How To Get Students To Stop Using Their Cellphones In Class by Anya Kamenetz, NPR’s lead education blogger.
Published November 10, 2015
This news item discusses something I see every time, seriously, every time I teach. The cell phone.
Cue the dramatic sound clip.
I haven’t found it to be a problem, per say, students using their cellphones during my class, but it isn’t exactly encouraging either. Last Tuesday I saw one of my students drawing the Eiffel Tower on her phone—something she could very well have been doing on paper. Would I care any more or less if she were to doodle in a notebook? Probably not. The question posed by the article, though, is, would she engage more if the cell phone doodle was not an option?
I sort of like the idea posed by Professor Duncan of the University of Colorado Boulder:
“I asked them to vote if I should offer one participation point for taking out their cell phone, turning it off and leaving it out on my desk. To my amazement the vote was unanimous. 100% voted yes. So they all took out their phones, put them on the desk, and we had an exceptionally engaged class.”
I could see myself trying something along these lines, offering the promise of class participation credit for the sacrifice of a single distraction. At the same time, I could see that not working at all, as certain students seem just as willing to tune me out for the attention of their own thoughts as they are to substitute class discussion for digital distractions.
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/11/10/453986816/how-to-get-students-to-stop-using-their-cellphones-in-class