cell phones in the classroom

March 17, 2007 6:37 AM

Fellow educators / trainers, how do you deal with cell phones in your classrooms?

I am worried that maybe I am just being an old-fashioned prick, but when I am conducting a lesson cell phones really piss me off. Back when I was in school these things didn't exist, so it is hard for me to figure out what I should tolerate.

I will always ask a new group to please set their phones to vibrate or turn them off during sessions. But it nevertheless irks me to see my students constantly fiddling with their phones... checking their calls, discretely sending text messages, who knows what.

For the record, I am mostly talking about dealing with older teens / young adults. Most of the time it seems older adults are not so glued to the phones, or have the maturity to leave them alone in class and check them during the breaks.

So my questions: what policies do you have in class for cell phones? Do you try to pretend to ignore it when students fiddle with their phones, or do you make a point of asking them to stop? Would it seem overly draconian to have a complete cell phone ban (for example, leave them in a box at the back of the room) in cases where people just can't control themselves?

posted by Meatbomb to education (51 comments total)

This is somewhat off-topic, but one of my law school professors had a policy that if your phone went off during class you would have to come to the front and sing your ringtone song.
posted by MrZero at 6:44 AM on March 17, 2007 [3 favorites]

They turn them off. No vibrate mode. First offense had me continuing to lead the section while walking up to them slowly, until I was micrometers away from them. Second offense meant they were out and discussion grade for class was a zero. In lecture hall (300 people), we couldn't really deal with texting, so we didn't, unless someone was being a dick.

Anyone found using a cell phone during any sort of testing was immediately thrown out and failed the assignment. It was assumed it was cheating no matter what and would be brought up with the school. However, since we required all backpacks and electronics to be put at the front of the room before exams, this wasn't too much of a problem while I was teaching.

Important: All of the above was written into the syllabus regarding grade and testing policies. This was at Large Public University With Big Name Athletic Team.
posted by cobaltnine at 6:48 AM on March 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

There is nothing wrong with a complete cell phone ban. As a student of the early 90's who wasn't allowed to even carry a calculator, I'm amazed that cell phones are tolerated in the slightest.

Put them in a box before class. Give them back after class. If someone defies the policy, take away the cell phone and send it to the principal's office for retrieval after school.
posted by unixrat at 6:50 AM on March 17, 2007

I am worried that maybe I am just being an old-fashioned prick

No. Not at all. You and your students have entered into an informal contract -- you are there to teach them and they are there to learn from you. Under the terms of that informal contract, they agree to focus on class-related tasks during class time. Texting or checking messages is rude and disrespectful. So you are well within your rights to prohibit the use of cellphones in class.
posted by jason's_planet at 7:05 AM on March 17, 2007

As a student of the early 90's who wasn't allowed to even carry a calculator, I'm amazed that cell phones are tolerated in the slightest.

Amen to that.

Total cell phone ban. Off, not vibrate. Have draconian increasing punishments for offenses.

This generation coming up needs to learn how to handle these extensions of the aural canal in the "real world".
posted by Ynoxas at 7:08 AM on March 17, 2007

Don't know if you're talking about high school students or college students, but I'll share what I've seen used at my university.

One professor warns students at the start of the semester that if their phone goes off, he will deduct a letter grade from them. Conversely, he offers that if his phone goes off, he'll buy the entire class beers (it's a graduate class).

By the way, make sure your phone is off. I've seen professors who thought nothing of answering their phones during their own lecture, and that struck me as supremely disrespectful.

When I was TAing, I would stop my talk and stare at the offending party. "Turn that shit off," was also effective. Particularly obnoxious users were invited to leave until they could figure out their own phone (and were given a 7% discount on their grade).

But I've been told I was mean.
posted by Mercaptan at 7:11 AM on March 17, 2007

Relevant video link. :)
posted by WCityMike at 7:12 AM on March 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

As a college student (At a big ten U), cell phones are a nuisance.

That said, so are people who twirl their pens constantly, chew gum, fidget, and whatnot. Squeaky chairs are the worst.

