<p>Know there are lots of profs as well as parents with opinions on this. Profs, how do you handle this in your class? Parents, do you talk to your kids about this (or are they too busy texting when they are with you?)
During</a> Boring Classes, Texting Is the New Doodling - ABC News</p>
<p>I discourage texting in class but rarely say anything unless a student is distracting someone other than him/herself by doing so. My own kids have apparently picked up on my attitudes sufficiently that they all turn off their phones when class begins, though.</p>
<p>I did an informal correlation with a summer class last year, and there was a distinct link between texting and lower grades on the exams. The lowest score was earned by the student whose laptop usually had facebook and two other windows open in addition to the one where she was taking notes. This was in a ten person seminar which was highly interactive…and the finding that it’s more difficult to multitask seems to have been supported. YMMV.</p>
<p>If I had large classes, I probably would not care. I can’t police it but it would also be more invisible.</p>
<p>But most of my classes are small, I know everyone by name, and can see everyone very well (we have a round table in one, and 3 rows of seats in the other). In such classes, I expect participation and engagement. If someone doesn’t want to be there, that is okay, they needn’t come to class. But texting and surfing are extremely visible to everyone, and I find it as rude as if someone pulled out a full size newspaper and started reading it. I put a ton of prep into each of my classes, I care a lot about engaging my students, but at the same time, I don’t think my job should be to compete with other more fun things going on. Moreover, it is in their interest not to be using technology in class. All of us have waning attention but shifting to distractions doesn’t help someone regain attention when its necessary. </p>
<p>And btw, texting is not comparable to doodle. Research shows doodling can actually help us concentrate on something we are listening to (doodling involves a different part of the brain that can coexist with listening). Texting, like reading or talking, on the other hand, is verbal and competing with listening to class content.</p>
<p>As a current student, I’m not bothered by other students texting in class as long as those students reduce the volume of their electronic gadgets, and perhaps sit at the back of the classroom. It does bother me when a professor stops the class to admonish a “texter” when that “texter” is not actively creating a distraction. Texting by others doesn’t affect my education; let them text to their heart’s content.</p>
<p>It depends on the class. When I taught general chem labs (not general chem itself – the lab was a separate course), I gave 30 minute lectures prior to lab to about 85 students, and didn’t have a texting problem. If somebody’s phone rang during class I stopped lecturing and did a white man dance.</p>
<p>Then I started teaching a two-hour hands-on science class for elementary education majors (48 students total, 4 to a table), and those girls are addicted to their phones. Personally, I felt it was better to allow them to check their phones for text messages occasionally, because we had little bits of down time between activities and they paid better attention to what they were doing when they weren’t wondering if they had gotten any texts. As long as they weren’t disengaging from the group, I didn’t feel it was a problem. But the guy in charge of the program said that if any phones were visible in the classroom we were supposed to take them away until the end of the two hours. He had a hard-liner attitude about a lot of things, and making me enforce what I felt were antagonistic policies toward the students is one reason I left that course.</p>
<p>IMHO you choose the lesser of two evils depending on the situation – class size, nature of the work, etc. One size doesn’t fit all.</p>
<p>I can count on one hand the number of times I have actually seen someone text during a class, though I know it does happen and that it can be a real problem. I hope all the threads that come up about it don’t give people the impression that it is totally rampant everywhere, it’s embarrassing as a student. >.<</p>
<p>I haven’t talked to D specifically about texting in class, but I have told her about my observations as a supervisor in the workplace. </p>
<p>Employees seem to think that I can’t see when they are texting if they hold their phones low, at desk level or down in their laps. I can. And from my own experience, I know that texting absorbs just about 100% of one’s attention. I therefore know that if an employee is texting, they are paying just about 0% of their attention to the job which they are being paid to do. Occasional texting is OK as far as I’m concerned, but there have been cases where employees devote much of their workday to text conversations, and yes, that is a problem. </p>
<p>Students shouldn’t assume that professors are oblivious to their texting; it’s alot more visible than they think. If I were a professor, I would assume that the texting student is paying zero attention to what’s going on in class. I guess each professor decides for him/herself whether that’s a problem for them.</p>
