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Step into any college lecture hall and you are likely to find a sea of students typing away at open, glowing laptops as the professor speaks. But you won't see that when I'm teaching.
Though I make a few exceptions, I generally ban electronics, including laptops, in my classes and research seminars.
That may seem extreme. After all, with laptops, students can, in some ways, absorb more from lectures than they can with just paper and pen. They can download course readings, look up unfamiliar concepts on the fly and create an accurate, well-organized record of the lecture material. All of that is good.
But a growing body of evidence shows that over all, college students learn less when they use computers or tablets during lectures. They also tend to earn worse grades. The research is unequivocal: Laptops distract from learning, both for users and for those around them. It's not much of a leap to expect that electronics also undermine learning in high school classrooms or that they hurt productivity in meetings in all kinds of workplaces.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @02:46PM (5 children)
This kind of arrogance is more or less what's wrong with education.
For anybody that doesn't have ADHD a 50 minute class isn't that long to pay attention to something that's rather dry. This whole business of expecting to be entertained by the instructor is something new and something rather problematic. Having a computer in class just makes the situation worse by providing something else to tempt a student's attention.
As far as modern video technology goes, bull-fucking-shit. A video is recorded once and then replayed forever. In most cases that video had better be perfect, because it won't be redone. Lectures though are redone every time they're given. Now, I do realize that some lecturers don't bother to try and improve, but in order to create a decent video, it takes giving the content as a lecture a few times to figure out what the audience wants and how they react.
As far as that last bit about continuing out of politeness, you're an asshole of a rather large magnitude if that's your attitude. Taking out a notepad and pen is necessary for some people in order to not bother you about it repeatedly. If they're asking for help, it's because they don't know how to find the information on the internet, or it's not on the internet.
My guess is that people don't ask for your help if they can help it because you're a sanctimonious and judgmental prick. They'd rather take notes that they can use again in the future than ask for your help a second time. Speaks volumes about your social skills that you judge them for recording the information and probably saving you time in the future.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Saturday November 25 2017, @07:48PM (2 children)
Your kind of mindless conservatism is more or less what's wrong with education. You've had great fun flinging ad homs at me because I dared to question the efficacy of the pre-Guttenberg way of doing things, but I don't actually see any arguments there. What is the purpose of standing in front of 100 people and (effectively) reciting what they could have read in the textbook?
No, the problem is the notion that it is acceptable for instruction to be dull and boring - especially in a college/university setting where the students are only there because they are interested in the subject. Maybe you don't like the word "entertaining" but if instruction isn't interesting and engaging then something is very, very wrong.
If I was an asshole I wouldn't put a lid on my frustration and press on. However, I have long experience that the people who take out a notebook are the ones who bother me repeatedly, because they're trying to write down what I did to think about how and why I did it. Consequently, they'll be straight back as soon as the software gets updated and the button moved or got re-worded so their written recipe doesn't work any more.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @08:12PM (1 child)
First off, there isn't a single ad hominem in that entire post. Perhaps if you weren't so ignorant, you'd know that.
Secondly, none of this is pre-Gutenburg, the style of education used in schools didn't exist until several centuries after his death.
Thirdly, people find things interesting or not, that's largely out of the control of the person giving the lecture. Sure, you can come in with more energy, but the classes still have to follow the prescribed curriculum otherwise there's no guarantee that the students will be prepared for the next class or get what they need to get out of it. It's nice to have passion, but passion is not the same thing as being a good instructor and if the students are so spoiled that they won't focus unless the subject matter is sold to them, then all bets are off in terms of whether or not the students are learning what they need to learn.
Lastly, yes, you are indeed an asshole. Yes, they're more likely to be in that position than other people are, but whose fault is that anyways? If they come back to you because a button was moved or reworded, you address it that next time properly. It's not rocket science. You show them how to find the answer on their own. Or, you do a screen capture video if you expect that you'll be doing this more than once.
Also, it's hardly the fault of the end user that software developers are so inept at designing intuitive software.
When all is said and done, this kind of arrogant self-centeredness is hardly helpful. For those of us actively involved in the educational process, it gets to be a bit old being expected to cater to the students even when doing so causes problems further down the road that we then get to address.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Sunday November 26 2017, @01:21PM
Not sure what your personal definition of "ad hominem" is, but I think most reasonable people would agree that "you're an asshole of a rather large magnitude" and "because you're a sanctimonious and judgmental prick" pretty much meet the requirement of "attacking the person rather than their argument".
However, if you don't see the problem with that sort of language, then it might explain why you can't comprehend that - while I might feel frustrated when trying to help compulsive note-takers - some of us have this thing called "self control" that stops us actually acting like an asshole towards them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @05:47PM (1 child)
Yes and then you don't need to waste your time doing that same lecture over and over again. While the students can watch your lecture at their pace and more importantly repeat the parts they don't quite get till they get it.
How to motivate them to actually watch and learn from your lecture is a different matter. But conventional lectures have that same problem.
The fact is conventional lectures are an inefficient use of time and resources when modern technology is available.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Monday November 27 2017, @02:25AM
It's important to remember that one of the key objectives of a lecture from a lecturer's point of view is to get paid.
It's much, much easier to make that argument when you're turning up week after week to deliver lectures instead of just creating a one-off video and linking your students to it.