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How to deal with students who are regularly late?
I teach a class that starts at 8:30 AM. Some students come late almost every day, usually 5 to 10 minutes late. In the past, I tried punishing late students by making them sing a song or blocking the door with a desk. But those methods did not work well.
How do you handle students who are regularly late to class? I am thinking of giving a quick quiz at the start using an online poll tool. Students who are on time would get bonus points, but late students would miss out.
——
Just to clarify. I have asked late student to sing only once and I had blocked the door also just once. The way I did it is obvious intended as a joke. The student who sung (Happy Birthday) found it quite funny afterwards. Blocking the door poses no safety risk at all. It is very easy to bypass.
But from your reactions I do realize the pettiness of my behaviour and feel ashamed. I shall refrain from using any sort of penalties to enforce punctuality.
I will leave the post here as a cautionary tale for anyone who has similar thoughts.

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making them sing a song or blocking the door with a desk

Sorry, what? This is absolutely not how one should show respect to another human being and make them feel welcome and included.
Requesting a student to sing a song is public humiliation. Blocking a door is creating a fire hazard. Where I work, both are considered bad enough to potentially cost the lecturer their work. What is even more disturbing, that you obviously do not see a problem in your own actions and discuss only their effectiveness, not the damage they cause to the mental health of students and to the public image of the institution you work for.
I hope you reconsider your relations with students urgently. They are adults, and it is your job to help them learn without damaging their self-respect and integrity. The little power you have in your class should be grounded in mutual respect, not fear, and should be used to help them, not punish them.
Please do better.

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I sympathise with this answer but it seems excessively harsh on the OP, who is after all seeking out advice on how to act appropriately as a lecturer. Please consider your own advice and help OP to learn without damaging their self-respect.

@user2390246 A lecturer (any lecturer, no just OP) is in position of power in relation to students. With great power comes great responsibility. I am not in a similar position of power in relation to OP. I am not asking OP to sing, and I can't shut a door to academia.SE for them. Moreover, I am not forcing them to read nor accept my answer. And no, I beg to differ, the original question of OP was not on how to act appropriately as a lecturer, but on how to control the classroom attendance more efficiently.

@DmitrySavostyanov Apologies if my implied comparison between you and OP was unhelpful. You are quite right, your level of responsibility to "help OP to learn without damaging their self-respect" is not as great as theirs towards their students. It's still an option open to you though.

This is a non-answer. OP asked how to handle students showing up late.

As you stated in a comment, the issue to be discussed here are not the students being late, but

I am just always annoyed by people who are late.

They may have thousands of reasons to be late:

if it happens only rarely, it may be public transport or similar;
if it happens sytematically, they may have an unsolvable schedule clash, anything  ranging from breast-feeding to having to report to a police station every day.

In any case, it is nothing of your concern.
If you feel disrespected by them being late, do not worry: the ones finding your lessons boring or uninteresting are already sitting silently in the room and being annoyed by your "solutions" to the issue.
It may be that when you were a student being late at a lesson was the worst of the possible sin and crime against the socially accepted behavior you could commit, and you feel entitled to hold this system of moral values and therefore you are extremely annoyed by those buggers being late. My advice for you is not to base your current behavior on past social rules.

I think that is a mental problem but it can not be recognized as a mental problem. Obviously no society can systematically tolerate similar systematic late guys.

I was regularly late to a German class at university.  Although the lecturer made sarcastic comments at times, I explained that it was because of the bus schedule that stopped me from being exactly on time.

transit might also be systematic, since often schedules are such that you either arrive too early or a little late, and the 10' missed are not worth the 30' less sleep

Look, I'm one of those people that is often late, and was late very, very often in the past. I really could not understand other people's annoyance. And no, my being late only very lately had some reasonable explanation like breast feeding or bus-schedule. Some people are just bad with timing and/or do not see the importance. That is how it is and embarrassing them may help. A little.

