Inspired by another question where a user asks how to handle students with a phone, my question is from the opposite perspective: what is the correct response when a teacher asks one to put away the phone?
This actually recently happened to me (a few months ago), and for obvious reasons (not wa...
I am always amazed that people always claim "I only use it to look up relevant info for the class", I have walked past students so engrossed in the game they are playing during my class that they don't even notice I walked by (6'3" and 110kg...) - So I concentrate on the students making a real effort...
The correct response is to put away your phone, and then (following your own advice) approach the professor after lecture or during break if you have a problem.
If your instructor asked you to put it away it means he/she/it saw it and probably was disturbed by it...Also you'd be surprised how often students use their phone, and then, couple minutes later they ask us to repeat something we just missed.... Even if you use it for "10 seconds" (which probably is much longer than 10 second) to check something the teacher just covered, in that time you'll probably miss some information...
"I find it highly disrespectful ..." That is exactly what the professor feels. We put a lot of time and effort into our courses, and it can be very distracting to see someone who is not paying attention, even in the back of the class. Paying attention is a matter of respect. You absolutely WILL miss something important by looking at your phone, even for 10 seconds.
Big part of the problem is the fact that, in my experience, the majority of students which check something on wikipedia for 10 seconds actually use the phone for minutes and type every few seconds.... That is disrupting the class, and, to make things worse, when they are done checking the phone, often they ask things which we just covered but they were not paying attention. Yes, there are always exceptions, but unfortunately we cannot make special rules for them, since everyone uses the same excuse.... If you are mad at anyone, you should be at your peers which use the phone for texting, not..
at your instructor which very likely wants to (or at least thinks that by doing this he can) create a better learning environment.. Last but not least, if you are in my class and you don't remember something, I would rather have you ask me to remind you what that means than checking it on Wikipedia... Especially in my area, there are many concepts which can, and most importantly need to be, explained in various ways depending on the background level of the student, which makes wikipedia sometimes more confusing... Also, in my experience, if one student doesn't remember something from past
... lessons, he is not alone, and asking for a reminder helps more students from the class....
Presumably pirating the class textbook and looking it up on "[your] cloud server" isn't a valid excuse for using your phone in class. You should buy the book and bring it to class like everyone else is presumably doing.
"Finally, I find it highly disrespectful to call a student out for being on a phone in the middle of a lecture in front of all others" - The word you're looking for I think is "embarrassing". You thought you'd get away with breaking the rules, you were caught out and made an example of. Being embarrassed is the correct emotion; and here's hoping you learn to obey rules to avoid it in future.
@DRShort How is using a phone more disrespectful than, say, staring into space? Would you demand that a student who was staring into space stop doing that?
"Presumably pirating the class textbook " @JLRishe In today's world assuming the book was pirated isn't a good idea. Plenty of publishers sell PDF, or etc versions of their books. All, but 4 books(hard copies) that I have are ebooks. I have purchased 100's of ebooks either directly from the publisher,amazon, or etc legit retailer.
I honestly find most of the answers to be ridiculous for university level teaching. I have been in plenty of situations regarding illnesses concerning relatives that had definite priority over the material being taught. In a class of hundreds, I expect this to be quite common. We are adults and have a life out of the class being taught.
@Lonidard If you have to take care of business that takes priority, step out of the lecture hall.
@DavidRicherby It's hard to tell the difference between staring into space and paying attention. A better example might be reading a book or working on a crossword puzzle, and I think that would be just as disrespectful.
Are you, by any chance, a student in the class taught by the OP of this post? Oddly enough the top voted answer on that posts is just about the polar opposite of the top voted answer on this one
@JLRishe I can't spontaneously think of a single lecture I have taken where there wasn't a suggested accompanying text book available for free download on the course website (sometimes only for logged in students, sometimes in public for everyone). I'm not saying every lecture is like that, I'm saying there are lots of lectures to which your statement doesn't apply.
@SolarMike Sure there are lots of students who use their devices like that, but depending on the lecture I would say about 1/4 to 1/2 of those screens I can see at any time are being used for something legitimately study related. A rule punishing a significant minority for something the majority does is not a good rule in my book.
