Paul Caron links to a story in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin about the University of Chicago Law School's decision to shut down the Law School's wireless signal in the classroom wing:
The University of Chicago Law School has removed Internet access in most of its classrooms because of a growing problem of students surfing the Web on laptops during lectures.
"Every teacher underestimates the amount of Internet surfing going on" in his or her classroom, U of C law Dean Saul Levmore said in an interview Thursday.
"Whenever faculty would visit other faculty members' classes, they would come to me and say, 'You just won't believe it. It's astounding what happened.'
"But they never believe it's going on in their own class," he said.
In a recent e-mail message to students and faculty, Levmore wrote, "Remarkably, [Internet] usage appears to be contagious if not epidemic" during law classes.
"Several observers have reported that one student will visit a gossip site or shop for shoes and within 20 minutes, an entire row is shoe shopping.
"Half the time a student is called on, the question needs to be repeated," Levmore added.
Law students' use of laptops to surf the Web, read and write e-mail and play computer games during class has brought changes at a number of schools, including Harvard, Yale and Stanford.
Stanford now has a posted policy that laptops and wireless Internet access may be used only for purposes relevant to the class and "not unreasonably distracting to fellow students."
And Stanford says "Harvard Law and Business [schools] have resorted to shutting down their wired connectivity in classrooms to address such problems" and Yale has considered it.
In his e-mailed announcement Wednesday, Levmore said that U of C law has removed Internet access in most classrooms "in order to ensure the value of the classroom experience."
On Thursday, he said some students object to his new policy.
"There are some who don't like it, who feel it's quite paternalist and so forth," Levmore said. "They are quite vocal.
"There are many who love it, and many who said they would hate it and were very resentful, and now say they love it.... It's gratifying to hear about people who benefit from tough love."
Some students also thought Levmore should have consulted them more about the move.
But Levmore said the question is, "How do you best learn? That's for the faculty to decide."
Whether to allow computers at all in the classroom is a continuing debate in law schools.
When Levmore proposed to the faculty in early March that the school might cut off Internet access in most classrooms, some faculty responded that computers should be banned, he said.
Some professors believe that students who take notes on laptops during lectures interfere with their own learning.
"Back in the day when we took notes by hand," Levmore recalled, "some people took fewer notes and learned more."
He said some law professors already have "no computer" rules during class.
But he said some students convincingly argued that note taking on laptops is a help to them.
The heart of his decision to prevent Web surfing in class, he said, is that the students "are going to go out to law firms and other settings where they're going to miss these years where they had opportunities for human interaction and contemplating ideas.
"And that's partly what the classroom is for. They don’t realize the value of what they’re being distracted from. That's really what I believe in most."
Levmore teaches torts to 1st-year students. He said he walks up and down the aisles, which could limit Internet surfing by students.
But he said a common practice was students sending e-mail to each other about what to say in class.
And "for some students, checking e-mail every 15 minutes is like breathing for us," he added.
The U of C information technology staff initially told Levmore that cutting off wireless Internet capacity in classrooms could not be done.
Recently, Levmore said, they found it could be done for the most part. One classroom continues to have Internet capability to allow computer training.
Levmore also said he discovered while researching the subject "how offensive it often is when phone calls are taken in public and when Blackberry and other e-mail devices are consulted during meetings."
So in his e-mail message to the school, he promised himself "that I will no longer check my Blackberry under the table at university meetings."
So far, he said Thursday, he has stuck to his promise.
Yesterday my son brought home his high school's newspaper, and the front page featured tips for texting during class. Under the table. Behind the textbook. Exactly what you would expect. Apparently, the only teachers in the universe who would be surprised at this subterfuge all happened to end up at the University of Chicago Law School! What will they do when they discover law students engaged in precisely this behavior? (Ban mobile phones!) Or, worse yet, when they discover that students have equipped their laptops with mobile broadband? (That's it, we are banning all electronic devices!)
For the record, I don't believe that the professors at the University of Chicago Law School are as naive as the story portrays them ("they never believe it's going on in their own class"), but I do believe that shutting down the wireless signal is a short-term fix, at best. I have become convinced that the problems accompanying laptops in the classroom are behavioral, not technological.
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1. Posted by Steve Bainbridge on April 12, 2008 @ 19:46 | Permalink
Facinating stuff. Chicago’s trying to force legal education back into the Kingsfield model. A smarter solution would be trying to figure out how to leverage these behaviors. After all, our students aren’t going to stop multi-tasking when they get out in the workforce.
2. Posted by Jake on April 12, 2008 @ 20:14 | Permalink
A few random thoughts.
(1) Dean Levmore should apologize for using a BlackBerry during meetings on grounds of basic courtesy, but never for the sake of placating law students who might become disgruntled because they have to interrupt 24/7/365 Internet connectivity for a handful of hours each week to actually pay attention to a law prof in a lecture hall.
(2) Good heavens. Levmore is a real lawyer and a law school dean who presumably has paid his dues. Law school students have not, and their professed need for 24/7/365 Internet connectivity is entitled to no serious consideration. Law school is not a day care center.
(3) To take up Bainbridge's idea of leveraging the behaviors of law students who demand 24/7/365 Internet connectivity, even in law school classrooms, why not enlist Al Gore? The former Vice Prez could present a lecture, or videotape it for wide distribution, to pampered law students and try to explain how they can stay connected, or cope if unable to do so, in the event of cataclysmic climatic, economic, or political change.
BAH. Let the law students take notes with a pencil and a Big Chief pad.
3. Posted by NonVoxPop on April 12, 2008 @ 20:47 | Permalink
Re: surfing being a behavioral, not technological, problem, I've got to agree. The "too cool for school" mentality that permeates law school (as evidenced by web surfing or hating on gunners) really surprises me. After we've all busted our asses to get in to law school, you'd think we'd be more interested in what goes on there.
