On all my syllabi is a note about doing things to distract other students, one of those being surfing the web on a laptop. I also give a verbal spiel in the early days of the semester, about how laptop use can be helpful, but how misuse can negatively impact oneself and other students. It is also natural for me to put things in the language of respect: I respect them as persons by being fully present when I teach, and I expect them to respect me as well. I consider our class meetings to be conversations, and nothing is more offensive or disappointing than finding out the person you are speaking to is not listening, whether it’s a professor or a student.
After class today, a young man approached me, clearly irritated, and said, “The girl sitting next to me was surfing the net the entire time you were talking about laptops.”
I’m now wondering what to do.
Updated: After talking with faculty at my uni, many of whom have a similar policy, I banned laptops in all of my classes, making exceptions for students who need them because of a learning disability. At first, I got an earful from the laptop contingent. Then I got grateful thanks from twice as many non laptop using students. I am very happy with the effect it has had on my classes so far.
Sure, there are those obvious cases when we all hear an email “ding” or music starts blaring from a tinny laptop speaker, or when two students start giggling loudly as they stare at a screen that is obviously not full of my brilliant commentary on Aristotle. When that happens, I stop the class to address it, as I would any disruptive behavior.
But what about the quiet surfers, the ones whose activities I can’t detect, like the young woman the student mentioned today after class?
I have always felt that banning laptops in the classroom, as some professors do, would be paternalistic. I also felt, in the past, that students could be distracted or distracting in any number of ways, including with cell phones, or the old fashioned chatter in the back of the room, or heck, even doodling in their notebooks. Why single out laptops? Finally, I felt banning laptops wouldn’t address the root problem, which is students not caring enough to pay attention to what is happening in class.
On the other hand, until this year, I never had many laptops in the classroom, I’m guessing because I teach at a state university in a poor, rural state. This year, I have many more students than usual with laptops. In a class of 30 I may have 15.
One of the things that really chaps my ass about the surfing is that I don’t require attendance in the lower level classes which are the subject of this post. Why are these students coming to my class – at 9:00am no less! — if all they are going to do is read People.com and send emails? Wouldn’t they rather do this in their jammies in their nice warm beds?
Here are some arguments in favor of banning laptops in the classroom:
1. Other students are distracted by laptop use (it harms other students)
2. Students who use laptops take notes verbatim, which is not as good for learning as taking notes longhand (it negatively impacts the learning of the student who uses the laptop)
3. Laptops pose distractions for students who use them, causing negative learning outcomes (again, harms the laptop user)
4. It’s my classroom. I can do what I want.
Here are some arguments against banning laptops in the classroom:
1. Other students being distracted is not a good enough reason to ban something that could be a good learning tool for some students (I wouldn’t ban a sign language interpreter even if her presence distracts other students) (although the interpreter is necessary for a hearing impaired students’ learning in a way that a laptop is not).
2. Sure, laptop notes may not work as well for most students as longhand notes, but I’m not about to force students to use only learning methods that have been empirically shown to be most effective (checking up on their study habits outside the classroom for example). to pick on laptop use is not consistent.
3. Sure, students get distracted by their laptops, but if it’s not that, it’s something else. How can I make them pay attention? And besides, unless I am willing to become very proactive, adopting all the latest best practices in teaching, to ensure the best learning outcomes, I can hardly defend singling out this one device.
4. Students are adults. They may even have a right to use a laptop (although the fact that law profs seem the most vocal in banning them suggests not). If I can’t keep their attention, that’s my problem, not theirs. Instead of pushing laptop users, how about improving my teaching?
So, what do you guys think? Should I start walking up and down the aisles as I teach, peering at screens? I joked with my husband that I was going to start rewarding students for ratting out their web surfing peers. Any advice?
Here’s what others had to say:
Article from a June 2006 issue of the CHE.
A GWU Law Prof, David Cole, bans laptops and explains why here. And his editorial for the Washington Post here.
Prof. Carrie Fried’s research published in Computers in Education:
Results showed that students who used laptops in class spent considerable time multitasking and that the laptop use posed a significant distraction to both users and fellow students. Most importantly, the level of laptop use was negatively related to several measures of student learning, including self-reported understanding of course material and overall course performance.
A paper by another law prof, Kevin Yamamoto in the Journal of Legal Education.
