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U. of Chicago Law School Blocks Internet Access
Scott Jaschik writes "While some individual professors have banned laptops from classes at various colleges, the University of Chicago law school is going further, cutting off wireless and wired access in its classrooms to confront what officials see as out-of-control Web surfing. The story was first reported in the Above The Law 'legal tabloid' late last month. Students and the university's CIO question the strategy." Things will get interesting when Sprint WiMax service lights up in Chicago later this year.
Let me tell you, they couldn't have made this move any sooner. Some of the law students were having 'independent' thoughts about how the United States legal system should be corrected and it was just causing mass chaos in the classrooms. One student kept reading things online like People Before Lawyers and began voicing concerns about the plaintiffs and defendants (you know, the actual humans involved) in certain cases. Let's just say that individual had to stay back a few years after having to repeat the class Soul Removal 101 and begin the process over. It was very ugly I think they were only eligible to be a para-legal after that incident.
The "internet" (or "anarchist-net" as we've dubbed it here) is nothing more than a distraction for students and could never ever possibly be used for learning. I suppose next citizens will want every single state and federal law posted on there so they can try to interpret it themselves! Not on my watch, we here at U of Chicago produce no fewer than 50,000 lawyers a year and we will see you in court if you try to circumvent the United State's legal system's need for them (Sprint, we're watching you!).
My work here is dung.
I can understand banning net access, that is often a temptation during a lecture.
Am I supposed to go back to WRITING my notes? This is 2008 for fuck's sake.
Blar.
If you spend all your class time surfing the web, you should fail.
If your students are able to pass without paying any attention to you, you must not teach very much in your lectures. And if you don't teach anything, well, why should they pay attention?
Back when I was a newbie to the online scene I did the same thing. This was back in the early 80's though. I would spend all day dialing one BBS after another (then starting over again).
The technology is just addictive at first. The remote socialization is fun even for "normal" (non-geek) people and they tend to go overboard. I remember doing the matchmaking and all that as a teen. It was fun.
Nowadays though I don't use IM, my e-mail is work-only and I have no desire to use an online dating service even though I'm divorced now. Eventually everyone else will get to this point.
To the University of Californy. I hear they still have some internets there.
One would think that an institution of higher education, particularly one dedicated to post-graduate studies, would be able to trust its students to know what was good for them.
If they spend too much lecture time on the intarblags, it will be reflected in their grades.
If I were, I wouldn't be able to post here anyway. Man, this typewriter sure is heavy.
This isn't high school, it's college . The people there are paying good money to be there (well, at least their parents are...). If a student wants to cheat himself of the maximum benefit of a very costly education bu dicking around on the Web during lectures, that should be his lookout. As long as they're not bothering other students, I don't see how this is an issue.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
University of Pheonix follows suit.
That said, overall I don't have a problem with students wasting their tuition money (or their parents' tuition money) by browsing the internet in class all day. But this isn't some power grab to squelch independent thinking. These students are free to browse the internet in their dorms, or the library, or the dining halls, etc. It might be poorly thought out, but I think people (or at least you) are freaking out over nothing.
I can appreciate the reason they're taking such extreme measures, but wouldn't it be better for everybody if they just let the people goofing off in class fail?
I always assumed that once you hit college the hand-holding by instructors was supposed to stop.
Maybe they could use group projects to fix the problem. I know in my college classes I was a righteous dick to any group members who just goofed off on the Internet rather than contributing towards the project.
I loved my system analysis and design class where we could 'fire' group members for poor performance (and trust me, people did.)
"Things will get interesting when Sprint WiMax service lights up in Chicago later this year."
Why should it? The problem will be on someone else network. And what makes you think Sprint wants it?
I think if I didn't have internet access in my law school classes my GPA would have definitely been a little higher.
Why would the school or university care if their students are wasting their own time and money by surfing the web in class?
I graduated before the age of ubiquitous laptops and wi-fi, so this wasn't a problem. Even still we had our distractions and it probably irked certain professors to know that they didn't have the rapt attention of every single person in the room. Generally speaking though, we were left alone as long as our snoring didn't disturb others.
I wonder if these profs take a roll call before every lecture. Does the school have truant officers on staff to keep these law students on the straight-and-narrow?
The right solution is, IMO, to simply ban laptops from being open during lectures. It sends the same message as people using laptops during meetings basically: if you can't be arsed to even pay attention (to the lecture, or the meeting), why are you there in the first place. For meetings it may be the case that you are basically "forced" to attend, however this is seldom the case for lectures (at least at my university).