As a student who struggled with undiagnosed ADHD through college, I was regularly late for classes. I did not want to be late, I felt bad about being late, I was embarrassed by being late, and yet I continued to be late because "feeling bad" and "trying harder" weren't the solutions to my situation. If a student is chronically late, and you have genuine concern for them, you could approach them with empathy - privately, after class or in email, mention that you have noticed they are regularly late, and if there's anything you can do to help. Doing this non-judgmentally may be difficult!

@peterh I agree, I think you striked a big point. I would even extend further your thinking, a society that shows such a low level of empathy, as the one you describe, has clearly much bigger mental problem than systematically late people.

@EarlGrey Ok but they regularly annoy the class. I am on the sucking side here, because obviously it did not make me popular in the views of the teachers, but I must admit that it obviously not the same level of study (and later, work) as with a healthy brain. To me, it was like a holy fight, to become more... "trustable". Because that is how it was always perceived. That I am intrustable. And I have mostly lost. But I think I am much better that I have always fought.

@EarlGrey Btw, I remember as an elementary school, as a kid. I had a lightly autistic classmate. The teachers regularly punished, humiliated him. Not because they had been evil, they did it as discipline. Because nothing about autism was known yet at the time, and the teachers considered his behavior as intentional bad behavior. I know only decades later that he was autistic........... and I can not do anything. I could have became his helper friend, instead I only harmed him............ probably the teachers feel the same, hundred times stronger.

Record your classes and allow students to catch up on video later.  That way if they can't make it in on time, they can stay at home without disturbing anybody.
I tend to start my 9am lectures at 9:10 because students do have difficulty with public transport at rush hour.
People tend to be night-owls when they are young and progressively "morning people" as they get older.  Academics ought to be aware that most students will be young people and not at their best at 8:30.  It isn't their fault, it is biology and we should be understanding of other people and considerate of their problems.  I'm the other way round, the students would need to cut me some slack if I have to teach after 5pm, when I am tired.

I think being young does not mean that they are not in their best at 8:30. I could be my best at 7:00 - if I did not slept at the night and drunk a liter of caffee. There was no other option, if I have fallen asleep, I could wake up about at 9:00.

@peterh Many sleep researchers believe there are biological reasons for why teenage students struggle to function in the mornings, and even that early morning routines are deleterious to young people's health, so have campaigned for school start times to be put back. https://theconversation.com/the-biological-reason-why-its-so-hard-for-teenagers-to-wake-up-early-for-school-88802

One of my lecturers ended his lectures at (T+1hr) sharp, with no time for questions, but started his lectures 10 min late, and that was the time to ask questions etc. Which meant latecomers had some catch-up time, while also, there was a point in being on time.

Ignore it.
Also, if you have some attendance requirement, drop that as well (if you have the power to do so). That way students aren't compelled to get there when they know they'll be delayed; they can just skip the class, and so avoid annoying/distracting you with the late entry.

This is probably good for lecture style courses where you have a recording available, but otherwise, it may be better for have students to come anyway and still learn something if they are late, rather than skip the class and learn nothing.

@Daniel, to me, that’s the student’s responsibility. The being an adult goes both ways. With that said, I would intentionally skip some classes as I found it easier to teach myself. In other cases, if I had to drive for 40 minutes for one class, I’d like to avoid it if possible. In most instances I got good grades. Point is, generally, you don’t need to know the reasons for tardiness or absence as a professor. The key importance is that the students learn and complete the class. If they fail due to such behavior, that’s on them just as well.

@JarrodChristman while I agree with what you say for the majority of students, there are some where it is not so clear, e.g. students with mental (or physical) health issues, mature students with childcare responsibilities (ideally lectures should be timetabled where possible with that in mind - for the lecturer as well), or increasingly students that are having to work full time jobs to be able to afford to study.  Very different when I was a student and had a grant.  I record my lectures for those students.  Fully agree with "ignore it".

@JarrodChristman My (intended) point was that you should avoid creating an incentive for late students to skip the class entirely, such as a discouraging late entry. I agree that a student can decide if they would be better off staying home, but I think it is often better to encourage (but not enforce) late students to come anyway - or at least not be afraid to do so.

