Slashdot Mirror
Professor Bans Laptops from the Classroom
An anonymous reader writes "USAToday is reporting that students are up in arms over a University of Memphis Professor who has decided to ban laptops from her classroom. Earlier this month Professor Entman sent an email warning to her students to bring paper and pens to take notes and leave the laptops at home. From the article: '"My main concern was they were focusing on trying to transcribe every word that was I saying, rather than thinking and analyzing," Entman said Monday. "The computers interfere with making eye contact. You've got this picket fence between you and the students."'"
I'd call her a free thinker. We need more of them in the world.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
My main concern was they were focusing on trying to transcribe every word that was I saying, rather than thinking and analyzing
Oh, I'm sure they were thinking and analyzing, but more likely about how to win the current game of Minesweeper or Solitaire.
...she'll probably tie part of the grade to actually participating in class.
Why didn't the Prof mandate voice recorders, if that was really the concern?
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
I've taught a number of classes at university level, and I hate people note taking with laptops, for the following reasons:
i) Too few of them are good enough typists to focus on whats being said properly.
ii) It's almost impossible for them to copy down diagrams or any complex equations, or make decent marginal notes.
iii) It's much noisier than pen and paper, and paper is easier to highlight and annotate.
iv) They remember the content better if they make pencil notes, and type them up later.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Although some old schoolers will disagree, taking notes is a waste of time. She needs to go one step further and give the students the notes in the first place. Then, if necessary, the students can add their own comments and annotations.
My high school AP Physics teacher did this and I have kept those notes for 15 years. I loved that class because I could pay attention to what he was saying and really LEARN.
Often students seem to believe that lecture time is when the professor Speaks and the students are supposed to Remember. I'd guess this is due to poor teaching methods in public high schools, where there is a focus on rote.
Ideally the purpose of class time is for the professor to lead the students to understanding. The book has the facts and figures and whatnot, but for many students just reading the book doesn't make things click. Every group of students will need to be led to understanding a slightly different way, and class time with the professor is a chance for that to happen. It's supposed to be a session of brain activity, not mere transcription.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
"My main concern was they were focusing on trying to transcribe every word that was I saying, rather than thinking and analyzing,"
My past experience is that "trying to transcribe every word rather than thinking and analyzing" is exactly what most teachers want.
I totally agree with this professor. When I teach I often feel like I am in a room full of stenographers. It's a distraction to me, and definitely is not the kind of interaction I want to have with a student. It's also counterproductive in my opinion since the best way to really remember something is to process it at the deepest level you can - think about it, connect it with other thoughts and knowledge, etc. That cannot happen when one is focused on the low level aspects of the information, e.g. translating the sounds into written text. The visual barrier the laptop screen forms is also a problem. Not only does it prevent me from seeing the student's reactions, but it's hard to compete with all that light for a student's visual attention.
To counteract this I try and provide as much material as I can - lecture slides available on line before class for example, so they don't feel there is a ton of information that will be lost if it isn't written down immediately. This improves classes immensely.
I agree with her that students should be spending their time thinking about what she's saying, but writing notes on paper doesn't facilitate that any more than laptops do. My favourite lecturer at university gave us printed notes for every lecture, precisely so we didn't have to write anything down, and could focus on thinking about the subject. I did great in that class, and to this day I don't understand why many lecturers still insist on making people take notes instead of following suit.
Oh no... it's the future.
I don't take notes, never have since high school, so I found that all I do in class is use wireless. Finally had to stop taking my laptop to class so I'd at least pay attention.
Contrary to what the media and Bill Gates or Steve Jobs would like you to believe, sometimes technology in the classroom can be a distraction.
I graduated just a year ago from a decent size University (10,000 students) and since I was getting a Computer Science degree I saw laptops in use in a lot of my classes. I'd say that 50% of the time people were playing video games of some sort or another, playing FreeCell or Solitaire, watching DVDs and generally using the laptop to do anything *but* take notes. This in turn distracted everyone else around them as they focused on whatever the person on the laptop was screwing around doing instead of on class.
I'll be honest, some of these classes were boring and I was occasionally envious of the people with laptops, but when I went to do homework or study for a test, I actually had some notes since with just pen and paper there is not a lot you can do to amuse yourself unless you have a really active imagination or like doing the box game or playing Tic-Tac-Toe for hours on end.
