Lived Stories of Mid-Career Teachers: Their Struggles with Millennial Learners in the Philippines

Abstract

This study aimed to explore the teaching-learning congruence between mid-career teachers and millennial learners which remains a global challenge. After 15-30 years of teaching, they face issues on self-absorption with great desire to develop themselves instead of mentoring others. In the Philippines, they resort to printed learning materials, while the millennials are highly addicted to technology and e-copies. Self-reflected learning is dominant in mid-career teachers, while collaborative learning works well with millennial learners. The said divide in their teaching and learning strategies results to constant struggles among mid-career teachers. In Australia and some countries, there is scanty literature on mid-career teachers. This phenomenological case study in a Philippine teaching university unraveled their day-to-day struggles as they coped and bridged the teaching-learning divide. Results can usher in a paradigm shift in mid-career teachers teaching as well as produce policy enablers with capacity building to manage millennials as top priority in the Philippines, in Asia and abroad.