Classroom rules have existed since we were in kindergarten. Maybe you needed to wear a uniform. Sometimes you couldn’t wear a hat in class. During high school, you might’ve had to hang your phone in a little pouch on the wall.
UBC policies are continuing to adapt to the digital age — Computers, iPads, and other technology, however, are unavoidable. Class resources, assignment submissions and exams all take place on Canvas, so how could anyone avoid it? At UBC’s Sauder School of Business, some undergraduate and graduate classrooms have a ‘lids down’ policy.
The lids down policy is the default in most Sauder graduate classes, meaning students are not allowed to use electronic devices during class unless permitted by teaching staff. Instructors outline the specific requirements for their individual classes. Every use of technology should be for educational purposes.
Dr. Greg Werker, the senior associate dean of student experience at Sauder, explained how the lids down policy took shape in the Robert H. Lee Graduate School a few years ago.
“What they found was that it made for a better feel in the classroom … more participation, more engagement in general, better class discussion,” said Werker. Nowadays, the graduate school has a lids down default for all classes, allowing professors to change their policies according to class-based needs.
“I know in my classes there’s often technology being used for an in-class activity or something,” Werker said. “Then it gets hard to say, ‘Okay, lids down, now lids up, now lids down.’”
There is currently interest from Sauder faculty, all the way up to the dean, to look into making this a policy for undergraduate classes. Some undergraduate classes already discourage screens. COMM 101, an iconic first-year business fundamentals class, only allows paper or iPads for notetaking purposes, and laptops can only be used for in-class activities.
Dr. Zorana Svedic, the former COMM 101 course lecturer, said that “because many people in high school are so used to using technology, when they come to university they expect they’re going to continue doing the same thing. But then when we come to them with these policies, some people love it, some people hate it.”
Svedic acknowledges laptops can be a distraction. “Your eyes will automatically be looking [at] anything that moves — otherwise we would’ve been eaten by dinosaurs a long time ago.”
Svedic even brought back scratch-scantrons (multiple choice sheets where you scratch off a silver coating to select an answer) for her project management class, a testament to how the ‘best’ technology isn’t always necessary for learning.
Barbara Cox teaches commercial law, COMM 393, and is one of the few undergraduate professors that goes completely lids down in class. iPads are not available for notetaking, and laptops are only brought out when explicitly instructed.
Seth Feldhuhn, a current COMM 393 student, was “originally very against [the class policy]. I was like, ‘just let us go on them, we are in college.’” But upon reflecting on his own laptop use in other classes, he found that the lids down policy has helped him stay focused.
Anything that’s not class content can be distracting, from social media, to emails and even Slack messages — the world is at our fingertips at all times.
Some studies find “people do a better job remembering things when they write things down using handwriting,” Werker said. Additionally, the distraction of seeing someone else’s screen can be equally detrimental.
“It’s like a secondhand smoke effect,” Werker said. “It does impact those around you. So it’s not that we’re just saying ‘put your own lid down because you’ll learn better.’ We’re saying ‘put your lid down because it’s distracting to those around you.’”
There is an element of convenience in notetaking on laptops. Notes are easier to go back and read through when you don’t have to decipher the chicken-scratch you wrote on the fly to keep up with your professor’s talking and text-heavy slides. Finding a balance between engagement and letting students learn in the way that works best for them is the million-dollar puzzle.
When Werker holds activities on paper in class, he has learned to bring extra pens because many students don’t carry them around anymore. While change isn’t always good, professors need to remember to meet students in their reality.
Werker points out, “I’m a huge fan of technology, and at the same time it is not always the right answer.”
