Research on Digital Devices in Class

Please keep your digital devices in your bag and on silent while in class. If you need to use it, please do so IN THE HALL before or after class.  If you need to use it during class, please ask to be excused and use it outside the classroom.  There is much research on digital devices:

Digital Device Research

From Science Direct (2013):
https://sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131512002254
Laptops are distracting in class and detrimental to other's learning - they are the secondhand smoke of learning.

We examined the detrimental effects of laptop multitasking on classroom learning.  Learners who multitasked during class had reduced comprehension of lecture material. Learners in-view of multitaskers also had reduced comprehension of lecture material.  Multitasking or being seated around multitaskers impedes classroom learning.

Research from WUSTLE (2015),

The students’ responses to the open-ended questions identified laptop-use by other students as the aspect of the class that was most distracting, followed closely by their own laptop-use.

To better understand the effects of laptop use on learning, Fried used a regression analysis to account for differences in preparation and academic aptitude as measured by high-school class rank and ACT score, respectively. With these controls in place, Fried found a significant, negative relationship between in-class laptop use and course grade. Follow-up correlational analysis also revealed that higher levels of laptop use were associated with lower student-reported levels of attention, lecture clarity, and understanding of the course material.

From Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy (2018)

From Stanford,

0. In lecture-style classes where computers are not essential to the material, the sustained use of laptops during lecture is potentially so distracting as to hinder a student’s performance and distract their fellow students. Sustained laptop use is not recommended, although some evidence suggests that brief, occasional browsing sessions are not as likely to hamper learning.

From Time Magazine (2015):

http://time.com/3855257/cell-phone-ban-school-test-score/

Exam scores climbed by as much as 6% in schools that imposed strict bans on cell phones, according to a new study that cautions policymakers to keep strict cell phone policies in the classroom.

Researchers at the University of Texas and Louisiana State University surveyed cell phone policies across schools in four English cities since 2001, studying how exam scores changed before and after the bans were enacted.

“We found the impact of banning phones for these students equivalent to an additional hour a week in school, or to increasing the school year by five days,” the study’s authors wrote on the academic blog, The Conversation.

Research from Communication Education in Science News (2015):

https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/when-smartphones-go-school

“Texting on things that are unrelated to class can hurt student learning,” Kuznekoff found. Overall, the control and class-related-message groups did 70 percent better on the test than did students that could text and tweet about anything. That control and relevant-message groups also scored 50 percent higher on note-taking.

“You’re putting yourself at a disadvantage when you are actively engaged with your mobile device in class and not engaged in what’s going on,” warns Kuznekoff. His team shared its findings in the July 2015 issue of Communication Education.

Research from London School of Economics and Kent State (2016):

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/04/do-smartphones-have-a-place-in-the-classroom/480231/

The findings of a recent study on student phone access and the achievement gap by Louis-Philippe Beland and Richard Murphy for the London School of Economics and Political Science echoed my concerns. “We find that mobile phone bans have very different effects on different types of students,” the authors wrote. “Banning mobile phones improves outcomes for the low-achieving students … the most, and has no significant impact on high achievers.”

… analyses of other academic metrics seem to support limiting students’ smartphone access, too. Researchers at Kent State University, for example, found that among college students, more daily cellphone use (including smartphones) correlated with lower overall GPAs. The research team surveyed more than 500 students, controlling for demographics and high-school GPA, among other factors. If college students are affected by excessive phone use, then surely younger students with too much access to their phones and too little self-control and guidance would be just as affected academically if not more.

Jean Twenge, psychology professor and adolescent researcher at SDSU:

From her 2017 book iGen,

With generational divides wider than ever, parents, educators, and employers have an urgent need to understand today’s rising generation of teens and young adults. Born after 1995, iGen is the first generation to spend their entire adolescence in the age of the smartphone. With social media and texting replacing other activities, iGen spends less time with their friends in person – perhaps why they are experiencing unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness.

And her article in The Atlantic (2017):

The more I pored over yearly surveys of teen attitudes and behaviors, and the more I talked with young people like Athena, the clearer it became that theirs is a generation shaped by the smartphone and by the concomitant rise of social media.  Psychologically, however, they are more vulnerable than Millennials were: Rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011. It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades. Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones.

Sherry Turkle, social science professor and researcher at MIT:

Turkle's 2011 book, Alone Together. Here is a summary:

Consider Facebook—it’s human contact, only easier to engage with and easier to avoid. Developing technology promises closeness. Sometimes it delivers, but much of our modern life leaves us less connected with people and more connected to simulations of them.

In Alone Together, MIT technology and society professor Sherry Turkle explores the power of our new tools and toys to dramatically alter our social lives. It’s a nuanced exploration of what we are looking for—and sacrificing—in a world of electronic companions and social networking tools, and an argument that, despite the hand-waving of today’s self-described prophets of the future, it will be the next generation who will chart the path between isolation and connectivity.

Here is an excerpt. 

For Teachers:

James Lang offers advice about various issues surrounding tech distraction.

https://www.chronicle.com/specialreport/The-Distracted-Classroom/120?cid=RCPACKAGE

Every day in class, faculty members wage a constant battle with cellphones and laptops for the attention of students. In this series, James M. Lang explores the impasse over how to cope with those unwanted digital distractions.

How to study (and how to learn)

Here is an excellent post from Everyday Sociology about how to study.

Don't re-read what you have already read.  Close the reading and instead explain it.  Recall it.  Write it down.  Explain it to someone.

Be careful of the Dunning-Kruger Effect and The Impostor Syndrome.  To counter these, study with other people.

Try the Feynman technique:

Step 1: Pick a topic that you want to learn something about, and start studying it.
Ok, that seems simple enough.

Step 2: Mimic giving a lecture to a class. Here you can use that group of classmates again. Each of you could take a portion of the class materials and prepare a talk about it. Give that presentation to your group, and everyone should take notes. Step 2 is way to turn those reading groups into learning groups.

Step 3: Hit the books again. Now that you have a firm grasp of a section of the course materials, go back to the readings and broaden that sphere of knowledge. Perhaps use that slice of the course content to understand other facets of the materials.

Step 4: Simplify and use analogies. Now that you have that broader understanding, go back and break everything down further, but also think across substantive areas. For example, in an intro class you might look at how discrimination on race and gender are similar (and then how they intersect), or how we are socialized into different roles. But also: see if you can explain socialization and discrimination to your non-soc major roommate.

Deep Work - Tips for Productive Learning

From Hidden Brain Podcast:

https://www.npr.org/2017/07/25/539092670/you-2-0-the-value-of-deep-work-in-an-age-of-distraction

Many of us react to the buzzes and beeps that come from our phones with the urgency of a parent responding to a baby's cry. We can't help but pick up our phone and look at the latest notification. We know this probably isn't the healthiest nor the sanest response to a vibrating hunk of a metal, so we tell ourselves we should be less distracted. We shouldn't be so gripped by social media or the churn of work email.

But Cal Newport, a computer scientist at Georgetown University and author of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, says we're downplaying the problems created by constant interruption.

"We treat it, I think, in this more general sense of, 'eh, I probably should be less distracted.' But I think it's more urgent than people realize," he says.

By letting email and other messages guide our workday, Cal says we're weakening our ability to do the most challenging kinds of work—what he calls "deep work." Deep work requires sustained attention, whether the task is writing marketing copy or solving a tricky engineering problem.