Is there texting in this class?
When I read articles like the one Margaret Soltan linked to about texting in class, I can’t help but be thankful that I once took—and took to heart what I learned in—a course on feminist pedagogy. I’m not going to address whether I consider circling up my students a challenge to patriarchal devaluations of “space” and “emptiness” as indicative of the “lack” and “void” of femaleness, because there’s too much psychoanalytic clutter in both the theories of how repression works and how it can be resisted; instead, I’ll focus on the simple fact that a modified circle presents more opportunities to hold students accountable for their classroom behavior. I write “modified” because the visual nature of my material requires regular use of a projection system, meaning my students arrange themselves in a horseshoe and I move between the lectern at the left heel and an adjacent desk.
Point being, there are very few moments when everyone, myself included, can’t see what everyone else in the class is doing. Of course, I teach a small writing class in which such mutual surveillance of the sort is possible, whereas the classes in which texting has become a problem are more likely to be like those of
Laurence Thomas, a popular philosophy professor whose courses have waiting lists, [who] walked out on his class of nearly 400 students last week when he caught a couple of students fiddling with their phones instead of paying attention to him.
It’s impossible to police 400 students, and I admire the fact that Dr. Thomas is not only paying attention, but that he cares enough to walk out of his class. I have a feeling the same can’t be said of those who teach, for example, similarly large “lectures” consisting of canned PowerPoints from textbook companies. The students have no incentive not to text, because the material on the screen is identical to the material in their outrageously expensive textbooks. No synergy happens in that room—the material is not re-purposed by an expert in ways that illuminate confusing passages in the book—it is simply repeated in a bullet format that oversimplifies the material’s complexity. But I’m here to talk about how to discourage students from texting in class, not complain about the cookie-cutter education so many students are receiving.
I’m not sure it works in larger classes, but in my horseshoe of a classroom, all it takes to discourage texting is to ask them to do a little visualization:
Imagine that you are in a room full of people, each and every one of whom can see you. Picture yourself slipping your hands beneath your desk and placing them between your legs. Now, as your hands start to dance and your arms and shoulders gently flex, I want you to look at your face, the way your eyes shift from your crotch and then up, to your left and your right, then back to your crotch. I want you to focus on that shifty look, that look that says, “I’m doing something I shouldn’t be doing, in a place where doing so is inappropriate.” Look around the room, now, and ask yourself: “What exactly do you think your classmates thought you were doing there?”
Everyone giggles without needing to hear the punchline, but here’s the best part of it: the first time someone in the room tries to text, their classmates giggle again; and again; and again; and again. The punchline becomes a good-natured, self-policing policy—so much so that I once had a student come up to me before class and ask to be allowed to keep his self-phone on, as he was expecting an important text from a family member. As with cheating, I can’t be 100 percent positive that no texting occurs during my class, but at the very least I’ve created an environment that’s hostile to the practice.
By walking out, Dr. Thomas did the same, which is why I’m tipping my hat to him here.
“Self-phone”. Nice touch!
I agree that Dr. Thomas should continue walking out of his class of 400 students on the slightest provocation. Dr. Thomas might even contemplate taking up another vocation, since Dr. Thomas cares so much.
I note in passing that, at least in my experience, science and engineering professors don’t typically take attendance (except for lab, where students are expected to show up and do something on their own). If students aren’t paying attention in class or don’t show up, science and engineering professors are as likely to attribute it to a deficiency in teaching style or content as they are to attribute it to the students not wanting to do the work necessary to complete the course.
I agree that Dr. Thomas should continue walking out of his class of 400 students on the slightest provocation. Dr. Thomas might even contemplate taking up another vocation, since Dr. Thomas cares so much.
In the original article, it noted that this is the second time he’s done this, so I don’t think “slightest provocation” quite cuts it. Essentially, you’re supporting the notion that students should be allowed to do whatever they want, regardless of what their superiors wish them to do, and that they shouldn’t be punished when they behave against those wishes. Responsibility society, here we come!
You mean that this is the second time that he’s done this? Sure looks like walking out on your class is a winning pedagogical strategy then, huh?
For whatever you say about texting, it seems like nothing can be as disruptive to a lecture than the professor walking out of the class. As you note, there are other ways to deal with the situation and to reach the students that really want to participate and learn.
And what about all those students who were not texting? Will their tuitions be discounted the appropriate amount? Or are they just hosed?
