… completely bann[ed] the use of mobile computing or communication devices in his classrooms, barring extenuating circumstances.
Indeed McGill may be on the way to an institution-wide ban.
The professor cites “multiple studies linking evidence of the use of such devices in the classroom to poor academic performance, greater distraction for users and fellow students, and decreased ability to ‘digest and synthesize’ main points.”
September 21st, 2010 at 11:18AM
I love McGill, it’s my alma mater, but I have to say that professors like this one are obviously angry that they can’t teach well enough to interest students more than Facebook or Twitter. I don’t have a problem with students using any kind of device they want in my classroom. I think if my lecture is boring and they prefer to listen to their iPod instead, that’s my fault, not theirs.
September 21st, 2010 at 11:21AM
This was a little troubling though: “‘If the professor is boring, then I get distracted, but if the professor is really engaging, then the laptop doesn’t distract me.'”
In other words: “Unless I’m being entertained then I am going to be online no matter what you say or do.”
Not all highly intelligent people that can teach us things are innately entertaining. Sometimes conversations that help us understand the world are boring. Life is not endless entertainment streaming in your face.
September 22nd, 2010 at 4:57AM
Hey, I did this starting last year and no one wrote a big newspaper story about ME….!!!!! Seriously, it’s been easy and fine to do in smallish classes ( I have one that meets at 8 in the morning with 15 students–a senior seminar; and another with 35, discussion is going just fine in both, no one misses their laptops and cell phones). The problem comes in with the 100+ megalecture, where discussion is hard to do and anomie quickly sits in, esp with my colleagues who powerpoint their way through the presentation. The big problem may not be in the use or lack thereof of these devices but rather in the practice of big lecture classes themselves, which for financial reasons our administrators are pushing (demand for more tuition paying students while keeping faculty at same size=bigger classes).
September 22nd, 2010 at 7:16AM
Jonathan: Absolutely. The University of Arizona now has a 1,200-student lecture hall, outfitted with all the electronic stuff.
September 22nd, 2010 at 12:59PM
@ Jeff: Students are adults. It’s their choice whether they want to learn anything or not. If they don’t want to learn from me, that’s their loss. I have no interest in policing them or acting as a truancy officer. That’s not my job. My job is to make knowledge available to them, not to force it down their throats.
September 23rd, 2010 at 9:27AM
I, the taxpayer, object if students are checking out Facebook during classes. I’m subsidizing their educations, and if they’re paying their own way I doubt that they’re using electronics during class. Far more likely, their parents are paying their way and I bet the parents are fine with banning electronic distractions in lecture halls whether there are 15 students or 500. And to students who complain that the classes are boring, I say, grow up. Either it really is boring, but you have to pay attention anyway, with the option of writing a bad teacher evaluation at the end, or it only seems boring because you’re making no effort to engage.
September 23rd, 2010 at 9:39AM
EB: You make a good point. Students who say We’re adults and if we want to piss away our education we can forget that people like you are subsidizing their education.