So I fully understand lecturers who urge (or force) people to make a conscious decision *either* to stay in the lecture room and (at the very least pretend to) pay attention, or if you don't feel like paying attention, want to browse the internet, or absolutely *have* to chat with your neighbour about the previous weekend, can you please just go to the lunchroom next door, thank you so much and don't let the door hit you on the way out. Because it's not like anybody is *forcing* you to be there. If you think you'll do fine by reading the lecture sheets and/or the book, you're free to do so (and in many cases that's perfectly possible, too).
If you want to take notes during the lecture (the excuse everyone uses), paper still works just fine, as it has for ages.
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
What do they care as long as they get their check in the mail?
FWIW, here is a link to an article from the university's website.
During the dot-com boom, a decent number of Harvard Law School students would show up for only two days of class every semester: the first day (to get the syllabus) and the last day (to take the final). They spent the rest of the semseter out west making bank. Since then, HLS has instituted a mandatory attendance policy.
i didn't even realize they could turn on their computer.
The Lolcat market will crash!
It used to be that we only had idiots running the public schools, now it appears we have idiots running at least one university.
If I were going to school there, I'd transfer to a different school, there are a lot of them in the area. Perhaps U of C should rename itself "Luddite University"?
Kids, this comment came from a 56 year old geezer. I can only imagine how a young person who grew up with the internet would feel about this, it's like if SIU had outlawed using electricity when I was in college in the seventies.
Wow.
There's an uncyclopedia article about the guy who implimented U of C's stupid anti-internet rule.
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
"If you spend all your class time surfing the web, you should fail."
Considering how much school costs these days. Why would anyone in their right mind waste their time surfing the Internet? If all students want is a fast connection, then there are cheaper ways to do it?
At my law school, students would sometimes view porn on their computers during class--this was very distracting in the tiered rooms, where about 15 students behind the "perpetrator" could see what was happening. It wasn't common but I sometimes heard complaints that "so-and-so would look at porn to try to distract everyone behind him." I imagine it didn't help his own scores either, though. Other students would sometimes send crazy stuff over email during class in order to embarass the person or distract him. Chatting, of course, was rampant during class--that may have been a bit distracting. For example, the teacher will have been silent, and there's nothing to take notes on at the moment, and you hear several people typing like crazy and snickering oblivious to their surroundings--more annoying when that person's right next to you.
Sadly, after the grades came out, it seemed that chatting and porn viewership had a low correlation with scores. (i.e. I actually took notes but was middle of the road for grades)
By the way, I just submitted this during class.
you cant just go back to playboy
If people can get past, can they get future? Best way to confuse a stoner
since many professors in my school had the same view of using laptops in class. I gave the same reasons that they should be a nanny to their class.
Some time later, a friend who became a professor, instituted the same policy. He always browsed as a student so I asked why he would do something like this. His explanation was simple: "It's for my benefit, not theirs. Most of the time I just don't want to remind myself and maybe even my administration that my classes are boring and useless and can be replaced with paper handouts."
This friend has since tried other more creative ways such never providing lecture slides online, and making sure that he mentions important details only in class.
I wonder if internet surfing would be a problem if lectures, in fact, added value to a law student's education. My law school experience was that IF you went to class, it was only for the purpose of gauging the teacher's preferred style of thinking so that you would know how to communicate your answer on a final. Other than that, there was nothing I couldn't learn faster through a commercial outline. What is more, a reality is that very little of the content taught in a national law school such as the University of Chicago has application to the real world of law. Sure, from time-to-time the discussions can be thought-provoking and interesting. But strikes me as being more along the lines of entertainment, not education.
As a former computer scientist turned lawyer, I appreciated it when they tried to block internet access in the classrooms in my law school. They didn't count on directional wi-fi antennas picking up the residual signal from the courtyard (which had wireless access). This had the wonderful advantage of preventing the non-computer-geeks, who were watching streaming basketball games and such before the access was blocked) from soaking my bandwidth. It was great to have most of the law school's backbone available for my data-transmission needs...
The lectures need to be more then just reading out a book and more then just a show up to be there thing then less people will be playing games in them.
I'm a 3L at Northeastern, and they never used to allow internet access in the classrooms. Access points were carefully spaced so that they wouldn't reach the classrooms. Then this year, the University finally came to the law school and said "No. You have to have 100% wireless access throughout the entire school." Basically, the University strong-armed the school into 100% wireless because they wanted to be able to brag to US News /etc that the entire University was 100% wireless.
The result? Well, I'm sitting in class right now, so you take your pick.
-Daniel
So now that they've banned laptops and the internet, are they going to ban books? Because people are just going to start bringing books to read in class. Personally, I hate lecture and I never pay attention as a matter of principle. I just read books and do other homework while the teacher rambles on. I don't care because my learning time is much more efficient when I'm learning out of the book. I skip class a lot, I never pay attention, and I get A's and B's. (In electrical engineering). This policy is really aggrivating to people like me who can't stand listening to some guy regurgitate the textbook at 1/2 speed.
