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posted by n1 on Monday May 18 2015, @03:41AM   Printer-friendly
from the carrier-pigeon dept.

Jamie Doward reports at The Guardian that according to a recent study in the UK, the effect of banning mobile phones from school premises adds up to the equivalent of an extra week’s schooling over a pupil’s academic year with the test scores of students aged 16 improved by 6.4% after schools banned mobile phones, “We found that not only did student achievement improve, but also that low-achieving and low-income students gained the most. We found the impact of banning phones for these students was equivalent to an additional hour a week in school, or to increasing the school year by five days." In the UK, more than 90% of teenagers own a mobile phone; in the US, just under three quarters have one. In a survey conducted in 2001, no school banned mobiles. By 2007, this had risen to 50%, and by 2012 some 98% of schools either did not allow phones on school premises or required them to be handed in at the beginning of the day. But some schools are starting to allow limited use of the devices. New York mayor Bill de Blasio has lifted a 10-year ban on phones on school premises, with the city’s chancellor of schools stating that it would reduce inequality.

The research was carried out at Birmingham, London, Leicester and Manchester schools before and after bans were introduced (PDF). It factored in characteristics such as gender, eligibility for free school meals, special educational needs status and prior educational attainment. “Technological advancements are commonly viewed as increasing productivity,” write Louis-Philippe Beland and Richard Murphy. “Modern technology is used in the classroom to engage students and improve performance. There are, however, potential drawbacks as well, as they could lead to distractions.”

 
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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday May 18 2015, @12:27PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 18 2015, @12:27PM (#184476)

    The perspective from the other side of the lectern was that most of the people asking questions should STFU and go to office hours or try doing the assigned readings before the lecture.

    So you got 30 kids in class, one interrupts the prof "So clearly I haven't read the first line of the assigned readings, could you tell me the first line" and the prof takes a deep breath rolls eyes and "OK listen as I read the first line to you", and 29 other classmates pissed off because now the prof doesn't have time to explain something somewhat more complicated like "discuss the three metaphors about life in Hamlet's speech to Horatio especially the weird one about forts and moles" or whatever. But at least the class dumbass/clown did get to clarify that Shakespeare wrote the play about Hamlet instead of the other way around as the clown had assumed, having not bothered to even crack open the clif notes much less the play.

    Honestly, again from experience, I think the "most students have the same question" is more a sociological experiment in cultural attitudes toward shaming and conformity than anything else. "Yeah sure prof I had the same question as moron over there; I also thought Hamlet wrote a play about Shakespeare and I so happy dumbass was brave enough to clear it up for the entire class" (meanwhile my teeth are grinding and my eyes are rolling at about 4 hz rotation rate and my face looks like I just bit a habanero pepper) "Sure prof I'm glad we spent the lecture talking about sesame street level stuff I figured out myself, while I sit here confused about the hard parts, I'll just study extra harder before the test that the class idiot is going to fail anyway, sure am glad you couldn't clear up the complicated stuff for me, not like this makes me resent the class idiot or anything like that, naw not me"

    Or TLDR as a student I hated when classmates asked questions, and basically all of them were dumb questions.

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