See, I was basically on your side, SEK, until you called the professor the student’s “superior.” He or she is not the student’s superior; he is being paid to teach those students (all 400) the subject at hand.
If the students are not disrupting the class (and that’s a decent-sized if, I suppose), then what is it to the professor if only 398 of the students are getting their tuition’s worth? Moreover, what if both those students were getting important texts from their family?
I thought college kids attended or didn’t based on their desires not the prof’s. What an ass. Had they been disrupting others I could see his making a stand but this sounds like 100% ego.
As for silly class size my U required a frosh phsyc class so it was “taught” in the auditorium with 800-100 in each class. I got the syllabus, made sure I read the material and showed up on test days; there was no reason it sit in the class.
I thought college kids attended or didn’t based on their desires not the prof’s. What an ass. Had they been disrupting others I could see his making a stand but this sounds like 100% ego.
It has nothing to do with a professor’s desire: it’s an attendance policy. Moreover, texting during class is as disruptive to other students as laptops can be; that is, not that much, or extremely, depending on the way the tool’s being used.
As for silly class size my U required a frosh phsyc class so it was “taught” in the auditorium with 800-100 in each class. I got the syllabus, made sure I read the material and showed up on test days; there was no reason it sit in the class.
And if that class is taught via PowerPoints provided by the textbook companies, I’m inclined to agree … but that doesn’t make it teaching via PowerPoints the right thing to do, as my aside in the post pointed in that direction.
And if that class is taught via PowerPoints provided by the textbook companies, I’m inclined to agree…
Not a necessary assumption. Physics has some elements that are universal, or at least presentation-independent. In other words, given the right syllabus and the wrong textbook, I can get an A in a frosh physics class. Science is replicable, it’s cool that way.
“Had they been disrupting others I could see his making a stand but this sounds like 100% ego.”
When you are giving a lecture and students are talking, texting obviously not paying attention – it is distracting to you. When you are distracted, it is difficult to give a good lecture, and so the rest of the class suffers.
And its not an Ego trip when become upset when people are being rude to you. I’ve TAed for large classes where professors spent a lot of time and energy preparing for the classes – should they not have become annoyed with students talking during lectures?
Ah, feminist pedagogy as the basis for a classroom panopticon. If nothing else, one must appreciate the irony.
Yeah, I can’t shake how an uncharitable reading renders this blog post, “My class on feminist pedagogy taught me to use fear of sexual shaming to make my class self-police!”
I could see that as an uncharitable reading. Still, I’m not familiar with the school of feminism that considers the classroom an appropriate place to masturbate, or that wouldn’t consider forcing other people to watch you masturbate a violation along the lines of flashing.
That’s a rather literal reading for someone who does literary analysis, don’t you think?
I was praising your inspired appropriation of the panopticon to induce appropriate behavior in class. Likening texting to spanking the monkey in public is, I assume, your own contribution to pedagogy.
That’s a rather literal reading for someone who does literary analysis, don’t you think?
Even though I know better, I’m still going to blame the tryptophan.
Likening texting to spanking the monkey in public is, I assume, your own contribution to pedagogy.
Yep. In all fairness, texting wasn’t even an issue when I was an undergrad. Hell, I only ever sent one email to a professor my entire time at LSU.
In all honesty (and I know the phrase raises the suspicion that I’m going to be anything but honest), I think that your visualization is a humorous way to discourage texting and as I said below, I intend to try your technique next quarter. But I do find it ironic that a course in feminist pedagogy, presumably geared to creating a less hierarchical, authoritarian classroom inspired a vision that fits so nicely with Foucault’s vision of control through internalization of surveillance and can be summed up in SeanH’s “uncharitable” reading. That sort of thing just strikes me as amusing.
Student masturbation visualization exercises IN NO WAY sexualizes the classroom. Nope. Nada. Impossible.
That said, I am going to try your visualization technique in my classes.
With all due respect to your praxis, which is sound, the idea that a 400 person lecture has some sort of “intellectual energy” which is degraded by 1-2% of the class texting is well into prima donna territory. “he cares” is a pretty weak case given that he’s trying to teach philosophy by dramatic monologue.
You do have to appreciate the professor’s novel solution to his problem (a few stray texters in a 400-person lecture). It seems likely that the professor won’t have to worry about having 400 people attend his lecture for long.
