Is this before or after the students were told they were required to own a laptop to participate in their education? I'm just about finishing my own education, and everyone there owned a laptop at the school's recommendation.
Personally I used mine for a lot of rapid note-taking, which was a lot faster for me than having to write things down. It actually allowed me to take notes in real time which I am not able to do on paper. Then I also encountered a professor like the one in the submitted article who hated the idea of students using the devices the school encouraged them to buy for their education in his classroom. That class was the roughest for me, I found it very hard to work with my written notes (Which I no longer was used to using of course, since I used that laptop for years) and am convinced the class would have gone a lot better for me had the professor not decided to make a decision which set his classroom starkly apart from the rest.
If the school has a policy of allowing laptops then I think it's terrible for a professor to override that.
What did you use for note taking? Did you use any system?
I hand write notes in meetings and I use Cornell method. For me personally I don't think a computer would work (partly because I only type at about 65 WPM) so I'm interested when I find people who say it does work for them.
I just used Google Docs, but I type very fast. I'm not entirely sure, but I think I have about a WPM of about 130. I managed with just typing things as they happened, and using the shortcuts to enter LateX formulas. I didn't encounter a lot of diagrams or other things that needed drawing during my studies, but usually kept a notebook nearby just in case.
The problem is not whether you take notes on a laptop or a legal pad. The problem resides in TAKING NOTES! This might be just my opinion, but I hate taking notes, it's completely useful! If I'm going to a class I go to LISTEN to the professor and to ask questions to him/her.
Before every class I used to read the contents we were going to cover (superficial read). That way I wouldn't be caught by weird words, references or concepts. At least I knew something. Then I'd "use" the professor to "explain" and "dig" those concepts for me.
If you seriously need to take notes, the one failing is the professor. She/he should provide the content covered in the class in the form of pages of books to read, slides, etc.
If you're a student. DON'T TAKE NOTES! (again, just my opinion)
Personally I find taking notes to aid in my retention of the material. I might never look at the notes again, but just the act of taking notes (hand written or typed) stimulates memory. This is much different than just reading over prepared notes.
Different people can have very different ways of processing information, and what works well for you may not work at all for others. I, for example, am not very good at picking up and remembering information from hearing someone speak. Taking notes (or just doodling) helps keep me focused on what the speaker is saying, and my notes give me something that I can read over later to process at my own pace.
I had a choice. I could disrupt the class to single him out. Or I could do what most teachers in higher education do: just ignore it. After all, these students are adults, and they have to take a final exam.
I think there are always people who will do something else, if they were not looking at a laptop they'd be daydreaming or idly doodling. In the end it doesn't matter as long as they can do the work and meet the learning goals of the course. The ones who can't, regardless of whether they're looking at a laptop, will (or should...) fail anyway.
When you write something down it is not just the information passing through your eyes and brain onto the paper, it's the remnant of that information in your brain that counts. That's why note taking is useful.
"Hello, this is 2015 and people learn in totally different ways than 20 years ago."
The learning process will be similar to 20, 200 or 2000 years ago as the brain does not change that quickly. The mode by which we access things to learn may well change from generation to generation.
Challenge: 'boring' may imply resistance to engagement, perhaps because the material is hard.
By learning different I mean we don't learn in a "broadcast" way anymore. Check out this great article by Don Tapscott:
Yet the students, who have grown up in an interactive digital world, learn differently. Schooled on Google and Wikipedia, they want to inquire, not rely on the professor for a detailed roadmap. They want an animated conversation, not a lecture. They want an interactive education, not a broadcast one that might have been perfectly fine for the Industrial Age, or even for boomers. These students are making new demands of universities, and if the universities try to ignore them, they will do so at their peril.
> By learning different I mean we don't learn in a "broadcast" way anymore.
Given the excerpt you quoted uses the word "want" I think you mean you don't want to learn in a broadcast way. That's fine, but that's not a sufficient rebuttal to the point you were replying to that "The learning process will be similar to 20, 200 or 2000 years ago as the brain does not change that quickly." I'm not sure I entirely agree with that[1], but saying you want to learn in a different way is not evidence that "people learn in totally different ways."
On one hand I feel students preferring more interaction / less broadcast is nothing new, but on the other hand the popularity of Coursera, MIT OpenCourseWare, Udacity, Khan Academy, and countless other very "broadcasty" education sites/resources would seem to indicate many are quite satisfied with little or no interaction.
I was a student very recently and if I class was boring, or too easy (easy enough I could get by without good notes) I distracted myself, with or without a laptop. Most Mathematics professors don't allow laptops to be brought to class, so I planned out personal projects, made UMLs, and at one point wrote shitty poetry if I got bored.
If he's going to ban laptops, I hope he refrains from reading off powerpoint slides. Any professor or teacher who does has given up their right to be mad if students aren't paying attention.
Honestly, I think it is up to the student to decide. If they find they don't pay enough attention with a laptop in front of them, then they should stop pulling it out. If they feel like they barely get anything out of the lectures and decide to stay home, that is also their decision. Its strikes me as odd that it is so common in college now to require attendance or attempt to force student to pay attention.
I typically only pay less attention if I don't feel the professor is offering me any new content or insight into the material. If reading the book and doing the assigned homework gets me the same knowledge, then I only feel inclined to half listen to the lecture.
I think it is often the pride of the professor which drives them to ban laptops or phones, they want everyone to listen to them, even if it is receptive and boring. Instead of addressing the problems with their delivery, they blame the students. I always listen to entertaining, interesting professors.
