Laptops to stay in (my) classroom
Few subjects about university classrooms arouse as much contention as laptop computers. Have you seen the video where the U. of Oklahoma physics professor freezes a student’s laptop with liquid nitrogen and smashes it on the floor? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5w-7IpI0fI. To be fair, it is a staged stunt and frankly not a particularly compelling 1:47, but you’ll get the point that not all faculty members are fans of laptops in the classroom. Closer to home, Madeline Twomey, a junior at GW, wrote a piece in the February 10 GW 
Hatchet, saying she was “appalled to find out [her] professor had a ‘no laptop’ policy,” concluding that “the decision to force students to forgo their computers and embrace their printers [is] a failed answer to the question of the distracting nature of laptops in classrooms.” Her professor, Kip Kosek, responded in the Hatchet on March 11 that he would keep his laptop ban, at least for now, because “quality education results from the collaborative interaction of engaged thinkers, not from professors imparting content to passive individuals. Distracted students hurt not only themselves, but the rest of the class as well.”
My own view is that having only relatively recently begun to require that students arrive at GW Law with a laptop computer, we should not institute a school-wide ban on laptops in the classroom. For many of our students, the laptop has become almost an extension of their selves. It’s how they take notes, research, write, and communicate; like it or not, those of us who were students in a pre-computer age simply can’t roll back the clock to a time when faculty members enjoyed the sight of rows of rapt faces and suffered at worse some inattentive doodling, note passing and an occasional nodding head.
I certainly understand those of my colleagues who share Kip Kosek’s views and as a result choose to ban laptops in their own classes. Just as I would not support a school-wide prohibition on laptops in the classroom, I do not support a school-wide requirement that all professors must permit laptops. But in my classroom, laptops are allowed.
To be sure, there is a real concern here. I absolutely agree that students do not pay close attention when their sole contribution to their own classroom experience is to spend 55 minutes typing what their professors have said. Here’s a story I share with my students in Criminal Law. During one of my first trials as an Assistant United States Attorney, I wanted to get a sense of how a particular witness was coming across. Figuring that the court reporter was an experienced court watcher I asked her what she thought of that witness’s testimony and credibility. She smiled at my rookie mistake. “I have no idea whether the witness is credible or even much of an idea as to what he has said. It comes in my ears and out through my fingers” she said making a typing gesture. “If I stop to think about what is actually being said, I’ll mess up the transcription.” Complete stenographic transcript with little or no processing of the information – great for a stenographer; awful for a student.
So I caution students to use the laptop to take notes, not to produce a stenographic record. Sometimes I will ask my class to “close your laptops and just listen,” particularly for difficult subjects. (Ask my students about discussing “attempted recklessness”!) After I’ve made my point, I give students time to type their notes.
Of course surfing the net is a distraction to the laptop using student, and others in the class. But as for our ability to compete with Farmville, Zappos, and the latest viral video making the rounds, students at the law school level will focus on what they want to, regardless of the means. I suspect the ancient Greek students day-dreamed and passed notes during the original Socratic Method class. Faculty will have to address this issue head on by being more vibrant, topical, and engaging. Maybe I am being overly idealistic―I have been accused of that before―but I still believe that a good teacher will beat a good shoe sale any day.
There’s an easy fix for the problem of distracting classmates: laptop privacy filters. A GW Law-branded version would be the ultimate “accepted student” swag!
It also doesn’t hurt that you roam the class, leaving would-be shoe-shoppers in fear their Dean will catch them on Zappos.
Nice post.
Excellent post. As a recent graduate (not GW-Law however), I can tell you first hand the benefits of having a laptop in the classroom (I type about 4x as fast as I write). I can also tell you first hand how distracting it can be to have a laptop in the classroom (Boring lecture or class discussion and I’m reading something engaging online and maybe engage in a blogging debate on a random topic). In the end, it matters not whether a laptop is allowed, or not allowed, in the classroom and more on the professor’s ability to engage his/her students. If you simply lecture, I will simply take notes. If you want your students to pay attention, engage them by asking them questions on what their opinions are and why. In law, as in most humanities, reality means less than the perception of reality and one’s ability to create a favorable perception can only be enhanced by seminar type classes that encourage students to debate each other with the professor acting as a facilitator.
Dean Lawrence said: “I still believe that a good teacher will beat a good shoe sale any day.”
Totally agree with that last statement. Professors need to realize that the answer is not to ban laptops, but rather to embrace them through more interactive lectures, web discussions, in-class on-line research, and video sources. Tie students computers in to the lectures and create a more effective learning environment.
I’m sure it’s painfully obvious when someone in your class is not paying attention. Isn’t one of the points of the Socratic method to be able to remedy that? Call them out, engage them, make them look silly. Shoe sales will then become less important.
I may be in the minority among students, but I would love it if more professors banned laptops in their classrooms. This is not because it bothers me what anyone else is doing on their computer, but because I am of weak moral fiber. Rare is the class during which I have not engaged in some sort of extracurricular internet activity, even if it’s just reading the e-mail that pops up. Perhaps it is because I am a low-quantity note-taker, or just the way that I learn, but I don’t feel that having a computer in class regularly enhances my learning. While I would be wary of prohibiting laptops in a large, lecture-based class, I can’t help but feel that doing so in smaller seminar classes would have anything but a positive effect on class discussion and learning. I know that if I was a professor, I wouldn’t want to stare at the back of everyone’s computer while trying to teach a class. I would oppose a mandate from the administration on this issue, but would absolutely favor a recommendation that professors consider prohibiting laptops in seminars (especially those without a final exam, where students cannot complain that their note-taking ability is inhibited).
Great post. As a graduate from GWLaw, and as a student who’s generation helped to bring in the “laptop boomers”, I am sure it is a culture shock and huge generational gap indicator for many professors. However, I remember a certain professor (at GWLaw) who would tape his classes. And many students who were web-surfing during lectures were caught on camera for all to see (he would play the video during the next class). It was hilarious and VERY effective. Most students were so scared that the back of their heads and computer screens would show up on a video during the next class, that they rarely, if ever, searched the web for non-class related purposes in that professor’s class.
Good times GWLaw. Good times.
Dean Lawrence,
I just stumbled upon this…
Firstly- how wonderful to be quoted in your blog! I just wanted to say thank you for your contribution to this conversation- I know it is an issue far from resolved. Much like many who have commented, I too believe that while the laptop may make distraction more accessible, distraction itself is nothing new. I admit to falling subject to (you hit the nail right on the head!) shoe sales, emails etc., but in classes I enjoy and when the professor is engaging his/her students- students will pay attention! And if they don’t- well it’s their loss, right?
Thanks again,
Madeline