Again, it’s about creating an environment in which students are accountable for their actions. A “few stray texters” is one thing, but a classroom environment in which students feel comfortable behaving however they please, irrespective of the stated wishes of the professor, is another entirely.
It does seem like, if the students are required to attend the class and pay attention, this policy would apply at least equally to the professor. If the professor has a valid grievance, this would be precisely the wrong way to deal with it.
Indeed, he could simply have the offending students removed from the classroom. Though, how that would work with a 400 person auditorium…perhaps the TAs could be the enforcers?
I am liking this idea more and more…
Students today have come to view education as some kind of business credential they pay for regardless of performance. They whine about grades and then read the newspaper in class.
he could simply have the offending students removed from the classroom
It’s not uncommon for Universities to have rules governing classroom removal that require a higher threshold than that.
Oh, as a graduate student, I am fully aware of that. I wasn’t being serious, as I hoped that TAs as enforcers comment demonstrated.
One of the things I find striking is that the level of behavior expected of college students is actually lower than the level demanded of high school students.
One of the things I find striking is that the level of behavior expected of college students is actually lower than the level demanded of high school students.
I actually think this is reasonable, in the same way that, in some respects, the level of behaviour expected of adults is lower than that demanded of children.
High school students are children. There’s a recognition that it’s not in their interest to make long-term decisions for themselves yet, so we coerce them into behaviours which we think will be best for their development.
College students are newly-minted adults. It’s time for them to make their own decisions, and if those decisions have short-term negative impacts, so be it: it’s all part of learning to be an adult.
I’m not totally endorsing this, but it seems to be how the system works. So we should expect a drop-off in behavioural standards for college freshers, which would hopefully right itself as they learn how to behave.
Also, high school students are both effectively prisoners and partaking of a freely offered benefit.
College students are customers.
College students are customers.
No, they’re part-owners of a time-share, and when they trash the room, their co-owners suffer.
Could we go back to square zero and clearly state why texting in class is bad? If someone decides not to pay attention, I’d rather he or she spends class inconspicuously texting as opposed to passing notes, whispering, etc. Having a no texting policy during exams I get – you want to discourage cheating. However, trying to ban texting during regular lectures doesn’t seem to serve any purpose other than punishing students for not paying attention (which, in theory, a bad grade/lack of knowledge is supposed to do anyway).
If someone decides not to pay attention, I’d rather he or she spends class inconspicuously texting as opposed to passing notes, whispering, etc.
The issue, to some extent, is whether it’s possible for them to text inconspicuously. In my classroom, it’s certainly not — it’s also inimical to the ethos of an intense, discussion-based class like mine. Large lectures are a different story, though I know that studies have shown that small pockets of conspicuously inattentive students have a deleterious effect of the grades of the whole class. No definitive causal mechanism has been identified, but the presence of laptops has been fingered as one possible culprit. (Soltan’s site, linked above, has hundreds of posts on this topic.)
I find that the classroom dynamic matters in ways I never really thought it would before I became a teacher. A few students deliberatively not paying attention or respecting what the rest of us are trying to do can change the energy and atmosphere of a classroom in a way that’s not conducive to the goals of the classroom. It’s harder to get a good discussion going, other students get annoyed or follow suit and pay less attention, etc. Furthermore, I tend to do a better job when there aren’t disengaged students ignoring me. THat’s not deliberate, I try to do as well as I can regardless, but there’s no denying I’m more successful when I’m not being ignored by a portion of the students.
All of which is to say, the classroom is not an environment where the sort of radical individualism you propose makes sense.
As to this professor, eh. If he’s doing it regularly because he’d rather not teach class, that’s no good. But if this sort of dramatic technique, done early in the term, successfully sets a tone of attentiveness and focus in the class, it worked and he’s to be commended. If it doesn’t work and he keeps trying and repeatedly cancelling class, that would be worthy of condemnation, but that’s not what I’m seeing here. As a TA, tasked with teaching discussion sections for large lectures, if discussion was lagging early in the term, I’d often ask “who did the reading today?” When 0-3 students out of 25 raised their hands, I’d say “let’s try this again on thursday, when enough of you have done the reading that we can have a meaningful discussion” and walk out. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, but if it didn’t I’d try some other motivational or coping strategy; I’d never do it more than once a term.
FYI, I am told that this is the second time that Dr. Thomas has pulled this stunt. Whether it’s the second time in the term or the second time overall, I know not.