Personally, I think you should not deal with them at all.  I expect they're all adults and entering quietly and trying not to disturb.
For some lectures I had, the door would be closed / locked a few minutes after the nominal starting time.  Students who are more than a few minutes late would then have to wait for the lecture break (~5 minutes after 45 minutes) to get in.  This requires you have doors that can be locked in a way such that people can get out but not in, as otherwise (such as blocking it with a desk) it would be a safety hazard indeed.
This serves two purposes: it acts as a mild punishment for the late students, and it means the lecture is not disturbed by the late-comers.
I don't think you need to do so.

When I was a student and we had a lecturer acting like you described, we agreed that late-comers would knock on the door and students inside would come and open the door for them. The lecturer can go nuts, if they want, but we won't allow them to deny our classmates access to their place of learning only because a bus was late or whatever. Life is hard enough for everyone, and we should be helping each other, not protecting our little space of comfort at the disproportionate expense of others.

I think it is a bad solution, because there are two things to learn from life:

you may be late, but if you are late it is your problem, no one is forcing you to be here now;
you are sitting at a lecture and you are distracted by someone entering late ... please learn how to be focused. Modern life is full of distraction.

@EarlGrey But isn't lecturer creating one more distraction by blocking the door or asking students to sing? It takes latecomer 10 seconds to quietly enter the class and sit down. This is a minor issue. But as the student tries to deal with obstacles created by lecturer it will inevitably be more distracting to the whole class. Obviously, if you aim  to create a distraction-free environment, you are not achieving it.

@DmitrySavostyanov hey, I agree with you, I think this is a bad solution, on par with half of the (ineffective) solution proposed by OP.

@EarlGrey Sorry, I might have misunderstood the nuances of the tone of your suggestion

I could not lock the doors.

@DmitrySavostyanov I actually agree it's a bad solution.  Edited to clarify that I wouldn't do this myself.

Some students will be systematically late for reasons that may be protected by local anti-discrimination laws, and/or by Individual Learning Plans (or local equivalent) issued by your university's accessibility or disability service. Mobility issues, medical need to use the toilet, breast-feeding schedule... the idea of locking such students out of classes could well be on legally sketchy ground.

@Silverfish: (Us-specific response): This policy doesn't strike me as discriminatory.  Further, the US only mandates ILP plans for K-12 (via the IDEA act): Colleges are not required to offer ILP plans.  That being said, US students would still be protected by the ADA, which requires accomodation for disabilities and the like.  A school could easily handle a student's accomodation request by outright forbidding this policy (or at least, only allowing it on exam days).

@Brian I suspect some trans-Atlantic confusion of terminology here - what you're calling an "ILP" for school (up to age 18) students would be an "IEP" (Individual Education Plan) or "PLP" (Personal Learning Plan) in the UK. No idea what the US equivalent of a UK "ILP" is - but essentially it's the way universities here lay out a student's accommodation arrangements. (Not necessarily an accommodation request - the arrangements are based on an assessment by the university's disability or inclusion service & can cover things the student themselves wouldn't have asked for!)

In a UK context, I would be very surprised locking doors to a lecture theatre didn't constitute indirect discrimination (which is illegal) against people with a protected characteristic:  both disability and pregnancy/maternity are protected, and clearly people with those characteristics could be put at "particular disadvantage" by such a measure. IANAL but there is EHRC guidance: https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/what_equality_law_means_for_you_as_an_education_provide_further_and_higher_education.pdf

@Silverfish: You're right.  K-12 in the US is also called an IEP.  I misinterpretted your phrase "Individual Learning Plan" as being some sort of UK way of describing an "Individualized Education Plan."

I assume that you are primarily concerned about your students reaching the learning goals of your course and properly assessing whether they did (be it via points, exams, etc.).
If your class and assessment are reasonably geared towards that goal, missing out on what you teach during class should be “punishment” enough¹.
Still, it’s unavoidable that some students show up late. These broadly fall into two cases:

Students who do not care. The most direct reason is that they do not feel that your class benefits them. This may be due to bad teaching, bad priorities, but it may also simply be that these students learn better by using textbooks or other material, with no fault on your side. Either way, focussing on the lateness will achieve very little here. If anything, using the entire time allotted to your class well should be the best motivator to make these students appear on time.

