In September 2016, two U of T political science professors, Ryan Balot and Clifford Orwin, jointly introduced a laptop ban into their classrooms — and announced it to the world through an opinion piece in The Globe and Mail. This ban would see course lectures and discussion sections under their instruction rid themselves of electronic device usage.
The ban, and more particularly its accompanying piece, generated fervent discussion. In a Varsity survey just weeks after the implementation of the ban, students generally disapproved of the policy. While course instructors are still able to implement these policies or similar ones in their classrooms at their own discretion, the professors have since eased the strictness of such policies.
A particular point of students’ criticism was aimed at its unintentional effect on students with disabilities, who have accessibility needs. An exemption from the ban for such students was agreed upon by the professors authoring the opinion piece, but nevertheless, this exemption would nevertheless inadvertently publicize students’ disabilities to classmates. Though not a restriction, the Accessibility Services webpage now reads, “[laptop bans are] discouraged because it reveals a student’s disability to the rest of the class.”
In 2017, a study conducted across the US found that only four per cent of students do not have access to either a laptop or desktop computer, and a significant proportion of that minority owns a portable tablet or smartphone.
By proportion alone, it is amiss to enforce electronic-free spaces for larger classes — it is a practice that is suited only to very small and specialized seminars.
Plenty of studies cement the possibility that note-taking on laptops as opposed to by hand can lower a student’s performance. Though the study does not make an explicit conclusion, it instead attributes the drop in results to multitasking on a device — that is, getting distracted by things like your Facebook feed. A significant portion of other studies produce similar claims in which laptop usage, one way or another, detracts from your learning quality.
The impact of these studies, however, has declined over the years, as the number of students that are being educated and formally trained under official curricula that recommend — or mandate, as mine did — the use of computer technologies over physical and paper materials is growing. Learning to use a word processor in place of a ballpoint pen was part of my first information and communications technology lesson — 14 years ago when computers still took floppy disks and shared the same ugly shade of beige as the classroom walls.
And as much as marks can count for everything, it is a genuinely hard ask to produce an entire semester of notes — that I will have to deign to rewrite and bind together to read in one go — in a notebook, as opposed to a MacBook when folders and scroll functions exist.
Now, some points against the ban are intuitive, and the most prominent one I’ve seen is that laptops and screen devices can be distracting to a student’s learning in the same manner that second-hand smoke sucks for passers-by. That is, that they not only affect the student taking the notes, but the environment as a whole.
I’m inclined to believe it because you really can’t disagree. When possible, my note-taking is sparse and I tend to just listen, but I’ll always locate myself at the back of the class if I do have my laptop out. Should my screen light up, and colours flash as I switch tabs with a barely conscious swipe on my trackpad, that’s only a glance and five seconds to regain focus for the eagle-eyed student behind me.
At the end of the day, universities can be freeing. It’s in your hands whether or not you want to climb out of bed and go to class in the morning. Professors should not have to cater their classes to make sure everyone’s got two thumbs up, but they should not be giving anyone more reasons to choose not to come.
Laptop bans are based on meaningful data and good principles, but they simply run afoul of the unspoken rule of university life — that class isn’t mandatory if the student says it isn’t.
You accept the syllabus as it stands on the first week of class and it’s on you if you can’t meet deadlines. But you cannot seriously be expected to conform to a laptop ban — not when a subject is dedicated in formalized curricula to learning how to use one, as mine was, and not when it’s stressed to you as a career skill. Not if you’re working shifts in-between classes and can’t afford any more time to redress your notes, and not if your laptop goes where you go more than your notebook does.
I do feel for the professors who want these policies in their classes, because I understand the principle behind it. But at the end of the day, you are teaching to people who have the capacity to choose for themselves. Don’t give them another reason not to pick your class.
Andre Fajardo is a fourth-year Political Science and Philosophy student at Innis College.
Editor’s Note (February 5, 4:38): This article has been changed to correct Ryan Balot’s first name.