Regardless, this seems like a sure loser of a strategy. You’re going to have students who insist on not paying attention (Aristotle had students who doodled in the dirt with sticks). There are multiple ways to deal with it. Walking out on the class is hands down the absolute worst, most counterproductive way of doing so.
Going nuclear does only tend to work once, although sometimes it’s required a second time to demonstrate the seriousness of your seriousness. The threat of it is usually enough.
Just to extend your metaphor, the original “going nuclear” required two applications, and there was “collateral damage” that harmed plenty of “innocent people”. Just a thought.
I don’t think the metaphor extends all that well, because you only “go nuclear” for the students’ own good. The idea is that you’re sacrificing one session for the good of an entire quarter/semester.
(Also, feel free to consider djw speaking for me in this thread. I’ve yet to disagree with a bit of it, and would’ve responded almost exactly as he had.)
Yeah, but you are sacrificing the session of the 395 students who were NOT texting, in order to punish the 5 students who have already demonstrated that they don’t give a shit about what you think (or they wouldn’t be texting). I would have been one of the girly swots up the front, and I’d be pretty pissed off if the lecturer just left. It’s collective punishment, and the good students are not likely to be in a position to make the texters behave.
I remember the first time I really freaked out in class. I’m not proud of it.
I was teaching three classes in one day. The last two were three hours each.
The second time a certain student (who was already on my nerves for a variety of reasons) asked me to repeat what I said because he had been looking at his phone the first time I said it, I lost the plot.
That, at the time, was already my worst class ever. I don’t think going nuclear made it any better. The students who were “scared straight” were already with it, everyone else just got defensive and angry.
I’m curious what you mean by “lost the plot.” I had a similar incident with a frequently absent student this quarter, but the student’s friend told him “Shut up, you’d know if you’d been here Tuesday.” Again, though, that’s the self-policing mechanism I cultivate in the classroom.
I should note that I’ve never gone fully nuclear. I once left in the middle of a class and said “Anyone who cares will still be here when I get back in fifteen minutes.” That worked — even the offending parties, a group of girls who wouldn’t stop chattering in the back of the class, remained and behaved for the next two hours. After class, I told them that they’re adults, and that I shouldn’t have to break them up, but if they continued behaving in this manner, I would … and one dropped, the others moved to opposite heels of the horseshoe.
“lost the plot” = “freaked out” = “went crazy”
I was so angry I couldn’t even speak. I’m not a yeller, I sputter with rage.
All of this is fine in smaller classes of 20-30, but much of it just does not apply in large lectures with 150+ students. You really cannot police that many people effectively (often you can barely see the people in the back row) and the lecture halls are laid out in a manner which actively discourages moving around the classroom.
Additionally, the “texting”/”passing notes and whispering” isn’t an either/or proposition. I have two students this semester who consistently are looking at their phones, passing them back and forth, and giggling about it. My solution has been to ignore them, and simply have their participation grade (which now reflects not only involvement in group discussions, but reflects the issue of “do you conduct yourself respectfully and politely in class?”) suffer the consequences.
Hurrah to Dr. Thomas!!! I am old enough to remember when such behavior would be called disrespectful at best. It’s the result of lack of discipline in child-rearing and I also consider it rude as hell. Frankly, with the cost of a college education today, I think I’d be paying attention — to do otherwise is wasting your (or your parents’) money.
The very ‘popular’ course that Dr. Thomas teaches, that has a waiting list and gets 400+ people a year, is PHI 191, Ethics and Contemporary Issues. It is taught EVERY semester, is a 100-level course with NO pre-requisites, and is specifically recommended to freshmen and sophomores looking for a humanities credit.
In other words? ‘Intro to Philosophy filled up in ten minutes. Here, take this instead.’
I’ve taken my share of those, and I freely, and proudly, admit to reading for pleasure, doing homework for other classes, playing my GameBoy, and sleeping, right through them. I never skipped all but test days; until a certain amount through the semester you can’t be sure if you’ve pulled a Professor who likes pop quizzes or awarding a random point here or there.
Dr. Thomas has the right to conduct his classes as he sees fit within university and department guidelines. This includes, at most colleges I’ve heard of, making a significant chunk of each students grade dependent on class participation, pre-emptively withdrawing those who don’t attend regularly, referring those students who are disciplinary problems, and the right to cancel a certain number of classes, because sometimes shit happens.
