Scott Alexander

Scott writes, If I'd known I was going to write this post, I would have saved the dozens of similar claims I've come across recently.

As it is, I'll just have to hope that you've seen them too.

Hilarious lists seven causes, which separate into three groups.

The first root cause group is COVID.

Faculty lowered standards when things were genuinely tough.

Then students pushed back when they tried to raise standards again, so the new low standards got locked in.

The second is general technology.

Teachers started giving lectures on PowerPoint.

They sent out the slides afterwards to help people study.

Students figured they could skip the lectures and read the slides instead.

There are plenty of ways to use technology to get learning experiences which are easier than the real thing, and 80% is good.

But when you get too reliant on them, you learn 20% less.

But the third is screens.

Bookbinder writes, quote, students are pretending to type notes in their laptops.

I hate laptops in class, but if I try to ban them, the students will just run to accommodative services and get them to tell me that the student must use a laptop or they will explode into tiny pieces.

But I know for a fact that note-taking is at best a small part of what they're doing.

Last semester I had a good student tell me, hey, you know that kid who sits in front of me with a laptop?

Yeah, I thought you should know that all he does in class is gamble on his computer.

Gambling, looking at the socials, whatever.

They're not listening to me or participating in discussion.