How should I handle students who are very disengaged in class?

Question

I teach undergraduate mathematics. This semester, I started walking around the classroom while using an iPad to write (to the screen) during lectures. This allows me to notice that a few students are not paying attention and doing all sorts of things on their laptops, sometimes even watching YouTube videos right in front of me. I wonder what the best approach would be to handle such students. I see a few options:

1. Completely ignore them and focus on students who are engaged and there to study.
2. Be more direct and ask them to answer questions in class.
3. Invite them to office hours to understand why they attend class but do not engage. (Note: I do not enforce attendance.)

What would you suggest based on your experience?

Answer 1

I've discussed the following elsewhere here. It was CS, but, I think, fundamentally the same.

Many (most?) people have a sort of natural ability in some subjects and it gets them through school to some level. But it ends for nearly all (all?) at some point. Such people have no real need to "learn how to learn". And, seeing something once or twice is all they need to pass the required exams. But then, they hit the wall. Some fail completely at this point and I think that the later they learn the following lessons the harder it is to recover, though I have no experimental evidence of this.

I noticed the same behavior you describe in a class. I asked one of the students why he wasn't taking notes and he pointed to his head, indicating no need. I thought about that for a while and decided that the behavior was self defeating and self limiting, so I spent a class period changing the rules.

Being tenured (and trusted by chair and dean), I first scared them a bit by suggesting that if they weren't really interested in learning the material then we could all agree that they would get F's and could then spend their time elsewhere doing other things that mattered more to them. This caused a bit of a stir in the halls as you would guess, and I don't recommend it for everyone. And a chat with the department head would probably be wise before trying anything like this.

But, I also taught them how to take notes in class and to work to capture the most important messages. I like index cards for big ideas, since they can be carried about for review, shuffled, sorted, combined, extended (if not filled up initially), etc. I bought a big set of cards and handed out a small deck and a rubber band to each student.

For a few weeks, I would end lectures a few minutes early and ask, either specific students or generally, "What is a big idea from today's lecture?", having told them I was expecting up to three such big ideas captured on their index cards. I would agree publicly or not.

I would also start each lecture with the same question-response system. A former teacher (this was math) would start each and every lecture with a five minute quiz based entirely on the previous lecture: "Please take out a sheet of paper...". We hated that guy, but the "stick" was effective even though those quick quizzes were a minor part of the grade.

Learning requires reinforcement and feedback. Few people learn with a single introduction to a big idea. To learn actually requires rewiring the brain (hence repetition/reinforcement). And we sometimes make mistakes in our integration (hence feedback).

See The Art of Changing the Brain by James E Zull for a run-down on the science behind the reinforcement/rewiring/feedback ideas.

See also: Active Learning in general, and how to foster and require it.

Notes: You can't ethically ignore the inactive students. You still have a responsibility for their learning, while still recognizing that some students just won't care or respond.

I'd suggest requiring attendance. If the scale is right, you can also use other active learning ides such as pairing (tripling) students to explore ideas, etc.

If you have a doctorate in math, note that most of your students are not like yourself: driven to learn math. Many students take a few math courses for other purposes and are perfectly satisfied with a modest grade.

Answer 2

My general feeling on this follows three stages:

1. Is there a reason that they are not engaging, that we might be able to solve together? There might be accessibility needs, or they might be struggling, perhaps missed some early material, and have given up. So it's worth reaching out. If numbers permit it may be worth a private conversation, or there might be a personal tutor or similar role who can do this.

2. Are they disturbing others and impacting their learning? (e.g., youtube videos might have this effect if not in the back row) If so, you have to stomp on this.

3. At the end of the day they are adults, and if they want to spend huge amounts of money and time to be there and then not pay attention, that is up to them. If there's no underlying issue (or there is and they have rejected attempts to help), and it isn't bothering anybody else... at some point it isn't your problem any more.

Answer 3

I've done fine with your option #1 -- not doing anything (*). One reason is that we don't know why they aren't paying attention, and those reasons are different. Some know the basics and are waiting for the harder stuff. Some need the class to be considered full-time but plan to actually pass it next semester. And so on. But the main reason to do nothing is that there are always more productive things I could be doing: thinking about how to add common student Q's to the lecture for next semester, writing new assignments, new test questions, checking whether I need to slow down or review, writing up plagiarism ... . There's only so much time and worrying about a few people who aren't asking for help and who know my office hours if they do is at the far end of the effort vs. results curve.

