“So if we want to deal with distractions in teaching, an obvious place to turn would be toward our goals for the classroom: Who creates them? How much do they matter? And how well do students understand them?”
I liked this quote because it really put the whole idea of the article in perspective and that is that to help prevent distractions we have to see why they are happening and why they are so common in all of us. Before we start to blame the student for their actions I think it is important that we see what we could be doing to help the situation rather than instantly punishing the student.
“If I ban cellphones outright, I can’t have this conversation about what the future may hold for my students. Certainly some students will continue to act in risky ways online.”
Posting anything on the internet can come with consequences bad or good. It is very important that students understand how important it is to be safe while using the internet because now more and more jobs are looking into people’s internet history and they will not want anything out there that might eliminate them from a potential job in the future. Taking the phone would take away a teachers ability to teach students this important lesson on how to use a phone properly when online.
“By having a classroom policy that permits students to have and use their cellphones in a responsible manner with consequences for breaking my rules, I’m teaching more than just English. I’m teaching responsibility.”
A student can not learn how to fight the temptation to be on their phone if they do not have their phone. In one sense this would solve only a small part of the problem of students being on their phones all the time and during class. Just taking away the phone does not give the student the chance to prove that they can fight the urge to get on their phone in class or use it for a class activity that might require some form of technology. Setting a standard of phone usage in the classroom and sticking to it can make all the difference in helping students with phones and distractions.
Lang, James M. “The Distracted Classroom.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 13, 2017. http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Distracted-Classroom/239446.
Sterner, Rob. “4 Things You’ll Miss by Banning Cellphones In Your Classroom.” Center for Teaching Quality #CTQCollab, February 24, 2015. https://www.teachingquality.org/4-things-youll-miss-by-banning-cellphones-in-your-classroom/.
