4 ms·

I have a counterexample - CMU's 15-112 bans laptops. The professor for it for the previous 8 years, David Kosbie, is one of the most highly regarded professors

by dgacmu 9y ago

I have a counterexample - CMU's 15-112 bans laptops. The professor for it for the previous 8 years, David Kosbie, is one of the most highly regarded professors in the university. His primary rationale for it is the "externalized cost" effect described in the article, which I can attest is quite true in my experience teaching. When you look out at a sea of faces, you can see where the laptops are because of the reactions of people around them -- eyes keep flicking involuntarily to the interesting stuff happening on the screen, and then they peel themselves back to the lecture. It amounts to a long sequence of micro-distractions that have a pretty pronounced effect on learning. Humans are very attuned to things like motion, flickering, and changes in their field of view, and those are very present when browsing the web or reading facebook on your laptop in class. Second, laptop screens are backlit, which means that they may be the brightest object in someone's field of view in the class. Zoning out on a kindle or printed newspaper has much less of an effect on the people around you. I don't care if someone ignores my class -- that's their choice. I used to not ban laptops, but I've become convinced that it's worth it for the other students. Also, think about the numbers. It's very possible to have a lecture that's very engaging for about 95% of the class (which is a pretty impressive rate all-told). But the remaining 5% have about 10 students each in a field behind them that can see their laptop screen, so a very small number of students goofing off on laptops can have a disproportionate effect on the class.

