All good writing begins with terrible first efforts.
(Anne Lamott)

The syllabus it is a-changin'

Last year I had one too many encounters with students (both grad and undergrad) who insisted on texting, emailing, or surfing during my classes (not big lecture classes, mind you). I decided to get something official on the syllabus for fall:

Technology and the Problem of Divided Attention

In recent years the saturation of cell phones, text messaging, and laptops, combined with the broad availability of wireless in classrooms, has produced something I call the problem of divided attention. A March 25, 2008 article in the New York Times summarized recent studies of productivity in business settings. Researchers found that after responding to email or text messages, it took people more than 15 minutes to re- focus on the “serious mental tasks” they had been performing before the interruption. Other research has shown that when people attempt to perform two tasks at once (e.g., following what’s happening in class while checking text messages), the brain literally cannot do it. The brain has got to give up on one of the tasks in order to effectively accomplish the other. Hidden behind all the hype about multi-tasking, then, is this sad truth: it makes you slower and dumber. For this reason alone you should seek to avoid the problem of divided attention when you are in class. But there’s another reason, too: technology often causes us to lose our senses when it comes to norms of polite behavior and, as a result, perfectly lovely people become unbelievably rude.

For both these reasons, then, turn off your cellphones or set them on silent mode when you come to class; it is rude for our activities to be interrupted by a ringing cellphone. Similarly, text messaging will not be tolerated in class; any student found to be sending or checking text messages during class will be invited (quite publicly) to make a choice either to cease the texting or leave the classroom. You are welcome to bring your laptop to class and use it to take notes, access readings we’re discussing, and the like. You are not welcome to surf the web, check email, or otherwise perform non-class-related activities during class. Here’s my best advice: If you aren’t using it to perform a task specifically related to what we are doing in class at that very moment, put it away.

Comments

I must be getting old. My senior year at St. John's, we got (gasp) internet computers in the study lounges and the library. My senior year, we were all given e-mail addresses and most of us had to be taught how to use them in the computer labs. We would have never dreamed of having cell phones in class and we didn't know what laptops were. Times, they are a-changing!

I just saw a running race online that you win by predicting your time before the race - closest to their time wins. They had to outline in the race materials all the things that could be used as timers that would not be allowed at the race...

Great idea! I take classes where the instructor comes in and delivers a memorized monologue while her students are talking, texting, sleeping, and working on tests using peer support. It's horrible how corrupt the situation is. I notified the brand new boss of this instructor and he was horrified that this activity had been going on for several years, apparently. Let's take back the classroom and enforce classroom rules and bring mutual respect back to the classroom

He may be referring to an article published March 25, 2007 from the New York Times entitled "Slow Down, Brave Multitasker, and Don't Read This in Traffic. The article refers to a report by Jonathan B. Spira "The Cost of Not Paying Attention: How Interruptions Impact Knowledge Worker Productivity" sold herehttp://bsx.stores.yahoo.net/testpage.html Mr. Spira also has an article on the study: Spira, Jonathan. "From knowledge to distraction." KMWorld 16.3 (March 2007): 1(2).

May I have your permission to use this in my syllabi. Texting, emailing, and web surfing, etc. has become a huge distraction in my classes. I think the rationale might get through to some of the students. Thanks.

Simply the Attention is the cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one aspect of the environment while ignoring other things,the things you share are really right and also true and having the originality some of the tasks have disturbed the attention,and the thing you tell about the cellphones,it is absolutely right and have to be on silent.

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