My point is that the Cell is no more or less of a nuisance than those other behaviors, and you really should relax and understand that the huge bulk of the students in your lecture aren't forgetting to turn the phone off because they're pricks. They just forgot. It happens.

Why make a big deal out of it ?

All of that said, in my four years at the U, I've never had a prof take any sort of stance against cell phones. I wouldn't think very highly of a prof that did - after all, we're all adults here.

(As an aside, calculators are required in almost all my engineering exams these days, as it is nigh on impossible to do some things without them. As such, the exams are less about doing the math and more about doing the engineering, which is much harder in my opinion).
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 7:23 AM on March 17, 2007

Hmmm ... I have a somewhat different view on this. I would not ban cell phones (and have never done so as a teacher/trainer, although I've never experienced a problem).

I would ask people to put their phones on silent, and if they send or receive an occasional text so be it. If a particular person is constantly texting, I would ask them to stop texting and pay attention.

People use their cell phones as watches, notebooks, and message-senders, in addition to phones. People (especially teens) feel *extremely* attached to their phones. Kids fear having their phones stolen, so they will not want to put them in a box. I know kids who will not attend a session if they can't keep their phones. I know I would want to keep my phone.
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 7:27 AM on March 17, 2007

I'm planning to become a college professor of Anthropology. Here is my plan.

I'll lay it out in the syllabus (and start of the first two class discussions, the getting to know you ones) that cell phone use is unacceptable, and that I consider having one ring to be using one. I will document the draconian punishments for cell phone violation, with exceptions for emergencies cleared with me first (I remember a student in a yoga class I took getting permission to answer her cell because her daughter was expected to go into labor, but she told us all about it before we began the poses. The phone didn't ring that day.).

At the first offense I will say "If that's for me, I'm not here." That should get a laugh. I might remind the class of the policy regarding their grade.

Second time (not for the same kid, just seconds time it happens) I will say "This is not television. I am up here and I can see and hear all of you" This phrase may be needed earlier if there is much talking or snacking or whatever.

I do hold that the cell is an bigger distraction than gum chewing or pen twirling. The cell is a conversation with another person, it is a removal of self from the learning environment, and it impinges on the professors job because it breaks the concentration of everyone in the room. I do ask permission of my professors to knit during their lectures, and all five gave it this term. I am a learner that needs kinectic stuff, and knitting keeps me from kicking the back of the chair in front of me. I see no corollary benefit for receiving phone calls. It is much more difficult to engage two speakers at once than it is to engage the repetitive physical activity and one speaker.

And the kids who can't part from their phones can hang out with another professor.
posted by bilabial at 7:32 AM on March 17, 2007

do a 3 strikes thing -- their phone rings three times during a semester, they fail.
posted by matteo at 7:34 AM on March 17, 2007

You don't say whether you're teaching in a high school or a university, where the rules would be very different.

Either way, your school should have a policy in place that will back up whatever your rule is in class. If they don't have one, ask for one.

Having the students put the phones in a box is immature and childish, IMHO, and by treating them like that, you will get much resistance. Depending on the school, you'd have to guarantee that each student gets their own phone back at the end of class and that some aren't helping themselves to others phones. Wasted class time.

I agree with jason's_planet. If you tell what he wrote in his post to your class beforehand and discuss how rude it is to you and the others in the class (if it is University, who have paid money to be there), it may embarrass people into turning them off. I mean, granted, you may get the guy whose pregnant wife may go into labor at any second, but I think we can all agree, that kind of call is an exception.
posted by NoraCharles at 7:34 AM on March 17, 2007

So I guess what I'm saying is, when I'm in a class, I make every effort to make the teachers job easier, and I will expect the same from my students. College students are paying for a service. I know there are plenty of people who expect to receive their services while they talk on the phone, God knows we had plenty who tried to answer cell phones while getting teeth prepped for crowns in the dental chair. We can't stop those people from behaving that way, they are unlikely to change upon being reminded that they are oafs. BUT we could get them to stop doing that crap in our office because they generally weren't welcome back after an incident like that. There are professors who don't mind. Let them teach sections full of kids with P Diddy ring tones.