Now, some will say "but not everyone will use the laptop to screw around", and that's not my point. The point is, SOMEONE will, and that will distract everyone else. I've seen it happen and anyone claiming that it doesn't happen is lying.
So basically, I applaud her move and think that not every class should allow laptops in the classroom as sometimes technology is more of a hindrance than a help.
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson
I have never taken an exam that hinged on a fact that was just said once in class. Good professors let you know what is important, what you need to know because the exams reflect what is important to know for the class and to get something out of it. I think a laptop for class is a distraction... Hell my GREAT classes (the classroom time) required very little notetaking...why because we were expected to have the notes from the reading material first, to know the info first. Then to have it all explained in class. It should make sense then.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
My previous employer was a University that was about to go "mobile" by requiring every student to have a laptop.
After a few tests and faculty round-tables, it was decided that the models that will be provided at steep discounts to students will be tablets just because of the "picket fence" effect that is mentioned in the article.
Furthermore, tablets encourage the use of a stylus which means that (many?) students will still be taking notes by writing and analysing instead of typing.
The best thing I ever did in College was buy subscriptions to the lecture notes for my classes that offered them. At UC San Diego, a student who had taken the class before (and got an A) would attend class and take notes. These notes were cleaned up and made available each week. I could take cursory notes of what I thought was important and fill in the rest with the lecture notes from someone who already understood the material.
Unfortunately, some professors did not want the service in their classroom since they thought students would skip class. These were usually the same professors who got upset that the entire class was busy scribbling away writing verbatim notes. I found that the lecture notes were not a replacement for going to class. Often the class time had more participation and discussion that was as important as the notes.
--Keith
The best way to learn is to do, the best notes are the ones NOT made in a rush in real-time, the best classes are the ones where students learn more than what is presented
For courses I had difficulty with, or where a large volume of mateial was being covered, I found the most effective way to understanding was to take handwritten notes during the class and then, in the evenings, transcribe them onto computer (in my case, as I was doing math courses, into LaTeX). The act of going through and transcribing, while it sounds like needless work, was actually when I learned the most. To translate scrawled notes into detailed LaTeX notes required thinking about and understanding each concept so I could translate it correctly.
The benefit of course was having a nice set of notes fully written up at the end of the course. It's a great way to learn if you're so inclined.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
What good are they? Well, for somebody like me, they're required to take notes in anything but a math class.
My handwriting is rather slow and poor, and I can't keep up in most classes. Math classes are the exception, as there tends to be less writing while taking notes.
On the other hand, I'm a touch typist, and can easily type notes while making eye contact with the professor. How does a laptop prevent eye contact if I don't need to look at the keyboard or monitor to type?
If I were in that professor's class, I'd get the local student union on the case. Here in Quebec, student unions are actually accredited unions (like labour unions), so they have more power here than they do elsewhere.
As I said, since I can't handwrite notes in some classes, if a laptop is going to make the difference between taking bad notes and taking good notes, I'm not going to suffer due to a prof's misguided policy.
Seems to me the most effective method would be to go to class, take sparse notes (by hand or on computer, whatever works) and buy the professionally done notes from whatever service makes them, if available.
Personally, I was a bad student in college. I generally went to class, but I still missed quite a bit, and I was bad about studying and doing homework. I did OK because I was smart, not because I worked hard. They say that you're supposed to spend 3 hours outside of class for every hour of class? I probably averaged more like a 1:1 ratio, if even that. No way would I spend an hour outside of class merely transcribing what the teacher said again. I generally took sparse notes and relied on my brain to keep most of the information.
Of course, this was quite some time ago -- laptops existed, but they were big and not really ever brought to class. How do you write down equations and drawings and such when you're taking notes on a laptop?
And now that I'm out of college, the most complicated things I ever write with a pen is a check, and even that's rare, because I use a bill paying service. I do almost zero handwriting anymore. If I went back to college and had to take notes by writing with a pen, I'd probably fail miserably.
Ok, enough rambling :)
...which I assume is the vast majority of readers on slashdot...
First year law classes aren't computer science lectures where everyone sits passively and takes notes. Law Professors practice the socratic method. Which means that the professor calls on a student and asks that student a question. If the student answers correctly, then the professor asks another question. Then the professor asks a question which he knows the student can't answer. Then the professor yells at the student and asks why he is a moron. Then the professor takes the case book and beats the crap out of the student with it. A notebook computer doesn't fit into this routine.