Students who are fully aware how bad being late is for them. These usually do not need additional motivation to overcome whatever reason they have for being late. They probably want as little attention as possible so they can focus on making the additional effort required to keep up.

In both cases, hardly any student will be motivated to appear on time by receiving negative attention in class. Rather, students will skip the class completely to avoid this attention – which is the last thing you should want.

¹ I am aware that some systems prevent you from doing this. For example if you have to treat students as customer royalty that cannot fail due to missing the learning target except for extreme cases. In such cases, enforcing attendance may be one of the few ways that ensures that bad students at least learn something. But then you should check what options your university provides for this.

Don't do anything at all. Yes, there is an element of disruption, but that is probably inescapable, anyway. The fact that they'll miss the beginning of the class' content is their own problem. Possibly involuntary, but, still, ...
Seriously, I'd advise against any frame of mind in which you have either an obligation or authority to hassle the kids about punctuality. Maybe in high school (k-12), but, at a certain point, just let it go.
... also, do not give advice about (to-me-hilarious) 20-something fashion choices. "It's fine. Nevermind." :)

I could not help but feel for you. When I give classes (University), I always start with a quick and easy 5-minute quiz on what was seen during the previous week. It motivates/rewards students to be there on-time and keeps most of them somewhat up-to-date. Some students won't care and there is not much to be done about those anyway. They tend to be the ones not showing up for exams and failing the class. Regards.

I disagree with the other answers suggesting ignoring the issue, but I agree that punishment is not appropriate. In discussion based classes where students are expected to participate or interact with their peers, late students waste class time and impede the learning of others. Often this is because they miss foundational information at the start of class, so they do not follow the rest and cannot complete exercises or work with others.
Ideally though, it's better change your course to support students - instead of expecting students to change to fit your course. A few approaches I've found to be helpful:

Start the class with review of the previous class, an exam question prep, or logistics information (that you also communicate another way). Hopefully this reduces the impact on student participation.

Try to request your class be given a later start time, or is located centrally on your campus. Some institutions have more flexibility with this - especially if you tell your scheduler that you are running a discussion based class.

A quiz at the start of class is a good option if you still find that missing the start of class impedes student learning. Make the quiz helpful to students as well - either something to help them review for exams or practice a skill. And make sure to give feedback on the assessment.

Add participation as a component to the students grade, and reduce this score for late students. Only do this if students participating is actually an important component of the class. Watching you lecture is not participating.

I seriously disagree with many of the answers others have posted here, but I'm guessing that some of that is because of differences in countries, cultures, circumstances, etc.  This answer really nails my feelings though!  Yes, "late students waste class time and impede the learning of others." I handle with this mostly by doing #1 with a little bit of #4.

Why is this a problem? Why is it your problem?
Start the class on time. If a student misses something because they're late, and has to make extra effort to catch up, that is sufficient discouragement. The question is only whether they learn the material and pass the test, however they achieve that.
(Note that "Start the meeting on time and people will learn not to be late if the meeting matters to them" is the business world's standard advice for dealing with late arrivals. Probably your deparment's too, or it should be.)
If they are being actively disruptive when they come in, address that. But simply entering should not be considered disruptive. It won't significantly distract the class if you're doing your job as an educator.
If it disrupts your focus, that means you need to improve your teaching skills and learn how to ignore the irrelevant.
Stop trying to fix it, because you can't. Stop stressing about it, because that does nobody any good. Just teach the material. Punctuality or lack of it, if it matters at all in the student's future life, is Not Your Responsibility.
Part of being a student is learning how to manage time. But that's not on the curriculum for your class. Don't waste everyone's time teaching it or testing it.
Your misplaced irritation disrupts the experience of the other students  more than the late arrival ever could. Let go of it. Seriously.

