At technical conferences I’ve seen the occasional attendee browsing, for example, the World of Warcraft discussion forums. This happens at sparsely attended, boring sessions that immediately precede interesting, room-filling sessions: some people attend just to reserve a seat.

Is this possible at a university? Does someone take attendance? Or is there some other reason for attendance without attention?

I have a policy that explicitly tells students to leave the laptop in their bag and not to text in class. I still have two or three students who text in class. When I catch one I chew them out, tell them to behave like an adult and that stops it, for a week. I have thrown people out of class. I have walked out of classes when the texting and laptop usage got out of hand.

Is it too much to ask students to behave like the adult learners they said they wanted to be when they enrolled in college? It really does come down to the students and whether they showed up to learn or be entertained/babysat. Right now, a lot of college is about babysitting. If you want that to change, then that is something society is going to have to have a discussion about and pay for.

All the more reason for those who are in a position to do something about this – those with tenure – to squeak up.

Bill

As an adjunct, I was barely considered faculty.

When I told students to shut off the screens, they wrote lies in the course evals that made me look like a bad teacher. The pushback from net-addicted hedonists can be overwhelming, especially when they are tacitly supported by administration.

At most schools, the vast majority of courses are not taught by regularly contracted employees. When you can be not re-hired for ANY reason, it’s easy to see how some instructors have little choice but to appease the hoi poloi and their obsessive-compulsion to Facebook, text message, and watch porn in class.

I do not advocate this policy of non-aggression. But then again, I am unemployed after not being re-hired, so it’s moot for me.

If you, for instance, don’t want to be interrupted while reading PowerPoints aloud for fifty minutes, what the Tufts student is describing is the best possible arrangement.

So why doesn’t the prof politely request that people not use laptops for things other than class, i.e. taking notes on the lecture, or perhaps looking up something relevant.

And it is possible to go out into the studio audience once in a while, while lecturing, for a little inspection. And folks doing what has been described could be, politely, asked to stop it or leave.

The fact that faculty don’t do something about this contributes to the problem.