xenophonf 9y ago
People like Professor Kosbie drive me up the wall. Let me show you why. Here are the notes I took on my tablet PC for a week-long Tandberg TCTE+TMS certification class: https://shared.irtnog.org/Tandberg-TCTA-TCTE-TMS.pdf https://shared.irtnog.org/Tandberg-TCTA-TCTE-TMS.pdf Admittedly, it's a big PDF because I didn't bother converting my handwriting to text, but it's still a pretty useful reference when it comes to video conferencing stuff, even though I don't do that kind of work any more. Now here are my notes that I was forced to take on paper for a week-long ITIL V3 Foundation class, because the instructor thought he knew better than I did on how to learn: '' Oh that's right, they were on paper, so I can't easily back them up, digitize, and share them. In fact, over the course of several moves, I've managed to misplace both the notebook and the PDF scans. I live and breathe enterprise IT operations management and support. It'd be nice to have more than my memory as a reference, especially since I think ITIL had some useful models for conceptualizing this stuff. None of the official ITIL materials are public, so instead of my curated notes, I have to make do with what I can scrounge off the web. In my mind this wastes the time and money I spent taking the class. I realize that I am paying for my instructors' knowledge, experience, and insight---that sometimes I won't agree with them but need to trust them regardless. Conversely, as an engaged student I need them to stop actively interfering with the tools and methods that I've developed over my academic and professional career to teach myself and to retain what I've learned.
- dgacmu 9y ago
  I don't feel like you're hearing my point: It's not about you. It's about the people around you. But you're right: I'm not willing to let you (bleep) up the educational experience for the people around you, because (in my class), everyone around you has also forked over $60,000 per year to be there. But it's also about context: 15-112 is not a "dump facts at you" class, which the courses you're describing sound much more like. 112 is an intro to programming course, where half of what happens is in-class demonstration of how to solve problems with programming. Most of the real learning in the class happens in recitation and by students doing a lot of programming with a lot of TA support. It's also a first-year student course. You're welcome to make a prediction about how many of those 17 and 18-year-old students are actually using their bright distracting shiny to take notes vs. having blingy bleepies popping up on facebook. (Answer: handwav-ily about half, where a lot of students attempt to "multitask" between distractions and note-taking.) I'm pretty happy with a blanket ban, because it improves the net educational outcomes in my classes. shrug (I still allow laptops in my grad classes. I may revisit it, but I figure in general that with experience comes some greater degree of self-control. That's a hunch, not a data-driven conclusion.) The thread later on about the flipped classroom is the one to really look at for resolving this issue -- it's entirely possible that we should get rid of many of the conventional lectures and replace class-time with structured-activity time (which would involve laptops). The problem, however, is that in most flipped approaches, you have to get the students to watch -- often solo -- a video of the lecture material, and/or solo read it. The number who actually do so is somewhat low, even at a top school. The jury's still a little out, but the potential is high.
Cu3PO42 9y ago
I would like to propose a different approach here that has in fact been practiced by some of my professors. What if, instead of blanket banning laptops, you banned them to the last row. That way laptop users can only distract other laptop users. I realize this still isn't ideal for those of us who want to use a laptop in a way that may generally be perceived as productive, because they are still exposed to all those distractions, but they would still have the choice of not using a laptop and sitting somewhere else. In the past I have generally chosen to sit in the back because for me the advantages of being able to follow the approach that works best for me have outweighed the 'visual noise' that I am mostly able to ignore, thankfully. Another approach that I have personally witnessed was to ban laptops for everything but materials directly related to the class. This may sound impossible to verify, but somehow one of my professors managed to do that. I suspect it was using the very signs of distractions you just described, eyes flicking over, maybe small expressions of amusement displayed by those browsing Facebook/Reddit/9gag/... He consistently called out those people who were distracting themselves and others and left everyone looking at the slides in peace.
Dave_TRS 9y ago
I doubt "externalized cost" is the real reason professors ban laptops because if that were the case, a simpler solution would have been used: reserving the first few rows for the minority of students to claim to be distracted by others' laptops. My hunch though is that professors use these occassional student complaint as a front for their own insecurity of being ignored when they talk (which bad professors are most likely to be susceptible to). In my experience the laptop-banning professors are also the ones to practice other the other common destructive behaviors: 1) Deducting grades for missing class, 2) Dropping exam hints in class to encourage attendance, 4) Pop quizzes, 3) Not posting notes digitally. A professor doesn't need to be a charismatic entertainer to teach effectively, but they do need to somehow make their lecture a better use of students time than just reading the book or notes. Trying to make it HARDER to learn using any method that doesn't make them feel good (laptops in class, staying at home and reading the notes and book) may help their ego, but does not help students learn.
- dgacmu 9y ago
  shrugs Again, my example has none of those, and my own classes generally don't either unless class participation is a graded component of the class (some classes are legitimately discussion-oriented classes). I'm not defending bad teaching; I've experienced plenty on both sides of it. But I don't think it's fair to conclude that laptop banning is always coming from a bad motivation. As I said - it's a practice I've seen adopted by some of the best teachers I know, in addition to one that seems like it could be a crutch for some of the worst.

by dgacmu 9y ago

xenophonf 9y ago

People like Professor Kosbie drive me up the wall. Let me show you why. Here are the notes I took on my tablet PC for a week-long Tandberg TCTE+TMS certification class: https://shared.irtnog.org/Tandberg-TCTA-TCTE-TMS.pdf https://shared.irtnog.org/Tandberg-TCTA-TCTE-TMS.pdf Admittedly, it's a big PDF because I didn't bother converting my handwriting to text, but it's still a pretty useful reference when it comes to video conferencing stuff, even though I don't do that kind of work any more. Now here are my notes that I was forced to take on paper for a week-long ITIL V3 Foundation class, because the instructor thought he knew better than I did on how to learn: '' Oh that's right, they were on paper, so I can't easily back them up, digitize, and share them. In fact, over the course of several moves, I've managed to misplace both the notebook and the PDF scans. I live and breathe enterprise IT operations management and support. It'd be nice to have more than my memory as a reference, especially since I think ITIL had some useful models for conceptualizing this stuff. None of the official ITIL materials are public, so instead of my curated notes, I have to make do with what I can scrounge off the web. In my mind this wastes the time and money I spent taking the class. I realize that I am paying for my instructors' knowledge, experience, and insight---that sometimes I won't agree with them but need to trust them regardless. Conversely, as an engaged student I need them to stop actively interfering with the tools and methods that I've developed over my academic and professional career to teach myself and to retain what I've learned.

