx

Many universities in Canada have faculty support, professional development teaching seminars and centres which provide information and knowledge about technology-mediated learning facilitation in the classroom, including innovative approaches to the digitized classroom. Anecdotally, it seems to me that the best teachers take advantage of these resources but not everyine does.

Cell phones

One of Toope’s challenges is that universities must adapt to changes in student expectations. The real issue with expectations is getting students to understand what our expectations are of them, not to conform to their expectations of us.Those predominantly revolving around lecture-based learning are no exception, though an unfortunate number of teachers utilize it as the ultimate classroom strategy. While it undeniably boasts a few valuable advantages — most notably fortified note-taking and memorization skills — the approach isn’t exactly ideal for all situations and students. Consider the downsides and different strategies for addressing them before jumping into the lecture-based learning milieu.

I think one of the biggest problems with university lectures is being able to meet all the varied learning styles and needs of the students.

Teaching in such a way the the diverse student body, who has differing learning styles, develops a working comprehension of the material being taught is a challenge.  This is especially true when you have non-majors in the class. Never assume that the student knows what an industry specific term or concept means. Always explain.

Problems are regions and sites specific. but majorly Poor remuneration, funding among others

good read

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Clear vision about outcomes Related to the quality of the student to be introduced to society

One of the main problems is that many professors don't understand they teach Millennials and Z generation. These generations are completely different than previous generations - they don't like only to listen (as was the case for X generation), they want to interact with their professors and to be respected as young people. Also, if you don't have "a digital approach" to teaching, you're perceived as old fashioned.

@usamaawan I agree with you. Actually, we deal with short attention span of younger generations. Regarding to this, I'm trying to use creative way of teaching...lot of examples, discussions, visual/video content etc. The most important is to listen them and respect their opinion. In that case, they want to discuss again and again...

More practicals need to be introduced, discussions, numericals, and other means need to be introduced to improve the quality.