Partial Abstract:
The article covers the reasons for and against allowing laptops in the classroom, my reasoning and procedure for banning them, perceived differences in the classroom experience and relevant student comments from my course evaluations, which were overwhelmingly positive to the laptop ban. Also covered are the cognitive psychological reasons in support of banning laptops. Studies show that lower grades were correlated with increased student web browsing during class (Grace-Martin & Gay, 2001; Hembrooke & Gay, 2003), and the amount of time which students used their laptops for tasks other than taking lecture notes (Fried, 2007). MRI studies of the brain indicate that the brain stores information differently when distracted, which occurs when students attempt to multi-task in class (Foerde, Knowlton, & Poldrack, 2006). The science of note-taking is also covered, which indicates verbatim typing may interfere with learning (e.g., Kiewra, 1991). The paper concludes by urging law school professors to review why laptops are allowed in their classrooms and, unless they feel that laptops increase student learning, to ban or heavily restrict their classroom use.
Justin Reich argues in a 2007 CS Monitor article that we profs just need to be more compelling and imaginative to compete with laptops.
I went to college long before the laptop revolution (I had a Mac SE – zowie!) but I now work at a company where it is very common to have every attendee of a given meeting participating in the meeting while also seeing to e-mails, other writing or perhaps even attending an “e-meeting” via the intranet.
When I first joined the company I was totally appalled at this behavior. After a while I assimilated, for lack of a better word, and discovered that I not only could deal with that much input at once but if I didn’t at least try I wouldn’t complete the work I am expected to do. Students using their laptops for legitimate reasons may feel the same way.
With this background, my thoughts are: Don’t ban laptops. Sure, they won’t serve some of these young adults as well as the users hope (those using them for note-taking, etc.) but that lesson is probably one best learned from experience. They should also probably eat some protein in the morning after a full-night’s rest and some of them will someday figure that out. It’s not your job to drill good study health into them. Some will learn to move on (or back, as it were, to pens and paper) others will bang their heads against the figurative wall for years. This is life.
Further, those that are using the computers inappropriately in class will likely just turn to their phones to do the same things. Then you’re in a position where you have to deal with all these devices – laptops and phones and PDA and, and, and. Where does it end?
As for the disrespect issue, perhaps you could set up a part of the room for those inclined to multitask and empower the remainder of the students to ask/tell the disrespecters to utilize it? Some students may self-select to sit in that portion of the room (or lecture hall?) and others maybe, ahem, adjudicated there by their fellow students. If it’s clear that requests for someone to move will be enforced and supported by you I wonder if the annoyed will feel they can act on their own behalf and cut you out of the middle. Either way, the desire to avoid feeling marginalization might help reduce the need for that special section at all.
I agree that the surfers shouldn’t behave in such ways during class but in the absence of a perfect world I doubt you can do much other than try to isolate the offenders.
I don’t ban laptops, even though I have seen some of the disruption occur (and called students on it). I see some of my students making great use of laptops to mark up the slides for a day’s class with their own commentary or to research a question arising (and report back to class). When I go to my department meetings these days, I work entirely from files on my laptop: I’m finally saving paper!
But prowling up and down the aisles during class? That’s always been fair game and a good policy. I used to catch students playing hangman or reading a magazine (at which point, I was happy to remind them how close the exit was to where they were sitting). These days, it’s more often Facebook, but the same response still helps.
How about some impromptu quizzes for extra credit? Or even for grades? I had several professors in college that didn’t “require” attendance and didn’t “require” students to pay attention, but they structured the class in a way that made attendance and attentiveness extremely worthwhile. After a couple of bad grades on the pop quizzes, the problem students might be a little more inclined to pay attention.
As for laptop use distracting other students–some students find just about everything distracting. If the laptop user is only distracting one other student, I’d encourage the distracted student to sit somewhere else.
I am against laptops. I never used one. And its not you. Even the best of the teachers get students who don’t pay attention, its their problem, not yours. Laptops are distracting. I passed out from college 3 years back and I attented only those lectures I thought added to my knowledge, but sometimes even those are boring. The thing is to remove all distractions so that students don’t have any option but to pay attention to you.
Ask questions randomly. So that they have to pay attention to you.
I didn’t use a laptop in college, but it saved me in law school. However, I was amazed by just how many people paid so little attention. And they got away with it because all they had to do was borrow their friends’ outlines. Eventually, my school limited internet access to only certain areas -not classrooms. But when students couldn’t check their email or instant message then they just started playing minesweeper.
The classes where students paid the most attention were those in which the professors walked around or randomly called on people to participate- usually those students who hadn’t looked up from their laptops in awhile.
