Putting the cool back into law school

For a few years now, the battle over laptops in classrooms has largely been fought in law school meetings and on legal blogs. Now a couple articles are bring the fight to the mainstream.

First there’s a Washington post article profiling Georgetown Law professor David Cole, who has banned laptops in his classroom since 2006. Cole mentions the biggest problem with technology in the classroom:

“This is like putting on every student’s desk, when you walk into class, five different magazines, several television shows, some shopping opportunities and a phone, and saying, ‘Look, if your mind wanders, feel free to pick any of these up and go with it,’”

Second, Maureen Howard, writing for the Huffington Post, takes a slightly different approach to laptops in the classroom. Howard sees them as a threat to teaching students professional behavior:

Allowing students to surf the internet unrelated to class work hamstrings their ability to learn both substantive information and professional behavior needed for a smooth and successful transition into the post-graduation workforce. How well-received would a recently-graduated, newly-hired entry-level management trainee be if she started surfing eBay for Prada shoes in the middle of a monthly department meeting, no matter how boring the meeting?

Howard’s point is made much more succinctly by Michael Lopp on his weblog Rands in Repose, talking about meetings rather than classes:

The problem is that everyone attending this laptop-laden clusterfuck is subconsciously hearing “Hey, in this meeting, it’s A-OK to waste people’s time.” My question is: “When is it ever ok to waste people’s time?”

Both articles mention the common student response to claims that laptops should be evicted from classrooms. It’s the professors job to engage students enough to keep them interested, and now that means competing with an expanded and updated list of potential distractions.

The biggest problem with the “remove laptops” argument is that it often confounds laptops with the internet. A laptop computer not connected to the Web has only a very limited number of distractions, namely solitaire. And yet, a laptop not connected to the internet loses almost none of its powers to enhance productivity and enable learning.

Before taking away a technological affordance that might be helping students, professors should start by attacking just the root cause of the problem. Ban the wireless internet first and see if the situation improves before taking away the laptops entirely.

There are arguments for getting rid of laptops entirely, and another professor touches on one of them:

Even when used as glorified typewriters, laptops can turn students into witless stenographers, typing a lecture verbatim without listening or understanding. “The breaking point for me was when I asked a student to comment on an issue, and he said, ‘Wait a minute, I want to open my computer,’ ” said David Goldfrank, a Georgetown history professor. “And I told him, ‘I don’t want to know what’s in your computer. I want to know what’s in your head.’ “

I had a professor in law school who said the same thing, referring to a student’s laptop as their “box” and saying he wanted to know what they thought, not what was in the box.

I’ll also add another legitimate argument for banning laptops, connected or not. When laptop screens go up, they create a physical and psychological barrier to classroom engagement. It becomes much easier for a student to hunch down in their chair and attempt to hide from the professor with a 13″ wall in front of them.

The problem with both arguments is that they will be raised by all professors, when relatively few can claim they aren’t part of the problem. A professor who stands behind a podium and lectures for 90 minutes straight cannot claim that students should listening and questioning her ideas, nor can he claim that students should not be creating these barriers in the classroom when she herself is standing behind the biggest barrier of all.

Even if disabling wireless doesn’t work, banning laptops is not necessarily the next step. Howard’s point that laptops need to go in order to teach professional conduct and accountability makes as little sense as saying people should learn how to use chainsaws without touching a chainsaw because they’re too dangerous.

I agree that a professor, as the authority figure, should not be expected to entertain. But if a professor believes they are teaching professional accountability, then there need to be consequences. If someone is using their laptop to ignore the lecture, remove the offender. The offender in this case is the person, not the laptop.

But more importantly, teach classes in a way that makes it impossible to pass without coming and paying attention. Professors should not be pressured to pass students who don’t show up or who screw around on their laptops during class. If your class is that important, invest the time to craft lesson plans and exams or assignments that reward students for listening to your instruction.

Tagged as: classes, distractions, Laptops

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