I'm exaggerating slightly, but thats what a lot of first year law students go through.
I think that she teaches first year civil procedure. This is a very hard class that covers the mechanics of filing a law suit. It is very tricky and nuanced and even experienced lawyers don't understand it fully. Since she co-wrote a treatise about Tennessee Civil Procedure it is not surprising that according to Ratemyprofessors.com, Prof. Entman "expects you to be able to recall every detail from every footnote from every case you ever read." Yikes!
Interestingly, Prof. Entman was a social studies teacher in the late 60s and early 70s for 7 years before going into the law. I imagine that notebook computers don't fit into her conception of a learning environment.
I normally wouldn't care what a student uses to take notes, but laptops are a huge distraction for the rest of the class. The constant clicking, the screen glow, the guy surfing Slashdot in front of you on the school's wireless network. If you really want annoying, these same students will stand up and snap images of the whiteboard with their cellphones because they can't figure out how to draw the diagrams on their laptop.
So here I sit, quietly, with my 99 cent Meade folder, 30 cent pencil, and a dollar's worth of notebook paper, taking far more detailed and accurate notes than anyone with a $2000 laptop. What these law students need to learn is that sometimes the most technologically advanced solution is not always the best solution. And cheers to the professor for realizing this.
X
What I've learned over my 4 years in college was that if the professor is good, and actually adds value to what they're teaching, students will come, and students will pay attention. Sure, there will be a couple that won't, but a majority of students want to get the most value out of their educational dollar. If a professor wastes everyone's time (Are you hearing this, professors Mitra / LaMont / Chang?), then they'll have to resort to attendance checks and other stuff like that so they can fool themselves into thinking that they're actually teaching. This seems an awfully lot like she's one of those professors, trying desperatly to get students to pay attention.
I graduated college before laptops were commonplace. In fact, I don't remember anyone bringing them to class (1990-1994). But man, I wish I had one at the time. I was often in a position where so much information was being delivered, and I was writing so fast, I couldn't always read my own handwriting. Beyond which, it could be painful.
I hear these responses about how they're distracting or how people don't pay attention, or the professor's ludicrous ideas about how students merely transcribe what he is saying, rather than "thinking" or "analyzing."
When I sat in class, people did crossword puzzles, read the campus paper, magazines, snacked, whatever. The other students were busy furiously scribbling down into notebooks what the professor was saying, and since you can't write nearly as fast as you can type, it was doubly exhausting and doubly attention-killing.
If you get distracted by someone's laptop, maybe you should just quit college altogether. I don't understand this idea that it's anyone's fault or responsibility but *yours* as to whether you pay attention or not. College students had better get a grip on technology and its appropriate place in life fast, because it's going to be the same challenge after college when you're in an office full of computers and other distractions and things are far more tedious and boring than most college classes are.
I've never understood why professors take attendance. If you can pass the class without showing up, that says a lot about the professor, frankly. If you fail because you don't show up, you own that too. I had great professors and I had crap ones. I was able to get an A in a class I showed up to three classes for the whole semester, Shakespeare 350 in a huge cavernous lecture hall. Did I miss out on something? It's 14 years later and I really don't think so. I read the plays - to my surprise I enjoyed them - and understood them. On a few occasions I went to the library to look at some discussions of parts I didn't understand. That was all it took.
In the end, you're paying for it anyway.
Professors are *really* idealistic if they think that class is about thinking and analyzing. Class is about grades. It's about graduating with a good GPA and being able to out-compete your fellow students for jobs. On the way, if you're lucky, and you have good professors and are in a curriculum you love, maybe you'll have some insights and epiphanies. I certainly did (mostly in history classes), but let's not kid ourselves. 99% of what I've learned I've learned in my spare time, reading what I wanted to read, because I was interested in it, not because I had to fill in some bullshit core curriculum requirement in a class I didn't care about then, and don't care about now.
To get the grades, you're going to need to know your stuff. To know the stuff, you're probably going to need good notes. If you have good notes, you'll have time later to reflect on what they mean. Most of the thinking and insight is going to come as you study, not while you're sitting there taking furious notes.
You can take better notes with a laptop. You can format them, clean them up later (and maybe in so doing, read them again and internalize the information therein). Maybe you'll be at the student center doing the cleanup, and you'll have an insight or epiphany with a mouthful of pizza.