Instead of banning all laptops, what about letting the students know that they can use them so long as they don’t abuse the privilege. The first time anyone is caught surfing the internet or playing games, etc. then that person is banned from bringing their laptop for the rest of the semester. A sort of zero tolerance policy, maybe?
Well, I’m a college student so I’m biased, I guess, but if there’s one thing I hate about college it’s when I’m treated like I’m still in high school. College isn’t free, and in my case I’m paying to be there so I feel if I want to come to class and surf the net all period, well that’s one me. My point is that I feel with college we’re adults and we’re responsible for our education. It’s really not the professor’s responsibility to make sure students are doing what they’re supposed to do.
That being said I don’t bring a laptop to my classes. A lot of my professors don’t allow them and I usually don’t need it in class anyway. But when I’m taking seven week mini-semester courses where there are a lot of in-class assignments I would prefer to use a laptop to complete my assignments especially when I have professors who are picky enough about handwriting that they’ll mark your grade down if they can’t make out a word. Other students like to bring laptops because they can type faster than they can write and they prefer to do their note-taking that way. Everyone learns differently so I feel the option should be there for students.
Finally, I wouldn’t automatically assume that because someone is surfing the web during a lecture that they don’t care. Sometimes lectures are just boring and you need a mental break. I find I pay the most attention in class when professors are engaging with their material rather than just lecturing to us. Perhaps if teachers would be better teachers, students would be better students. Just my two cents.
I think these comments represent one end of the argument, and a reasonable one:
“It’s not your job to drill good study health into them” and “with college we’re adults and we’re responsible for our education”
However, the other end of the argument is that college can also be a time when students are *young* adults, still requiring guidance. Many profs will tell you their philosophy lies somewhere along that spectrum, and I can’t say any of them is wrong.
However, I completely disagree with this:
“College isn’t free, and in my case I’m paying to be there so I feel if I want to come to class and surf the net all period, well that’s one me.”
No. Education is not a simple fee-based service. Faculty are not students’ employees. And paying to be there is not license to be rude, or to devalue other people’s investment of money AND time. Yes, it feels like primarily a waste of the *student’s* time, but there are other people in the room who will come to feel the student is wasting *their* time. It’s much like traffic: sitting in traffic aggravates the driver, but the drivers’ cumulative driving behavior in turn makes the whole city less desirable.
A timely post. Our oldest is a sophomore in college & we discussed this over the winter break. The consensus in our house was: we’re (he’s) paying for the class, if he chooses to surf, that’s on him. It’s his money he’s wasting. He should be fully prepared to accept the consequenes of his actions. However, having the volume off should be a no brainer.
I took a computer class last spring. I found that I wasn’t able to surf and concentrate on the class, so I didn’t try. I took notes on wordpad & printed them out at the end of class. I was too busy listening & typing to worry about what my fellow students were doing. That may be a function of my age and/or the subject, though.
I think the suggestion of structuring the class in such a way that discourages random surfing & encourages paying attention is a good one. I’m not a teacher, so I’ve no suggestions on how to do that, but it’s a good thought.
Just my .02
~Amanda
I’ve only been a student, not a teacher, FWIW, but I tend to agree with Dance Chica. I think that teaching and education *is* pretty much a fee-based service. True, there are more middlemen in the process than say, having your hair cut, but in the end, if you don’t cooperate with the provider, the provider still gets paid and you get a crappy haircut.
As long as a student’s behavior is not distracting to other students, I think it’s OK.
I see this phrased often as a respect issue — profs/teachers feel disrespected if a student isn’t paying attention, and they take it personally. 9 times out of 10, it’s not personal.
As for laptops specifically, I do like the idea of a laptop “section” of the lecture hall. As a prof/teacher then you might also get a sense of whether the students using laptops, as a group, are performing any differently (better or worse) than the rest of the class.
My two or three cents.
Talk about timely, I’ve just gone back to school after 15 yrs out. I didn’t have a computer the first time around, I had a Brother Word Processor, yikes.
I’m in a bunch of entry level auditorium type classes and I have to say I find people surfing the net in front of me incredibly distracting. Facebook I don’t mind so much, but large attractive images grab my eyes every time. I’m usually very good about focusing on a speaker in front of me (I learn audibly) and so I can attest to the power of image on screen
That being said, in the last semester I’ve experimented quite a bit with methods of note taking. I started with pen and paper, but many professors now post their PowerPoint lectures and expect students to print them out, bring them, and add notes. I was falling behind trying to write everything down (nothing worse). But I can’t stand to scribble notes onto typed out outlines, when I went to study them, I could barely comprehend what I had done.
