In response to Logan's request to hear from teachers on mobile phone usage in classrooms:
I teach in a couple of different capacities for a university here in Australia and I have mixed feelings about mobile phones in the classroom.
On the one hand, there is nothing more annoying than noticing that a student is fiddling with Facebook while you are explaining assessable course content. More often than not it is these same students that later send bewildered emails asking for the very details that they missed out on in class. For this reason, my default position is that phones may remain on in my class, though they must be on silent or vibrate and kept in a pocket or bag. If someone has to take an urgent call (it's a university after all - students sometimes have children or important work commitments), I ask that they leave the room, finish their conversation, and return when they are done. If I see people texting, chatting or using social media on their phones I ask that they desist out of a respect for the university, their fellow students and myself.
Depending on what I am teaching, however, I have found that having mobile devices around - in particular smart phones - does occasionally serve a useful purpose. Every now and again I teach a university entry pathway course for students with English as a second language, and I have found that there are numerous dictionary and thesaurus apps that are actually quite helpful to use. I have also noticed, however, that whenever I sanction the use of such apps many students end up on social media when they think I'm not looking. It's a slippery slope.
Overall I'd say I am 80% against phones in the classroom - at least at the university level. I'm not a high school teacher, but my feeling there, given the reduced maturity of the students, is that a total ban inside the classroom would be within the realm of appropriateness.
My opinion as a student: if a teacher can't make students listen to him, it's usually his own fault.
Or if he has to teach a completely useless subject that is not interesting to anyone, teacher and students are just prisoners of a shitty education system. Teacher has no right to complain about students not caring in this case.
And well, you generally don't need to listen to lectures and be active in class to pass exams. If a student has no problems getting passing grades on subjects he doesn't care about, leave him alone. No good teacher ever forces students to listen to him.
If someone doesn't listen AND can't pass the course, then it's his own fault and he deserves to fail. If a lot of students fail because of that, teaching methods should be adjusted to make students more engaged.
Yes, some people are naturally lazy. You have to take that into account before the class starts, not by preventing people from killing time in class.
I am an IT student in Finland. I don't pay attention ~80% of time of lectures, I just put my laptop on the desk and do my things or just skip them entirely. No teacher here cares about that as long as I don't disturb other students. Lecture attendance for most courses is also not mandatory.
I prefer reviewing lecture notes teachers post online and practice on my own whenever I feel like it, as I find it very hard to listen to lectures.
My average grade is 4.1 out of 5 and I passed all courses I've taken without attending a single resit in two years.
When it comes to university students, it was their own choice to go to university and choice of university was also theirs.If university students don't take their studies seriously enough to pass them, they deserve to be kicked out.
If the student keeps to himself then fine. I do that in most of my CS courses and I get good grades. Its when they start bothering the class with it, distracting other students, worst of all get on freaking skype and start speaking(rather loudly) in freaking hindi in the middle of class that bothers me and when I think that person should be kicked out of class.
I go to a middle school and as of last year the school has allowed students to use there personal devices in class. The school even provides wifi to the students (although it's heavily restricted). As far as I can tell, most of my teachers support phones in the classroom.
If a student needs to look something up for an assignment they can easily do so. It's easier than having students take shifts at the computers we have in the classrooms. (most rooms have about 3-5 computers in them) Their also nice to have to kill time after your done with a test or if have all your work done.
As for misuse, the majority of students are good about not using there phones when the teacher is giving a lesson. And teachers can take away a students phone temporarily if they do use them when there not supposed to.
i'm in a school were using phones, tablets and laptops is widely accepted. The teacher's opinions mostly are in the direction of "if he fails his exam its his own damn fault". However there is one teacher that insists a full ban on laptops, because they arent required in his class, and this rule is followed by everyone without any issues.
The reasons my school is that open to technology are probably that its a technology-aimed school, and that the students mostly are very mature, and have passed the point of wanting to be a rebel.
In a case where a teacher simply cant teach anymore because phones took over the classroom, I see no reason to keep them allowed. If I was a teacher i'd probably put a ban on any electronical devices in the classroom, unless stated otherwise.
Trough the years I have seen a lot of phone-addicts fail class, and am convinced there is a link between "just answering that text" and "teacher, you never said that".
I can understand the sentiment here, and I follow it to a large extent. If students don't pass courses that is usually their own fault - particularly in my classes where I go out of my way to give extra time to students who are struggling (usually outside of class hours, and I don't get paid office hours most of the time - I see a student who is falling behind as a challenge and find it very rewarding if I can help them master difficult content). The world is changing though, and we are entering a time where students (falsely I feel) believe they are customers rather than pupils - it is getting difficult to fail students without being accused of not delivering adequate tuition for their dollar (even where they have spent a whole semester staring at their phone or tablet rather than paying attention).
The argument that if students aren't listening it is the teacher's fault for not making the class interesting is also somewhat valid. I follow this philosophy to some extent myself. I have had a lot of pretty awful teachers in my time, and I strive to not be one of them. I spend a lot of time producing content that challenges my students and forces them to think outside of the box - remember and repeat is never a component of my assessment strategy. One should remember, however, that an engaging teaching manner and high levels of academic achievement and insight seldom come in a single package. One of the most thought-shaping lecturers I ever had was also an incredibly neurotic and jittery individual who was rather difficult to listen to. Had I been fiddling with my phone in the class due to her manner I would have never benefited from witnessing the subtlety of her incisive intellect. Conversely, I have had the occasional very charismatic and engaging teacher and a few times with hindsight found that their academic insight was sub-par. Let's not lose sight of what university education is about: students are there to learn, not be entertained.
Getting back on track, where things are quite different at the university level when compared to high school, is that university is an entirely optional part of someone's life and people have very different reasons for choosing to attend. I find that most students attend because they genuinely want to engage with challenging academic ideas, but there are always those who are there because of family pressures, or because they grew up among the middle class where university is the norm and considered an entitlement. There are also those who attend purely because they enjoy the social aspects of campus life - I am sympathetic to this as I enjoy this also.
Where things start to become irksome from a teacher's perspective with regard to mobile devices and social media, is when there are discussion or group related components of the class and the less motivated students drag down the experience of everyone else by having no idea what is going on (or by using Skype in class as others have mentioned - though I have seen this happen only once). Or, due to the high level of difficulty of some of the content being taught, students avoid the necessary hard work through succumbing to distraction. This is a natural phenomenon - hard work is unpleasant - but it is also necessary if one wishes to succeed academically.
For these reasons, I feel it is acceptable to expect the full attention of students. Not to mention also for the basic reason of respect and manners - it is simply rude not to listen to someone who is trying to teach you something and has gone to a lot of time and effort to do this. In my time as an undergraduate student I always made a point of, no matter how bored I was (and at times I was borderline comatose with boredom), not disrespecting the person teaching the class by Facebooking or checking emails for example. This is just basic courtesy as far as I am concerned.
Are there any other teachers on Tek Syndicate? If there are I would like to hear from them too. Particularly if they teach in the secondary sector, as that is quite a different ballgame.
"The teacher's opinions mostly are in the direction of "if he fails his exam its his own damn fault"."
Some of my teachers are like that too. But sometimes they act like they don't care about anyone and I have a problem with that being a student who actually cares about education.
I feel like in the beginning of the school year no one should get to use their devices, but if a majority of the teachers agree that you can be trusted, you get to use your device(s).