I can understand how a teacher would feel seeing half of the students zoning out and surfing the web. But I was in a computer class on the morning of 9/11 and the only way any of us knew that it had happened and what was going on was because of the internet. Maybe someone would have stopped by the class but I think most people were concerned and calling friends and family. I should note that I went to college not far outside of D.C. Anyway, I'm not sure how I feel about this but I think there is a happy medium somewhere between unbridled access and complete lockdown (except for facilitating "occasional computer training.")
Seems to me the college classroom environment shouldn't warrant a ban like this. The students are paying for the class - if they don't want to pay attention and get good grades, it's their loss. Web surfing isn't going to disturb the other students in the class and therefore the problem is on an individual level - a place where, IMO, the university shouldn't interfere.
Next thing you know they'll be building Faraday shields into all the classrooms....
This message will self-destruct in 5, 4, 3...
Doesn't the law school know that some of of the 20 somethings today can die without a constant net connection? FFS, you could at least try scaling them back to handhelds first!
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
It wants its joke back, kthx.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought this is one of the most prestigious law schools in the States. In this prestigious law school lecturers can't keep order in their classes in ways other than school-wide edicts. They don't sound like qualified educators to me ...
As much as an internet junkie as I am, I don't think the classroom (in general) is the place for it, any more than talking on a cell phone, or cooking a meal would be appropriate. It's a place where you're supposed to pay attention and take part in a discussion, not check your facebook constantly. If you don't want to go to the lecture, don't; get someone else's notes, read the text, or whatever. But if I'm a prof (and I was, part time, awhile back) I'm not going to waste my time interacting with a class that is doing something else at the time.
And it's not just people doing other things. I did a couple of seminars on Java in its early days, at a progressive local university, that had internet (wired) at every seat. Only a couple of people were using it, but it's awfully hard to get across concepts when people are constantly googling what you say and trying to point out problems or sound smart before you finish getting a point across.
A lot of the time in teaching, you have to start with generalizations to get the general concept across, some of which aren't 100% correct, technically; then you delve into the details clarifying those points. (As a broad example in another field, teaching newtonian physics as a basis for relativistic stuff.) One smartass with Google/Wiki can ruin that process for the whole class.
(On the other hand, those who are genuinely curious about something that is said and want to take a quick detour, I could support; but like most liberties, where there's a tendency towards abuse, you sometimes have reduced those liberties in certain agreed upon circumstances. It's similar to the cell phones on planes arguments. There are those that would use it respectfully, moderately, and quietly; but there would typically be a more noticable inconsiderate contingent that would just drive everyone nuts.)
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Free use of the Internet has a place in the classroom. I often use Google, Wikipedia, etc. during class to get an alternative perspective, or to clarify a point that the professor is failing to convey to me (and this is not the professor's fault, it is simply the case that no professor can explain everything to everyone all the time). As one takes more and more advanced courses, and the topics presented become more and more bleeding edge and controversial, this use of the Internet becomes more and more important. A ban on laptops would be doubly horrendous, not only for reasons mentioned, but also because electronic notes are *vastly* superior to paper. Since I started taking them on my laptop, both the quality and usefulness of my notes have risen dramatically.
They've already paid. What they do during lectures is there business. Plenty of people--in general--can pass classes without paying attention. Many people just go for the wittle piece 'o paper saying that they do indeed know the material, despite already being well versed in it.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
At least when someone is using a laptop it is obvious. A school-wide ban like that is probably overkill, individual professors can choose to limit laptop use in their classes as they see fit, if they are against students using laptops in class. You can't hide a laptop in your pocket (yet). I see cell phone/blackberry usage in class as a much worse problem. There is rampant cheating during exams enabled by cell phones, text messaging answers (especially on multiple-choice-based exams), etc. I would be in favor of large lecture halls, where exams are usually given, being shielded to prevent the use of cell phones during exams.
While correctly applauding the Cro Magnon for "holding against the evils of technology and actually making life worthwhile",
you forgot to request that the Cro Magnon come and thrash all of the people within your society that actually want to prevent those evils from causing further debasement of your society.
This would give you more violence to decry, while increasing your power.
Proper Political Correctness must ensconce wrong things for apparently right reasons.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
As a university student myself, I'd seriously consider transferring if such a policy was taken in my department at my university.
I'm not one to slack. I take my studies seriously. I usually take my notes on my laptop. Sometimes if something is mentioned I want more information on, or if the professor was moving too fast for me to take down everything on a subject, I'll look it up on wikipedia. Or if we're having a class discussion, I'll find sources to back up my arguments beyond "well I read it this one time".
