Teacher Mary Garza asked her pupils to leave their phones on loud while in class.
A teacher in Canada conducted an experiment about phone usage in classrooms, and while her results are not really that surprising, they are incredibly worrying.
Teacher Mary Garza asked her pupils to leave their phones on loud while in class. An unusual request, yes, but she did have a very good reason for it.
Teacher Mary Garza asked her pupils to leave their phones on loud while in class. An unusual request, yes, but she did have a very good reason for it.
Every time a phone notification went off, the pupil would then have to put a mark under the correct category for what the notification was for. The result speaks for itself.
In the space of one class which is roughly an hour long, students received a combined total of over 1,000 notifications from Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, text, email, calls and other social media platforms.
In the space of one class which is roughly an hour long, students received a combined total of over 1,000 notifications from Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, text, email, calls and other social media platforms.
That’s a notification coming in every 2.5 seconds.
So every 2.5 seconds one person in class is being distracted by their phone, which obviously impacts on their education.
Mary shared the results on Facebook and school board trustee Joe Becigneul re-shared the image on his own page.
“A teacher in the U.S. had her students turn their phones on loud, and every time they received a notification they went up and put a tally mark under the correct category,” he wrote.
So every 2.5 seconds one person in class is being distracted by their phone, which obviously impacts on their education.
Mary shared the results on Facebook and school board trustee Joe Becigneul re-shared the image on his own page.
“A teacher in the U.S. had her students turn their phones on loud, and every time they received a notification they went up and put a tally mark under the correct category,” he wrote.
“This was one class, one period. Every one of these tally marks is an interruption in a students’ education.
“Cell phones can be toxic to a learning environment. (Thank you to Mary Garza for her FB post)”
Joe’s post has been shared an incredible 136K times, with many people thanking the teacher for highlighting this issue that no doubt impacts on learning all over the world.
Many people took to Facebook to offer up their solution to the problem, including turning notifications off, putting the phone on Do Not Disturb or even banning phones from the classroom completely.
“In my school in Verona, Italy cell phones are banned and if students are caught using them, they are confiscated, parents advised and held with the Secretary,” shared a follower.
Many people took to Facebook to offer up their solution to the problem, including turning notifications off, putting the phone on Do Not Disturb or even banning phones from the classroom completely.
“In my school in Verona, Italy cell phones are banned and if students are caught using them, they are confiscated, parents advised and held with the Secretary,” shared a follower.
In this technological, device-driven world, it not unusual for a child to have their own phone. In fact, phones can be incredibly beneficial, especially if your child has to make their own way to and from school.
However, there does need to be some kind of rule in place about having them in classrooms, where the child should be focused on learning and not on what notification they receive on Facebook.
Are you surprised by the results of the experiment?
