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Why I Just Asked My Students to Put Their Laptops Away (2014) (medium.com/cshirky)
9 points by rubikscube on Sept 1, 2015 | hide | past | favorite | 5 comments



As both a teacher and a recent student: you do not know what the student is doing on their laptop, nor is it your job to police what they do on their laptop; some students are using their laptop to enhance their learning experience, and some students will have come to rely on that enhancement... and frankly, even if a student is multitasking, maybe they have a very legitimately pressing reason in their life to do so today.

If you really wish students in your classes would multitask less than they have been, you should concentrate on adopting a more focussed pacing for your content, and you should figure out how to make your material more engaging (which you can do either by making it more interesting or more entertaining: I will ask that you avoid cheap tricks like putting students on the spot and trying to scare them into paying attention).

As for the effects on people using laptops on the people around them, there is also a simple solution I have found quite effective: make a culture where students who are unlikely to be paying complete attention to your lecture sit together in the back of the class. As both a student and as the teacher, I have found myself completely forgetting about the existence of students who are sitting far in the back who might be distracted.


I understand and respect your point of view, but I disagree.

> "maybe they have a very legitimately pressing reason in their life to do so today."

From the article:

> Here’s why I finally switched from ‘allowed unless by request’ to ‘banned unless required’.

If people have more pressing things to do, they can also avoid attending the class. This is what time management is about and it has nothing to do with technology. Maybe the students sitting far in the back of class don't learn as effectively as they could as a consequence of your policy.

Saying the material should be more engaging is quite perturbing: students are not children anymore and can focus on a material without being given candies. The content of course is generally sufficiently interesting by itself: after all, why study if you have no interest for the subject?


"why study if you have no interest for the subject?"

Generally, in my experience, to pass the exams to get the degree that'll help them get a better (or any!) job. Interest in the course is a luxury that most students I knew didn't have.


> you do not know what the student is doing on their laptop, nor is it your job to police what they do on their laptop; some students are using their laptop to enhance their learning experience, and some students will have come to rely on that enhancement

You're a teacher, so I trust you know what's best for your class. But I could rephrase "it's not your job to police..." as "just don't worry about it!"

The problem "just don't worry about!" doesn't address is the feeling of annoyance from perceived-disrepect (whether it's justified). The teacher wants to feel attention paid to him/her. Solutions that take the form, "ignore your needs!" don't last (I think they lead to burnout) because they don't address psychology.

I don't know the solution, but I'll hazard: teachers need more methods, better curricula, more support. Teach Like a Champion is the one of the best books on practical teaching, and on human relations I've ever read.

Unfortunately, "don't worry about it!" is as impractical as "teachers and society must improve!" But like I said, I don't know the solution.


> People often start multi-tasking because they believe it will help them get more done. Those gains never materialize; instead, efficiency is degraded. However, it provides emotional gratification as a side-effect. (Multi-tasking moves the pleasure of procrastination inside the period of work.)

Omg. This paragraph. Is my life.




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