4. Posted by NonVoxPop on April 12, 2008 @ 20:58 | Permalink
Steve- I think of multitasking as doing more than one thing at a time. I'm thinking that those who are shoe shopping aren't paying attention, too, but have tuned out. Thus the frequently recited "could you repeat the question?" I could just be projecting, though...
I wonder if judges are hearing the same request from trial lawyers?
5. Posted by Cliff on April 13, 2008 @ 0:28 | Permalink
Gordon,
I agree. It is a behavioral, not a technological problem, but I don't believe that's a satisfying answer to the issue; neither is it a persuasive argument against cutting internet access in the classroom.
I totally agree with U of C. I think they did the right thing. Even if longer term solutions are needed, that is no reason not to cut internet access now. I have to really question whether the threat of a significant amount of students going mobile broadband is a serious one - and frankly, why not ban mobile phones from the classroom??? The only thing I have ever seen a mobile phone accomplish in a classroom is a disruption.
Most of us young adults these days have some perverse notion of feeling we have a right to constant electronic connectivity, but we really don't - and I don't believe the paternalism line is even relevant to this discussion. In fact, I think it is a tremendous distraction to the real issue here - and the issue is learning.
Too often this agrument is parroted when this issue arises. "I am an adult. I am paying X amount of dollars for this service. Therfore, I should be able to do whatever I want with the service I have purchased, even if that means surfing the class away on the internet." That is simply the wrong premise!
I like the way my torts professor put it - to roughly paraphrase. "This is not about you and it's not about your grade. It's about whether you leave my class adequately prepared to competently represent your future clients. Period."
And whether students are going to multi-task in the workforce is irrelevant to whether they "multi-task" in class. As my Dad used to say "I can't keep you from doing what's wrong, but you're not going to do it under my roof."
Kingsfield wasn't such a scary guy, anyway...
6. Posted by NonVoxPop on April 13, 2008 @ 4:14 | Permalink
Cliff-- My thought is that a professor's authority ends at the student's grade, and worrying about the student's future clients is pretty presumptuous. If U of C did the right thing, it's because they're not obligated to subsidize surfing, not because they ought to prohibit it.
7. Posted by Michael Risch on April 13, 2008 @ 5:54 | Permalink
A couple of observations:
1. I recently sat in on a colleague's class and I was quite surprised to see how LITTLE emailing, IMing, and surfing was going on. Everyone, by and large, only had their notes open.
2. There was no internet access when I went to U of C, but I was one of 5 or 6 students who used laptops in class (I used to carry around an orange extension cord because there were only two outlets in class, way in the back of the room). I don't know about the others, but I found plenty of other things to do on the computer (not even just games) to distract me periodically - the internet is not the only distraction.
I'm not sure what the conclusion is from the above, but I think both should be factored into any policy.
8. Posted by Cliff on April 14, 2008 @ 16:52 | Permalink
Non:
I have to disagree. If law prof's aren't preparing future lawyers to go forth and serve future client's competently, then what are they doing? I don't see the presumptuousness.
The point is that this is not just about grades or student autonomy - it is not about "ME" as so many students of our age seem to think it is these days. It is about students who will assume a protected status of power in society, and the obligation that both students and teachers have to ensure that students are well prepared to assume that role responsibly and competently.
Limiting a professor's authority or realm of concern to simply doling out grades is entirely too narrow of a perspective. If a professor or group of professors determines that effective learning can't happen in their classrooms with internet access, they have all the right or authority to pull that access.
9. Posted by NonVoxPop on April 14, 2008 @ 23:44 | Permalink
Cliff: Re: what lawprofs are doing (or should be), it's teaching a subject. What a student does with that (serve clients, teach it, forget it, use it to lure Jedis to the Dark Side) is really up to them. The oath-taking, if it comes at all, comes after graduation. Out of the dozen or so lawprofs I've had so far, there are only two who I've taken subsequent classes from so as to become more imbued with their worldview. I'd have taken their class whether it was Law, Theology & State or Inverted Underwater Basketweaving. The rest, though, I'd rather just get information from (not to disparage that-- they channel that information in very unique and splendid ways).
I do wish I'd hear more lines like the one your torts professor delivers when students perseverate on "the test" and actually have the audacity to ask whether a given subject matter will be on it. I think it's rhetoric, though. The parrotted student argument you cited in your post above seems valid to me. If a professor has a problem with surfing, I suppose she can appeal to our higher aspirations or cut the internet juice, but her real stick is the grade. If she's a decent professor, she'll write an exam which will allow her to sort students on the basis of their learning, whether they've been distracted by the internet or a Batman comic book hidden in their hornbook or the cutie in front of them.
It's not in question whether they've the authority: of course they do. Whether it's wisely exercised is the better question. Nor do I believe anyone has asserted that effective learning CAN'T happen in classrooms with internet access. I suspect that a simple comparison of pre-internet exam answers and post-internet exam answers would put that to rest. Rather, it seems like professors are embarrassed that they're not holding their student's attention, and are axing the competition.
10. Posted by Cliff on April 15, 2008 @ 9:48 | Permalink
Non:
Worldviews and competence to serve are two different things.
The line from my torts prof was definitely not rhetoric. I had him for two semesters of classes, and I can tell you, not just from his words, but from his entire approach to teaching that he really believes what he said - and he didn't say it in response to any question about an exam. He said it at the very beginning of our 1L year when he was explaining the attendance policy.
Also, the embarrassment/cut the competition theory seems like a reach. I suppose it might be a factor, but I doubt it is a controlling factor.
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