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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

#231

Post by Groxx »

foldr wrote: post #226
Groxx wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or abandon the attempt at lecturing what's already in the book, and spend most of the time on Q&A (i.e. interaction, the stuff that actually benefits from having the teacher in the room). Bonus points: more people come to class having read the material, and people who already read it and don't have questions don't bother coming. The few I've had that did this were amazingly useful - alternate derivations for people s…

That can work with good students, but at most institutions, students don't do the reading and hence most learn nothing through this approach. It's the kind of thing that people who were good students tend to suggest because it would be ideal for them, but we have to think about the other 80% of the class. The course I'm currently teaching has, in addition to lectures, weekly two hour seminars where people are suppose…

Yeah, it is a struggle for people who don't read before the class. Which is also why "nobody read it" tends to turn into "ok, so read it now" which does tend to bring up questions within about 10 minutes. But I've seen it convert a sizable number of people into readers, since it's an abnormality and takes a few classes to adjust to. Obviously YMMV though, it depends on everything, and nothing works for everyone in every situation.

Re last paragraph: I mean that I don't understand the point of spending a full lecture on exactly the same material as is in the book, unless the goal is almost exclusively to help people who don't learn well from reading, but do from listening. Which is a valid goal, but so far I've only seen an extreme minority claim this as their goal.

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

#232

Post by ChuckMcM »

Griffinsauce wrote: post #222
ChuckMcM wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People learn in different ways is the answer. Different people have different ways of cementing understanding in their heads. My ideal form is to record the meeting, and then later review it and write notes.

Ideal for learning yes but very time consuming. Do you feel it's worth it in that way?

I have long since come to grips with the reality that learning something is going to take some time. It is a challenge to put up with that time sink if what I'm learning is merely an intermediate step between now and a point in the future when I can do this third thing that requires that I understand something first. This is because the goal doesn't feel like it is getting closer while I'm wasting my time learning how to use a tool or technique for example.

That said, I have experienced many times where learning the tool or technique along the way to getting something done has been rewarded in a better outcome in the goal or a bit of knowledge that was applicable elsewhere. I use those memories of those rewards to mitigate the feelings of impatience or frustration with the time investment.

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

#233

Post by bsder »

mikebenfield wrote: post #176
bsder wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

Really? That has not been my experience.

Every class I have taught had a detailed syllabus with chapter and page assignments. Generally, they were spot on until the class started getting behind.

For English classes, which book you need to have read is always listed.

Which classes would you be referring to?

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

#235

Post by dgacmu »

Dave_TRS wrote: post #228
dgacmu wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 reacti…

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…

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.

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