Disruptive Student Behavior

In this new ProfHacker series, we take on a potentially charged subject:  disruptive student behavior in the classroom.   In this series, we will present a scenario, and we’ll offer a few suggestions from ProfHacker readers about how they might handle a similar situation.  Of course, many of the scenarios we will present are dependent upon the discipline, the class size, and the culture of an institution; we will try to include as many of these variables as we can, while understanding that we can’t account for each and every situational difference.  What we are discussing here are behaviors that– no matter the discipline or the institutional culture– impede learning for other students.  The situations are real and the respondents are real.  However, we have chosen to keep the identity of each respondent and the details surrounding each scenario anonymous.

One last caveat:  we don’t want ProfHacker to become a place to complain about students.  That is not what this series of posts attempts to do.  We want to focus on what we can do, positively and professionally, to handle the sometimes difficult situations we can have with students.

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SCENARIO:  You are lecturing in a course that requires some lecture.  You don’t lecture at every class session; you often have class sessions that center around group activities or discussion.  You have a friendly approach to your students, and they are comfortable in the course and with you.  But on this day, as you do your best to present to students information that they need, you notice Chatty Cathy and her friend Conversational Carl talking, openly and loudly.  It is clear by their body language, their laughter, and the words you overhear that they are not discussing course content.  You make eye contact, alerting them to the fact that you recognize their discussion and that you want it to stop.  They stop talking.  A few moments later, they start again; only this time, they are whispering.  You verbally ask them to stop.  You notice other students looking over at the chatty pair.  Even those evil looks do not encourage the two students to stop their banter.  They continue to talk and laugh.

RESPONSE:  Now what?  As the professor in the course, what do you do?

• Respondent #1 (female, assistant professor, humanities):  Since I have a clause in my syllabus that states that I will not tolerate disruptive student behavior, and I do consider talking while I’m lecturing a disruption, I wouldn’t think twice about asking them to take the conversation outside.   However, I’m not being as harsh as that sounds.  It’s not as if students commit one infraction of syllabus rules and they are out the door.  I feel that the students in my classes, who are traditional-aged college students (18-22), are old enough to understand and use simple courteous behavior.  If, after one explicit request to stop the disruptive behavior and after the subtle hints from their classmates to stop (as noted in the example above), then I would ask students to leave the classroom.

• Respondent #2 (male, adjunct, humanities): I had this happen just this week in one of my classes. The two women were giggling about something. I couldn’t tell if it were class-related or not. We were dealing with some material that might have made some of the students just a little bit uncomfortable–enough to make people prone to giggling nervously. I called on the two students by name and told them that they were making me feel bad since they were having a good time and I didn’t know what it was about. I then postulated that it was similar to being on a road trip with multiple cars, where there always seems to be one car in which everyone is having a really good time. That’s the “cool car.” Everyone wants to be in the cool car, as they are singing, dancing, and making in-jokes. This approach caught them off guard, and as a class we batted around experiences of not being in the “cool car” for about two minutes. Since everyone was talking more freely at that point, I then directed our attention back to the slightly uncomfortable material at hand and the conversation picked up. What I liked about this approach is that it communicated that the behavior wasn’t appropriate at the moment, but it did so without explicitly naming their behavior as bad. What’s more, it allowed me to get us even more engaged in the class discussion. It’s worth mentioning that I have a good relationship with this class, and I’m not sure if this exact approach would ever work again. But I’ve found slightly self-deprecating humor to be one of my best tools for defusing bad class behavior. (It’s of course worth noting that my particular subject position makes this approach possible where it perhaps wouldn’t be for others.)

• Respondent #3 (female, instructor, humanities):  My response would depend a bit on the personalities involved, but most of the time, I use proximity.  I walk over and stand right near the chatting pair, maybe even between them.  I continue talking to the class, so my attention is on the rest of the class, but my body language makes it clear that they need to stop talking. This works most of the time. If I’m too far away for that approach to be practical, I throw their first names into what I’m saying. For example, “Yes, you need to use documentation.  Cathy!  When you cite your sources — Carl! — be sure to use an accepted ….”  (The insertion of names into a lecture can be effective in getting them to jerk their heads up — and then they will listen carefully to figure out what the heck they missed.  But I don’t use that approach if the student involved is the class clown type who loves attention.)  With some students,  I stop and say directly, “It’s distracting to talk over your chatter.  Please stop talking while I’m trying to explain this.” Then I stare at them until they stop talking. Then I just continue on with whatever I was saying, with my attention focused on the class.  I rarely have to do that.  Usually proximity works fine. If it was a recurring problem, I’d talk to the students individually, outside of class, and explain my expectations for classroom behavior. I’ve actually never had to take it that far.

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Now, it’s your turn: How do you handle this type of behavior from students in your classroom?  Please leave suggestions in comments below.

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[Photo by Flickr user Temari09; Licensed under Creative Commons]