So when I have a pdf that I can not edit, I’m sunk. But with an electronic outline, this semester I’ve been editing them on the fly as the prof lectures. With a little bit of practice (this is definitely a separate skill from note taking with pen) I’m finding I do type faster than write, I do not type verbatim, and while I am occasionally distracted by formatting, it’s working great.
Sooooo, I know I’m off on a tangent, but to your question, in some ways I think it depends on how you are teaching. If you are using a power point or some other pre-written definitions or outline, I think you need to give the option of dealing with your lectures electronically. If you are writing an outline on a chalkboard (or document camera) and talking, I think you are safer outlawing computers. But I would lean toward Marsha’s solution of exile if caught.
“If it’s clear that requests for someone to move will be enforced and supported by you I wonder if the annoyed will feel they can act on their own behalf and cut you out of the middle.”
Can you tell I’ve been struggling and thinking about this subject a lot. I was such a good note taker, but have found that skill is not up to the changes my professors have made in their delivery techniques (and just to give the student’s perspective for a second) they are all doing something different.
I am neither a student nor a teacher – however, I have children who are both. None of my children took their laptops to class, my middle son because he found it to be distracting and as a student with a learning disablility any distraction is a bad thing. My daughter because she doesn’t like to haul hers around – she says it is too heavy and she prefers to take her notes by hand and then transcribe them later. The re-typing of them helps her to retain what she is learning.
My oldest son went to an engineering college that provided computers in each classroom to the students. Every class of his was lecture/lab, but the internet availablity in the classroom was limited to the particulars of that class and no games on the computers. Simple solution. He now teaches high school math. His students are allowed to have laptops in the classroom but it is not encouraged for just the reasons you have outlined. Granted HS is a whole different animal than college, but the reasoning is the same.
I would say, structure your classes to encourage participation. Stroll the aisles and if web surfing bothers you, make a point of saying so when you see it. Maybe have a class discussion on distractions and ask the student’s opinions. I wouldn’t ban them – as someone else pointed out, each student learns in a different fashion, what works for one may not work for another, but it is something they each have to learn for themselves.
I’d have to agree with some of the people that have commented so far, students pay to attend class, so they can pay as much attention as they want. Frankly, I don’t use my laptop much in class because it’s kinda hard to type up a math lecture.
Perhaps you can put the issue of laptops up for a vote in the class, because the distracted non-laptop students are paying just as much in tuition to be there. If the consensus is a ban, it won’t be on your head. And if they don’t vote for a ban, then they can’t complain that they are distracted by the laptops.
I have to agree with the two students–I’m a recent graduate, so I guess I tend to still think of myself as a college kid. While I didn’t use laptops in lecture (it’s funny how you mention taking longhand notes is more beneficial for the learning process–for me it’s VERY true), many of my classmates would. And yeah, many of them would be dicking around, but there would also be those folks who used a lappy to enhance their in-class experience. My feeling is that laptops should be allowed. If a student is disturbing the class, they should be reprimanded (as you say you already have been doing). Students like the guy who came up to you and snitched on the girl surfing the web are free to sit elsewhere if someone else’s computer screen is really bothering them to the point where they cannot focus on the class (on that note–is it [i]really[/i] that distracting to see someone surfing the web? I doodle a lot in my notes, or sometimes did required reading as opposed to taking frantic notes and focusing on the lecture–is that any less distracting for my neighbor??)
Ultimately, universities are a paid service. As a student, you get what you put in, and if some students are more content to tap away at their keyboards than to pay attention to class, that’s their prerogative.
Let the laptops be, and see how those surfer students do come exam time. That’s my vote
Well. Chalk my opinion up with the students and recent grads (although I’m not a recent grad). I was a senior in college, graduating THAT SEMESTER, and my playwriting teacher called me at home to ask me why I wasn’t in class that day. WTF?!?! You know, I got all the way through college without his help.
WRT pen and paper. I wrote a novel solely on lecture time and still aced my tests, so just because someone’s got a pencil and paper and they’re writing furiously while the professor talks and from a small distance it looks like notes–it doesn’t mean they’re notes.
I guess my question is about the student who complained. If he was the only one distracted, why couldn’t he have moved his eyeballs away from her laptop screen? It’s not like she was smoking and giving everyone second-hand fumes. I guess I might’ve wanted to ask, “Why were you paying attention to her and not me?”
Thank you, everyone, for these helpful comments. It’s interesting to see that it does kind of break down along teacher/student lines.