I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have the right to just bail on the class. A non-trivial chunk of those 400 students were either people who don’t need the course but are paying really close attention anyway because they’d like a good GPA, or people who really DO need the course and are paying attention even if they’re not asking questions.
If Dr. Thomas wishes for his students to take his course more seriously, perhaps he should ask for his university to not send them signifiers that his course is not WORTH taking seriously. I don’t care if you’re Socrates, your TA is Plato, and your department head is Thales; you cannot effectively engage 400 students in a rigorous intellectual exchange. A course that’s allowed to balloon up to that class size says to EVERY student who signs up for it ‘this is a pure, pure information dump; we’re expected to open our heads and turn off our brains.’
Walking out is an abdication of his responsibilities.
This is the reality for many large 100 & 200 level classes that fill gen-ed requirements (I teach one with 250 students and another with 15-200). Many students are there because they had to take the class (or one like it), but are not interested in the class and do not really want to be there. I try to make it interesting and fun, but you cannot reach everyone in those circumstances.
Could college age people go longer without touching their cellphones or their selves?
Murc, most Professors I know, including myself, don’t have such a formalist sense of what our responsibility as an educator is. My responsibility to teach a good class in which students learn as much as possible is much greater than my responsibility to stand in front of the classroom from 10:00 to 10:50 every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. If being absent from the room from 10:15-10:50 one day incentivizes students to behave more respectfully in the classroom, and that changes the classroom culture in such a way that’s inducive to a better class being taught, his primary responsibility has been better discharged. It’s much, much easier to teach a successful class when students like, well, this:
I’ve taken my share of those, and I freely, and proudly, admit to reading for pleasure, doing homework for other classes, playing my GameBoy, and sleeping, right through them. I never skipped all but test days; until a certain amount through the semester you can’t be sure if you’ve pulled a Professor who likes pop quizzes or awarding a random point here or there.
are incentivized to change their behavior or stay away.
If you want me to pay attention, put me in a class with sub-thirty people (sub-twenty would be better), where attendance and discussion count as significant factors of my grade, where I’m required to write a fair bit, and where you’re willing to initiate disciplinary procedures if I don’t follow your rules.
Oh, hey! Guess what? That’s EXACTLY what all my capstone courses and my 300+ level courses were like!
I said it before and I’ll say it again; if the University and the Professor signify that they don’t care about the class, in the form of monstrous class sizes, no attendance taking, no discussion requirement, testing that only requires regurgitation of the text, and no paper writing, then students will, and SHOULD, visit back on them precisely the same amount of not-caring.
As for the formalist understanding of what your requirements as an educator are; the University has an EXTREMELY formalist sense of what the responsibilities of a student are. I see no reason teaching professors should not have the same expectations.
I don’t mean to sound overly harsh and strident here, djw; from this and other comments you’ve made here I know you take your responsibilities as an educator extremely seriously. But as someone not that long out of undergrad (and who will be returning soon for ANOTHER undergrad degree; long story) I have certain views as to the larger issue of the disconnect between how educators and universities at the collegiate level view what they do and how students view what they (the educators and educational institutions) do, of which this is one sub-set of the larger issue.
I’m sure you can appreciate that as a professor the size of the classes I teach is largely beyond my control, and even though I may be aware that the large classes I teach are sub-optimal, they can still be better or worse, and it’s incumbent upon me to try to make them better, which means adopting strategies that minimize students like you through attrition or transformation.
Look, if the class is lousy and the professor clearly doesn’t care, I don’t begrudge you your behavioral choices, and I might make the same in your position. That said, when students adopt the approach to large class that you outline in my courses, you’re a problem to those who wish to make the best of the situation and have a decent class, and strategies to make that problem go away (including but not limited to some of the ones you list above) are called for.
There are more things going on in SEK’s post- for example the toss off about the pre-formatted lecture slides from textbook manufacturers and what that means in terms of students rights to disrespect class time.
I find that there is sometimes this divide between faculty that generally teach smaller upper level classes and those that teach larger lower and upper level classes that are essentially surveys of massive amounts of critical information, where there is somewhat less leeway in terms of what must be covered. Also, these fields do not automatically have the built in visual teaching tools that an art class or a graphic novel class would. It seemed like a poorly thought out cheap shot.
I find that there is sometimes this divide between faculty that generally teach smaller upper level classes and those that teach larger lower and upper level classes that are essentially surveys of massive amounts of critical information, where there is somewhat less leeway in terms of what must be covered.
