There's another study showing that students around you with laptops harm your ability to concentrate, even if you're not on a laptop yourself. This is in my opinion a stronger argument against laptops, because it harms those not privileged enough to have a laptop. (not enough time to find study but you can find it if you search!)
Students Are Better Off Without a Laptop in the Classroom
141–150 of 255 posts
Re: Students Are Better Off Without a Laptop in the Classroom
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
For real though. Many large undergrad lectures kinda run this way. I'll take the video of the lecture (many large universities record all lectures now) and just play it back at ~1.3x speed later. I can rewind, stop, and fast-forward to the stuff I know I need to know. Since the tests/HW are the only thing that matters, why would I not do it this way? It's a better use of all of our time.
A counter argument for the sake of discussion: students in the classroom can add value to the recorded lectures by engaging the professor with questions that ask to clarify, extend, etc. If there are no students left, the students rely fully on the profs ability to monologue. Could be a risk. Could dilute the lecture's potential.
Yeah, at most large US universities, that's not really occurring anymore. Maybe the upper division classes in smaller majors, but most of college is a joke now. TAs really do the teaching, if at all. Lecture is not really something that is valued, even by admin. If you get more grant money, you get to teach less, or so I hear. Project based learning, where you actually build a race-car or a app or make a bronze sculpture, does prove you aren't drooling your way through. Combine that with years of using the same test over and over, and you get rampant 'cheating' issues, but I hesitate to call it cheating when the profs are confronted with it and just send out a 'strongly worded email' and that is it. Look, don't be the person at the orgy counting wedding rings. That's 'college' now. It's little surprise that most Eng. jobs won't take anyone without a MS/MSEE/MSME/etc anymore, they know college is a joke too, they were just there like 10 years ago.
Re: Students Are Better Off Without a Laptop in the Classroom
#143Students are also better off without forcible teacher's unions and federal curriculum mandates; no chance of hearing about that. Maybe the best way out of this mess is vouchers. If the schools are functioning, it should be obvious to them that the laptops are not working out.
Where have vouchers proven effective? If anything, we need to follow Finland's lead and ban paying for school. Segregating students by economic class has not improved education in the United States, about the only effects are 30+% unvaccinated rates in private (mainly Catholic) schools, and strong clique effects that allow so so students from said schools to do notably better than those from nearby public schools.
Also, the local Archdiocese across the US need to get their shit together, its fucking disgusting that they are the leading cause of whooping cough, mumps and so on coming back in force and killing people.
Re: Students Are Better Off Without a Laptop in the Classroom
#144If students aren’t engaged, they aren’t going to become star pupils once you take away their distractions. Perhaps kids attend more lectures than before knowing that they can always listen in while futzing with other things (and otherwise, they may skip some of the classes entirely). The lecture format is what needs changing. You need a reason to go to class, and there was nothing worse than a professor showing slide…
I would say that the lecture model works, but only when specific preconditions are met: 1) Eager learners who have reflected on the same material before coming in, to the extent that they know the gaps in their understanding. 2) A lecturer who is above the students' level (on the material) and willing/able to answer arbitrary questions about the topic. 3) Students keeping up and asking questions to ensure that they s…
Among other things, you're also describing what teaching using case studies looks like for example. There's pre-class reading and the class is built around interactive discussions. It's harder to see how this works for most technical topics outside of project-based courses.
Re: Students Are Better Off Without a Laptop in the Classroom
#145Students are also better off without forcible teacher's unions and federal curriculum mandates; no chance of hearing about that. Maybe the best way out of this mess is vouchers. If the schools are functioning, it should be obvious to them that the laptops are not working out.
Where have vouchers proven effective? If anything, we need to follow Finland's lead and ban paying for school. Segregating students by economic class has not improved education in the United States, about the only effects are 30+% unvaccinated rates in private (mainly Catholic) schools, and strong clique effects that allow so so students from said schools to do notably better than those from nearby public schools. Al…
> Also, the local Archdiocese across the US need to get their shit together,
Local dioceses, which include but are not limited to archdiocese; metropolitan archbishops have extremely limited authority over the diocese of suffragan bishops within their province, so archdioceses have no real special status here other than that they also happen to be dioceses.
> its fucking disgusting that they are the leading cause of whooping cough, mumps and so on coming back in force and killing people.
They aren't, anti-vaxxers are. There's some cases where the vaccination policy of the a particular diocese is less strict than those of public schools in the same area, and cases where the reverse is true [0]; and Catholic schools are the most common private schools in the country. So, where they have more lenient vaccination policies than public schools, they are where anti-vaxxers tend to end up, but they aren't the cause.
[0] Texas is, apparently, an example of the latter, since public schools accept religious exemptions but the Catholic schools do not. http://staugustinecs.org/archdiocese-statement-on-immunzatio...
Re: Students Are Better Off Without a Laptop in the Classroom
#146This reminds me of the running gag in some college movie where the first day all the students show up. The next cut some students come to class, put a recorder on their desk and leave, then pick it up later. Eventually there's a scene of the professor lecturing to a bunch of empty desks with just recorders. And the final scene there's the professor's tape player playing to the student's recorders.
FYI, this gag appears exactly as described in Real Genius . I wonder if there are any other movies that use it?
Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt4vXaoPzF8
Re: Students Are Better Off Without a Laptop in the Classroom
#147Just personally, for me it was often a choice between "Laptop-based Distractions" or "Fall Asleep in Morning Lecture". The former was definitely the superior of the two options.
Just stay at home and sleep in then instead of distracting everyone around you and taking up space?
Re: Students Are Better Off Without a Laptop in the Classroom
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reason hand written notes are more effective is that it helps towards better learning just by writing the thing down and slowing it to a pace where your mind can make memories. Even if afterwards the notes are completely illegible, I would argue it's more effective than typed notes.
I've always wondered about this. What makes handwriting different from typing in terms of memory recall, other than the fact that most, if not everyone, have written with pen and paper for far longer than typing?
Greater number of variables employed in creation. Any one of which could be a hook to remember by (location on page, made a particularly nice letter, where my pencil broke, after the smudge, before/after my hand started to cramp).
Typing vs handwriting is like finding the right door in an unnumbered hotel vs a picturesque medieval town
Re: Students Are Better Off Without a Laptop in the Classroom
#149The schools are so messed up in the US. Best to just educate children yourself as best you can. As for college kids, best to travel abroad.
> As for college kids, best to travel abroad. 15 of the top 20 universities in the world are in the US. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankin...
As claimed by US publication using their own US biases for ranking :)
Re: Students Are Better Off Without a Laptop in the Classroom
#150"Thus, there seems to be little upside to laptop use in class, while there is clearly a downside."
Thanks to bs articles like this that try to over generalize their results, I was unsure if I "needed" a laptop when returning to school.
Got a Surface Book and here's what I've experienced over the last 2 semesters. - Going paperless, I'm more organized than ever. I just need to make sure I bring my surface with me wherever I go and I'm good.
- Record lectures, tutorials, office hours, etc. Although I still take notes to keep myself focused, I can go back and review things with 100% accuracy thanks to this.
- Being at 2 places at once. ie: Make last minute changes before submitting an assignment for class A or attend review lecture to prepare for next week's quiz in class B? I can leave the surface in class B to record the lecture while I finish up the assignment for class A.
If you can't control yourself from browsing the internet during a lecture then the problem is not with your laptop...