First Week Reflections
Reactions
The first week of class is done, and it was a success! I found myself more nervous than usual on day one because I was anticipating pushback—or, at the very least, disgruntled attitudes—regarding my tech-minimal policy. I was pleasantly surprised by my first-year writing students’ reactions to my tech and in-class writing policies. Of my sixteen students, I didn’t perceive any disdain, and I didn’t observe anyone pull a face (which is what I might have done if I was in their shoes).
Conversely, students in my senior interdisciplinary honors capstone did pull some faces at my tech-minimal policy. While my seniors don’t have in-class writing requirements, a few lightly scoffed at the computer-free policy and I received a good number of questions about having to print (gasp!) two copies of project drafts for in-class peer review.
Even though some of the seniors were displeased with their limited access to technology, the freshmen didn’t show any qualms with being off-screen. The freshmen were, however, lightly concerned about my ungrading assessment approach—which is both fair and unsurprising, considering many students at this T20 school are grade-motivated.
Responses
In the first week, our WPA sent out an email offering Registrar-scheduled testing times for first-year writing because so many instructors are assigning in-class essays this semester. It seems many writing instructors share my concerns about integrity and critical thinking in this AI-driven age. It’s incredibly disheartening when you do everything you can to convince students not to use AI, only to spend hours identifying AI essay after AI essay.
My students’ neutral reactions to the in-class writing policy—coupled with general AI outrage, like students booing pro-AI commencement speakers during the Spring 2026 graduation season—indicate that some of them might be welcoming a restrictive approach to AI. Less opportunity to use AI means less temptation.
Reality
I felt generally prepared for my first week, having thought through a variety of ways students might push back against my tech-minimal policies. I didn’t have to employ many of my practiced anti-tech-in-the-classroom arguments, likely, in part, because it’s the first week of class and I’m teaching first-year students. I made sure to develop robust lesson plans with in-class activities and worksheets to keep students occupied and off their devices, which worked for the most part.
One element of limiting tech in the classroom that I didn’t anticipate are the awkward in-between moments when some students are done with their worksheets and others are still writing. For people my age and older, we had to learn to sit and be bored, stare out the window, daydream, and doodle while waiting for classmates to finish. Indeed, one of my good friends is a therapist, and she has guest lectured in my previous courses about how Gen Z lacks the ability to regulate themselves when bored because they are usually able to turn to a device to ward off boredom. Not only does this habit stifle one’s ability to emotionally regulate, it also shirks a very normal human state of existence: boredom.
But I digress. I didn’t think about what students could do in the awkward in-between. I decided, in the moment, that students can be on their phones (not computers) if they finish a worksheet before their peers. This keeps them entertained, scratches a device itch, and allows for me to see when students are done with an activity so we can move on. I’m not sure if I’ll keep this policy in place, but it seems like a happy compromise for now.
Other than the phones-after-worksheets-are-done and the surprisingly neutral reactions to my new in-class policies, there wasn’t much that caught me off guard this week. I have a chatty group of students, which serves my active-learning teaching style well. Overall, I’m feeling optimistic for the coming weeks!