Would you leave students to their own devices? Are they adults with cognitive control making choices which affect nobody but themselves? Do the benefits for on-task device users outweigh the harms? Or is social media more like passive smoking, spreading distraction in the vicinity? If device use in class affects performance in assessment, then who should take responsibility for students’ attention during lectures? Why? And most importantly, how?
If you just read one thing:
- ‘The Distracted Classroom’, the first in a 2017 series of the same name by lecturer James M. Lang, in The Chronicle of Higher Education. http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Distracted-Classroom/239446 FREE
If you then want to read more things:
- Sana, Faria, Tina Weston, and Nicholas J. Cepeda. 2013. Laptop Multitasking Hinders Classroom Learning for Both Users and Nearby Peers. Computers & Education 62: 24–31.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131512002254 FREE. This is the paper which made Clay Shirky decide to limit laptop use in his lectures.
- Cheong, P. H., Shuter, R., & Suwinyattichaiporn, T. (2016). Managing student digital distractions and hyperconnectivity: communication strategies and challenges for professorial authority. Communication Education, 65(3), 272–289. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2016.1159317 . The authors surveyed North American faculty to find out how they approach the problem.
- Ravizza, S. M., Uitvlugt, M. G., & Fenn, K. M. (2017). Logged In and Zoned Out: How Laptop Internet Use Relates to Classroom Learning. Psychological Science, 28(2), 171–180. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797616677314 . The authors measured assessment outcomes in the light of internet use, and controlled for motivation, intelligence and interest.
And more:
- A reading list organised into lecturers’ tales, research, and strategies: http://readinglists.ucl.ac.uk/lists/AE84A929-DDAA-A119-3E69-862E2FBF2561.html FREE
