How to Prevent Cell Phones in Class

To the Editor:

While I agree with James M. Lang’s and Kristi Rudenga’s four point advice essay on how to “broadcast your teaching excellence with a well-structured class” (“They’re Watching You Teach,” January 31), I’d add one more: telling students to put their cell phone away, not just simply next to them on the desk, but in their book bags. As someone who has been involved in many teaching observations, I frequently see students use their cell phones during lectures. To me this is an indication that the instructor has lost control of these students and obviously, the learning process has been impeded. As such, this becomes a criticism on my written report of the teaching observation. So a word of advice, always tell your students to put their cell phones away at the beginning of each lectures and include this as a policy (“The use of cell phones during lectures is strictly prohibited.”) in your syllabus. I realize that many of us do not want to police cell phone usage, but as instructors who want our students to learn, we need compliance and thus, we need to enforce a no cell phone use policy during lectures. Once you do it a few times, it will become a habit, something that you do at the beginning of each lecture and believe me, it will make your lives easier in the classroom. Lastly, when I catch a student violating my cell phone policy, I stop the lecture and I speak for about 2-3 minutes on addiction to electronic devices and how I find it personally disrespectful. Next comes a stern warning that I will not tolerate continuous violation of my no cell phone use policy in class. From there on, it rarely happens! So, happy teaching with no cell phone interruptions.

Michael Hadjiargyrou
Professor, Biological & Chemical Sciences
New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine