<p>2VU – Surprising about the laptops since most of them can just access facebook on their phones anyway.
I am not at all surprised about the texting, but I am floored reading these stories about students actually chatting on their phones during class.</p>
<p>I don’t fly off if someone forgets to turn it off and it is in a backpack. My consequences are for using it during class. It should be turned off, but if someone forgets and it goes off,they just turn it off.</p>
<p>Maybe every professor should make the announcement that is made whenever I go to hear the symphony play or a musical. Then there is no excuse for the accidental forgetting.</p>
<p>The problem is not so much phones ringing but rather the texting. For the most part, it doesn’t bother me, so I usually just ignore it (strict no phone policy during exams, however). I’ve had some luck asking people to practice being a professional…but we’re probably overdue for a midsemester reminder.</p>
<p>This is a HUGE problem in high school–the lower the academic level of the student, the worse the problem!</p>
<p>I have tried everything (but actually taking the phone because then I am legally responsible if it gets lost) and I find it very tiring. I have gone with the approach of teaching them how to be courteous and how to use their technology appropriately. It works well with the high end student but at the other end…:(. I don’t know whose responsibility it is to teach cell-phone etiquette–maybe they’ll start making little cartoons about it (maybe something like school house rock). </p>
<p>I’m not sure what the solution is but I do know I’m tired of being the “cell-phone” police!</p>
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<p>I agree with this. I teach transitional (PC word for remedial) classes. If the kids had great study habits and in-class habits, half of them would not be in my class in the first place. I do see what I do as partially trying to teach good habits.</p>
<p>One of the university classes that I teach is in a tiered classroom. Students who are so connected to their phones that they can’t sit 50 minutes without texting tend to do so under their desks. That is straight in my view-line! If they were texting on their desk tops, I could not see it! </p>
<p>Honestly, I have given up trying to be the cell phone police. Those students who are constantly texting have no idea what is actually happening in the classroom, and I refuse to go back over the material with them if I know they missed it because of their bad habits. (It is a different story if they truly don’t understand something.) </p>
<p>The only time I am strict about phones is during an exam. ALL backpacks, etc. need to be left at the front of the room. Phones need to be out of pockets. If I catch a student with a phone in their pocket, they can hand me their exam and leave the room. I only have had to do that once, several years ago. Students have told the story, and nobody dares to push it.</p>
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<p>Not necessarily. Experienced this same issue at a summer Harvard stats course with the offenders being one student from a top 5 LAC and another being a Harvard econ major. </p>
<p>This problem is also common enough that many friends who TF/TA courses at Harvard and other Ivies/elite universities recounted having to confiscate cell phones for the duration of the class at their Profs’ request. </p>
<p>This problem isn’t due to one’s low academic levels…but mainly due to lack of common sense/basic courtesy and being excessively full of oneself.</p>
<p>One of my internet friends, a biology professor, was getting irritated with cell phones in his class, that is, until he made an example of one of the students…</p>
<p>“James, I do hope that is a cell phone you’re playing with under your desk.”</p>
<p>He had their attention from that point on…</p>
<p>;-)</p>
<p>Guys (generically) Thanks for the information and stories. I’m glad (and sad) to see this isn’t really all that unique of a problem. </p>
<p>I really have been sorely tempted a few times to get one of more reputable (if not entirely legal) cell phone blocker devices and just turn it on – or just redo my offices in some sort of signal blocking panels (at least legal if not cheap). I am truly quickly losing any patience I once had for these devices and those who seem to be tethered to their ends.</p>
<p>I’ve taken several classes from a prof who invariably has HER phone ring. Not to worry–she does not answer it, but it does make everyone who’s forgotten to turn their own phones off feel better.</p>
<p><em>prepares to be flamed</em> I actually don’t have any rules about cell phone use (or anything else), and I have never had a problem with a student’s cell phone going off in class. I have to admit that I myself have had incoming calls during seminars, faculty meetings, and administrative meetings–not in the past two years, but before that. My previous phone was noisy going off, and people rarely called, so when I realized that I had forgotten to shut it off, I felt that the odds were better to assume (hope) that I wouldn’t be called.</p>
