"Fueling Futures: Cultivating Professional Agility in the New Generation Learners"

As education rapidly changes, there is a growing need to embrace new innovations in education that better prepare modern learners, especially Generation Z, to exhibit the knowledge, skills, and professional agility (soft skills) needed to move into a diverse workforce.1 Faculty often intentionally or unintentionally provide opportunities for students to develop these attributes through active learning strategies.2 Another attribute needed to prepare a new generation of learners is cultivating cultural competence which requires concepts of diversity within the course curriculum as the population profile of the US is rapidly becoming more diverse.3 These principles have become essential for students to be academically successful but more so develop interpersonal attributes that foster compassion and competence to grow professional agility.4 The unique characteristics of future forward students challenge the status quo of pedagogical thinking among faculty. They need to critically evaluate their course curriculum by adapting to the learning preferences of Gen Z and upcoming Gen Alpha.5,6 This session will address the unique characteristics of the current and upcoming student populations and provide equitable teaching strategies that reinforce students’ growth in professional agility.