And then there are those who teach small lower-level courses, like myself.
Also, these fields do not automatically have the built in visual teaching tools that an art class or a graphic novel class would. It seemed like a poorly thought out cheap shot.
I don’t have ready-made visuals. As I’m lesson-planning, I have to scan images from comics or capture panels from films. It’s incredibly time-consuming, in part because you never know what you might or might not need to reference in class, and unlike teaching a novel, there’s no room to improvise — I can’t just say, “Turn to page 162, no, why don’t we go to page 163 instead, given what we’ve just talked about.” I need to have the panels ready-to-hand. Of course, I can bring in films, but a class in which the professor’s constantly queuing up random clips, even if they are following the development of the conversation, isn’t a productive one. (No one needs to see you navigate menus or fast-forward through scenes.)
Scanning in a pic is easier than fabricating your own diagram of initiation and regulation of DNA replication with relevant factors is what I am saying.
I would say that strategies designed to make the problem go away through transformation are called for, whereas ones that make the problem go away through attrition are rather a last-resort. From my point of view, if you adopt transformative strategies, its a win-win. If you adopt ones focused on attrition, you MIGHT be more concerned with maintaining order in your little kingdom than you are in actually improving your class.
In the case of Dr. Thomas, I would say that walking out is… it seems like a lose-lose. The students who don’t care, either because they’re slacker losers or because they do the reading every week and only show up to class out of obligation, are going to go ‘Sweet! Free time!’ Everyone else? Was already behaving appropriately. And any of the students with half a brain KNOWS that he’s not simply going to never show up again, as that’s the sort of shit that threatens your tenure.
I honestly believe that this is a structural problem more than anything else. I have only engaged in these behaviors, and encountered them in others, in courses that are either obvious dumping grounds that the university doesn’t care about and/or freshman level courses that are going to contain a certain percentage of students who simply aren’t equipped to deal with college. Anything with pre-requisites, anything where the only people are in are those who WANT to be in it, its a different story. I’ve witnessed the occasional guy who thought he was too smart for the class (and in one case he was right about that) but it seemed much rarer.
It seems like once you hit a certain class size, coupled with lack of university support (I somehow doubt that Dr. Thomas had twenty-five TAs, which would let him do things like assign those four hundred students multiple lengthy paper assignments and make all his tests short-answer form) you basically CAN’T do a good job. I know that’s not the professors fault, but it isn’t his students fault either, and unless they were being actually disruptive I say let them do whatever.
From my point of view, if you adopt transformative strategies, its a win-win.
I would say that walking out is… it seems like a lose-lose.
I can say with some experience that the sort of dramatic jesture described in this story can have a transformative effect on student behavior. It often fails, as does virtually every pedagogical strategy, but it can work. I’d be skeptical, too, if I hadn’t actually seen and experienced it working.
For the record: djw and I were defending, in good faith, the practice as an extreme response, but I’ve just been emailed a link that seems to suggest otherwise.
maybe you should update the post itself with that information.
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Anecdote alert: As a somewhat older returning student I took a 100-level chemistry course. The section was well over 300 students. Attendance was something like 20% of the final grade. After the first couple of classes and it was clear to me that the lectures were straight out of the book. So I went to see the prof during office hours (they love that shit!) and asked him straight out if he was requiring attendance because he would be imparting new information, or simply because it was a way of making sure that the students at least minimally kept up with the material, thus sparing him a lot of whining at the end of the semester from undergrads with poor study and time-management habits.
We agreed that, so long as I was doing well I only needed to show up for quizzes and test days. Then he told me a complely disgusting anecdote from his undergrad days about being paid by the optometry school to fetch bucketsful of cow eyeballs from the local slaughterhouse.
This is my second attempt to post this; apologies if it shows up as a duplicate. FYWP.
Walking out seems silly. Kicking people out, for me, would be more satisfying, though I have yet to try it.
Personally, this semester has been the worst by far when it comes to texting in class. I changed institutions, which I suspect has something to do with it. It is precisely as djw says: the energy in the room is drastically different when people are actively ignoring you. It’s immensely frustrating to compete with texting students, and no matter how or how many times I have requested/demanded/suggested students put their cellphones/their “fucking cellphones” away, they do not cooperate. Having students police each other would be satisfying, though I would hesitate to suggest they imagine each other masturbating. I’ve been policing them, pausing to solemnly write their names when I catch them. That, combined with repeated announcements that texting will adversely affect their grades, seems to have a shaming effect.
