One professor said that the practice of banning tech in class may actually be ableist. Photo by Bhavan Mehta | Mercury Staff
Majority of students surveyed use electronic devices to take notes
Walk into any campus classroom and you’re bound to see seats
filled with students and desks filled with laptops or tablets for note-taking.
But what happens when professors ban those devices?
For Ameera Fatima, a business administration sophomore, a
typical day in class involves pulling up the professor’s PowerPoint on her
laptop to follow along with the lecture.
Fatima said that having the PowerPoint on her laptop makes
it easier to take notes at her own pace.
“I usually just use (my laptop) for school and stuff, like
taking notes from textbooks, PowerPoints. Most of my textbooks are online,”
Fatima said. “But my phone is definitely a distraction if it buzzes. Mostly I
use it for … texting people, scrolling through social media and stuff.”
While some professors ban laptop usage in their classes,
Fatima said that professors should let students have their laptops out.
“Our laptops usually help more than hinder,” Fatima said.
“My laptop would … be kept for seeing the PowerPoints up close. But if (they)
want our phones on silent or anything like that, or put away, I would get
that.”
Aliya Arni, a biology junior and Peer Leader in the UTD
Academic Success Coaching Center, said that using technology in class can both
help and distract but that it’s more of an enhancement than a distraction.
“I feel like if you’re going to be distracted, then you’re
going to be distracted anyway by something else,” Arni said. “I think that it
helps, typing fast to keep up with what the professor is saying – or even just
pulling up the lecture slides helps me focus.”
Karen Huxtable-Jester, a UTD psychology professor and
associate director for the Center for Teaching and Learning, said that she used
to restrict laptop use in her class, but over time, began allowing and even
encouraging laptop use for various class activities.
“I would tell people it’s not the best way to take notes.
You’re much better off without that distraction. You’re better off taking notes
by hand and thinking about what you’re doing,” Huxtable-Jester said. “But I
found that just simply having a flat out ban like that … was ableist,
essentially, that I’m discriminating against people with disabilities who maybe
need this accommodation.”
Huxtable-Jester said that she noticed that students were
often appearing to be distracted by laptop usage, though it was hard to tell
simply by looking.
“Somebody can be staring straight ahead and seeming to be
very attentive, and they’re not paying attention at all because you can fake
it,” Huxtable-Jester said. “Students still will be distracted just as always
been the case, even when students used to read newspapers in class. When I was
in school… somebody might actually have the newspaper wide open in class in some
big lecture hall.”
In a survey of 100 students conducted by ***The Mercury,***
69.1% of respondents said that they used their smartphone, laptop, or tablet to
look up definitions or follow their professor’s PowerPoint. The survey also
revealed that 62.9 % of respondents said they use their technology for social
media or texting.
43.4% of students said that they use their smartphone,
laptop or tablet in three to five class periods per week, and 27.3% rated their
distraction level from electronic devices as a two out of five, with one being
not distracted at all.
A study conducted by Mueller and Oppenheimer in 2014 found
that longhand note taking as opposed to laptop note taking boosted conceptual
performance on quizzes, but had no effect on factual-recall performance.
Meanwhile, a 2019 replication of that study found that relative to longhand
note taking, laptop note taking did not reduce knowledge of the lecture
material after a brief delay with no opportunity to study.
Fatima, meanwhile, said that writing her notes down on a
notebook makes her feel like she’s physically retaining the information.
“I tried using my laptop to take notes, but it didn’t work
out as well for me because I learned better when I actually write things,”
Fatima said. “Personally, I like writing things down.”
Arni said that using either a notebook or laptop to take
notes depends on the class.
“I think for some classes when you can follow the professor
and kind of condense your notes, then it’s easier to do it on paper,” Arni
said. “But I think that if the professor goes really fast, and there’s a lot of
information that you need to just strictly memorize for the class, then I think
doing it with typing out your notes is just a faster, more efficient way to do
it.”
So, is technology usage in class more beneficial than
harmful? Huxtable-Jester said that it goes both ways.
“For me, the solution is to be more directive and say, okay,
‘Now’s the time for everybody to close their laptops and devices. We’re all
going to watch this video.’ Or ‘Now’s the time to close it because we’re going
to have a discussion.’” Huxtable-Jester said. “As opposed to people sort of
thinking, ‘I’m going to sit here and work on my laptop while you’re in the
background and if you say something interesting, I’ll look up.’”
Arni said that unless the student’s materials are on a
laptop, she understands why professors tell students not to go on their
devices, but she also thinks that staying focused is the student’s
responsibility.
“If the student thinks something is more helpful, or just
keeping their laptop on, or whatever just helps them concentrate…then I think
that (the professor) should kind of leave it up to the students (to decide)
what they want to do,” Arni said. “Because in the end, they’re learning and
it’s their grade.”
Huxtable-Jester said that she didn’t want to dictate what
students did and that students must resist distractions themselves.
“If I’m in a faculty meeting or in a workshop… I wouldn’t
say, you know, ‘You’re not paying attention, put your laptop away,’ because I
wouldn’t do that to a colleague. So I wouldn’t do it to a student,”
Huxtable-Jester said. “But I might say to all the faculty, ‘Let’s all do this
now because this is what we’re here for.’”
Fatima said that students who are getting distracted with
tech use should limit their social media time because it takes away from
studying time, and Arni said that sitting near a TA or professor may keep a
student in check during class.
“That way you know that what’s on your computer, everyone
else around you can see,” Arni said. “So that’ll help you be more controlled
and not do other things that you don’t want other people to see.”