colliding posted...
CrimsonOcean posted...
colliding posted...
As someone who has been a graduate teaching assistant for three years, I fully support banning laptops from classrooms. I understand it being easier to take notes, but in my experience, the majority of students who brought their laptops to class goofed off on the internet or played games during class.
If you have bad handwriting or are slow with a pen, that's tough. Get faster, or bring a cassette recorder.
The other side to that coin though, is if they want to sit on their laptop and goof off during class what's it to you? As long as they're not being disruptive. They're the ones paying for the class. Or if not, they're still the ones that are going to have to take the test/write the term paper/do the project in the end, so they're only hurting themselves.
I mean I'm not going to lie. There were some days in undergrad where I went to class and sat on facebook the whole time. But I still went to class that day because even though I just sat online I could still hear what the prof. had to say.
Enough with this crap. They're students. I'm a teacher. It's my job. They're not only hurting themselves, they're hurting my job performance and my authority. Just because you paid to go to school that doesn't mean you're allowed to do whatever you want there. Especially if you're just a T.A., it is not good for you to just have a ton of students fail. It's their fault, but it's my responsibility.
Again, with the slow handwriting thing, you need to develop a shorthand, or take less notes, or get a recorder.
I TA as well and the trend i noticed was that people bring laptops even if the course is discussion based. At the point where youre goofing off on fb or playing a game on steam you likely ARENT going to be taking part in the discussion, at which point youre basically cutting my class. I have seen like two people ever actually use it for note taking.
And yes, if forced to take notes you WILL get better/faster.
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