I find publicly calling out disruptive students is generally fairly effective in these cases. Sadly, in really large lecture sections, it is often difficult to see or hear when students toward the back are being mildly disruptive.
[...] here who walked out of his giant philosophy class, SEK offers a rather intense post on the subject at Lawyers, Guns and Money. I bookmarked it yesterday so that I could get back to the comments today, and they did not [...]
I have a relative who teaches medium-size (30-40?) intro English composition classes at his university, and has reported abject failure with a tactic somewhat like yours. The students refuse to acknowledge that there is anything wrong, and either are or successfully pretend to be oblivious to the implications of “What are you playing with between your legs?”
For my part, I’m a little too old for cell phones to have been common in school (which meant, more importantly, that my social network didn’t generally work that way), but in lecture-hall-size classes, I found my own ability and willingness to pay attention to have more to do with the subject material and whether I’d gotten more than five hours of sleep than on whether other students were paying attention. A virtue of sitting in the front rows, I suppose.
If I were, as I would have been, one of the diligent students who had done the reading and turned up to take notes, only to have the class aborted by the teacher because of the behaviour of the jerks up the back, who wouldn’t have talked or listened to me or my friends, because, obvs, we’re the nerds, I’d be inclined to stop coming and wasting my time. Instant increase in the proportion of the class who are NOT paying attention and probably will only think themselves cool for getting under the teacher’s skin. Taking names seems a lot fairer to me.
If I were, as I would have been, one of the diligent students who had done the reading and turned up to take notes, only to have the class aborted by the teacher because of the behaviour of the jerks up the back, who wouldn’t have talked or listened to me or my friends, because, obvs, we’re the nerds, I’d be inclined to stop coming and wasting my time.
My experience is that your reaction isn’t typical of strong, well-prepared and behaved students. Many of these students appreciate this kind of gesture, as it sends to them the message that the preparedness and respectful behavior is, in fact, noticed, expected, and highly valued by the professor.
Well, except for the actual teaching part. The dude walked out. He purposely wasted the time of all the good students in the class. Chucking out the malefactors might give the message you describe. Walking out in a fit of pique, not so much.
Students, in my experience, typically care a great deal more about the quality of a course over the entire term than they care that the class meets for the full session of every scheduled class. When there’s an unserious environment in the classroom, the students who do take things seriously often get increasingly frustrated, and to the extent that a gesture of this sort can change that classroom dynamic, their appreciation of that change (and of recieving the message that their hard work is not going unappreciated or unnoticed by the professor) generally means more to them than missing a portion of one class session.
You are welcome to conclude that my experience is highly atypical, or that my testimony is unreliable, but I’m not making an argument about how students should respond to this, or how they’re likely to respond in some hypoethical version of this scenario. I’m just reporting on my own experience.
Sorry DJW, but I think you’ve got this all wrong. Having recently graduated law school at 37 (yeah, you’d think I’d have the decision making skills to avoid law school, but oh well), I have to agree that the professor simply punished everyone in his fit of pique.
Look, many students sacrifice a lot of time and energy to just make it to class. As an evening student with a full time, professional job, I can attest to that. For a professor to just arbitrarily decide to walk out of class is incredibly offensive to those students who made that effort to attend.
Those who choose to teach should respect their students. Walking out in a huff is probably the most disrespectful way of dealing with this situation. It does show, I believe, a common attitude among professors that they are somehow automatically entitled to the utmost respect, while their students are relegated to dealing with their random edicts and whims.
Within five years you’ll regret this post. In ten you’ll claim it wasn’t you – but the Intertubes won’t allow you to lie. So reminds me of my High School Chem teacher in ’75 who banned calculators, and now the school requires them.
DN
Excuse me, it’s a college class. The professor was a douche. Those are adults who cared enough to bother to show up to class. The onus is on them to pay attention, and if they aren’t, the professor ought not to take it personally.
Unless, of course, he’s a lousy lecturer. In which case, he ought not to blame his students.
At least now all the students will think I am texting.
The emailed link makes it pretty clear that this guy is a less than stellar professor. Which doesn’t negate the points made about changing dynamics with a dramatic gesture. It just means in this guy’s case, he’s more of a dipweed than a caring teacher.