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Laptops Are Great, But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting

nytimes.com

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Re: Laptops Are Great, But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting

#171

Post by Spooky23 »

cjsuk wrote: post #2

I will sit there in a meeting (or retrospectively in a university lecture) and regularly derive nothing of value at all from my notes, be they written or typed. It's the media that is wrong, not the note taking medium. You can't rewind a meeting or a lecture. You can't pause to think. You can't review the text in the middle. Everything is immediate, transient. If you lose the pace, then everything after that point is…

Try changing how you take notes. I felt the same way until I discovered mind mapping.

Writing and linking concepts is almost like putting chapter markers in a video or flags on a page. It helps you recall what was said in what context.

Re: Laptops Are Great, But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting

#172

Post by ghaff »

npsimons wrote: post #168
usrusr wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also before tablets and ubiquitous laptops, but after PowerPoint hit: whenever I had the opportunity to have slide printouts ahead of time, they were a surprisingly nice scribble sink (many slides per page, not a big stack). Those short bursts of details, questions or clarifications both from the talk and from thinking while listening that would be useless riddles without the context provided by the rough timeline of…

I really, really wish more professors had provided slides up front; many don't change them year to year anyway, and it would have helped immensely to prepare for the lecture and be more actively engaged. Syllabi are helpful, but even these days I insist on having at least a purpose if not a full blown agenda for meetings, otherwise what's the point?

As I wrote in another comment, a lot of my experience is with conferences. If I had presentations pre-loaded on my tablet, I absolutely think I'd get more out of many presentations by taking notes on PDFs rather than (usually) typing a bunch of notes and snapping pics of slides that I may or may not get access to at some point.

Re: Laptops Are Great, But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting

#173

Post by foldr »

Dave_TRS wrote: post #58

My experience is that the bad professors are almost always the ones to ban laptops. Students pay attention to engaging professors and use their laptops for notes, and those good professors aren't phased by the laptops and rarely ban them. But When students listen out of one ear and spend the rest of the class processing email, it's almost always an indication that the lecture is poor. That's what I've seen over and o…

Have you ever done any teaching?

You might be surprised at how uncomfortable it feels to talk to a room where 50% of people are looking at their laptops or phones instead of at you.

This tends to go in a vicious cycle. If people are bored for 5 minutes, they get our their laptops. Then there's no chance for me to unbore them in the next 5 minutes, because they're not listening to a word I'm saying.

In most of the classes I teach, there's a pretty comprehensive textbook, and uploaded lecture notes to supplement that. But for some reason, a lot of students seem to begin by frantically trying to transcribe everything I'm saying (often inaccurately), before giving up and looking at Facebook.

I don't ban laptops, but I'm certainly tempted to do so.

Ultimately, it's not really the job of a lecturer at a university to be entertaining or "engaging". It's not middle school. You have to bring some of your own enthusiasm to the class. You can learn from someone who knows the material, even if they're not particularly charismatic.

Re: Laptops Are Great, But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting

#174

Post by foldr »

valine wrote: post #71
Dave_TRS wrote: post #58

My experience is that the bad professors are almost always the ones to ban laptops. Students pay attention to engaging professors and use their laptops for notes, and those good professors aren't phased by the laptops and rarely ban them. But When students listen out of one ear and spend the rest of the class processing email, it's almost always an indication that the lecture is poor. That's what I've seen over and o…

Agreed. It’s also an issue of time management. If I can find a YouTube video that explains a concept better in 5 minutes than the hour long lecture explains it, I would rather spend my time working during the lecture than taking notes.

Then why go to the lecture? You don't want to be there, and the lecturer probably doesn't want you there either.

Re: Laptops Are Great, But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting

#175

Post by ghaff »

mikebenfield wrote: post #132
ska wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lectures as part of course are designed to be attended after reviewing the material at least once on your own. That way you know what to look out for, and your notes will be a concise revision. Its astonishing how many students resist this fact, even when it is clearly spelled out for them. Trying to write down everything the lecturer says is at best inefficient, and at worst a complete waste of time when you lose th…

> Lectures as part of course are designed to be attended after reviewing the material at least once on your own. > Its astonishing how many students resist this fact, even when it is clearly spelled out for them. I've taken a lot of classes, I've been a teaching assistant for a lot of classes, I've observed a lot of classes, and I've never gotten the impression that the instructor expected the students to have alread…

That's probably true in typical STEM lecture courses. In case-study type MBA and law courses and in various humanities seminars, it's certainly different. I'm not sure how adaptable that is to STEM subjects at scale. (Though it does work 1:1 or 1:few there as well.)

