In engineering it’s a bit funny to think about the new edition of textbooks. Some policies and methods that were used before and were regarded as the standards become updated and change completely. However, during the time-span that they were effective hundreds of designs may have used that standard to implement expensive infrastructure that is now not to code but has proven to hold up over the last x number of years. A pretty interesting dilemma.

You bring up a good point about incoming technology assisting in education. It certainly seems like it will be a hard balancing act especially in the future when more people have access to self-learning resources. From my point of view I feel that industry companies and firms will need to put a lot more work into verification that who they hire are truly capable of doing the work vs trusting an academic institution to verify their achievements.

LikeLike

I definitely agree with you that we are not able to multitask. At least not efficiently, if I am doing two things at once each of them are getting half of my effort. It’s a bit daunting to realize this and see how our supervisors and advisers are able to juggle all that they do, their problems plus our problems.

LikeLike

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing 🙂

LikeLike

Thank you, Ziyad, for your nice blog. While I agree with most of what you have said, I don’t agree with this sentence: preventing electronics would let the teacher have a full attention. To me, being attention is not just listening but reacting and understanding what the teacher is saying. In my humble opinion, we shouldn’t strictly prohibit using electronics, but to allow using them during class only within predetermined slots. This is to give a chance for addicted-electronics students to use their electronics and don’t get bored.

LikeLike

Hi MK,

I definitely understand the difficulties in making decisions about technology. I think it’s going to be a problem that increases in frequency in the next few years. Unfortunately, there’s not a one-size-fits-all solution, as different classes have different needs and logistical constraints!

I hope you find a policy that works for you!

Hi Julia,

Thanks for sharing your perspective.

I would stand by my use of inappropriate as a descriptor of technology use unrelated to the course. In the first week of class, we go over the syllabus and discuss class conduct and expectations (completing work on time, getting excuses in a timely manner, email etiquette, etc.) and as part of that we discuss technology use when the pledge is introduced. We also talk about how distraction doesn’t only impact the person engaged in distraction behavior, but also surrounding students’ educational experience is negatively impacted, and thus define the appropriate behavior in the context of the course. Students who are not paying attention to the lecture and specifically those who are using their phones/laptops in ways that don’t pertain to course content are thus in opposition to socially appropriate behavior. In particular, those who signed the pledge agreeing not to engage in those behaviors and do so anyway are not only violating social norms but also their own agreement.

As you said, there are real world consequences of using your phones in certain situations, suggesting that there are appropriate and inappropriate times to use your cell phone. When I establish my students as responsible for their own education, they are then tasked with self-regulating and engaging in appropriate technology use in the course.

Hey Ziyad, there is no disagreement on the argument that use of technology is a double edged sword. But again it depends on the teacher and how he/ she is allowing the students to use the technology in the class and how students are using the privilege of having the technology. (Like right now, I would not be able to write my comment on your post if technology were not allowed in the class room)!

LikeLike

Heath,

Thank you for your post! I agree with your idea that what works one semester may not work the next, so we need to be able to adapt. There is such importance in the ability to refocus on what is important in the classroom (what is the goal of this class? what are we trying to learn? how do we want to conduct ourselves?). I personally am going to try to also explain to my students why my policies are the way you are- you’re right, being open and honest about our choices can help students understand WHY policies are the way they are, and listening to them in their opinions can help us all to understand how technology affects their performances.

On your second strategy “taking open sources and revising and remixing them to suit a course” and the problem you highlighted of not having a good intro to soil science textbook could be overcome by a consortium or multi-professor effort. There could be open texts for the intro level of a majority of courses across disciplines, updated annually with the newest content. This would make it more broadly accessible to both students and faculty (removing the privilege) problem, democratizing the information, and disbursing the workload across more individuals. Also, TAs or interested students could help as a special project, for credit, etc.

LikeLike