But How Will I Read Op/Eds in Class?
Prof. David Cole (Law, Georgetown) has this op/ed in today's WaPo on why he's banned laptops in his class. (Hattip: Ryan Howard Bashman). Needless to say, I disagree with almost every point he makes.
More seriously, the idea of taking away laptops or wireless is nothing new (as an aside, we were just getting wireless when UT was taking theirs away). But it is stupid. The entire legal education is designed to FEIGN interest. Our grades depend on a single exam at the end of the semester that tests a fraction of the material covered in class (even if the exam raises all the issues discussed in class, no student can cover them all in 4 hours). The Socratic method is a joke. I've always taken offense at the use of the term for law schools. It's not the Socratic method, it's just a game of guess what I'm thinking, or sometimes even a game of let's see if you read the blip cases. Anonymous grading. No motivation to do well past the first year (for the most part). And the glut of commercial materials designed specifically for those who wish NOT to pay attention.
Prohibiting laptops or wireless simply encourages happy go lucky class discussions where people are marginally more engaged. Whoop-dee-doo. Let's see how much of that students retain 5 minutes after the final. Conversly, I actually took notes on my laptop while in undergrad. There weren't many of us who did that back then, but I was one of them. Recently, my notes for Psych Research Methods saved my life when it came to an issue on my writing requirement. Whatever class Prof. Cole teaches will be forever lost to those students. Unless of course they are anal and save their notes. I'd like to see a survey of his students about that...next semester.
A crossword hidden under a book is one thing. With the aid of Microsoft and Google, we have effectively put at every seat a library of magazines, a television and the opportunity for real-time side conversations and invited our students to check out whenever they find their attention wandering.I confess, I actually sometimes cheat on the Daily Cal crossword puzzle by looking up clues. But on some days, there's no way to finish it without the help of Microsoft and Google.
More seriously, the idea of taking away laptops or wireless is nothing new (as an aside, we were just getting wireless when UT was taking theirs away). But it is stupid. The entire legal education is designed to FEIGN interest. Our grades depend on a single exam at the end of the semester that tests a fraction of the material covered in class (even if the exam raises all the issues discussed in class, no student can cover them all in 4 hours). The Socratic method is a joke. I've always taken offense at the use of the term for law schools. It's not the Socratic method, it's just a game of guess what I'm thinking, or sometimes even a game of let's see if you read the blip cases. Anonymous grading. No motivation to do well past the first year (for the most part). And the glut of commercial materials designed specifically for those who wish NOT to pay attention.
Prohibiting laptops or wireless simply encourages happy go lucky class discussions where people are marginally more engaged. Whoop-dee-doo. Let's see how much of that students retain 5 minutes after the final. Conversly, I actually took notes on my laptop while in undergrad. There weren't many of us who did that back then, but I was one of them. Recently, my notes for Psych Research Methods saved my life when it came to an issue on my writing requirement. Whatever class Prof. Cole teaches will be forever lost to those students. Unless of course they are anal and save their notes. I'd like to see a survey of his students about that...next semester.
Labels: Classes/Professors, Exams, Law School
posted by Armen Adzhemyan at 3:44 PM
17 Comments:
What a stupid, insufferable, selfish, silly little man. I can't add much to Armen's excellent take-down, except to offer a deal for Herr Cole: I'll give a fuck about your teaching when you do. Until then -- for all the reasons Armen listed -- the idea of some Xanadu of interactive, holistic, everyone's-learning, teacher-cares paradigm that laptops are frustrating is a sick joke.
And that's just the wireless issue. If I got to Georgetown 1L year and found out my professor wouldn't allow use a laptop even to take notes, I'd demand a new section, or else my tuition back, then follow it up with a highly publicized lawsuit under the ADA, the 14A, truth-in-advertising laws, and the Geneva Conventions, then I'd write my own op-ed for the NYT, start a blog specifically to make fun of Cole on a daily basis, hire a PD to dig into his personal life, and generally go bat-shit until I got my laptop back. Don't fuck with me, Cole.
If what you learn in class is "forever lost" to you unless you have electronic notes from it, you're in serious trouble Armen.
That's exactly one of Professor Cole's points: The use of laptops encourages people to simply transcribe a lecture without digesting the material. A good lecture will teach you how to think about and understand material that you've already read in the textbook or a treatise. You don't need to re-type the statute or 3-prong test that was in the assigned reading.
Granted, plenty of lectures don't do this, but hopefully Professor Cole knows what he's doing.
Rather than explaining how you're wrong, 4:27, I'll make you a simple bet. Five years from now, I'll put my laptop notes against your well digested, well class participated recall. $20. What do you say?
Needless to say, my money's on Armen's notes.
When you consider the fact that oftentimes, material cannot be truly "understood" (or memorized) to a satisfactory degree within the span of 1.5 hours, good [electronic] notes are crucial. They allow you to go back and continue "digesting" the material where you left off.
Armen, you know that's an un-testable bet.
