[Poser]

I love it. I forwarded it to all of the faculty members in my department.

I tried locking the door at the beginning of class. It didn't work. They pounded on the door.

Now, I give a two question quiz at the beginning of every class. Question 1: What is your name? Question 2 is usually something like: What was the topic of your reading assignment for today? Students get one minute to finish the quiz and pass it in. Students who show up late don't even know there was a quiz until I post the grades online and they have a zero.

Cell phones are never a problem. I just stop class and stare at the person ringing. They are always embarrassed and it seldom happens more than once a semester.

The bathroom breaks during a test are more troublesome. How do you tell someone who probably has diarrhea that they can't go to the toilet? I write tests that don't lend themselves to quick glances at a textbook. I always tell students to go to the bathroom and ask them to get as much Kleenex as they are going to need for the entire test before I had it out.

My students show up for accounting tests without pencils or calculators. I have a little cash box and I sell new pencils for a dime before every test. I make a buck or two each year. It's amazing how many students will show up without a pencil or a dime. Out of 86 students who took my final this fall, 12 showed up without a pencil.

[alley cat]

My students show up for accounting tests without pencils or calculators

I must be lucky. My students always bring pencils for their exams. I rarely have a ringing cell phone in class and when it happens there is a comical mad scramble by the student to turn it off.

There has been an increase in students coming in late though (the class starts at 9 a.m.) It is quite annoying and I'm going to have to do something about it.

[Allan]

Cell phones are never a problem.
I just stop class and stare at the person ringing.

You must be kidding.
I have students
who when I shout at them
just go on talking
(either on the phone,
or just to their neighbour).
I have students who talk continuously
throughout the class
every class.
If I shout at them
to tell them to shut up
they just grin,
it's all a game to them.

I recently have taken to telling students to move
as they do in high school
when they repeatedly refuse to stop talking.
(Often the noise in the classroom is so great
it almost is impossible to make myself heard).
As for coming late,
students wander in and out
at various times
but most annoying
are those students
who come in
only at the end of class
to ask what the homework assignment was.

Such is the situation
in a 'major' Canadian university.