Students should be left to their own devices in terms of what technology they use (if any), and whether or not they attend class, and how they learn. Every person is different, for one, and second, because they are paying for it. If typing furiously on a laptop isn't working, they'll know it long before the exam rolls around. Professors have huge egoes; the insight they claim to impart through the classroom experience is *usually* highly overrated (there are certainly exceptions; god bless the ones who can still enthrall).
Beyond which, there is the basic idea of learning how to positively interact with technology. This involves
A teacher with brains and courage.
Kudos to her!
My reason for always carrying my laptop with me is that I have ALL the books and lecture notes in PDF/PPT.
Just by downloading the books from eMule I've saved more than $500 just in this semester, one third of the cost of my laptop. As a bonus I can chat with cute chicks from other faculties during lunch, on the bus during my 20min commute or even at boring classes ^____^
Capitalization is the difference between "Helping your uncle jack off a horse" and "Helping your uncle Jack off a horse"
That's why teachers should provide Power Point presentations BEFORE class. Students can annotate the slides IF they have them BEFORE hand. Thus they can -listen- more during class.
Proper respect for professors? Grow up? This is university, not preschool.
She's overstepping her bounds, and even if she wasn't her reasoning is flawed. Who's to say students aren't using shorthand and trying to write every word? Who's to say they aren't 'making eye contact' yet daydreaming? If students are typing every word she says, that's up to them, they are paying for it for the right to be there and learn in the way that suits them best.
If she wants to help, how about providing a full and detailed copy of her notes for the class at the beginning of the semester? Then students already have most of what she is going to say, can review it before hand, and can use the class time to ask questions they may have and spawn intelligent discussion. It would be a step forward if that idea were mandated.
She should be attacking the problem. She's attacking the computer, and the computer is just a tool.
I'm wrong and so are you.
Thing is - people are learning in different ways, what works well for her may not work so well for me and vice versa.
If a professor is genuinely doing things wrong, then the type of drive you spoke about will indeed be sucessful. Indeed, when I was an undergrad I petitioned to get sweeping policy changes implemented - but the fundamental point here was, the majority of good professors AGREED with me, that the changes were needed.
The school backed me up with this student 100%. You want to know why? Because the kid was a spoiled jackass who deserved to fail a class and learn a lesson about respect. That's not me being pompous, it's me putting a stupid kid in his place.
You know NOTHING about what the student's complaint was. You know nothing about the way I was treated. Yet you assume I was a pompous and self absorbed asshole because I removed a student who not only questioned my authority, but disrupted my classroom and negatively affected the learning experiences of the other twenty people in the room. Be careful when you make assumptions about things you don't know, you might find you come across as the self centered, pompous one.
As a student I've run into professors like you. Unfortunately not all of us roll over quite so easily. On the contrary, some of us are quite vocal and will work to make things change our way. I led a petition drive that successfully reverted a policy change implemented mid-semester; similar to this case. I was also an RA at the time and went to bat for several students who were getting pushed over by manipulative professors.
Any sane ombudsman will see right through the "I'm paying your salary" bullshit and side with the professor who threw out a disruptive student. On the other hand, professors who grade people who disagree with them lower (especially in contentious topics) should be roundly smacked around by that same ombudsman. Each case will be different, and just because you've met some awful professors in your day doesn't mean that the gp is one of them.
The teacher is responsible for maintaining a learning environment for everyone in the class. One spoiled child can and should be thrown out of a class in order to restore a decent learning environment for the rest of the class. Even more on-topic, ubiquitous wireless internet means that most students with laptops are not paying attention, but are browsing the web, taking care of personal business, etc. If you aren't participating in the class, take yourself elsewhere. Removing the laptops from the classroom is just about the only way to limit that sort of highly disruptive behavior and actually give other students what they're paying for.
Regards,
Ross
First off: I don't care about the presence of laptops, or paper and pencil... or even the student. They paid me to give a lecture, clarification of material through discussion, evaluation of work, project advisement and so on. If they choose to ignore any of this or be absent then my evaluation of their performance will reflect it and they just have to live with their consequences.
