How to Develop a Cell Phone Policy with Your Students

 

Most teachers that I know have a love/hate relationship with cell phones.

They’re powerful tools that make our lives easier and allow us to share and access information quickly. They can also be helpful in the classroom, allowing students to do research and photograph their work.

However, cell phones are also districting.

I’ve never found a strict no cell phone policy to work, and in fact, often it doesn’t make sense, as sometimes you’ll need/want students to use their phone to quickly look something up, or to snap a photo of their work to add it to their digital portfolio.

Create a cell phone policy WITH your students.

Bringing students into the conversation about when cell phones should be used, and when they should be tucked away, gives them more ownership. It also allows for important conversations about the impact that phones have on our lives. Students can learn how being on their phone all of the time makes them appear rude and uninterested.

Get your year off to a smooth start, by developing a cell phone policy with your students. You may decide to have a different policy for each class ( personally I find that too confusing), or work to develop one overarching policy. After having students complete reflection questions, you could take a step farther and have them create works of art related to cell phone usage.

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Below are examples of student work, telling the story about the impact that technology has on our lives.