This assignment started off by preparing for unit 8 assignment 4, by reading up about the 7 sources of motivation and reading the instructions for the internet motivation diary. Following this, we focused on the current assignment, by reading 2 articles about student disruptions in lecture classrooms prior to the popularity of the Internet, and 2 articles about student boredom in lecture classrooms prior to the popularity of the Internet. After this, we had to read a study summary about professors and student laptop use, and a meta-analysis on laptop use in college classrooms.
Finally, we had to make a discussion board post describing the history of student disruption in lecture classrooms, the history of student boredom in lecture classrooms, students’ motivations for using laptops for note-taking, students’ motivations for going off task with their laptops, students’ motivations for not wanting to sit in a far away or separate location, professors’ motivations for not wanting to see students with their heads in their laptops and proposing a creative solution that satisfies these competing motivations.
The discussion board post I made essentially describes everything I learned from the articles and the studies. I explained that before the internet was commonly used, there was a history of student disruption in lecture classrooms. According to the De Lucia and Iasenza article from 1995, students disrupted the lecture classroom by arriving late, leaving early, taking frequent bathroom trips, and talking while the professor is talking. According to the Carbone article from 1999, walking in late and leaving early were also referenced, along with reading the newspaper, chatting with friends, napping, talking on cell phones, watching portable televisions, sitting through the lecture with headphones on, having pizza delivered during class, fraternity pledges’ pretending to have breakdowns during exams, and making out in the classroom.
There is also a history of student boredom in lecture classrooms. According to the Fisher article from 1987, one cause of boredom is “being constrained to a low stimulation setting with limited opportunities to relieve boredom”, which a lecture class is an example of. Additionally, according to the Aldridge and Delucia abstract, academic boredom is related to factors such as a conflict between expectations and reality, and an unmet student need for a high degree of classroom stimulation. Also, the De Lucia and Iasenza article touches on how students were highly distractible and easily bored, and this was before the widespread use of smartphones or the internet.
Students’ motivations for using laptops for note-taking often times are centered around the fact that they can type faster than they can write, so they are more confident that they will not miss anything. Students’ motivation for going off task with their laptops is due to what we have been discussing, their boredom. For example, the review paper describes that people get off topic on their computers when the professor is just speaking to one student, when their voice is monotone, or when it hits the 40-minute mark, in which it can be hard to stay attentive. Students’ motivation for not wanting to sit in a far away or separate location could be based on how they want to sit wherever they are most comfortable or sit by friends that are not using laptops.
Professors certainly have motivations for not wanting to see students with their heads in their laptops. The most basic reason is that they want their students to be interested in the material they are teaching, and want them to learn it. Additionally, a few of the articles describe that behaviors such as this seem like they cause distractions to others, even though the review paper counteracts this idea.
A creative solution that can satisfy these competing motivations could be to create lectures that require students to be engaged, by asking questions about course material, but also asking questions about pop culture or other interesting topics, in which students can answer through a clicker or mobile phone. First, this could keep the student interested and attentive to the lecture, because they know they will be a part of it through the questions they answer. Also, including questions about pop culture can lead them to not just be engaged, but to enjoy the activity, and therefore pay more attention to the rest of the lecture. Second, this could satisfy the teachers, since their students would likely listen more and have to pay attention, and they would not engage in so many distracting behaviors. This could satisfy the needs of both parties!
Reflecting on this assignment, I thought it was a great idea to include so much information on the history of student distraction before the internet and student boredom before the internet. All of us in this course are from an age where the internet has always been present, so we do not really know what it was like before the internet became popular. So, learning about it is informative, and it is also interesting in the context of a lecture classroom, because that is a setting that we are used to. So, it is cool to compare and contrast what this setting was like before to what it is now, and that is an opportunity that this assignment provides.
Additionally, even though I liked that they included information from the past, it was also very helpful to learn about the meta-analysis that discussed modern day laptop use in college classrooms. It also challenged some of the things I had previously heard. For example, the study described that students who take notes on laptops do not do any worse overall, they do not impede the performance of others. It was interesting to learn about things such as this because they contradict things that professors had told me.
Also, it was a good idea to make us come up with a creative solution that can satisfy these competing motivations of students and professors in the classroom. This forced me to synthesize the information from the articles about the past and the present, and combine viewpoints from two different sides. It made me think critically and be creative, which are both things that are improved in this course through exercises such as this. This assignment showed how different skills can be developed through course assignments, which is great!
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