I had an English teacher in 2015 who also based her cell phone rules around science too. It was “phones are allowed, but use them respectfully” on the basis that you are more likely to be focused if you have access to your technology and can quickly check a notification and then put it away. She said you are more distracted by a notification when you don’t know what it is, so we were always allowed to pull our phones out and check what was happening. Funnily enough, this freedom and mutual respect caused there to be minimal phone use in that classroom.
I have no doubt that it can improve the class dynamic! Trust is always a good thing to have a good respect relation between a teacher and students!
And I agree that having a notification and not being allowed to look at it is not useful, if I remember the study actually showed that. But what is definitely better is not being notified at all. To test that, they asked every student to leave the phone in the hallway, so in another room. I’m not talking about the feasibility (risk of theft and other things), but there is a clear impact.
And I was in HS at the same time as you, but honestly, the class dynamic today is way different than it used to be even less then 10 years ago. It surprised me during my internship! I actually had the same policy as your teacher (you can use your phone, respectfully), but clearly I didn’t master it… 😅
I had an English teacher in 2015 who also based her cell phone rules around science too. It was “phones are allowed, but use them respectfully” on the basis that you are more likely to be focused if you have access to your technology and can quickly check a notification and then put it away. She said you are more distracted by a notification when you don’t know what it is, so we were always allowed to pull our phones out and check what was happening. Funnily enough, this freedom and mutual respect caused there to be minimal phone use in that classroom.
I have no doubt that it can improve the class dynamic! Trust is always a good thing to have a good respect relation between a teacher and students!
And I agree that having a notification and not being allowed to look at it is not useful, if I remember the study actually showed that. But what is definitely better is not being notified at all. To test that, they asked every student to leave the phone in the hallway, so in another room. I’m not talking about the feasibility (risk of theft and other things), but there is a clear impact.
And I was in HS at the same time as you, but honestly, the class dynamic today is way different than it used to be even less then 10 years ago. It surprised me during my internship! I actually had the same policy as your teacher (you can use your phone, respectfully), but clearly I didn’t master it… 😅