Nothing makes quite as good a time-waster as the comment threads to posts where professors complain about students. Especially students using computers.
Janet Stemwedel: "Things observed while sitting in on colleagues’ classes."
My favorite comment, from Mike Hoye:
Here’s an exercise that may be revealing: Have somebody, maybe a student or an automated system, whatever, make a transcript of everything you said during a two or three hour lecture, verbatim. Then read it, front to back. It won’t take you three hours. It will take you fifteen or twenty minutes. That should tell you what the real information density of your lectures is like to people who used to have the option of reading other books, making doodles or just struggling to stay awake, but who now have the option of wifi.
Professor Bainbridge: "How to handle classroom chaos."
My favorite comment, from Fr. Philip:
One summer I noticed that a few students were facebooking during class. These students became my favorites for calling on to look up classical texts on-line and reading them aloud.
My attitude: I'm there for the student who wants to learn, who is the first in his family at university, and to whom the tuition money is a hardship. If any of the other students interfere with his learning, they'd better watch out for me.
