The Class lasting an Eternity

 

Have you ever wondered what happens behind the scenes of a two and a half hour class or lecture? A CCNY student by the name of Arun Madhar went undercover to a Neurology class about drug abuse and addiction. The class takes place from 9:30 AM to 12:00 PM at Aronov theater on Fridays. The theater is able to hold 380 students and almost all of the seats were filled. The purpose of the assignment is to do a field study in a classroom in CCNY. Luckily, I was able to go without anybody noticing me because there were too many students to keep track of who was who and my field study wouldn’t have much bias. 

 

Upon entering the lecture hall and taking my seat, which was four rows away from the very back, I noticed that the instructor was an old woman who was handicapped and needed assistance in her wheelchair. She was accompanied by a woman who appeared to be a college student that escorted her to different places. She sat in the front of the stage accompanied by two men. One was a TA for the class, who looked like a college student. The other man appeared to be in his mid 30s or 40s and he had grey hair as well. 

The classroom was structured in a way where everyone had their phones and laptops out and they were following along as the instructor went over what was on the smartboard in the front. 

They were learning about the brain-reward system of dopamine and the functions some parts of the brain have. The first 30 minutes of class I was trying to adjust to the new environment and atmosphere. 

 

Around 10, I asked the man next to me what the syllabus was. He was wearing a sweater, black glasses and earpods in his ear, not too loud presumably since he responded to me. He also showed me the class schedule. The class is 2 and a half hours but 100 percent of the class grade is exams. I asked him if he was liking the class so far and he said “It’s an easy A but it gets boring and I get tired around 12”. We stopped talking after this and started paying attention to the front. As I was looking forward, my corner eye was distracted by a laptop in front of me, which was showing a movie. The person was wearing a black hoodie with earbuds in. Meanwhile in the front, a girl is answering a question that the professor is giving. She was wearing glasses and a purple sweater. 

 

Now it is 10:45 and the TA is speaking about what to study for the upcoming test. He said that chapters 1-5 are on the exam and that he is going to post some diagrams that can aid students for the exam. Also, the exams are all online and the tests are open books. At this point in time, I looked around all directions and the students looked like zombies. I felt like I was at a concert as everyone had a phone on them as well as laptops. There were a lot of instagrams, snapchats, videos, earpods and earbuds in the room. The TA and professor both tried to take things slow so that the class  could understand the lesson and they said they weren’t going to make the course hard as it was an intro class. 

 

It is now 11:25 and I feel like a zombie. It has been almost 2 hours of this class and at this point it is hard to stay focused on what is going on in the room. For the most part, there are a certain few, particularly in the front who are participating by asking and answering questions. The rest of the class is tired and they are either sleeping, listening to the professor or on their devices. After 10 minutes or so the professor is wrapping up the lesson allowing some studying time while she is having the students go and write their attendance in sign up sheet in the front. I stayed seated while students went up in groups from the back to the front. The class ends early at 11:45 so that the students could reach their next 12:00 class if they have one. 

 

Within these 2 and a half hours, I learned that the students will pay attention at some point in the beginning but then lose their focus. Also, students who sat in the front were a lot more aware and focused compared to the students who sat in the middle or back. If you give students the ability to use their phones or laptops, they will either use it to follow the lesson or they will get distracted on other tasks, where the latter is more likely.