However, I do fully admit I do sometimes browse the internet. If we're covering material I already know, or moving so slowly my full attention is not needed to absorb the material, I'll open up firefox.
I feel this is my right as a student. If my professor isn't able to give quality information for a whole lecture, then why should I give him my attention for a full lecture?
They must of read my post from a few months back and started to implement it. Now all they have to do is ban technology and electricity and they'll be set.
At least they started to make amends to the music and movie industries, but they have a long way to go.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
Surfing the internet during class is one of the more benign uses of a laptop. Besides actually interrupting class, having someone with a full-screen SNES emulator playing a flashy RPG in front of you so you can see their screen is way more egregious. Seeing someone watch a movie during lecture is also
If my boss tells me to do something a certain way, despite my explanations, I can do it or be fired. There are always other programmers waiting to take my place and toe the line.
Politicians almost seem to have a union mentality. They look out for their class first, then do their job second. You fire one politician, your only choice for replacement are generally more people with the same attitudes.
Maybe we need MORE politicians, so some can be out of work, and hungry for employment, and will actually obey their bosses (We the people.)
Just a thought...
Blar.
This is all about creating artificial scarcity to inflate professor salaries. There's no reason the professor couldn't video record his lecture at his leisure and post it to the web, where students could as well view it at their leisure. This would have the effect of eventually eliminating duplicate lecturing work, nationally and internationally, as the best lectures on a topic would be vetted, modded, and amended. And *everyone*, not just those being gouged for piece of paper Union Card Law Degree Certificates, would have access to information, access to education. This is just general commentary on the fact that most educational qualification boils down to paying the six figure medieval guild initiation fee for admittance into a monopoly protected line of work, such as Law.
:P
.mp3 lectures aren't justifying the 6 figure tuition costs for degrees, especially when that same $0.99 lecture track is recycled each academic year. I also look forward to undercutting every single obscenely priced textbook to torrent file sharing, and eventually undercutting the bulk of every academic institution in the world's majority of course material to free open access.
This is why eliminating copyright completely will lead to a golden age Renaissance of artistic and technological advancement, along with enhanced work profession mobility as training costs come crashing down by eliminating artificial scarcity knowledge.
Sites like slashdot that have moderating systems for posts is just the very wee beginning of genuine peer review and promotion for all sorts of information topics.
If surfing the internet is more interesting than listening to the professor blabber, then that is feedback on the quality of the professor. It's obvious if there's a "problem" with a lot of students ignoring the professors, their lecture acts aren't even as fresh as a Foghat concert. And if I could go back in time and post student feedback on my Economics and the Law class at the University of Chicago, I would say just that.
P.S. I'm also very disappointed that the UofC is rolling over for the RIAA. Way to be behind the Harvard curve on everything except economics, still! Nevertheless, it's still a top notch elite school. But the entire US higher education system could use free market competition to increase its quality. And (the synthetic equivalent of) $0.99 recorded
Lectures + calling on students to answer questions in class = outdated.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
I'm in a Computer Science Masters program...I find that I get along just fine with wordprocessors that allow a mimium of formulaic presentation. The most complicated formulas I've ever done were in algorithm and cryptography classes and MS Oriface did just fine. The text books were full of diagrams anyway...just type in a reference.
TFA is referring to lawyers...how often do lawyers draw diagrams and complex formulas anyway?
Blar.
There are better ways to prevent distractions. NetOP makes a product that we've been using in computer classrooms for a while that can restrict students Internet access. In a laptop environment, well, as someone said before, if you're surfing you deserve to fail. There will be a lot of times in life where distractions might get in the way of people's ability to concentrate and they need to manage those...crap, now I fell guilty...back to work.
Is this actually happening? I can't find any recent info about this, and I had been under the impression that the plan was scrapped...but I would love to be wrong, I'll tell you (since I'm a Chicago resident).
One of my professors had a good solution: He didn't care if you were on-line during class, as long as you sat in the back row. That way, your screen activity wouldn't distract the other students. Worked out pretty well -- except for me. I sat in the back row every time. :(
See Xohm.
I suspect that this isn't because the professors are sick of students playing games. It's that the students can do research so rapidly during class that it makes the professor look like an idiot in front of the whole class. A lot of law school requires thinking on your feet. The internet allows research on your feet too.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
whoever voted the comment offtopic, grow a pair and post. b/c it aint and if you need it explained... amounts to some pc kneejerker reacting to one word.
Okay, so apparently (if anyone else cares) there are 'trials' of the service going on in my fair city...but the launch has been delayed. Again. So I'm not totally convinced...but its more than I thought was going on.
from inside my classroom.
