Notes

Just how to Deal with Cell Phones in School


Here's The Good, The Bad and The Solution for cell phone usage in the classroom.

There's no bigger classroom distraction when compared to a student using a phone. Teachers struggle with mobile phones in school on an everyday basis. On one hand, teachers want students to discover ways to manage their phones on their own. On one other hand, the distraction phones create may be detrimental to both students and teachers. Power struggles ensue, wasting valuable class time. As a result of this, teachers need practical and enforceable strategies for working with phones inside their classrooms.

The Good

Most schools allow students to own cell phones for safety, which seems unlikely to change provided that school shootings remain a typical occurrence. But phones aren't just tools for emergencies; they can also be valuable tools in the classroom. If there's a word or concept students doesn't understand, the student can find information instantly. Phones have calculators as well as spelling and grammar checks. Most of all, phones allow students to speak with one another and with experts in fields of interest. The question remains, however, whether the use of mobile phones in school outweighs the distraction they cause.

Further Reading: Quiz: Are You a Tech-Savvy Teacher?

The Bad

Most teachers will tell you that cell phones adversely affect learning in the classroom, and research backs that up. Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization that promotes safe technology and media for children, reported that "50 percent of teens 'feel addicted' to mobile devices." The report also stated that 78 percent of teens check their devices at the least hourly, and 72 percent of teens feel the need to immediately react to texts, messages on social networks, and other notifications. The paper also unearthed that multitasking—for example, toggling between multiple screens or between screens and people—impairs a child's ability to master and work effectively.

Students are generally highly vunerable to the forms of distractions smartphones provide. My colleague caught a student watching Grey's Anatomy during her class. Other students tweet, text, and pay attention to music when they must be on task. Based on Jeffrey Kuznekoff, who conducted a study on phone use by college students, "You're putting yourself at a disadvantage when you are actively engaged together with your mobile device in class and not engaged in what's going on." Saraswathi Bellur, a researcher at the University of Connecticut, found that multitasking in class "is likely to harm academic performance."

The Solution

Some of my fellow teachers and administrators say that students need certainly to learn how to effectively manage their phones in the classroom on their own. Personally, I think my students require a little help with this. This season, I implemented a telephone storage system within my classroom. Students were required to position their devices in a wallet using their name about it when they entered the classroom. I made this procedure an official classroom policy, and I explained my rationale to students in a frank discussion.

Parents and students both had to sign off on the policy. Storing phones was a game-changer in my own classroom. Students didn't balk at it, and they really seemed to comprehend the full time far from their phones. They realized that they may be without their phones for a whole class period without the entire world ending.

Researcher Jesper Aagaard shows that in order to pay more attention in class—or even outside school—students should make an effort to obstruct their habits by turning phones off or putting them in airplane mode to keep from constantly checking them. If you share this advice with students, it might make them to see the problem and work to alter it. When I explained the study on the negative impact of cell phones in schools to my students, they more readily agreed to store them during class.

Further reading: The Pros and Cons of Digital Tools for the Classroom

The use of cell phones in schools is not likely to disappear, so learning to effectively manage and handle them is a valuable skill for students to learn. I became more in tune with my very own mobile phone addiction through this process. Now, alongside my students, I'm working to savor my entire life without my phone somewhat more.

For more details please click on this particular link School Phone Solutions .
Here's my website: https://class5technologies.com/school-phone-systems/