dgacmu 9y ago
I don't feel like you're hearing my point: It's not about you. It's about the people around you. But you're right: I'm not willing to let you (bleep) up the educational experience for the people around you, because (in my class), everyone around you has also forked over $60,000 per year to be there. But it's also about context: 15-112 is not a "dump facts at you" class, which the courses you're describing sound much more like. 112 is an intro to programming course, where half of what happens is in-class demonstration of how to solve problems with programming. Most of the real learning in the class happens in recitation and by students doing a lot of programming with a lot of TA support. It's also a first-year student course. You're welcome to make a prediction about how many of those 17 and 18-year-old students are actually using their bright distracting shiny to take notes vs. having blingy bleepies popping up on facebook. (Answer: handwav-ily about half, where a lot of students attempt to "multitask" between distractions and note-taking.) I'm pretty happy with a blanket ban, because it improves the net educational outcomes in my classes. shrug (I still allow laptops in my grad classes. I may revisit it, but I figure in general that with experience comes some greater degree of self-control. That's a hunch, not a data-driven conclusion.) The thread later on about the flipped classroom is the one to really look at for resolving this issue -- it's entirely possible that we should get rid of many of the conventional lectures and replace class-time with structured-activity time (which would involve laptops). The problem, however, is that in most flipped approaches, you have to get the students to watch -- often solo -- a video of the lecture material, and/or solo read it. The number who actually do so is somewhat low, even at a top school. The jury's still a little out, but the potential is high.

Cu3PO42 9y ago

I would like to propose a different approach here that has in fact been practiced by some of my professors. What if, instead of blanket banning laptops, you banned them to the last row. That way laptop users can only distract other laptop users. I realize this still isn't ideal for those of us who want to use a laptop in a way that may generally be perceived as productive, because they are still exposed to all those distractions, but they would still have the choice of not using a laptop and sitting somewhere else. In the past I have generally chosen to sit in the back because for me the advantages of being able to follow the approach that works best for me have outweighed the 'visual noise' that I am mostly able to ignore, thankfully. Another approach that I have personally witnessed was to ban laptops for everything but materials directly related to the class. This may sound impossible to verify, but somehow one of my professors managed to do that. I suspect it was using the very signs of distractions you just described, eyes flicking over, maybe small expressions of amusement displayed by those browsing Facebook/Reddit/9gag/... He consistently called out those people who were distracting themselves and others and left everyone looking at the slides in peace.

Dave_TRS 9y ago

I doubt "externalized cost" is the real reason professors ban laptops because if that were the case, a simpler solution would have been used: reserving the first few rows for the minority of students to claim to be distracted by others' laptops. My hunch though is that professors use these occassional student complaint as a front for their own insecurity of being ignored when they talk (which bad professors are most likely to be susceptible to). In my experience the laptop-banning professors are also the ones to practice other the other common destructive behaviors: 1) Deducting grades for missing class, 2) Dropping exam hints in class to encourage attendance, 4) Pop quizzes, 3) Not posting notes digitally. A professor doesn't need to be a charismatic entertainer to teach effectively, but they do need to somehow make their lecture a better use of students time than just reading the book or notes. Trying to make it HARDER to learn using any method that doesn't make them feel good (laptops in class, staying at home and reading the notes and book) may help their ego, but does not help students learn.

dgacmu 9y ago
shrugs Again, my example has none of those, and my own classes generally don't either unless class participation is a graded component of the class (some classes are legitimately discussion-oriented classes). I'm not defending bad teaching; I've experienced plenty on both sides of it. But I don't think it's fair to conclude that laptop banning is always coming from a bad motivation. As I said - it's a practice I've seen adopted by some of the best teachers I know, in addition to one that seems like it could be a crutch for some of the worst.