Classroom Experiences: Disallowing Laptops during Lectures Improves Student Performance

摘要

As most Universities and Colleges are trying to increase enrollment, we often forget the problem of retention, which is a totally different problem and should be addressed separately. We often encourage our students to use their laptops during lectures for constructive work such as taking notes, design, test programs, etc. In this study I present my classroom experiences that show why, sometimes, students should not be allowed to use their laptops during lectures. Instead of using their laptops to take notes or run programs presented in a classroom, students use their laptops to engage in social activities, work on other projects or papers, etc, and as a result they do not pay attention to the material covered in class.