I think the arguments that students have the right to use “lappies” (!) and that it’s not part of my job to police what they are doing in class (as long as they are not disruptive) is the better one for now. I agree that sometimes they help, not just students, but even me, like when I am trying to think of a name of something and a student Googles it.
However, like RfP, I distinguish these concerns from the claim some of you made that professors provide a service which students pay for, and that’s why profs have to allow them. For one thing, even if that’s true, service/contractual relationships still have rules (I paid for the Big Mac, but that doesn’t give me the right to shout “mother fucker!!” to the server).
But, more importantly, I see the teacher/student relationship as more than a server/customer one. This relates to my philosophy of education — that’s it’s different from learning a trade at a technical school — and many related issues, so I won’t go into it.
This was very helpful. Thank you!
A question if I may. Do you see a change in attitudes towards teachers/profs generationally in your students? It has been a long time since I was a full time student, so I wondered if you’ve seen any differences potentially based on age in the students you’ve taught. I agree that the student/teacher relationship is or should be different from the service model you mentioned. I also agree that respect should always be a significant acpect of the classroom experience.
As a parent of a college age student, I found that simply telling him that he needed to quit goofing off & pay attention because both he and the teacher deserved his respect. However, framing the conversation in terms of value for the dollar resonated with him. I can’t say why, although I suppose it may be due to the high financial cost of college education. Many kids are coming out of school with high debt.
I don’t have any concrete answers, but the conversation here has been very helpful.
bookwormom wrote:
I have been teaching, if you include my years as a grad T.A., since 1994, and I do think there has been something of a shift in the expectations and the relationship, but so many factors go into that. I don’t even know how I would tackle the question. For example, I found private liberal arts students to be less respectful than the poorer public uni students I now have, but those SLAC students had a non-instrumental view of their education that was more in tune with mine. On the other hand, I was 25 years old when I taught at a liberal arts college, and more than a decade later, I find my aging appearance helps inspire respect.
Another factor is that I teach a lot of gen ed students — not majors — and they are often taking my lower level courses to fulfill a requirement, so that can affect their attitudes as well.
I guess I think there is a difference between wanting and asking the best out of your education and holding professors to a high standard, which I support, and thinking of professors as your paid servants, and your education merely as a tool to get a job, which I oppose. My view is partly a matter of ego, partly a matter of ingrained professional self-image, partly a matter of ethics (I don’t like purely instrumental human relationships in general), and partly a matter of my view of what, with some luck, I contribute to the world.
I do understand your son’s point of view, and I can see trying whatever argument works to get him to get the most out of his education.
Not sure if that helps!
I was raised in a household where education was viewed & reinforced as a tool to broaden one’s mind- not as an end to a well paid job. Lately when listening to & conversing with parents of college age students & the students themselves I feel that my viewpoint is a) in the minority and b) seen by others as a luxury few can afford. It’s all very sad, IMO. Inevitable with the financial burdens I mentioned above, perhaps.
I hope the kids don’t act as though the profs “owe” the students. That makes me cringe, TBH.
Jessica, I went back and read your links, and the research is pretty compelling against laptops in class.
After reading those as well as the rest of the comments here, I think I would reframe the question: rather than “do laptops help or hurt the student’s learning process”–which is primarily the student’s responsibility– I would ask, “do laptops in the classroom interfere with your ability to teach?” in particular, being able to make eye contact with your students seems important. So it’s possible that I’ve changed my mind.
I think it’s also a way to frame the edict that would be more palatable to the students. You tell them, “This is my rule because I teach better in this environment,” vs. “You kids are not capable of paying attention if you have laptops, so I say you have to get rid of them.” Make sense?
Bookwormom, I’ve been out of college for a long time but I still remember that thunderstruck feeling I had when the dollar argument was presented to me. I was a freshman, giddy with the freedom, and still felt like I was getting away with something by skipping class. A fellow classmate told me he never skipped class, and when I teased him, he just said he was paying a lot of money for that lecture and it was wasted if he didn’t go.
I can’t say I never skipped class after that, but it was a far more measured decision. IME, the dollar/service argument tends to make students MORE engaged, not less.
Nicola~ I agree with your point about changing the conversation to emphasize teaching style as opposed to students’ behavior. Less likely to get their hackles up, so to speak,
. As to the cost/service argument, I hope it made an impression on him. He’s pretty hardheaded. Knows everything & assumes his mother needs to be educated, LOL. 
Nicola O. wrote:
Are you sure you aren’t a psychotherapist? Actually, I find I can make eye contact with the laptop users (a lot of them are those tiny Acer things), but I like the way you framed this.