So, if a professor is up front about the policy being "No cell phones" and a kid flouts that policy, does the professor need to lighten up? I don't think so.

Remember when we were having this conversation about cigarette smoking in colleges? Tthe smokers were saying, "it's not that big a deal, it's just a little smoke, and you're only in a classroom a few hours a day, and smoking helps me relax." Well, the non smokers were saying "If I can't breathe I can't learn" Well, if I can't hear, I can't learn either!
posted by bilabial at 7:39 AM on March 17, 2007

But... if you're a prof, be sure that *your* cell phone is off or set to vibrate. Last year I had a professor lecture us on the ills of in-class cell phones at the start of the semester, only to have his cell phone ring during class on two occasions later in the semester. Both occasions caused the prof to look sheepish in front of the students.
posted by herc at 7:53 AM on March 17, 2007

As someone who has a BlackBerry tether to the office, and has to manage a staff and resources/operations while in class, this is always a tricky issue. I think that asking phones to be on vibrate is a reasonable expectation that should be understood by now. If it goes off, make a comment and move on - allowing it to distract you, in turn, distracts others and conversely everything suffers. I've had several professors who would just slip stream a "turn that shit off" and keep on going with their thought/sentence and keep the rest of us on track.

That said, I do think it's rude to check text messages, etc., in a class (and as a facilitator and trainer at my job, its an issue sometimes too), but that being said, we've all paid to be there, let them act how they want. Its their grade that suffers. I'll admit that I've had to send emails, or step out for a critical call to keep things on track. It sucks, and I've always personally apologized to the professor, and they've generally understood. It's not a habit either.

I'd say simply "turn it off, an ensure it stays that was for the semester." would suffice. 2nd Time, ask them to step out, and their daily grade is a 0. 3rd time, ask them to step out, and deduct a letter grade. 3 strikes with cascading penalties. That works for me (and is a scaled down version of what the strictest professor i've had yet did. If it went off, she asked you to leave and deducted points depending on how obnoxious the ringtone was, from your final grade.)
posted by vrdx at 7:58 AM on March 17, 2007

It depends what you call "teaching." If you are primarily lecturing and taking questions from the students, then build in assessment activities that encourage their participation and help them learn. In other words, keep them busy, but with meaningful activities related to the lecture.

Your purpose is not to entertain, but if there is a lot of fiddling going on, maybe your lecture isn't working on some level.

I draw a distinction between discrete texting and ringing. If someone gets up and goes out to answer a call, I don't freak because many of my students are in managerial positions and have their own businesses or pregnant spouses.

If I was lecturing 300 people, I would put a policy in place, explain it, and enforce it. i.e. you are absent for the day if I hear your phone go off. Pull a frank zappa--when someone threw a bottle at the stage, he said, "we're not continuing until everyone points out who threw the bottle. Slowly, everyone turned toward the person who did it and they were thrown out."

Find out if your school has a policy so they know it's not just you.
posted by craniac at 7:59 AM on March 17, 2007

"So, if a professor is up front about the policy being "No cell phones" and a kid flouts that policy, does the professor need to lighten up?"

Sure, if someone is being a disruptive dink, they need to be dealt with. That said, I've been at the U for four years and haven't encountered any yet. That's not say it doesn't happen, but rather that it is possible to overstate the "problem".

I should point out that people who talk to each other during lecture is far more common than people's cell phone usage.

It would be great if no-one ever did anything that irritated anyone, ever. That's not a realistic goal.

The prof. should handle a cell phone like any other distraction - ignore it and move on.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 8:06 AM on March 17, 2007

If a student was constantly texting, talking, or being called during my classes, I warned them once, and then asked them to leave. If the phones came out during a test, I failed them on the test.