As a crappy college student, I essentially self-selected by drinking my ass off for the first 2 years of college. This was reflected in my grades and eventually lead to stint at the local community college where I realized that all my drinking buddies were bad students too.
If the problem is law students not paying attention, then the answer should be bad grades when they fail test...not grade inflation and a "once you're in, you're in until graduation" mentality.
Eviscerate the Proletariat!
In my (belgian) university every lecture hall has wifi access but nobody ever brings a laptop to class. When students are bored they quietly start chatting with their neighbors or (more rarely) they leave the class. Unless you really can't read your own handwriting I don't see the need for a laptop. The people who constantly have to take notes are the first to fail anyway.
But my understanding is that at most law schools, using laptops for note-taking is standard practice these days.
Any current law students want to confirm or deny?
Agree completely. If affordable laptops were available when I was in school I would have a whole database of useful reference material now instead of boxes of illegible notebooks and dog-eared readers in the back of my closet.
I would consider it a serious detriment to the value of my education if some professor refused to allow me to take legible, searchable notes using the commonly available tools we have now.
Banning net surfing in class won't force people to pay any better attention. They will just go back to etching geeky graffiti on the furniture like in the "good old days".
It's post-college professional school. Law school (In the states, anyway) was undergraduate a long time ago, I think, but it was a really long time ago.
Then again, the NYC public school system was once the wonder of the world.
What you say is absolutely true -- actual learning is about taking the pieces of what others have done, seeing how they work, and putting them together in new and interesting ways.
That said, don't undervalue memorization. A nice broad basis in fact is the antidote to a lot of postmodern-crap-passing-for-profundity, not to mention the importance of knowing what ideas you're working with. Of course one must *understand* what is memorized, but nothing is as impressive as a well-reasoned argument firmly grounded in facts, which you can't produce if you don't know any facts.
Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
As a law student, I can honestly say that some people may actually be using the internet to research lecture topics, etc, or to Google terms they don't understand. They could also be using LexisNexis or Westlaw for cases.
Better idea: throttle bandwidth to chat sites, instant messaging, p2p, porn sites, etc., and block known sites that seem to be problematic (they can find these easily by monitoring which websites get the most hits during class). That way those that want to use the internet to enhance the lecture can.
"There are a few rules in my classes.
She taught the class well, and managed to keep my attention, so I didn't feel the need to be killing time online.
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I'm an old fogey...I graduated 10 years ago. When I was in school, we didn't have any of this fancy wireless Internet access.
I could defintely see this being a huge distraction for the rest of the class. If someone next to you is playing WoW, even with the sound off, that's gotta be annoying. Same thing with someone texting through the entire class.
The real question is, why aren't students paying attention? I had to pay my way through school working almost full-time, so I guess I see things a little differently. Still, _someone_ is paying that monster tuition bill. Seems like a waste to spend class time on the Internet.
I guess that's one of the reason us 30something fossils will never understand the Web 2.0 generation. Now where's my prune juice??
Think Lubrication.
I can't say that I disagree with the decision. Virtually everyone has a laptop, and virtually no one pays attention to what is going on in class because they are surfing the web, responding to email, playing games, or some other nonsense. I know because that's what I'm doing while Professor Boring-McNotInteresting drones on. Additionally, rather than reading, many people just load wikipedia pages of the cases that the class is discussing. Unlike regular college or high school classes, law school classes tend to be considerably more interactive. Professors usually call on a random student to answer questions and discuss cases through the class period. Since no one is paying attention, and people are cutting corners on reading with wikipedia, any question that is asked normally has to be repeated, and the discussion that the class has is hurt as a result. This affects all of the students in the class, not just the person who looks like an idiot. Finally, when the law school's reputation begins to sink because the students didn't learn in class and are unprepared in the real world, the law school stands to lose quite a bit of money. If not for the fact that typing is so much easier than hand writing notes, i would almost urge the school to go further and ban all computers during class.
The clay tablet with a sharp reed replaced the stone chisel rapidly from about 4300 BC. It was the dominant classroom note-taking technology until ink and paper came into fashion around 2500 BC.
You see, I was in elementary school when clay plus reed replaced the stone plus chisel. With stone and chisel, the noise and dust were horrible distractions. The clay was silent and dust free. A huge improvement. Oh, and the clay (and stone) have MTBF's in the trillions of hours as long as you don't leave them exposed to the elements or shatter them in anger upon descending the mount and finding your followers worshipping a big-ass golden farm animal.
This says learning even in higher education needs to be more challenging for the student. Paying attention in class is very important but at the same time you can't just drone on at a blackboard with a group of people who are used to so many interactive things such as the web.
