I work on a big research university campus. I am a librarian. I feel y'all's pain. At any rate, this term I am sitting in on a big freshman lecture class for kicks (it's in a subject area I want to learn more about, in one of the departments I support). I cleared my participation with the professor first; he is a long-tenured old-school-style lecturer, lenient in tone and Scantron in grading. I sit in the back; there isn't much discussion in class, and there's 100 people in the room, so I don't speak up and I'm not a distraction.Here's the thing. The last time I took a big lecture class like this was maybe 11 or 12 years ago. In the meantime, I went to grad school and of course now I work with students all the time; still, I am enjoying the anthropology exercise of observing the freshmen in their native habitat, and it seems that surprisingly enough not all that much has changed, except that everyone in class now has phones. Oh, the phones.
They cannot put their phones down for a second. There is endless surreptitious texting up in the back rows where I hang out. And one girl, who sits just ahead of where I generally sit, has the audacity to *listen to music on a single headphone* on her phone while she is also listening to lecture and theoretically taking notes. Oh, and occasionally the music is interrupted for texting. I am sure that it is music, and not anything else that could possibly be construed as a study aid, because I can see the album covers on her iPhone.
I am baffled by this. I can see how distracted she is; it is obvious that she's not actually tracking the lecture. I can see the instant joy that texting brings her, versus listening to an explanation of something that is slightly difficult to grasp; it's like a shot in the arm, like the compulsive internet checking that I myself do when bored but can also control when necessary. It's not as if the whole thing is dry as dust; the class isn't bad. The material isn't tough and the prof is a pretty good lecturer (it's not flashy, either - but there is the occasional picture and diagram). The students are almost all actual freshman, six months out of high school, and many of them are still learning how to do this whole going to school thing. (The first day, I helped someone figure out how to fold out their chair-desk).
None of them know me; if there was a research paper due for the class I would have been more forthcoming about my role and offered help, but there isn't. They just know I'm older. I think it's a safe bet none of these students will be coming into my specialized library any time soon.
I want to call these students out on their bad behavior, especially the music listening girl; I want to teach her a life lesson on behalf of everyone everywhere. But I also feel like her poor grade may do that on its own.
Q: What would you say to her, if you had a chance?
If I were that professor, I would tell her to stop texting and put away the music player, or leave the classroom. It's increasingly a struggle for me to stop students from texting in class: I feel like Hercules cutting heads off the Hydra, to have two grow back in their place. (Yes, I know that one: both Hercules and the Hydra are constellations.)
ReplyDeleteIf I weren't that professor, I wouldn't feel the need to say anything. If it's any consolation, chronic texting has a horrible and immediate effect on students' grades.
I went back to school for three semesters recently. In the big lecture courses, all around me there were laptops with all kinds of things unrelated to class going on. In addition, there were lots of good, old fashioned whispering conversations. Some of the lectures were in fact poor (banal, dry), but some were quite good. It didn't seem to make a difference.
ReplyDelete"But I also feel like her poor grade may do that on its own."
ReplyDeleteAlas no. The connection isn't immediate enough. When someone, say, eats bad food and gets sick that night, they make the connection, and avoid that food afterwards. But when negative effects are cumulative and chronic, the connection isn't made. People can even be hostile when the connection is pointed out.
So whether or not I would say anything probably depends on whether you already have a rapport with that student. If you'd been studying together with the students, and helped them figure out complex questions, you might have earned their respect enough that they'd be willing to listen. But if you haven't interacted with them until now, the response is likely to be "Why's that weird old person all up in my business?"
I teach big lecture courses from time to time (~100 students -- not that big compared to some places I've been, but pretty big by the standards of Good Ol' State), and I've pretty much given up trying to police electronic gizmo use in class (except on exam days, when it's strengt verboten). I don't like that they do it, but I haven't found a solution that isn't more trouble than it's worth. With the lines of sight in our lecture halls, there's no way I can tell when most of them are texting, anyway. I just tell 'em on the first day that if they're paying money to be in class, they should be in class, in mind as in body; but if they want to zone out with their toys -- well, we've already got their tuition dollars, and they were tasty. . .
ReplyDeleteYou might mention it to the professor. It is possible he is unaware that students are distracted to that extent. Otherwise, your suggestion to the student will be ignored. Do you think her parents or other instructors haven't mentioned that she needs to pay attention in class?
ReplyDeleteOh, there's a solution: faraday-cage the classroom. But so far I can't convince anyone to let me do it.
ReplyDeleteWell, mine use their phones to snap a picture of the next slide before going back to texting....
ReplyDeleteThat one really gasts my flabber. I put the slides online for them, but instead of downloading the original, I see them taking poorly lit, low resolution photographs of the screen.
DeleteThat's a stupidity test.
DeleteYour students are Derp factor 4, which means they should be sterilized.
Or worked to death in my labor camp system.
I have a texter who sits in the back. It's a small class (20 or so students make it each day). I have told her sooooooo many times to put it away. It's old now. I just don't care. She has a low F. She is an idiot. She's the only one who does this with such extreme regularity. She is my age, and she just glares at me and does her thing anyway when I tell her to put it away. I have so many problems in that class, I don't want to call security to haul her ass out over her quietly texting. And that is what it would take.