<p>I don’t have a texting problem in my courses. My classes typically have 25-35 students and I walk around the whole room all hour. I stand next to any student who is not fully engaged and when everyone in the room is staring at that student, the student tends to fall in line. Also, the students do a lot of in-class collaborative learning and that discourages the texting because someone who is texting can’t be talking to their partner or small group collaborator. When a cell phone goes off, I act extremely offended and the student invariably realizes that he/she has committed a huge faux pas. One of my colleagues actually goes and grabs the phone and talks to the caller about how her class is being interrupted. Whatever the professor’s strategy, students who text or receive calls do not like to be the center of unwelcome attention and that usually limits it. Large lecture classes are a problem for texting and internet surfing but creative pedagogy, from what I have heard, tends to limit it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>While I would tend to agree with you, I know from experience that at my workplace (and places I’ve worked before) a large amount of communication for work is done through text message. Yes, there is texting going on that is not work-related too, but we also communicate through text messaging often. It’s how our athletes communicate with the athletic trainer, how the athletic trainer communicates with the coaches and physicians, how they communicate with the students, etc. In my job, it’s how my boss often communicates. He won’t respond if we call him, but he’ll respond if we send him a text message or an email. I have begun to do a lot of communicating via text message because it is often easier and more convenient than calling…</p>
<p>With that said, currently I have two classes where texting is a major no-no. The professor does not want to even see your phone out during class. I have another class where the professor does not want to see it, but if your phone goes off she does not flip out about it. Each of those classes has all of 5 students in them. In one of my night classes, the professor won’t say anything about you having your phone out. For the most part, people don’t have them out but I know it happens. I can see it because I sit in the back. I know that we all were a couple of weeks ago because the student who was presenting that night was completely awful. (I know not right, but…) He barely spoke English and what you could understand he didn’t know the material. AND his Powerpoint was Black letters on a dark grey-to-black background. We all quit paying attention pretty quickly.</p>
<p>I have another instructor who doesn’t care if we have our phones out during class. He doesn’t care if we show up either. Heck, he sits there and checks his phone every few minutes during class too. This class is boring and we all know it. He tries to make it fun, but there’s only so much you can do…</p>
<p>A friend who is a prof at Colgate makes her texting policy clear… If she catches a student texting they are dropped from the class. No one texts!</p>
<p>I kick students out of class the first time I see them texting. If they do it again (and it has not happened yet), they get a special meeting with an assistant VP. I teach classes where students need to learn how to learn and if they could successfully multi-task, they probably would not be in my classes. My classes are also small.</p>
<p>I saw this when we sat in on a philosophy class at Yale. The teacher was ill so there was no discussion that day. Still I was blown away by how distracted everybody was.</p>
<p>I read some where that doodling may help people retain information, but texing could have complete opposite effect. I know I love to doodle at meetings (if I am not on my BB).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>My boss had to admonish a younger co-worker for doodling during staff meetings with our VP. It was a 5 person meeting and she appeared very rude, as if she wasn’t listening (she did this on more than one occasion). Her excuse was it helped her concentrate (she had ADD) but it really came across as disrespectful. It’s one thing to doodle (or text) in a large group setting where it can be done relatively inconspicuously, another when you are part of a small gathering.</p>
<p>And when I say she was doodling in a disrespectful way, I mean head down, not acknowledging the conversation, etc. Not just a little doodling in the margins where you look up at the person talking every few seconds. </p>
<p>We also have a big problem with Blackberries at work. I have one but try not to check my emails unless it’s a long or very large meeting. Some people are really rude about it.</p>
<p>I should add that in addition to the Blackberries, Ipads have become a problem. All the executives are carrying them into meetings and surfing the internet. What ever happened to paying attention and be respectful?</p>
<p>Something that seems to be disappearing in society is basic manners. Texting, talking on the phone, anything other than engaging in what it is that you are supposed to be doing.</p>