Students need to pay attention but at the same time if a professor is having trouble keeping their attention regularly then maybe something else needs changed aside from the students.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
This ban will not achieve its goal. Students do all manner of distracting things in class for any number of reasons...whether it's law school or grade school. Banning the internet means simply that bored or distracted students will do something else like:
1. Doodle in notebook
2. Play games or text on cell phone
3. Play games, watch, or listen to ipod
4. Eyeball attractive members of the opposite sex
5. Stare into space
6. Sleep
The only thing that has any major effect on a student's attention is the relevancy and delivery of the lecture (as many, many posters have already pointed out.
Banning things for this reason only deprives the good students of a learning tool.
Thank you Dave Raggett
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If the students or profs cant find a middle ground on this, reserve the front tiers for no-laptop use, middle tiers for laptop on but network off, and upper tiers for internet access use. The justifications people have expressed for their positions seem reasonable -- it shouldn't take a arbitration theoreticist to figure out how to accommodate nearly everybody's needs.
The sad thing about all this is that no one is acknowledging that classroom time is the professor's time. Don't like it? Then don't go to class - it's college after all. If the faculty made a decision that internet access or laptops in class was a bad thing, it's their decision to make.
www.itjerk.com
When will they get it? I'm typing this in class right now.
Am I missing anything? No. I already know this material, because I read the text like I was supposed to. And I'm going to do an assignment on it next week. And the prof posts the lecture notes online.
So why am I in class? Because sometimes professors drop hints in class, talk about assignments (that don't get posted until much later), or provide other useful information. And sometimes the professor provides a much better explanation than the text.
But that's the 10%. What am I to do with the other 90%?
It's not really the professor's fault, and it's not really the student's fault. If I miss critical information, it will be reflected in my exam scores.
I teach introductory government at UT-Dallas and I have similar complaints. Granted, Chicago Law should be able to rely on the honor system with these post graduate students to enforce a no-surfing rule.
However, for students fresh out of high school taking a required course, I need their attention to help them pass this course. My policy in the classroom is if I catch someone doing anything besides taking notes on a laptop, they can't bring them to class anymore. It's distracting for them, obviously, but it's also distracting to the students around them. Nevertheless, when I'm lecturing, I don't really have time to walk around in the back of the classroom to police them. I've contacted the university IT department to see about shutting down wifi for this class during our scheduled time, but they politely refused.
Some of you will say that since they're paying tuition they should be allowed to do whatever they want. That's certainly one point of view. The opposing point is that it is disrespectful to me, the instructor, as well as the other students. I would much rather these kids not come to class than to show up surfing myspace and chatting the whole time.
If it were legal, I would have instituted a wifi pocket scrambler long ago.
Greg
I teach courses in literature, most frequently poetry, at a major Southern university.
This semester I've been trying to decide how to deal with students texting in class and with students who use laptops recreationally in class. I haven't come up with an ideal solution, but I'm leaning toward banning cellphones. The laptop thing is harder; many students use them to take notes and for reference, which is laudable. I think I might tell students using laptops to be prepared to e-mail me notes on demand at the end of class so that I'll know who's using a laptop to take notes and who's goofing off.
So that's background. I'm posting in response to some ideas from the student perspective that I see repeated here.
Several posters say that students are capable of multi-tasking. This is true, but research indicates that you're not capable of doing anything well nor of retaining it when you multi-task.
Several posters suggest that they should be allowed to be the judge of what's worthwhile. I'm all for agency, but if you decide to tune out, you might miss something that would interest you. Furthermore, some material isn't so exciting, and though a teacher should attempt to generate interest, some students expectations are unreasonably high when it comes to the entertainment value of literature. Maybe, too, it would be well to look on a lecture as a form of work.
A few people say they can pass without paying attention in lectures. That is probably true. I often find myself dumbing down my lectures, assignments, and exams so that students who have tuned out during class can pass. If I fail too many students, my enrollments go down, my evaluations suffer, and I may even lose my job, as I am on one-year contracts and get rehired based on student evaluations. If I do that, for fear of my job, the content of the course suffers.
Finally, a few people here say lectures are outdated and that content should be online. What about procrastination; would students just shrug off all this content until finals? What about dialog; will all exchange in your life take place via chat? What about seeing others modelling an interest in material only understood or valued by a minority? Do you want to give those faculty who are already distant from students one more excuse to tune you out completely?
I guess I'll conclude by saying that the small minority of students who text in class or play on their laptops in class are the worse students in my class. They waste a lot of my time asking me about things covered in class or begging for favors and special attention. And they tend to earn poor grades. I wouldn't want to be their boss and certainly not one of their fellow employees. Though as their boss, I could fire the lot of them, and that would be very gratifying.
