


Administrators sometimes double up students in computer classrooms. That means that two students sit at each computer and they take turns typing. This cuts back on the number of computer workstations required and a smaller room is required. So it's less expensive to teach the class. That's just what administrators are looking for.
Students also like it to some degree because it gives them an opportunity to socialize with the partner. I guess the socialization is practically inevitable in a classroom in which two students are sitting at one workstation. After all, they shouldn't even be expected to ignore each other.
Teachers on the other hand, hate it. They hate it because one student is always idle while the other one is working, and because the students are doing what they should be expected to do. They are socializing during class instead of listening to the teacher and at least 50% of the students aren't working because the partner is working.
Even under ideal conditions you would not expect 100% of the students to be working at their computers 100% of the time. So, that reduces the percentage even more and we will let the reader guess what the real percentage is of students who are actually working. 40%? 30%? All because the students doubled up. It would be much wiser instead to have one student at each workstation.
More articles about teaching computers
More articles about computerization
Find out about Jewish and Hebrew forums
Are you required to read this article for a course? Do NOT print out the article. It is copyrighted.
Your exercise for this article is as follows:
Copyright © David Grossman. World rights reserved. This article may not be printed, forwarded, reproduced, or copied in any way or in any medium without written permission from David Grossman.