That being said: "[her] main concern was they were focusing on trying to transcribe every word that was I saying, rather than thinking and analyzing." Is she kidding me? I can't see through my student's laptop covers but I highly doubt they are diligently transcribing my lecture. I would bet dollars to donuts that a whole lot of Internet surfing, mine sweeper and IM is taking place with almost no notes. I cannot possibly see how you can take notes on a keyboard for a subject such as advanced data structures where diagrams are key. She's living in a fantasy if she thinks student's are transcribing.
Now for the students: Most of them suck at this learning thing. I get asked questions like:
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Long story short a vocal student can get what he wants just as easily if not easier than a professor. The whole point of the university system (beyond generating papers and research for more funding) is to educate. If I can't optimally absorb knowlege then there is a problem, and I will make sure damn sure that problem is resolved. Quite honestly, the students don't need your self-centered, self-absorbed pompous self either.
Aww shucks... there are two sides... sometimes teachers can be jackasses, sometimes students can. Big surprise.
The point remains that if a professor finds talking to a roomfull of laptop lids with the odd boop beep to break up the white noise of typing to be unproductive or uninspiring he (or she) should be able to change that. If your little student union wants to "make damn sure that the problem is resolved" then you should be right in there with him (or her) to find some sort of compromise.
Rresolving the problem might be to make the course available on tape, or to have full course notes made available so that laptops aren't needed. Neither side should be allowed to just railroad over the other -- as neither side wins from that. You are paying the professor very good money to lecture you -- ensuring they are in top form should be priority number one. They aren't going to be in top form if they aren't happy with the classroom arrangement.
Student unions are great tools for ensuring universities are responding to the needs of students... unfortunately the people attracted to positions of power in those student unions tend to be power tripping jackasses. Precisely the last sort of people that are really needed there.
Just because I have written down a bunch of notes doesn't mean I understand what I've written, and just because I've written down nothing at all doesn't mean I don't understand what's being taught.
Notes have never done me any good, and I've never taken them. My high-school biology teacher gave me a public dress-down for not taking notes about various Latin-named microscopic organisms. I still didn't take any notes, and got an A- on the test. The teacher apologized to me.
Also, just because I pass a test doesn't mean I understand the material.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
The first time a professor handed out his lecture notes I was amazed, moreso by the fact that it was an obvious but overlooked solution and I'd never seen it before than by his willingness to share.
I always did the same in my ownb classes. Time spent madly scribbling what I write is a simple waste of time, and stops students from paying attention. They always had a reduced version of my slides (whose main point was really to make sure that I didn't skip a planned topic).
hawk
Yet you assume I was a pompous and self absorbed asshole because I removed a student who not only questioned my authority[...]
No, we assume you're a pompous ass, because you believe you have authority. With regards to teaching, you are paid for one purpose, to impart knowledge and to determine the student's grasp of that knowledge.
Black and grey are both shades of white.
Trying to engage with a classroom where even a small number are "elsewhere", whether reading a paper, IM'ing with friends, checking phone messages, sleeping, etc. is extremely difficult and many times almost impossible.
Don't get me started on cell phones.
Reminding people to mute their laptops each and every time they come to class gets old real fast. And having two or three confrontations about laptop/cell noises per class is it's own serious disruption of the learning environment. Getting it all out of the way on the first day with a "no laptops" rule and a "phone rings, leave the classroom immediately" rule just makes it clear where your priorities are: in the classroom.
Finally, for the few people who actually want to be there and who intend to take notes on a laptop, transcribing written notes into your computer is much more effective than simply typing notes in the first place (assuming you most effectively learn from notes/note taking). If you haven't made this observation so far, consider my classroom an opportunity to test it out for yourself.
On attendance policies, it depends on the subject area. If the class is a discussion-type class, attendance is important and should be part of the grade. On the other hand, if the class can be self-taught (where the lectures are more Q&A sessions), then attendance policies force people who have no desire to be there to attend and be bored, interfering with the students who really want to be there.
Regards,
Ross
As a recent grad I've found that the best way to deal with notetaking in class is for the prof to provide you with their lecture notes. Some only made notes available after the class while others had their full notes available before you even sat down for your first day. While it strongly depends on the subject having notes available frees students from having to copy down notes during class - the professors who did not make notes available often expected you to copy them down from their slides during class - and allowed you to pay attention to the class. Those who didn't often had various reasons for it (more than a few felt that writing down notes during class helped you to learn better... I and my sore writing hand strongly disagreed) but the end result was that after the lecture you typically only remembered what the slides were and relied much more on the professor to write good slides. One memorable class (Biology of the Cancer Cell) didn't have a book and none of the notes were available online. If you missed a few words or didn't make it to class that day you were beyond screwed.