@DRShort I think that this is true, but not comprehensive. If I find myself on my phone most of the time during a lecture, I will think about not attending it in the future because I can understand how being present but doing something completely different is disrespectful. However, there is a wide share of courses where one's presence is mandatory. In those classes, I do often find that I can use this 90 minutes more wisely than to listen to the Prof. The material is learnt way faster by myself, the lectures are sometimes ill-prepared, but as my presence is mandatory, I find it ok to read a
[con't] book, study for other courses or be on the phone, as long as I'm not disturbing anyone else. It might be still considered disrespectful by the prof, but my time is spare as well.
You do what you are told as you are meant to follow your lecture. If you want to dig deeper in some of the topic s mentioned during the lecture you make a note and do it in your own study time. Alternatively, I am sure that in modern classroom's dynamics there is still the option to interact with your lecturer and ask questions. Similarly, in an interview setting, as the interviewer you should only be equipped with the candidate's CV and avoid bringing your phone/laptop in. It is disrespectful, distracting and you should fully dedicate your time to the person.
The sense of entitlement and lack of understanding of the teachers position is absolutely baffling; "How to handle a teacher...", "what I do with my phone [in class!] is none of the teacher's business", " I need to the phone to actually access the book", " I find it highly disrespectful to call a student out", "Approach me after the lecture...". Is this a joke?
@DRShort Who cares whether the student pays attention. I am highly against even mandatory class attendance like it is practiced in USA. There are many different types of learners. And many - like me - can't focus to speech for a long time, even less actually learn anything from that. Some people prefer to read on their own instead, for example. Almost everything that I know is because I read it, not heard it. Many countries let their students decide on their own how and when to study. It is even more of a joke that American students have to pay for this type of infantilization.
Phone checking is a reflex that reduces boredom by diverting a low attention span away from an organic and slow moving object of focus. If there were study phones with only an encyclopedia and similar resources, it would be a start towards actually learning during lessons. You can't read and listen with equal attention. You can consider your phone like a brain implant because it requires only 1/2 second reflex to use it. That reflex can be difficult to switch off. read about baby reactions to fast moving cartoons. they have artifical lwo attention spans for the organic world.
If you can get up to speed with a 10 second glance at Google or Wikipedia, why bother going to class in the first place? Just spend a few minutes on your phone instead.
Given that our bookstore has been pushing electronic texts as a way to save money for students, I don't think this question is as unreasonable as many people are treating it as. If the professor doesn't allow laptops or phones, but does require the text book and the university sells for that course an electronic textbook, then the student is put into an impossible situation (as often times students may purchase the books based on a purchase list prior to the first day of class, or their financial aide only allows them to buy at the bookstore, and it may not have physical copies left)
@guifa I don't think this is the case with OP. If textbooks were electronic and the lecturer was a "technophobe" not allowing any electronic devices, then you have that problem. But that seems like a different question altogether. We have no reason to assume any of this is the case here.
"If a topic is mentioned that I don't quite recall, a quick google search or a 10-second glance at the topic's Wikipedia page brings me up to speed." -- Have you considered that taking that possibility away may be a conscious didactic choice? That the teachers wants you to learn to attend meetings in a prepared state of mind? (I'm not saying anything about whether that is a useful concept still, if put to that extreme. But that's not the point, is it?)
@guifa nobody pushes electronic texts as a way for students to save money, that's just marketing BS. Electronic texts are pushed as a way to increase profit for the publishing industry by eliminating the huge expensive printing process.
@barbecue of course it increases the publisher's profit. It doesn't change the fact that they are cheaper for the student, and universities experience substantial pressure to lower costs to students.
@guifa Whether students' costs are actually lower is debatable, as paper books can be resold to recoup some cost, whereas most electronic texts are licensed to the user with no resale rights, thus making them MORE expensive for students. Regardless, the motivations for electronic books are entirely selfish, no concern for saving students money is involved. The textbook publishing industry literally depends on students paying more to sustain their obsolete business model.
@SAK: Note that there's both an issue and a meta-issue here. There's the issue of whether what you're doing is disrespectful or disruptive, which you can debate as an educational or interpersonal matter. But there's the meta-issue of whether you have a duty to nonetheless respectfully obey the authority here or not, and the answer to that meta-question should be clear regardless of what you think about the former.
Everyone here seems to forget that OP is paying for a service and is expecting to be able to utilize that service the way they see fit, so long as they do not disturb other people. Anyone attacking them for this imo is simply pompous.
Discussion on question by SAK: How to…
Discussion on question by SAK: How to…