ReplyDeleteI know your situation sounds completely different....but my point is, they don't care. The ones that don't care, don't care and won't care. End of story. They just won't. They need something else to make them care, and it won't come from me or you.
Okay, one thing I'd say, if I got the chance would be, when she fails, what did she think would happen, what with her not paying any attention like that? If you ever see her crying or upset over a grade, just ask her if she realizes that she is missing where the prof gave all the information she'd need to do well.
But then, I've HAD the chance to say that, when they come to me crying. They just look at me blankly. They don't get it.
What I've always wanted to do when I notice that half the class is texting is just start texting myself.
ReplyDeleteThe only reason I don't do that is that most of the students would miss the point I'd be trying to make and would go whine to the dean.
If it were legal, I'd also love to switch on a cell phone jammer.
Legal or not, I think a cell phone jammer that worked from inside a bag or briefcase (which may well exist), and perhaps had an "intermittent" setting, so it wasn't too obvious, would be a very useful item for professors. Just running it for the first few weeks of class might create enough frustration to convince them that that particular classroom isn't a good place to text, and/or simply break the habit in that context.
DeleteOf course, then they'd just hop on the wireless connection, and from there to facebook or twitter or whatever's hot that I haven't even heard of yet.
I tried CC's approach with that very goal, but the device was faulty. Since it's illegal, I couldn't very well complain to the seller.
DeleteThe old maxim applies: Don't care more about their education than they do.
ReplyDeleteThe old maxim applies: Don't care more about their education than they do.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to perform their behavior next semester. I'm going to give a lecture while texting, checking facebook, tweeting--all of it. Then I'm going to ask them how well I communicated the material. Maybe it'll work, probably it'll just be a stunt, but the level of distraction during class and while writing their papers (which is the only way I can explain the mess of text they turn in) has to stop.
ReplyDeleteI tried that for a week. I told my chair I would do it and she approved it. I told them I'd be on Facebook and texting whenever the urge hit me. They just thought I was 'cool,' even thought I interrupted lecture to text or post online. Some attempted to friend me on Facebook and others found something else to do while I was texting. No one complained. No one. They did not view it as a break in our social contract (or in our professional one, either). I anonymously polled them at the end of the week to ask whether any of them felt they weren't getting their money's worth or that I had done a poor job while texting. One person wrote, "I didn't even notice that you were texting."
DeleteAnd it's not just the young ones. I know of two colleagues who regularly use their iPhones during meetings, conversations, in class, etc. They're as bad as the freshmen.
Crap. Back to the drawing board I guess.
DeleteOur department has agreed that in our syllabi we place that if we catch a student doing something with electronics that is not about taking notes, they are marked absent. Several students are in for a real surprise when they get their grades next week. Muahahahahahaha!
ReplyDeleteOther than that, were I you, I wouldn't/couldn't do anything.
So do you notify them in class that they'll be marked absent? I can see lots of fall out from that later on if they are surprised by it.
DeleteAs a somewhat uninvolved spectator, you can get away with saying far more to this student than an instructor can. After all, the student can't retaliate against you--she can't fill out a bad evaluation, for instance. You might take advantage of the situation by telling her that her electronic fetish is distracting to you and that it prevents you from being able to pay attention. Make it about you and other people--that way she can't argue with you. You might even smile sweetly when you say it--guilt works wonders on people. Since you're not the authority figure in the class laying down arbitrary rules to kill her texting fun times (the student might even see you as a peer), she might even respect your wishes.
ReplyDeleteI tried that in a class a few years back while on sabbatical. This other "mature" student was incredibly needy of attention and responded audibly to every teapartyin' thing the professor said. She also would nudge me and make side comments, apparently thinking that I'd appreciate it, being her age and all. I started sitting elsewhere, but her noises and interruptions still drove me batty.
DeleteSo one day after class, after a brief, friendly exchange, I said that her comments during class were distracting to me and other students -- I found it hard to focus on getting the notes, and would she mind writing down her ideas and questions for the end of class instead?
She was incensed and defensive, and went to the proffie to complain about me -- who did I think I was, what gave me the right, etc. I spoke to the prof. before the next class, apologizing and saying I had spoken to this student as a peer, and that I wasn't trying to run his class. But he was very miffed and said, briefly, that he could handle her.
Though he never did.
My point: If Wilma does as Gone Grad suggests, it could bite her in the butt. Even if she can smile as sweetly as I did.
Guilt works wonders on *people*. Self-absorbed, reality-challenged entitled snowflakes is another matter.
DeleteIf you say anything to her she'll start whining. "I was only texting." or "You don't know me. How can you judge me?" or any number of puling responses. If her parents haven't taught her to be a responsible adult by this time it's unlikely a brief word from you will have any effect
Let her be. The lessons we learn the hardest we remember the longest. Or put a better way, "Experience keeps a dear school, but a fool will learn in no other."
Do you know if she's failing? She might actually be bored. I'm not condoning the behavior, but she may not be failing, so that won't be a lesson.
ReplyDelete