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"Haha! That's gross. Did you give him the evil eye?"

It's a trick I learned from John Conroy, who used to sing the national anthem before our college hockey games. He didn't sing very well, but he couldn't stand the bad band recording so he offered his services. He sang it for many years.

John would step out onto the ice with a microphone and stand there quietly until every single one of the 5,000 fans shut up. Absolute silence. The pressure on anyone making noise was stunning. Then, he would sing badly, without accompaniment. After singing, he would go back to the dairy barns and listen to the game on the radio. He couldn't see well enough to watch the game in person.

That technique works almost perfectly in the classroom. The students know that I will not continue until they shut up. They also know that I will not dismiss them until I am done with the day's material.

Every three or four years, I have a student that ignores the evil stare method. For them, I use the Ron Palermo (former MLB umpire) method. I point at them with my index finger and say, "You! You are gone!" while motioning with my thumb over my shoulder. You can drop your thumb like a hammer on a gun at the same time for emphasis. I've never had to throw more than one student out of class in any given semester.

I have another good suggestion for when you see a student looking at another's test. Divide the grade by two with a brief note that says, "It took two people to take your test so I divided the grade by two." It puts a quick end to rubbernecking. Word gets around fast.

They also know that I will not dismiss them until I am done with the day's material.

I've had professors that pull that little trick. When there's ten minutes between classes and you have to get from one side of the university to the other, it's a lot of fun. And the students are blamed for being late!

It's even more fun waiting half an hour, regularly, for someone else to get out of class, like I did when my sister and I carpooled last semester... her math professor routinely kept them until 9:45 pm, when the class dismissed at 9.