My lectures certainly are a lot more than this, but that doesn't keep kids from surfing. Intro Government and Politics courses aren't that interesting to everyone, but they're required to take it. I fail so many kids every semester because they can't make the grade, due to uncontrollable surfing. Others use their laptops wisely, for writing/searching their notes, so I can't just ban laptops entirely.
Get a clerkship somewhere. That makes up for low grades, and federal magistrate judges and state intermediate courts of appeals are doable on a middle-of-the-class top-40-school class rank.
After you finish that one-year program, lots of firms will want to hire you.
So instead of making the lectures more appetizing to the students the solution is to deny them from distractions... Why don't we lock them in a white-washed room (can't have a color which might possible result in open thought) with no windows (there might be something half interesting out there afterall!), white concrete floors (rugs can be interesting!), no desks (have you seen what people write on those things?) with only the professor standing up front.
If the material isn't interesting people will NOT pay attention, no matter what you do. Needing the class to graduate is NOT enough reason for your average college student to pay attention. Deny them laptops, internet, etc and you know what? People will stop coming to the class. They will find SOMETHING to do rather than be bored by your disinterested teaching.
I've said it before. If you aren't interested in the material you are teaching, we will notice, and we won't care either. Learn to teach right, or don't teach at all.
As a complete aside, if someone typing away on the quiet laptop keyboard or using a mouse is THAT distracting, I feel sorry for you - when you reach the office world prepare to be completely distracted.
If you were offended by anything I said... No, I'm not sorry. Please lighten up.
Since the STUDENTS are the CUSTOMERS here...why should they have anything taken from them? They or their parents are are the ones paying for a service...if the student fails for not paying attention in class...it might be better they not become a lawyer.
As someone who's currently sitting in class browsing slashdot, this story strikes a personal chord.
A current exert of the student presentation:
"disadvantages of worker cooperatives:
- possibility of conflict between members.
- longer decision-making process."
I'm in favor of banning wi-fi in the class room. Its utility is out of balance with the quantity of abuse, at least in my person experience.
Don't know why you were moderated troll. That was a perfect economic demonstration of Substitute Goods, which satisfy a demand to be paying attention to something else because paying attention to something else can be subjectively more valuable than paying attention to what the professor wants you to be paying attention to.
Don't worry. These professors will end up eliminated in the exact same way purchasing plastic cds for $17 is being eliminated. The whole idea of a Law Degree is pure protectionist unionism shutting out competition. Every field of academic endeavor will little by little have its knowledge set free and open.
The lectures and in class Socratic methodology is priced FAR above its actual value, FOR 1 STUDENT, LET ALONE A FULL LECTURE HALL OF STUDENTS!
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
Geez. That is like saying we need more diseases ...
morcego
Um, if someone wants to spend what, $30,000/year to sit in your classes and play flash games while the professor talks, why would the university care? That's almost as expensive as sitting at Starbucks and having a muffin, but at least there you get the muffin.
-Styopa
that's just fine as long as "We the People" (tm) are still the bosses.
As a professor I just don't see the issue. It's stupidly egoistic to think that what I have to say is soooooo important that if every student doesn't listen to me then they're missing out. If the student can surf all class whilst still doing well in the class, then good for them. More likely than not though, the more general it is becoming for students to do this, the more likely the average student will become below-average. But this isn't my problem. If student's want to do poorly by not paying attention, that's their issue, not mine. The only time this is an issue is when the student is being disruptive to students who are trying to pay attention. Short of that, let them waste their time and money in showing up.
But how can we fact check the professor on wikipedia?
Take whatever you said and apply to engineering education as well. The latest batch of undergraduates are startlingly apathetic.
Ironically, I'm reading this during class...
Quoting another post of mine:
:P
..."
I've also previously on other sites made the legal argument that banning cell phones in high school classrooms is felony child endangerment. And as I know for a fact that the University of Chicago has an emergency email warning notification program spawned because of the shooting spree at Virginia Tech (as I'm sure do many universities), the University of Chicago Law School is GUILTY of CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE AND ENDANGERMENT, similar to chaining by lock fire exit doors in schools.
So if I slide on down to the Cook Country Circuit Court and get an injunction against this policy, can I have an honorary UofC Law Degree for schooling the UofC Law School? How about from any of the other Law Schools I prevent from making the same liability mistake? Not to mention violations against the Americans With Disabilities Act. Will consider full ride scholarships.
Sorry if my legal jargon isn't up to par. For your punishment entertainment, I sentence the UofC Law School to a 5 year pro bono legal clinic assistance helping victims of the RIAA.
Any lawyers want to mock represent the defense?
"I've always been fascinated by the law."
"Oh really? What areas?"