I explained all of this very clearly in advance. Honestly, I don't think it did anything but fail students on tests.
posted by fake at 8:09 AM on March 17, 2007

Just to clarify, it is all up to me. I am a trainer doing sessions which are a part of a self-contained training program (currently, it is training a group of Afghan young adults to become English teachers). So there is no "school policy", because it is just me and my co-trainer in this one-off situation.

This is funded through grant money, so these are special people who are being invested in, not paying customers.

And I ask because it seems that as time passes, the young adults I work with are more and more attached to their fricking phones. These are not businessmen or people with crucial family responsibilities, just a strange new species of humans that seem to have cell phones surgically attached at birth.
posted by Meatbomb at 8:12 AM on March 17, 2007

I somewhat have given up. I know my students forget to turn them off, and each and evey on has a pregnant wife/friend/daughter and their mon/dad/kid is in the hospital. I just ask them to deal with it quickly.
On the other hand, texting and fussing around with their toys make me crazy. Even though it's college, I take the phone away.

Even though I have it in my syllabus, and menetion it every friggin day, I have to ask students to remove their earphones constantly.
posted by cccorlew at 8:19 AM on March 17, 2007

I routinely teach sections of 50--200 college students at a directional state university. I find that public shame works well enough. If someone's phone rings, I stop for a second and ask everyone to stare and point at the offender. This happens <5 times per semester.br>
I don't really care if people are texting. I see that as the moral equivalent of doing the crossword. And doing the crossword instead of paying attention is, as far as I care, their prerogative.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:29 AM on March 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

just a strange new species of humans that seem to have cell phones surgically attached at birth.

It seems to me that a prerequisite for a fair policy needs to involve trying to understand their point of view. Why not discuss the policy (in, before) class, based on some of the suggestions here, and come up with something that a majority find acceptable?

Letting the students have a hand in policy creation means less trouble enforcing it.
posted by mendel at 8:44 AM on March 17, 2007

The OP has indicated that he's teaching outside of a HS/College classroom situation. I'm inclined to think that a stricter policy would be better.

In my experience teaching in high school, the phones never go off. If I catch a pupil texting or otherwise manipulating a mobile, I immediately confiscate it and place it with an identifying slip of paper with the pupil's name and time of incident in my desk drawer. The pupil may elect to retrieve his phone at the end of the day.

This information is then entered into the school's online grading/attendance/communication system.
posted by vkxmai at 8:55 AM on March 17, 2007

In many of my classes if someone's phone goes off the prof won't even bat an eye unless it's a truly obnoxious ringtone. If you haven't already you could mention to your class that you not only find cellphone use during class annoying, but also disrespectful, just like any other talking or goofing off. Maybe you could add a five minute break to your class, like a smoke break, but for cellphone addicts instead.
posted by benign at 8:56 AM on March 17, 2007

I'm older and never dealt with this problem, but it seems to me the thing to do is not allow calls during class. However, if a student screwed up I wouldn't lower their grade! That seems really overboard to me. Obviously, there should be a no phones allowed policy during tests.
posted by xammerboy at 9:04 AM on March 17, 2007

It seems to me that cellphone calls and texts in class are the equivalent of side conversations and note-passing back in the day. I think calls, much like side conversations, are completely unacceptable and should be handled swiftly and severely by the teacher. (If somebody's got a pregnant wife or something, they should be able to step outside before answering their call.)

How the teacher should handle texting (in my opinion) depends on finding the balance that is most beneficial to the students in the class. If someone's texting is disruptive to other students (like if the phone is actually making noise, even the buzz of vibration, or the texter is laughing or whatever), it should be stopped by the person in charge. On the other hand, if the teacher is on a witchhunt to catch every single text message, their ability to teach is going to suffer. Better to let the occasional quiet, non-disruptive text message go un-commented-upon. This is how my most effective teachers handled note passing when I was in school.

