Last night, it took me well over two hours to write the class notes I send to my students after each class meeting.  While this statement is true, it really isn’t truthful because I was multitasking while writing the class notes.

I believe that there are times when certain types of multitasking are viable and appropriate, but last night was not one of them.  I spent more than two hours to do a task that should have taken between 30 and 40 minutes because I was watching television and talking with my partner while writing the class notes.  My attention shifted from my notes, to the television, to my notes, to my partner, to the television, to my partner, to my notes, to my partner, to the television…

More and more often, I have students try to multitask during class by text messaging, Facebooking, reading a book, or doing the homework for some other class while I am teaching the lesson.  Last semester when I showed a video, I once had a student ask that I leave at least one light on “because I am trying to finish something else here.”  The “something” she was trying to finish had nothing to do with our class.

Generally, I have taken the approach that if students want to multitask during class, I didn’t really care as long as they do not disrupt me or their colleagues.  The student doing math in the back of the room while I am teaching history is an adult who can make his own decisions about how to best use his time.

As adults, we do have the right to make our own decisions.  Unfortunately, too many of us forget that rights come with responsibilities.  While I might have the right to read a novel during a class in which I have enrolled, I am also responsible for the material covered during the class in which I am reading.  Last night, I had the right to watch television and to talk with my partner, but I also had the responsibility to finish the class notes.

Because of my choice to multitask last night, I cannot complain that it took me more than two hours to complete my responsibilities.  Yet, I am finding more and more students want the right to make their own decisions but are unwilling to accept the responsibilities and consequences that come as a result of those decisions.

Last night, I was able to multitask and delay my responsibilities because I was not working under rigid time restrictions.  If I didn’t complete my responsibilities during World’s Dumbest Criminals, I could finish the work during Cops.  But the student doing sociology homework during history does not have the same benefit.  If she misses something during the history class period, she can’t make it up during sociology.

Usually, when I tell a student that he did not understand something because he was text messaging, doing homework for another course, or reading a book during class, he becomes highly offended.  His attitude is that I have no right to tell him how to spend his time.  Maybe he is right?  But I do have the right to explain the consequences of the decisions he made and to hold him responsible for the material he missed.

Because of the rise of complaints from students who are not understanding assignments even though they claim to be present in class (while reading and doing homework and text messaging or playing on their computer), I am taking a firmer approach to banishing such behavior from my classroom even when it does not interfere with the learning of other students.  Asking a student doing homework for another class to leave my classroom does not really harm her because she is present only in body but not in mind.   She is not learning history or English anyway; a fact that is reinforced when she is no longer physically present.

I have also instituted a Time and Attendance Report for students to fill out if they miss or plan to miss class. Students are not required to complete the report—unless they want to make up missed work or to submit an assignment late.  The Time and Attendance Report is designed to make a connection between actions and responsibilities; that even if someone has a legitimate reason for not being present in class that they still have responsibilities for learning course concepts.

In most of the classes I teach, I am expected to help students develop the skill of “acting responsibly” because it is one of the core abilities that “are important in every area of learning, and are the skills employers and other stakeholders indicate are essential.”  Although students might claim otherwise, we not only have the right—but also the duty—to assist them in learning how to act responsibility; one of the ten “broad outcomes or skills that every graduate of Schoolcraft College is expected to achieve.”

Now it is time to post this essay so that I don’t have to multitask during Judge Judy.

–Steven L. Berg, PhD

Photo Credit:  Ryan Richie