"Oh all areas. Personal privacy, noise statutes
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
I don't see a problem with it since you *chose* to be there to learn, however, if it doesn't cause disruption to anyone else, who cares if you are ignoring the lesson and fail the test later?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
In my experience, being a 2L at a top-ten law school, the reason you're closer to the median on final exams is BECAUSE you're dumping "as much black letter law onto the page as possible." That's what I tried to do my first year, and it didn't end well. This year, I've been focusing much more on analysis, and I did much better, grade-wise.
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
Remember the time when you used to get kicked out of class for doing something you weren't supposed to? What happened to those times? I'll tell you: money.
If you kick a kid out of class for browsing the internet then the parents sue. If they don't sue, then they'll sure put their kid in a different school, which means less money for the college.
I remember when college used to be about education and not about money. The only time it WAS about money was dealing with sports. It's just sad.
Well, no shit! Maybe if your lectures weren't horrendously boring and right out of the textbook half the time we would feel it more worth our while to listen to what you are saying. Instead, Facebook and Slashbook are a better use of our time. Maybe if you asked us actual questions that engage us or had more class discussions we'd feel like our input was welcome. Some professors manage just fine and their classes are useful and informative. Usually they're the ones with no anti-computer policy.
On the other hand, students with distracting habits such as whispering loudly or eating their lunch loudly in class, or those who wear clothing that is borderline obscene, those people, so long as they use paper and pen, are free from implied criticism. Instead of being sent to the back of the room because of their ownership of a piece of metal they get to sit at the front and whisper loudly so that everyone between them and the professor has to suffer for their rudeness.
Paper and pen students can stare off into space, out the window, at the professor with a glazed stare- whatever- and their conduct is not impugned. Those of us who merely stare at the screen instead of off into space-- never mind whether we are truly surfing the net or not-- are the subject of prejudice or assumptions. No banning of staring off into space, because that would be arbitrary and unfair. However, when the professor just can't see what you're staring at, all of a sudden banning that type of staring is OK. Pah. Luddites.
ok, it's time to launch my 501.c3 (?) Help End LIcensing of Litigators H.E.L.L. TM ©2006-2008 Ted Rogers paypal: cma7b5 at the gmail
If a hundred new types of the common cold could push out AIDS, Ebola, and Cancer...sure, why not?
As a graduate, I found that every professor wanted something different.
If you prof wants analysis, you give analysis. If your prof wants an outline dump, you give an outline dump. As every law student learns, law school has little to do with learning the law. Your job is to learn what the prof wants, and adapt accordingly. It's almost like... that's what lawyers actually do.
Know thy professor.
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I extensively use a tablet PC to take notes during class. Since I'm a computer science student it really helps to be able to write notes on the source code the teacher uses during the lecture. For a writing class I decided to use pen and paper. Things got so disorganized that I dropped it. If I can't put a task in outlook to remind me to do something right when it is assigned then it just doesn't get done. I manage files between lab computers, my home computer, and laptop with SSH. Without internet access I would have to remember to copy stuff around. Never mind how many flash drives I've lost. You can take my tablet and wireless internet away when you provide a personal secretary.
Yeah it's an inconvenience for the students, but on the other hand they are getting a fabulous object lesson in how the legal system operates in practice.
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods
I have read many of these replies and I am rather surprised how little is said about respect for the professor and fellow students. Internet usage during a lecture is shameful and embarrassing. As is answering phone calls during face-to-face conversation. People think that by paying tuition they are entitled to bad behavior. It is a privilege to attend, not a right. Where is the respect?
What did you ask and what did Roberts answer?
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Mabey I am the only person, but I can tell you why I have my computer on during class (as a CS/IS student at GVSU)
Most professors can't be bothered to teach anything, or even know anything. Especially in CS -- my CS 150 teacher has extreme difficulty turning on the classrom computer each morning (she claims the computer is broken. Every morning. Even when tech support, and other professors can always turn it.) She also doesn't know the difference between a local application (like Microsoft office) and a web application (like G-mail).
At least on some of the more difficult topics (like networking / client-server stuff / access and sql) she plays the textbook's flash video lessons.
I would stop going to class, but of course, you have to sign the stupid "attendance" sheet every day, for your "class participation" points which are 25% of your total grade.
If your a professor, who is of any value teaching at a university, most of your students will choose to attend class and listen to you -- because they will want to hear what you have to say (you know your stuff and can prove it during lecture -- students feel their time is well spent listening to whatever you have to say)
If you are a professor who consistantly notices students not listening / on laptops / and in general, not caring -- its probably because your stupid, or arrogant, or in general, less worth our time than a stupid flash game. In theory, it should be really hard for a professor to be so worthless or stupid that we'd rather watch homestarrunner than listen to your class -- but unfortunatly, its pretty commonplace.