For college and university professors in a typical classroom, instead of lecturing while looking into the eyes of eager students it is increasingly common to face a sea of laptops in the classroom. This can be a frustrating experience – we invest time and energy into creating an engaging learning experience for our students but then lose their attention to the latest news on Twitter or Facebook. Let’s face it – it’s very difficult for one instructor to compete with a world of information online!
Although I often advocate for the thoughtful use of technology in teaching, even I have found myself becoming frustrated while teaching and demanding that students ‘close their laptops, put their phones out of sight, and just pay attention’! Yet, some students are using technology to diligently take notes and enhance their understanding of course content – right?
It’s easy for those of us who are already established to blame this on the short-attention-spans of younger generations. However, have you ever sat in the back row of a professional conference? If so, look around the room and take note of how many established professionals are distracted off-task by the lure of technology. I would argue that this is not an issue that is limited to young people.
So what can we do? What does the research say about the impact of laptops on learning?
- Well, we know that typing notes results in reduced learning compared to hand-writing notes. A reason may be that as we type faster we tend to transcribe content verbatim rather than process the material and reframe it in our own words (as we would when hand-writing notes) (Mueller & Oppenheimer, 2014).
- Beyond impairing the learning of the laptop user, the negative implications have an almost viral effect in a classroom. Laptop use lowers the learning of the user but it also significantly reduces the learning of others in the classroom (who aren’t using technology) but are in direct view of the laptop user’s screen (Sana, Weston, & Cepeda, 2013)
- More laptop use leads to less learning - yet, there is a denial effect as learners do not believe that an increased use of the internet impacts their learning. Also, learners with a higher intellectual ability tend to use the internet more than their peers (Ravizza, 2014).
- Finally, over a long class students engage in off-task computer activities (mostly visiting social media websites) nearly two-thirds of the class time! Another way to look at this is that when you are teaching, two out of every three laptop users are off-task at any given time (Ragan, Jennings, Massey, & Doolittle, 2014).
The tricky part of this is that one third of students are legitimately using their devices to support their learning in the course. Also, students with disabilities may require this technology to keep up with their peers. Banning the use of laptops for all students except those with disabilities would ‘out’ students with different needs – which isn’t an acceptable solution.
Based on this, one suggestion is to designate the back row of a classroom as the ‘laptop zone’. This would allow students with special needs to use their devices without being identified and allow others who benefit from technology to take advantage of it without distracting other learners.
What is your experience? Do you allow laptops in your classroom? If so, how do you regulate it?
Works Cited
Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note taking. Psychological Science, 1159-1168.
Ragan, E. D., Jennings, S. R., Massey, J. D., & Doolittle, P. E. (2014). Unregulated use of laptops over time in large lecture classes. Computers & Education, 78, 78-86.
Ravizza, S. M. (2014). Non-academic internet use in teh classroom is negatively related to classroom learning regardless of intellectual ability. Computers & Education, 78, 109-114.
Sana, F., Weston, T., & Cepeda, N. J. (2013). Laptop multitasking hinders classroom learning for both users and nearby peers. Computers & Education, 62, 24-31.
Wood, E., Zivcakova, L., Gentile, P., Archer, K., De Pasquale, D., & Nosko, A. (2012). Examining the impact of off-task multi-tasking with technology on real-time classroom learning. Computers & Education, 58(1), 365-374.