Phones In Class: Here's a First
So I don't allow students to use phones, laptops, etc. in my classes except in special circumstances by special arrangement. I make this very clear in the syllabus, and on the first day of class. I've already had to tell one student to put her phone away--at least she waited until the second day of class to whip it out...
Today, I'm doing the Venn diagrams thing. Student asks a question--actually a pretty good question. I start explaining, draw something on the board (which takes about 20-30 seconds), turn around...and I'll be damned if the student--THE VERY STUDENT WHO ASKED THE QUESTION I WAS JUST ANSWERING--is not on his phone.
I know the Trumpocalypse is nigh, and this is the most frivolous of complaints, but it's keeping my mind off of the impending reductio of my country...so...there's that...
Today, I'm doing the Venn diagrams thing. Student asks a question--actually a pretty good question. I start explaining, draw something on the board (which takes about 20-30 seconds), turn around...and I'll be damned if the student--THE VERY STUDENT WHO ASKED THE QUESTION I WAS JUST ANSWERING--is not on his phone.
I know the Trumpocalypse is nigh, and this is the most frivolous of complaints, but it's keeping my mind off of the impending reductio of my country...so...there's that...
posted by Winston Smith at
11:35 AM
4 Comments:
Laptops are by far the easiest way to take notes, except in classes that need little sketches like organic chemistry.
laptops are distracting. Everyone behind the person is gazing at the laptop and not the board, and the 'clicking' of keys is annoying. I ban them in the classroom. However, my classes have grown so large (>100) that as long as the electronics are below the plane of the desk I don't say anything.
Yeah, I stopped allowing laptops in class after a former colleague of mine started sitting in on law school classes. He'd sit in the back of the big lecture hall, and after a couple of weeks of this he told me: if someone has a laptop out in class, they aren't paying attention. According to him, basically every person with a laptop out is on Facebook, or watching videos. When I was naive about this stuff, I thought these two kids were just really paying attention in class, but then I realized they were both playing video games. One failed and one got a 'D'...but still...
I also tell them I know exactly who's not paying attention to what's going on in class. (1) my discipline rarely makes people laugh and (2) no one smiles that much towards their laps.
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