(*) Well, I do one thing about not-paying-attention students. In my first day lecture I say "it's fine to show up and just keep an ear open while you do something else, but try not to distract other people, so sit near the back or sides". Which means the other thing I do is to treat them like normal students. No glaring or snide remarks. I want them to know that if they finally engage, I won't embarrass them.

Answer 4

One of my sister's undergrad math professors had a rather unorthodox and creative method of encouraging student engagement: He announced in class orientation that each lecture would contain one intentional lie, and they should be alert to spot it.

In the first few lectures, the lie was something obvious, and the students immediately called it out. The professor congratulated them for getting it right, and moved on with the lecture.

As the semester went on, the lies got more subtle, and increasingly often they would reach the end of the lecture with no one having spotted the lie. Whenever this happened, the students were tasked with figuring out the lie using their notes, and the next lecture began with a discussion of what the missed lie had been.

Then, late in the semester, there came a lecture where no one in the class could identify the lie, despite many hours spent scouring their notes for discrepancies or anything that wasn't properly supported by its explanation. At the beginning of the next lecture, the professor revealed that there was no lie in that lecture. The statement in orientation that every lecture would contain a lie had, itself, been the orientation lecture's lie. That particular lecture was chosen to be the singular lie-free lecture because it covered the most difficult and important topic in the course, and getting the students to put in lots of effort searching for a lie in it that wasn't there resulted in them learning the material of that lecture very thoroughly.

I think the elements of this method that made it so effective are that it made the class more interactive, in a fun sort-of-game-like way, that required strong comprehension of the material to engage with. Giving the students a regular opportunity to call out their teacher likely also added to its appeal for the students.

Answer 5

Your suggestion labeled #2 is an interesting one:

Be more direct and ask them to answer questions in class.

It's worth asking yourself, "How am I motivating my students to pay more attention in class?" If you tend to lecture for 50 minutes straight without ever asking them to contribute, and then you post your lecture notes online after class, then your easily-distracted students are more likely to get easily distracted.

I don't think you'll ever eliminate this problem completely, but a more Socratic approach when you strategically call on students to do some talking can go a long way into increasing attentiveness, particular if students notice that watching YouTube videos makes them more likely to be called on.

That said, I'd advise against calling on students simply as a punitive measure for not paying attention. Instead, ask yourself how you can make your time in the class more interactive and engaging for all students.

Answer 6

This is a partial answer, to complement the other ones here.

As someone who's been on his laptop and even slept during classes he absolutely loved (and also taken intense notes in other classes) and who turned out just fine academically:

Your first step (after ensuring they aren't being disruptive) should be to observe how those students are doing academically. If they're doing fine, let them be. Doing anything else will do nothing other than embarrass them and achieve absolutely nothing positive; in fact, it might make them resent you or skip lecture entirely.

You have to realize, some people are just stronger in some classes. Maybe the material comes naturally to them, maybe they already have a lot of background in that area, or maybe they've looked at the lectures ahead of time... there are a million reasons not everyone will need an equal amount of attention to the same material you're teaching at that point in time.

Your job is to teach, not to make sure people are paying attention. If you find that they're not learning adequately, then your second step should be to figure out how to handle that -- and, for that, I defer to the other answers.

But please don't skip the step of figuring out "is there an actual problem here to solve". Don't solve what's not broken; you'll only make it worse.

Answer 7

As others have pointed out, there can be good reasons to pay only a bit attention like they already know the general topic but don't want to miss when something new comes up.
It can be very boring when you are taught to something which you already know.

As long as they don't affect other students I see no problem in ignoring them.

There is one point to consider:
A university usually has some better places where you can watch a YouTube video than a class room with a lecturing teacher. They have a reason to be in your class room.

If you get the chance, kindly ask them in person after the class why they attend your class.
You may get confirmation with the prospect that they will pay more attention on the next upcomming topic.
If they don't have a reason and just sit through the hour then they may think twice before they do this again.

A casual talk may be less intimidating than when you invite them to office ours.