And yeah, absolutely no phones during tests. If it's exam time, witchhunt away. :P
posted by vytae at 9:32 AM on March 17, 2007

I'm a graduate student and although I haven't taught a class, I think making special rules for cell phones usage is rather silly. Sure, it's a disruption in class, but almost all the times I see phones ringing, the student races to turn it off and seems embarrassed. I would be embarrassed too, but it's a faux pas, not something that should affect your grade directly. I've seen people spill drinks in class, and I don't think they deserve to lose a letter grade for the disruption either.
posted by demiurge at 9:39 AM on March 17, 2007

Just wait until the current crop of students get to college. This issue is only going to increase in magnitude as students start to use their phones for everything.
I understand the ban on ringing, but I definitely think the banning use of a phone in silence is over the line. Cell phones are no longer a medium for just talking on the phone. I use mine at work for scheduling and writing assignments. Would you be OK with a student using a phone for this purpose? Or what about phones that you can do Internet research on and use a dictionary/thesaurus? I've used mine in meeting a few tims to check on wikipedia. Is that OK?
Unless you ban all form of electronics in class, a total ban of cell phones is incredibly short-sighted.

just a strange new species of humans that seem to have cell phones surgically attached at birth.

Better believe it! Like it or not, the current crop of students in HS are a helluva lot more attached to cell phones than the current crop in college. Our HS only has 200 students, and we take 2-3 away a day on average. And that's only those who are caught or reported. Why? It's a cost-benifit analysis. The potential benefits of using a cell phone, no longer how trite it may seem to others, tends to outweigh the consequences of getting caught.

As a slight aside to why I think kids don't think anything of using cell phones: Adults. In my small sample size, adults are tend to be quite rude in terms of talking on their cell phones. If they see adults using their cell phone in a certain way, it's naturally going to follow that younger people do too.
posted by jmd82 at 9:45 AM on March 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

Punishment is all fine and dandy, but I'm not sure exactly how you are going to dish it out. Unless you already have that 'presence' that instills the respect you desire, threats are going to fall on deaf ears. It's also hell for the student who forgot... which has happened to me before. And having it negatively affect my grade, the only thing you could really threaten me with, would have me talking to the department head.

The -best- technique I ever saw was a prof who insisted if a phone rang, he got to answer it. It was a smallish room, so he could move to the offender quite quick. The embarassment worked wonders.

Never underestimate the power of peer presure. Especially with young adults.
posted by billy_the_punk at 9:47 AM on March 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

In my MBA program, one prof told us that a ringing phone would result in a $20 fine. The students (it was an executive MBA) loved this idea so much that we enforced the fine in other classes, too. The prof used the money to buy beer at the end of the program.

In the classes I teach, cell phones, instant messaging and text messaging are banned.
posted by acoutu at 9:52 AM on March 17, 2007

I teach college, and I don't think it's necessary to have draconian rules. (I have had my phone go off in class, also). I find that a perfectly effective strategy is to simply stop talking and look at the offender as they scramble to turn their phone off. Those 6 seconds feel very long when you know the class is stopped and is looking at you. I rarely have phones go off more than twice during the semester.
posted by underwater at 9:53 AM on March 17, 2007

I teach at the college level, with classes of about 15-22 students. My classes depend a lot on discussion among the students, so in setting policies I try to make it clear that rudeness to one's classmates is as unacceptable as rudeness to the instructor.

My written policy on cell phones is that they will be neither seen nor heard during the class period. They must be turned completely off (not just silenced) during class, and they must be stowed in a bag or pocket. It is not acceptable to check for messages (text or voice) until after class is over.

Now, if a student came to me before class with a really, really good reason why he or she needed to stay reachable by cell phone during the class period, I might be flexible about it, but it would have to be a damned good reason. (Would it really be so disastrous if the communication were delayed a half hour until the end of class? What did people do in similar situations before the advent of cell phones? Why not do that?) So far, nobody has asked me for an exception to the rule. I do not publicize the availability of exemptions. I prefer to keep the written policy short and to the point, and I figure that if someone has a real need for the exemption, he or she will pipe up and ask for it.

