system
A chat on subreddit /r/me_irl
human
As a Gen Z who has needed things taught to me repeatedly: I’ve seen people say it’s a lack of attentiveness or interest, and that’s not true, at least for anyone in my book. I’ve multiple times thought I understood something I didn’t, or learned something to be prepared and pretty much instantly forgot the information.

Perhaps Gen Z suffers from a lack of memory retention, being able to understand things but not remembering it as easy. Or maybe it’s just me, hell if I know lol.

As a suggestion, maybe make sure someone you’re teaching understands by having them either perform the process or explain it to you? If you’re not already doing that, that is, or if that’s even capable with what you’re teaching them.
gpt
maybe it's because you've always had the opportunity to redo something, you can re-watch a class, re-watch a youtube video, etc so the necessity to see something and repeat it/retain it isn't there. In my day you had one shot an if you missed it you were fucked -miss class, tough learn it on your own.  They've done some studies where they've shown that if the brain knows it can easily find an answer it's less likely to retain that answer, maybe that's what we're seeing.