<p>During exams, I have multiple grad student proctors with me–mainly so that we can go up to students and answer their questions about exam problems. This keeps us in and out of the rows pretty randomly. In classes of about 100 students, I don’t know all of the students by the first midterm, but I normally do know them all by sight by the second one. So that perhaps helps also.</p>
<p>Some time ago, the Asst. VP for Academic Personnel issued a long set of “rules” for the faculty at my university. I read through it, anticipating that I would soon be instructed not to throw bricks at my students–it got really absurd. I am of the anti-rule generation, in any event. </p>
<p>In the largest lecture halls (not the lecture halls where I teach), we also have signs advising the students "No cell phones, no [whatever], no skateboarding down the aisles, no impromptu dance competitions, no flash mobs, no . . . " This also starts to get absurd.</p>
<p>All of that said, actually I do sympathize with the professors who need the cell phone rules, because of a subset of the students in their classes. I’m probably fortunate to be teaching the classes I normally teach.</p>
<p>No flash mobs in Seminar? OH, THE HORROR!!!</p>
<p>Older son’s calc 3 prof had a rule that if your cell phone goes off in class or during an exam you are kicked out and receive a zero. During the final, a fellow student’s phone went off and yes, she was escorted out of the room and failed the final.</p>
<p>Younger son was a at national summer music camp and one of the teachers was very tough on cell phone useage taking them away, etc. During the final concert, this same teacher was conducting and his phone went off. However, he was much more forgiving to himself than his students and even took the call…Very poor behavior and a very poor example.</p>
<p>when does a convenience become a necessity?
My gosh, I’m old enough to remember times before everyone had a cell phone. I can remember when a few had them. I can remember when nobody had them.
I am shocked at the tone of a few here- <em>I have kids, I must have a cell phone on</em> Really? A person cannot leave the room to call, or call between classes? I’ve had jobs where my calls were to be on breaks or at lunch, and if there was some unexpected medical emergency an office staffer came to get me.
Maybe if you’re a doctor and a patient is ready for her baby, or a sick child is in the hospital(yet you’re in class), and perhaps a few other extreme situations. It just seems that if you have a sick kid, so sick that you must be available every minute of the day, then that parent is better off being with the kid than in a class. Barring a very few such extremes, I can see few justifications for needing a cell phone on during class.</p>
<p>My employer handed out iPads to all incoming freshmen. Geez, I thought the cell phones were bad! Next semester, I am quite simply banning their use. I teach my very small classes in a computer lab. No need to even see them out. And the computers? I have net support on them, so I can block Facebook. </p>
<p>For the cell phones, I have a classroom courtesy section on my syllabus. Basically, it says stuff like being late is a signal of disrespect. I won’t be late, neither will you. I will not bring (essentially) a full meal and a gallon of beverage to class. Neither will you. I will not take calls or text during class, neither will you. Please turn your phone to silent during class and leave it in your backpack. </p>
<p>If a phone rings, mostly students reach into a backpack and turn if off. If I have a parent with a sick kid or somebody waiting for a call from a doctor’s office, they simply have to tell me before class starts. I’m not a monster until one student pushes it just a little too far.</p>
<p>S2 had a prof. last semester who told them on the first day of class that any cell phone that rang/vibrated/buzzed during his class would result in dropping the students final grade by a whole letter grade for each time their cell phone interrupted class. That got their attention. This was a class in their major that required a minimum grade of C.</p>
<p>When I was a student, a professor was the top of the food chain. At my small LAC, if you were late to class, the door was locked and you were not admitted, but if he/she were late, we were to wait a minimum of 15 mins before assuming class was cancelled. I can’t imagine that if there were cell phones then, anyone would have dared to have it on. (my D hates these “back in the old days stories” but it is true!) Class '76</p>
<p>lol at all the people who think they are more important than everyone else in the room.</p>
<p>It’s the “me first” generation.</p>
<p>Back when I was college age Sunsnhyinemom, though we saw the prof at the top, we looked at tardiness differently. College, unlike previous school, is where the teacher is paid to be there, not the student. Students might have been late, but they came in quietly and class continued.</p>