When a cell phone actually rings in class--which happens once or twice a semester, usually towards the start of the semester--I use an exaggerated, dramatic reaction to embarrass the offender. If I'm speaking at the moment, I stop mid-sentence, gasp audibly, turn in the direction of the sound, make an open-mouthed "shocked!" expression, and so forth. I might point at the guilty party and say something melodramatic along the lines of "You shall be cast into outer darkness!" It's always good if I can improvise something using that day's material (e.g. if teaching Paradise Lost: "you shall be sent to the fiery lake! darkness visible!"). Then, while the offending student fumbles with a phone and puts it away again, I just as abruptly resume teaching as if nothing had happened.

If a student is speaking at the time a phone goes off, I do the above routine but then say to the speaker, "I'm sorry, I couldn't concentrate on what you were saying," and prompt the student to resume by repeating what he or she said just before the phone rang.

The idea here is to dramatize and magnify the effect of a phone ringing during class: it's an interruption. I rarely have to do this more than once in a semester. Students get the message.

I disagree with Pogo_Fuzzybutt that cell phones and other student-generated distractions should be ignored during class. In my (painful) experience, ignoring the cell phone texting, crossword doing, side talking, etc, sends the message that such behavior is OK. The class as a whole gets the idea that engaging in discussion does not have to be their first priority while in class, and the quality of the class spirals rapidly downward from there. I might feel differently if I taught large lecture courses, but in a small classroom, the actions of one or two students can set the tone for the whole class. If a student doesn't want to pay attention and actively engage in discussion, well, that's the student's loss and I won't force anyone to learn and contribute; BUT I do insist that the student's non-attention not be acted out in a way that degrades the classroom experience for other students.
posted by Orinda at 9:55 AM on March 17, 2007

I tell them that if it rings, I get to answer
posted by A189Nut at 9:57 AM on March 17, 2007

Meatbomb- I was going to ask about the nature of you class, but you answered it up thread.
I've got a different class setting, but a similar problem. I'm teaching teenagers, so in addition to being glued to their phones, before (and during class) they all want to show them off, compare them, and try eachother's. I can't really blame them- there are some sweet fucking phones out there. But I can blame them for letting that interrupt class. Fighting the 'cell phones interrupting society' battle however, is gonna be hard, if not impossible, IMO, so you may want to diversify your tactics.
What I do, is essentially put their cell phones in jeopardy during class/ instruction. We go outside the classroom (so leaving them in the classroom might mean the phones will get stolen). We jump in the water (we're near a beach, so they can't take their phones with them and not fry them). We do jumping jack warmups, so a phone in-pocket will bounce around, and/ or fall out and break.
So when kids come to class, they know that if they don't want their phone broken, stolen, or water-logged, they just have to drop it off in my lockable drawer at the beginning of class. It ends up being a big pile of cell phones.
This doesn't take care of the ringing, or vibrating (my desk isn't quite soundproof) but I think that the bigger distraction is people's interaction with their phones. A good instructor can ignore a firetruck going by, a plane going over head, someone having a sneezing fit, and a cell phone ringing. But even a great instructor/ teacher is gonna go apeshit when people answer their phones in class, or start texting, and etc.
So if you can use your environment to put the phones in peril, you won't seem like a prison guard when you ask everybody to dump their phones in your drawer or cabinet. You're doing them a favor.
Thsi won't work too well if you have a 200-person lecture, but if you have a moderate group, it should work fine.
posted by conch soup at 10:41 AM on March 17, 2007

A few people in this thread have equated crossword puzzles to cellphone usage. As a frequent crossword-puzzler in college, I feel the need to comment. Crosswords are the perfect activity when your attention will be repeatedly switched back and forth between them and something else (the lecture), because they don't require you to hold any information in your head between completing each clue. If the lecturer was having to re-explain things to students who didn't understand, or (god forbid) mostly repeating the information from the reading assignment, crosswords were the only thing that would keep me stimulated enough to stay awake. Sleeping or skipping class, I would have missed the useful bits of the lecture. Crossword puzzling allowed me to pay attention to the parts I needed to hear. Sorry for the derail.
posted by vytae at 10:45 AM on March 17, 2007