I tend to agree with you. What about the student who is trying to concentrate but who has a bunch of distracted colleagues playing games or checking social media?
I tend to sit closer to the front to help myself concentrate. This helps me not get distracted on my own computer, but also it puts less distractions in front of me. Nothing is really out of your control as a student. Sure maybe the guy playing Flappy Bird in front of you might distract you for a single class, but if you sit behind him every class then its your own fault.
How about instead of lecturing (talking at people instead of to them) and banning laptops, we change the way these people are taught so that they are actually engaged and focused. It's been known for a while now that different people learn in different ways. Technology can be a huge help in this and companies are already creating products to help create this personalised learning experience.
Disclosure: I work for Frog, a company that creates learning platforms.
> Although there is ample evidence that individuals express preferences for how they prefer to receive information, few studies have found any validity in using learning styles in education.[2] Critics say there is no evidence that identifying an individual student's learning style produces better outcomes. There is evidence of empirical and pedagogical problems related to the use of learning tasks to "correspond to differences in a one-to-one fashion."[3] Well-designed studies contradict the widespread "meshing hypothesis", that a student will learn best if taught in a method deemed appropriate for the student's learning style.[2]
23 comments
[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 31.5 ms ] threadPersonally I used mine for a lot of rapid note-taking, which was a lot faster for me than having to write things down. It actually allowed me to take notes in real time which I am not able to do on paper. Then I also encountered a professor like the one in the submitted article who hated the idea of students using the devices the school encouraged them to buy for their education in his classroom. That class was the roughest for me, I found it very hard to work with my written notes (Which I no longer was used to using of course, since I used that laptop for years) and am convinced the class would have gone a lot better for me had the professor not decided to make a decision which set his classroom starkly apart from the rest.
If the school has a policy of allowing laptops then I think it's terrible for a professor to override that.
I hand write notes in meetings and I use Cornell method. For me personally I don't think a computer would work (partly because I only type at about 65 WPM) so I'm interested when I find people who say it does work for them.
It comes down to motivation. Laptops in the classroom are a nearly irresistible demotivator/distractor for most kids.
Before every class I used to read the contents we were going to cover (superficial read). That way I wouldn't be caught by weird words, references or concepts. At least I knew something. Then I'd "use" the professor to "explain" and "dig" those concepts for me.
If you seriously need to take notes, the one failing is the professor. She/he should provide the content covered in the class in the form of pages of books to read, slides, etc.
If you're a student. DON'T TAKE NOTES! (again, just my opinion)
I was going through old books from university over christmas. I found two notebooks where I took extensive notes during class.
They were all familiar. I remembered the content of the class quite well, whereas I've forgotten most other classes.
(Of course, one possible bias is that I thought these two teachers were better, so I may have paid more attention)
I think there are always people who will do something else, if they were not looking at a laptop they'd be daydreaming or idly doodling. In the end it doesn't matter as long as they can do the work and meet the learning goals of the course. The ones who can't, regardless of whether they're looking at a laptop, will (or should...) fail anyway.
In other words, if your students are staring at Facebook maybe is because your lecture is boring as hell. That's what you should be worried about.
Maybe or maybe not, it's not surprising that all teaching material isn't always as immediately rewarding as checking facebook.
The learning process will be similar to 20, 200 or 2000 years ago as the brain does not change that quickly. The mode by which we access things to learn may well change from generation to generation.
Challenge: 'boring' may imply resistance to engagement, perhaps because the material is hard.
Yet the students, who have grown up in an interactive digital world, learn differently. Schooled on Google and Wikipedia, they want to inquire, not rely on the professor for a detailed roadmap. They want an animated conversation, not a lecture. They want an interactive education, not a broadcast one that might have been perfectly fine for the Industrial Age, or even for boomers. These students are making new demands of universities, and if the universities try to ignore them, they will do so at their peril.
http://edge.org/conversation/the-impending-demise-of-the-uni...
Given the excerpt you quoted uses the word "want" I think you mean you don't want to learn in a broadcast way. That's fine, but that's not a sufficient rebuttal to the point you were replying to that "The learning process will be similar to 20, 200 or 2000 years ago as the brain does not change that quickly." I'm not sure I entirely agree with that[1], but saying you want to learn in a different way is not evidence that "people learn in totally different ways."
On one hand I feel students preferring more interaction / less broadcast is nothing new, but on the other hand the popularity of Coursera, MIT OpenCourseWare, Udacity, Khan Academy, and countless other very "broadcasty" education sites/resources would seem to indicate many are quite satisfied with little or no interaction.
[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-googl...
If he's going to ban laptops, I hope he refrains from reading off powerpoint slides. Any professor or teacher who does has given up their right to be mad if students aren't paying attention.
Disclosure: I work for Frog, a company that creates learning platforms.
Are you talking about "learning styles" such as kinaesthetic or visual or auditory?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles
> Although there is ample evidence that individuals express preferences for how they prefer to receive information, few studies have found any validity in using learning styles in education.[2] Critics say there is no evidence that identifying an individual student's learning style produces better outcomes. There is evidence of empirical and pedagogical problems related to the use of learning tasks to "correspond to differences in a one-to-one fashion."[3] Well-designed studies contradict the widespread "meshing hypothesis", that a student will learn best if taught in a method deemed appropriate for the student's learning style.[2]