Furthermore, it's not so much that I'm "wrong" but that you disagree with me. Perhaps we have different learning styles. And your comment about "well class participated recall" (and 5:01's comment about material being "memorized") indicates that you still don't get my point. Class is (ideally) not where you memorize facts or even learn information. It's where you analyze and reinforce what you've already learned.
And 5:01: I assure you that electronic notes have not been "crucial" to my understanding material to a satisfactory degree.
No actually you are wrong. Anything you can do with pen and paper, I can do on a laptop. Be it paying more attention, participating more, "analyzing and reinforcing what [I]'ve learned" etc. I can do all that with a laptop. I can also go back years later and look something up from that class if I was ever so inclined. You just hae your reinforced learning to fall back on. I know I'll look back fondly at all the Big Rakowski quotes I'm collecting.
Armen, can you make spitballs with your laptop?
Didn't think so.
Armen, DS couldn't disagree with you more. You miss Cole's point. Although you *can* do everything with a laptop a paper and pen student can do, the average laptop user won't. Laptops are a cruch students use to transcribe a class's notes instead of listening to what's being said and condensing it in your own words via pencil.
Although DS just stopped using one this semester, he never used one in college, and he paid much more attention. This isn't to say that you can't pay attention with a laptop, but if you have the web at your fingertip, you'll be more likely to not listen to the professor.
This also isn't to say that professors have great teaching styles. A good professor will grab students' attentions regardless of if they have a laptop. Likewise, a bad professor's class cannot be made more interesting by losing the electronic cruch. But, in the middle, where most classes lie, a laptop is a useless tool. Law students did fine without them in the past, we don't need them now to become smarter.
I also disagree with Armen. Classrooms are not democracies. They are also not market economies. They are not movies. Teachers are entitled (within broad limits) to set the terms of participation in their classrooms.
BTW, I happen to be in a class this term that has a no-laptop rule. It feels kind of weird, but I like it.
The problem with proponents of the "no laptop" or "no wireless" rule is that they have such an idealized vision of how education should/does occur. The problem is not the laptop. If students don't want to pay attention, then they won't. Most people I sat next to in college did crossword puzzles or text-messaged their friends during class. If students don't want to pay attention, they will find ways to not pay attention. Most people don't go to class eager to learn and absord all they can of the professor's wisdom. Get over yourselves. It just doesn't work like that, and probably never will (except in rare cases when a professor is truly engaging).
I wouldn't take a no-laptop class under any circumstances, and I'd scream bloody murder if anyone tried to impose. It would put me at an unfair disadvantage compared to a number of other students.
Before law school I wrote professionally, and after years of that, the laptop has become a virtual adjunct of my thinking process. I can't process ideas without a laptop, I can't organize without a laptop, I can't write without a laptop. Asking me to do anything in hand is pretty much like asking me to do something in French.
I suspect that, for a lot of students who've had similar writing-intensive careers, taking away the laptop would knock them for a loop -- and be decidedly unfair.
In response to 1:02 AM's comment, there are many variations in all aspects of the classroom setting that affect how we learn. Some people are better able to process information via powerpoint slides, for example, whereas others find it difficult to learn through class discussion or the socratic method. Some people have horrible memories and are unable to take closed book exams, whereas others are poor writers and can't answer an essay question under time pressure. These variations don't make a class unfair, even though they put certain people at a "disadvantage."
I agree that a mandatory no-laptop policy is paternalistic and unnecessary, but y'all need to stop acting like you wouldn't be able to learn anything without it.
Let students keep their laptops in class. In my case, my laptop is instrumental to my capturing and grasping the material the teacher presents.
If wireless is the problem, then give professors the power to temporarily shut it down in their classrooms.
1:27, fair enough -- except that a little research (not to mention common sense) should put everyone on notice that powerpoint slides, the Socratic method, closed book exams, and class discussion were ahead of them in law school. But no one -- and I mean no one -- suggested laptops were off-limits. In fact, before I enrolled at Berkeley I tracked down some page on the website that seemed to confirm that you could use laptops for exams. That's why these stories are so prominent -- banning laptops is a ridiculous abberation.
"No wireless" seems like the very obvious answer to the problem. Sure, I still can play Solitaire, but there's less of a temptation to do things that initially seem a temporary distraction (check email), or even virtuous (look up a brief of the case under discussion), and end up sucking up your attention for the remainder of the class period. And no, I don't think it's necessarily the fault of bad teaching. I'm most likely to have my attention wander when the prof is sincerely trying to get responses from my classmates. My Corporations prof is very much worth listening to when I am paying attention; I'm simply weak and susceptible to internet distractions, particularly when I know people expect me to be responding to their emails about journal, law revue, various organization's events, etc. Maybe for my last semester I'll try dropping out of all my extracurriculars and see if that helps me focus.
Law revue? Is there a theatre group at Boalt that I don't know about?
PG attends Columbia. She's a coblogger at De Novo and of course her solo blog. But don't forget Boalt's production in the 60s of "Nuts in Boalt."
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