Here's what you do: Tell your students that if their cell phone goes off in class, the student must destroy the phone, à la the above link where the prof smashes the phone on the floor. Make a point by saying that you will offer to do the same to your cell phone if it rings during class. Have at the ready a cheap cell phone, one of those prepaid jobbies. Have a friend call you on that phone at a prearranged time. Bonus points for an embarrassing ringtone. Maybe don't schedule this during the first class, maybe a few weeks down the road, but early enough in the term so that this happens first with your phone rather than a student's phone. Look guilty and embarrassed when your students start laughing at you and nervously checking their own phones to make sure they're turned off. Now hurl that ringing phone at a wall. Do not retrieve the phone pieces. Pick up where you left off in the lecture.
posted by emelenjr at 10:49 AM on March 17, 2007 [2 favorites]

Confirm what the school policy is. My policy is that :
a) if I hear one go off, you don't answer it, you just hang up. You don't answer it and you don't sneak out to take the call 2 minutes later.
b) if I catch you using one, I keep it for a week
c) repeat offenders get it back at the end of the semester.
posted by furtive at 11:57 AM on March 17, 2007

I know a professor who found a dead phone in his classroom once after the students had left. I believe he asked a student he was friendly with to have someone call her during class time, and when her phone rang, he palmed the broken phone, pretended to grab the ringing phone out of her purse, and smashed the broken phone to smithereens on the ground. Within days his whole department had heard about the professor who had obliterated a phone during a lower-division seminar and he never had a problem again. And he says he's heard rumors of himself at other universities in the UC system.

I hope I can say he teaches in the UC system without compromising his anonymity. :)

On the other hand, I've had professors answer their own phones in class (one of them talked for a minute and hung up, and brightly said, "I'm going to the symphony tonight!"), and I've had professors demand to answer other students' phones in class ("Hi, this is Professor So-and-so, I'm afraid Jack's in his humanities lecture right now and really can't talk. How about you call him back sometime after 2:50?").

I don't think my school has an official policy, and most of my professors don't either. I kind of wish they would, even to say "Turn it off as quickly as possible", because it kind of seems like most students don't know how to feel about this sort of infraction. On the one hand, I don't know anyone who hasn't at some point had a phone ring during class. On the other hand, I've been in classes where people had vibrating phones that would ring for literally minutes, with the owner making no attempt to deal with it. At that point, it really is a distraction.
posted by crinklebat at 12:18 PM on March 17, 2007

At my university, we put a line in the syllabus stating that they must be off.

In your case though, since it has already been going on, maybe you could say something like, "Unless there is a family emergency (wife pregnant, impeding death), you must turn your phone off while we are in class. It is a distraction to the instructors and to the other students."
posted by k8t at 12:36 PM on March 17, 2007

Wow. I didn't realize so many places took such a hardline stance. I, along with a large majority of the section/class (including the TAs, sometimes), usually have my cellphone out on the table to check time. Its always on vibrate, and its not a big deal if it goes off, as long as you catch it soon. It'd be rude to answer it (although its happened) but even getting a text & reading it quickly can be acceptable. In lecture, laptops seem to be a much bigger distraction than cellphones - one person's laptop will distract basically everyone behind them for a few rows if they're not using it for notes only.
posted by devilsbrigade at 12:49 PM on March 17, 2007

One of my professors had the rule that if your cell phone rang during class, you had to leave for the day (and wouldn't get attendance points for that day). (If it were a presentation day and the person with the ringing phone was supposed to present, they would go next and [i]then[/i] leave.)

It only happened two or three times that semester in that class, and it was very nice not to have people's cells going off all the time, so I think that policy worked pretty well. Nobody bitched about it that I know of.

