I’m Banning Laptops From My Classroom

[question everything]

By Stuart Green

For more than 20 years, I have taught college graduates, most in their mid-20s, the basics of criminal law and procedure. In all that time, at half a dozen law schools, I’ve had the daily opportunity to observe some of the miracles that modern technology has wrought in the legal academy: Computerized research. PowerPoint. No more handwritten blue books!

But now and then, carrying out my institutional duty to observe classes taught by younger colleagues, I move from the front of the classroom to the rear. What a revelation to see what the students are up to. While virtually all of them have open laptops and most are taking notes, many seem more intent on emailing and texting, posting on social media, reading news sites, shopping online, or looking at YouTube videos. I recently saw one student systematically checking out law-firm websites for summer-associate salaries. Another spent an entire class streaming an NHL hockey game.

(snip)

Has the time come to ban laptops from my classes? The arguments for doing so seem pretty straightforward. As common sense suggests, and a March 2013 study by Faria Sana, Tina Weston and Nicholas J. Cepeda confirmed, students who are multitasking during class have less understanding and recall of what’s being discussed.

The study also found that “participants who were in direct view of a multitasking peer scored lower on a test compared with those who were not.” So the student with the game on his laptop is also making it harder for the student sitting behind him to focus.

(snip)

Even when multitasking is blocked, students who take notes on a computer tend to perform worse than students who take notes by hand, according to a 2014 study by Pam A. Mueller and Daniel M. Oppenheimer. They found that laptop users were basically creating a transcript of the lecture, while those taking notes by hand were synthesizing the information. This confirms my own experience when meeting with students who appear to have a nearly verbatim record of what I said in class but fail to grasp what I was trying to convey. Laptops in the classroom can also make it harder to teach. Most law professors do more than lecture. We ask questions, pose hypotheticals, encourage students to engage in dialogue. Yet I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve called on a student with a question,

(snip)

In August, when the new semester begins, I’ll have a new rule for my classroom: no laptops.

More..

http://www.wsj.com/articles/im-banning-laptops-from-my-classroom-1468184264

Mr. Green is a professor at Rutgers Law School and the author of “Thirteen Ways to Steal a Bicycle: Theft Law in the Information Age” (Harvard University Press, 2012).

[Hoyt]

1. Multi-tasking -- good to know and practice nowadays. Are they learning what the prof wants teach.

I would walk around more to keep the students honest. A few "Mr. Smith what is this crap you are looking at," should reduce that. If not, start throwing them out of the classroom.

[Igel]

7. Computers don't much multitask.

A processor does one thing. Fast.

But it can move everything to memory and do a second thing while waiting for things like having a drive read. When it returns to the first task it has lost nothing. Perfect retrieval of memory, it picks up where it left off.

We cannot do that. Memory is imperfect. We have to pause to catch up, get back to where we left off. We lose focus.

We screw up. We don't notice because to notice means instead of trying to do two things we do three--monitoring is an additional task.

Simple, often repeated and automatic things we can multitask. As long as nothing departs from script.

[LP2K12]

2. Not a bad idea...

Providing accommodations are made for students unable to take notes by hand such as injured veterans or those with muscular disabilities.

[PJMcK]

3. Multi-tasking rarely works

The human brain focuses on one thing at a time. This is a good observation: "...students who are multitasking during class have less understanding and recall of what’s being discussed."

Multi-tasking breaks the thought process into pieces that are disjointed.

[longship]

4. Dr. Steven Novella could not have said it better.

And he is a Yale clinical neurologist.

But you have it right. Humans utterly suck at multitasking. And furthermore, the more you think you can is the extent that you cannot.

Let that sink into some people's skulls while they are undoubtedly playing Candy Crush, which means that it likely won't.

[GeorgeGist]

5. That's right ...

punish everyone for the sins of the few. How lawyerly.

[neeksgeek]

6. I teach college courses, usually in computer labs...

So even the students who don't bring their own computers have a computer in front of them. It can be frustrating; I've had students watching sports during class too! I make an effort to walk around the room while I lecture.

However, about two years ago, I added a line to my classroom policies that says, essentially, "Do not log in to your workstation until instructed to do so." I enforce it as part of a participation grade. Also, sometimes I tell everyone to log out so we can do something else, and I also give them lab time when they can do whatever they want (within reason).

It has (mostly) worked. Cell phones are a whole other story...