As long as you're concerned with taking down notes you'll never be able to actually take valid, intelligent notes about what the professor is saying. Whether you use a laptop or wear out your hand writing down complete notes on paper the only way to really pay attention to a lecture is to know that you have the freedom to actually listen to the lecture itself for once.
By the time a person reaches college he should be able to pay attention with a couple of minor distractions.
It isn't elementary school anymore where a person can get sent to time out for distracting the other students from story time.
But also by the time a person reaches college he should know that he is paying to listen to a professor, and if that professor wants his classroom a certain way he'll get it.
So this should have nothing to do with the students. If they don't like it then they can take a different class with a different teacher, or just deal with it. It has everything to do with the professor. People with authority can make things how they want them. If you want power over the classroom then become a teacher.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I believe you're a pompous ass because of the way you referred to the event in question - which as you say we know nothing about. Thus, I can only infer your attitude from the "tone" of your discourse.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
How do I know? First, my credentials: I went to Princeton, than Harvard for grad school. So I've sat through many a lecture. Then I worked as a business guy at several significant tech companies, so I have tech blood in me. And finally I taught as a professor for several years at a large university-- classes on managing technolgy, in fact. So I have some experience with teaching.
The first day, students (class size = ~40) brought laptops. "No problem," I thought. Then I discovered two things:
So I said "from this moment on, no more laptops: it's distracting, and you're not really paying attention." Everyone closed his laptop, and I never heard another complaint about it.
During my first three years of teaching, I was elected Professor of the Quarter three times and then Professor of the Year. OK, now I'm bragging, but my point is simple: sometimes technology helps, and sometimes it gets in the way. At least for the kind of class I taught-- similar to the give-and-take of a law course-- students quickly understood that it was getting in the way, and were happy to put pen back to paper.
The first time a professor handed out his lecture notes I was amazed, moreso by the fact that it was an obvious but overlooked solution
... (grumble) ... I need a drink (grumble) (mutter) (curse).....
This is common practice in medical schools. A course syllabus with all the lecture notes are given out at the beginning of the semester in most (if not all) medical schools to my knowledge. It's nice, but it's now without its hazards, as some profs sometimes to decide to make exam questions on material they they specifically talk about during class but don't put in the syllabus notes, so you have to be familiar with the material in the syllabus before the lecture so that during class you have to be like "Wait, he said something that wasn't in the course notes, better write that down." It was a hard learned lesson when during my first year, I kept getting burned on exam quesations where I challanged them saying "This topic wasn't in the course notes" and the response was always something like "Well, the professor talked about it for 20 seconds in class 3 weeks ago, so it's a fair question". This particular system always pissed me off, because you'd think that if a topic was important enough to be talked about in class and included on an exam, why the hell isn't it important enough to be in the course notes, espically since 98% of our studying is done from the course notes, espically for classes that were several weeks ago. Oh, it makes me so angry. It's ironic that a school meant to train me in a field that's supposed to be about compassion and understanding is so adept at filling me with ire and rage towards the world. So full of hate
I've tried teaching college courses where I made material available to the students ahead of class on a web site. When you do this, there is no incentive for the students to come to class. They think they will do just fine if they download the notes. The exact same thing happens if I post the notes online after the lecture. The problem is, students who skip lectures and just use the online notes miss out on the discussion in class. I've found that the people who rely on the online notes and skip class do worse in a course than the people who make the effort to come to class and pay attention. The people who actually come to lectures are always the ones who do the best in a course. I don't know if having the online notes really helps the best students retain the material or not - the main thing is that these students actually want to learn, and make an effort to do so.
I could provide handouts in class, but if you have a very large class, you often do not have a large enough photocopying budget to hand out copies of each day's lesson. I did try this once for a complicated homework project. I passed out the assignment and then went over a very detailed step-by-step example of how to complete the assignment. Only about half the class sat through the whole thing. Some people left immediately after getting the handouts or about 15 minutes into class. The people who skipped class habitually and just downloaded the notes didn't even bother to come, even though I had posted a notice on the website saying I would go over the project in class. Of course, only the people who listened to the entire lecture actually completed the assignment correctly.