This was in a regular classroom, not a lecture hall.
posted by Many bubbles at 1:05 PM on March 17, 2007

vytae: granted, there's a difference. I think context means a lot. In a big lecture hall where only your immediate neighbors can tell the difference between your crosswording and your notetaking, that's one thing. In a small classroom where everyone is sitting in a discussion circle, it's more distracting to others, and could come across as disrespectful--thus roughly equivalent to cell phone usage. (If you were in my classroom, we could perhaps reach a compromise on in-notebook doodling!)
posted by Orinda at 1:52 PM on March 17, 2007

At the high school where my partner teaches, there is a total ban on visible during classtime. If the teacher sees the phone, it's confiscated.

In general it is a very informal and flexible school, but the constant texting and the threat of being videod overrules all that. It works fine there.
posted by serazin at 2:17 PM on March 17, 2007

visible PHONES during class time. In other words, keep it off and in your bag.
posted by serazin at 2:17 PM on March 17, 2007

I do not know about the high school level, but in college I noticed a strange occurrence: as I advanced cell phones became less of an issue. They were treated in a more adult, mature manner and students acted proportionately.

I never saw a cell phone go off more than a few times and it was always by accident, the student always being embarrassed. I even saw teacher cell phones go off several times. They treated it like it was no big deal and everyone moved on. I don't ever remember them being disruptive. It only became a big deal when a teacher came in and pronounced all sorts of policies regarding cell phone usage.

Yeah there was texting and other things going on, but in a 1hr + session, not everything is incredibly important. Especially when the teacher is repeating something or having something explained you already know. If it is not texting it is drawing things in the margin or checking my e-mail.

I've also seen teachers answer their own phones in class. Again, not a big deal. It is only as bad as you make it out to be.
posted by geoff. at 2:47 PM on March 17, 2007

Generally, if students behave in a reasonable way, then I see no reason I can't reciprocate. If students occasionally forget to turn of cell phones, so be it. I'm not going to scream at someone who accidentally forgot to turn off his/her phone before class. I stop lecturing until the phone is turned off, remind students to turn off their phones while they're in class, and continue with the class. On the rare occasion someone has actually answered a phone in class, I have loudly voiced my displeasure and instructed the student to turn it off (family in hospital/someone-in-labour situations excepted). I have rarely had problems in class, and many of my students seem to be glued to their phones outside of class--but I've made my expectations clear ahead of time and then stuck to them. It's worked well for me.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 4:30 PM on March 17, 2007

At all high schools I know of, Phones are not allowed to be turned on and must not be in a student's pocket at any time during the day. Any phone sightings lead to instant confiscations.

At uni, it generally depends on the lecturers. One of my Physics lecturers used to dance whenever a phone went off, another makes snide remarks like, "You can tell so much about a person by their ringtone" (especially when a guy has a Madonna song set and it goes off) or, "His girlfriend had better be pregnant". Most just ignore it, or remind you to silence it when you come into class next time.

It really bugs me, though, when people accept calls and talk inside the lecture theatre or very loudly just outside the door. It is really distracting. But that again depends on the lecturer. Some ignore it, others ensure that the student is locked out of the room.
posted by cholly at 4:44 PM on March 17, 2007

You may be able to jam their signals. Using (maybe owning?) a jamming device is barred by FCC rules in the US, but may not be barred wherever it is you're working now. Here's an old Slate piece on cellphone jamming, including some leads for getting one of the devices.
posted by grobstein at 6:59 PM on March 17, 2007

Off, absolutely off. If a phone disrupts class once, I stop class briefly and the entire class watches the student turn it off.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 7:29 PM on March 17, 2007

You might want to point out that it's rude to other students who are having an interruption in their expensive education.
posted by theora55 at 9:10 AM on March 18, 2007

At the U where I teach, everyone knows it's 'bad' so it would be useless to put anything in the syllabus or have hardline policies or tactics. I use humour to embarrass and call attention to the offender while they desperately try to turn it off. It happens very rarely through the semester, and I don't think that any of the more drastic measures would have any more effect. Besides, from my perspective, authoritarian posturing is more of an impediment to learning than sloughing off the cellphone issue.
posted by kch at 8:40 PM on March 18, 2007