NYU Professors To Students – No laptop in class for you
Put Away Laptops Or “Go Enroll In The University Of Phoenix!”
As social media resources, computers, and networking tools spread across campuses, concerns of students everywhere now center around their professors’ electronic device policies.
In NYU Local, New York University student Ben Zweig delves into some instructors’ views regarding the use of new technology.
Professor Vincent Renzi is the director of the MAP program’s Foundation of Scientific Inquiry (FCC). He oversees the humanities, arts and social sciences classes known as Texts and Ideas, Cultures and Contexts, Societies and the Social Sciences, and Expressive Culture. He, like many other professors, does not allow laptops or tablets in class. What are his reasons?
REASON ONE: Laptops create a physical barrier between the instructor and the student (or, “The Cuisinart argument”)
Renzi wholeheartedly believes that paper is the ideal classroom tool. Anything more complicated — laptops and tablets included — is a barrier between students and teachers, a threat to “immediate interpersonal communication.” He and other educators believe the computer creates distance, and for the same reason these teachers tend to dislike distance learning. (But that’s another topic.)
He argues that if a given technology exists and students show proficiency, it does not mean the tool is useful, necessary or worth adopting. To him, technology outside of the classroom is not necessarily relevant inside the classroom.
“I use a Cuisinart to make my dinner, but I don’t use a Cuisinart to read Plato,” he said. So that settles that: you should not use your laptop in class because if every single innovation can’t contribute to education, then none can.
Zweig noted that Renzi’s solution for students unhappy with the lack of electronics was to, “drop out of NYU and go enroll in the University of Phoenix.”
The article continues with another reason why some NYU professors do not invite the use of electronics in classes:
REASON TWO: It encourages students to think that the point of note-taking is to take transcription rather than taking notes. (or, “The blood sucking argument”)…The result is an army of wide-eyed students poised to copy down every utterance, as if to create some scribbled textbook or bible based on the lessons. We’ll call this the “blood sucking argument,” since students greedily suck the information out of class and into their notebooks.
One last aspect of the professors’ complaints:
REASON THREE: It tempts students to aimlessly browse the internet instead of paying attention (or, “High heels hunting”).
NYU Professor: Put Away Your Laptops Or “Go Enroll In The University Of Phoenix” (NYU Local)
Comments
He says it as if enrolling in an online school like Phoenix of SNHU is a bad thing. Wrong. Before long I suspect/hope it will be the accepted way; should go a long way toward reducing higher ed costs.
The college experience is way overrated anyway. At this point the only thing you can get on campus that you can’t get from an online school is the ‘experience’ of your roommate bringing home a drunken date who then pukes on your bed.
Reason one is a slight variation on the “That’s the way we’ve always done it” argument. It is a classic way that morons resist change. The arrogant dismissal of the University of Phoenix is also a classic symptom of a dinosaur who doesn’t believe in meteors.
Reason two is just stupid. It doesn’t even make sense.
Reason three is completely valid. Really. I’ve seen this in classrooms and business meetings, too. People just sort of tune out. They tell themselves they’ll just check their email, just to see if there’s anything important. Pretty soon, class (or whatever) is over and they have no idea what happened.
To be fair, if that’s your real problem, you should also take away their smart phones.
When I teach a large lecture course, I insist that laptops be used solely for note-taking and that those who want to use a laptop sit near the front of the room so this policy can be enforced.
People surfing or using MyFace or whatever distracts from the atmosphere of concentration I work to establish. Attendance in lecture isn’t mandatory (neither is passing), but at least being able to pretend to focus on the lecture is. I also forbid texting, reading the paper, talking, and anything else that I can notice from the podium.
So I wholeheartedly endorse Reason 3. I buy Reason 2 as well, though it applies just as much to taking notes by hand as on the computer. I tell my students they would be better served by paying attention to the lecture and trying to understand it rather than transcribing it. Write down the most important points only, I suggest, but they mostly don’t take my advice.
Teaching students to focus and to think are part of my job in introductory courses. Laptops are necessary for some, perhaps, mostly they make it harder. I’ve sat in the back of sections, observing TAs — my presence quite obvious — and most of the open laptops are not being used for notes but for distraction. I was amazed by how brazen it is. So I’ve adopted this policy, and I stick to it.
If I weren’t a full professor and had to worry about teaching evaluations, I don’t know if I would dare. But I’m sure that it’s the best policy.
I had a couple of law school classes where laptops were forbidden. I never surfed the web during class, but did find I had to ‘choose my battles’ re just what to write down during the lecture, versus my nearly verbatim — though organized in outline form — notes taken by typing on my laptop. All in all, I preferred typing my notes, because I left class with a lot more information than if I had merely hand wrote my class notes.
On the other hand, if the instructor is tremendously engaging and wants rapt attention of students, he or she could provide the notes the students would otherwise have to take.
Students get out of class what they work at taking out of it. They cheat no one but themselves by taking shortcuts. The bottom line is that the final exam is what should count toward the bulk of a class grade. (So good luck if you were busy surfing the web instead of being engaged in the lecture.)
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