They also thought it was a really cool assignment. The people who didn't listen to the entire example in lecture struggled through it, and complained the homework was too hard when it was due. The only people who actually asked me for help with the assignment outside of class were also people who had been in class when I did the example and were doing just fine - not the people who really needed help.
The really sad thing is, the assignment I gave my college students was originally designed as an exercise for K-12 students. I figured that college students would be able to do it without much trouble, since they should have a stronger math background. I know of people who have done this exact same exercise with talented middle school/high school students. The younger students usually do it correctly, and with less complaining, even though they may ask for a lot of coaching along the way. For some reason, there is a big change in the attitudes of a lot of students towards school and learning over the summer between high school graduation and their first semester of college.
You are paying for the privilige of attending the school. The professors are not your employees.
Professors are usually given (by their actual employer) fairly wide latitude in setting rules for their classrooms. If you do not like it, you can drop the class, complain to the professor and/or the professor's superiors, or drop out of the school.
Sorry, but the "student-as-consumer" model, while popular for admissions and retention discussions, has never been a functional model for classroom interactions.
This is a hard issue to take sides on, as there is equally valid arguments for both.
...and when the camera pans around to the front of the hall we discover that the professor isn't there either! He's left a tape player to deliver his lecture!
One of my first professors in college (teaching an introductory course to software engineering) talked about how people get carried away with technology until it goes too far. He illustrated this point by describing from memory a movie about college life (he couldn't remember the title) which showed a lecture hall full of students. One of the students, however, was absent -- in his/her place was a running tape recorder. The professor teaching the course keeps glancing at the tape recorder, somewhat distracted, as he gives the lecture.
As the movie progresses, we keep coming back to the same lecture course, only each time there are more and more absent students -- each leaving a tape machine to record the lectures. It's like a mundane version of "Invasion of The Body Snatchers."
Finally, in the closing scene, we return to the lecture hall for the last day of the course. We are treated to the ludicrous sight of tape recorders replacing *all* the students in the course! Meanwhile, the professor's voice delivers the final lecture, seemingly unfazed by the fact that there is no one in the hall to listen to him
Just thought I'd throw that in, for what it's worth. (And, no -- I don't know which movie it is).
"All hands, BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
Like it or not, a course has a syllabus. This is not an arbitrary set of things the professor wants to get through, it's usually the most important things that you need to get from that class in order to understand the next one. If you fall behind, you're setting yourself up for problems later on.
I've said this many times, but I'm going to keep repeating it. Lecture is not a discussion section. Lecture is a presentation of the material by the professor to the students. It's fine to ask a question there, but if it's too detailed, should have been covered by a prerequisite, or simply delves into something the professor has decided there's not time for in that class, then he has every right to refer you to ask again after class or in recitation or in office hours. He's not denying you the answer, he's just managing his limited class time.
A lecture is fundamentally different from reading a book. First, you typically get a different overall persective on the material since the book was not usually written by the lecturer. Plus, seeing things presented gives a different temporal sense. For me, even if it's the same derivation, seeing it done in real time and hearing the professor talk about the steps makes it a very different experience.
As for your infuriating experience... well, I dunno about yours, but every class I've ever taken made it very clear what the penalty for late work was. If you don't want to suffer that penalty, then turn your damn project in on time. Hell, you turned it in late and still got a passing grade, that seems reasonable. How many other students would have debugged their B-grade programs and handed in working ones if they'd taken an extra day? As a comparative measure, you weren't graded on equal footing because you had extra time.
Welcome to real life. You have deadlines and those need to be met. If you have a real, unforseen hardship that prevents you from getting your work done on time, that's one thing. If not, then learn how to manage your time. It is an inconvenience to the graders to get late work to grade, it's unfair to students who actually respect the deadlines, and it's in your own interest to keep up with the course. If you don't have time to do the work, then either don't take the class or audit it instead. If you don't actually need to do the work to learn the material, then why are you taking the class?
This sense of entitlement among students really bothers me. Yeah, a professor should have respect for his students and do what he can to help them succeed, but respect is a two-way street. If you don't show respect to him in the first place, do you seriously expect that he's going to be interested in interacting with you? Respecting a teacher means paying attention in class, asking questions politely, and doing the homework he assigns, among other things. It doesn't mean whining and threatening him when he enforces his (what sounds to be fair) late homework policy.