Re: Laptops Are Great, But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting

#176

Post by mikebenfield »

bsder wrote: post #162
mikebenfield wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lectures as part of course are designed to be attended after reviewing the material at least once on your own. > Its astonishing how many students resist this fact, even when it is clearly spelled out for them. I've taken a lot of classes, I've been a teaching assistant for a lot of classes, I've observed a lot of classes, and I've never gotten the impression that the instructor expected the students to have alread…

This is simply professors acknowledging reality. If I taught my class to those who "previewed the material" I'd be teaching to 1 or 2 students ... maybe. In reality, the best students do exactly this.

Fine, but then you are agreeing with me: most instructors do not expect their students to read material ahead of time and do not structure their classes as if that is the expectation.

In fact, in my experience it's not even usually possible to read material before the lecture because students are only given at best a vague idea of what specifically is coming next.

Re: Laptops Are Great, But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting

#177

Post by 839083 »

Little late, but my two cents as someone who majored in a humanities field (although working in tech now):

Our lectures were almost always intended to be heard after doing the readings. They were comprised of helpful info professors knew from academic experience, not easily found in any print material. Relevant historical context was especially hard to pick up without knowing what exactly to look for.

I felt like my humanities lectures were more analogous to demos and labs in my STEM courses, learning that relies on a certain spontaneity and physical presence, even if not all of the material is strictly "necessary". As for a counterpart to my STEM lectures, I too would've been bored out of my mind listening to most humanities professors read our readings to us...

Re: Laptops Are Great, But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting

#178

Post by jimbokun »

cjsuk wrote: post #2

I will sit there in a meeting (or retrospectively in a university lecture) and regularly derive nothing of value at all from my notes, be they written or typed. It's the media that is wrong, not the note taking medium. You can't rewind a meeting or a lecture. You can't pause to think. You can't review the text in the middle. Everything is immediate, transient. If you lose the pace, then everything after that point is…

You are not describing a meeting.

Meetings should only invite people who will actively participate and provide their input. Anyone not meeting that description should not be invited.

You are describing a lecture, or perhaps a presentation, or series of presentations. Which classically have all the problems you cite of losing the thread and not being able to catch up again.

In meetings where you actively participate, give input, and ask questions, that shouldn't be a problem.

Re: Laptops Are Great, But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting

#179

Post by chasedehan »

As a former economics professor, I did exactly the same thing these authors were suggesting. While some students did use their technology effectively, the vast majority of whom were just distracted, not to mention probably taking far worse notes.

One small story, I was teaching a class during March one year and I had a student obviously not paying attention. Then, all of a sudden, this student's hands went in the air and an audible "Yes!" came out. I then asked him if there was something important - "Kentucky just won in a buzzer beater!" The vividness of this memory and the difficulty I had in containing my rage is still at the forefront of my mind.

For me, the impact was that while students should be able to do what they want for the most effective solution, it becomes a problem when activities disrupt the learning of the students around them. Someone not paying attention and watching cat videos is infectious as there is a lower percentage of participation and others start to watch the offending student's screen.

My perspective is (although unproven) is that the real reason laptops don't work is because of the temptation to do something else, not necessarily because of the medium.

Re: Laptops Are Great, But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting

#180

Post by jorgec »

Dave_TRS wrote: post #58

My experience is that the bad professors are almost always the ones to ban laptops. Students pay attention to engaging professors and use their laptops for notes, and those good professors aren't phased by the laptops and rarely ban them. But When students listen out of one ear and spend the rest of the class processing email, it's almost always an indication that the lecture is poor. That's what I've seen over and o…

If you are a bad student then every single teacher is bad.

btw, laptop for notes is a joke. A pen+paper is way more effective, cheaper and usable.

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