{"id":347,"date":"2006-08-31T17:47:40","date_gmt":"2006-08-31T14:47:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/2006\/08\/31\/surfing-in-class\/"},"modified":"2006-08-31T17:47:40","modified_gmt":"2006-08-31T14:47:40","slug":"surfing-in-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/2006\/08\/31\/surfing-in-class\/","title":{"rendered":"Surfing in Class"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday<\/a>‘s attempt to write something short that was both humorous and possibly truthful touched a nerve, as evidenced by some comments both here and sent to me directly. \u00a0 So today I’m going to follow it up with a more serious post.<\/p>\n

Some would say that whether you surf in class or not is a personal decision. \u00a0 If the student chooses to waste his time and money, no cranky blog poster like myself should stop him. \u00a0 And, of course, in the real world like work and grad studies, you make your own decisions without someone telling you what to do.<\/p>\n

The issue for me is simply this: stewardship. \u00a0 And my observation is that college students are in the process of learning just that. \u00a0 Most college students enter their freshman year without much concept of making the most of their educational opportunities. \u00a0 Their goal is to get the grade, and if they do that, they’ve succeeded. \u00a0 So surf away, if the current lesson won’t be on the test. \u00a0 By the time they graduate, college students usually have matured in this area. \u00a0 Grad students in particular seem to better understand the value of their education.<\/p>\n

Can you surf and lesson to a lecture at the same time? \u00a0 Of those that can, my guess is that 90% will not be fully engaged in the lecture. \u00a0 Maybe those with a mind like Spurgeon can handle it; I don’t have many Spurgeons in my classes. \u00a0 Surfing (or IM’ing or whatever the distraction might be) thus keeps the student from gaining the full value of the class. \u00a0 Ah, but what about the classes with loser teachers, who aren’t saying anything of value anyway? \u00a0 Yes, I’ve had those teachers. \u00a0 In this case, the issues are respecting the teacher (worthy or not) and distracting others. \u00a0 Therefore, close the browser. \u00a0 There are ways of redeeming the time without showing disrespect or distracting others.<\/p>\n

One approach to this problem for teachers is simply to ban all computers in class or to require the students to sit in the front row<\/a> where they can be monitored. \u00a0 My preference is simply to tell students not to use their computers for non-class activities when I am teaching. \u00a0 That’s an honor system, but I think it works. \u00a0 Students who see others violating this should, following biblical principles, confront them on this. \u00a0 In this way, I’m doing more than controlling behavior by legislation but am preparing them for real life. \u00a0 In addition, I think that in certain types of classes (mine included) most students should be using their computers to take notes, so banning them or restricting to a certain part of the room would not work.<\/p>\n

Another way that teachers can work to reduce this problem is by using teaching and testing methods that require the student’s attention. \u00a0 In other words, don’t be boring, don’t be basic, and don’t be easy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday‘s attempt to write something short that was both humorous and possibly truthful touched a nerve, as evidenced by some comments both here and sent to me directly. \u00a0 So today I’m going to follow it up with a more serious post. Some would say that whether you surf in class or not is a\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}