I'd just like to throw something out from a disability perspective:
Sometimes (probably most of the time) students are late because of oversleeping, poor schedule management, etc. But it is extremely hard to design a policy to enforce on-time attendance that:
a) Does not penalize anyone with mobility issues
b) Does not single out anyone with mobility issues, by openly waiving the penalty
I've been the student hobbling into class late - not because my timing was off, but because I set my alarm to get me to class assuming that I'd wake up able to walk, which was a reasonable assumption when I went to bed. Or because class schedules were drawn up with "regular healthy person walking speeds" in mind.
There was a lecturer who would shut the doors on the dot, and I'd have to knock on them when late. He'd let me in, but bar other students, and I ended up feeling awful about his class. Dropped it as soon as I could, and didn't take more modules with him. Being singled out, even as a "well, you can't help being late so I'll let you in" sucked.
So, my fix, probably, is to minimize disruption from latecomers. I'd keep the space by the door free for them, maybe, so they don't have to traipse across the lecture hall. To my mind, it's very much in line with Blackstone's ratio - I'd rather let 10 lazy students off for their lateness than punish one with a really good reason for not being on time.

I'm a lecturer and I teach Calculus this semester. Since discipline is not part of the syllabus and is not required to learn about derivatives, I tend to ignore latecomers as long as they are not being distruptive.

Normally, 5 to 10 minutes late should not bother you at the first place. But even if it does, you can use slightly different and smart approaches. Maybe one or more in the following list could help your students to be punctual.

Be kind and polite. Talk to them directly to enquire what makes them late every day. And propose some solutions, if possible.
Try to include some marks for attendance and do it the first thing you do in the class and try to add their names in the start of the list. This would encourage everyone to be on time.
Introduce things like pop up quiz when the class starts.
Discuss the matter with their parents and school administration.

Happy Teaching :)

"Be kind and polite." +1 the "Golden rule" is a good start for a lot of questions on Academia SE.  Treat people the way you would want to be treated if the roles were reversed.

I would find that someone "in power" enquiring me directly why I am late creepy and offensive. But if the same someone would make some general remarks about being late during the lesson and would stress how annoyed they are I would start thinking about it. The teacher is in a power role, so what would be fine among peers (asking "why are you late?") has not the same imapct.
Regarding 2 and 3: this is results in a punishment for whatever random reason make someone late once
Regarding 4: only if attendance is compulsory and the students are minors.

Finally, someone says talk to the students and ask them what is going on.  I don't know what kind of place OP teaches but I have students who need to get their younger siblings (or their own children) to school in the morning. I just may be unavoidable, but they need the class for a requirement.

Regarding #4. Due to privacy laws in the UK (I'd assume similar would hold across EU, as ours are still based on GDPR), we are not allowed to even confirm whether somebody is our student to a parent, let alone involve the parents in any private student matters (such as class attendance) without the students' explicit permission.

Discussing with parents? That's funny.

I'm assuming we're talking about adult students, rather than children.
You do nothing.
As long as they aren't being disruptive as they enter and do so quietly, it's their problem, not yours. As adults, they are responsible for their own learning not you. If they're late and miss material, that's their problem to rectify in whatever way they so choose.
It's worth mentioning, however, that you have no obligation to help them rectify the issue if they're late repeatedly though. So there's no need for you to disrupt your lecture by recapping what they missed.
You're a lecturer, not a teacher.

Some decades ago, I was a similar always-late guy. I explain, why are they doing it.
As we get up to work, we have a control. In the sense of control theory. As the minutes of the start of the class are approacing, so are you doing more things for it. If you wake up at 6:30, it does not really matter if you lose 2 min to get a fresh, hot coffee. But if there is 8:28 and you have just now got out of the bus at the University, then you will run.
So, as the deadline is approaching, so is your brain more focused to the task.
This control works in their brain badly. Also they are doing as usual, but they will be at the 8:33 bus and so they will appear at 8:36 in the class, if they run. Yes, they will run.
I think you can not do anything. You can torture them, then they will suffer. You can threat them, and so they will arrive 2-3 times in time.
Also they can not do too much and it will be a serious problem for them in their entire life. They will survive it, but they will suffer.

Please, even if you "Some decades ago, I was a similar always-late guy." then either explain how you managed then to avoid suffering in your entire life (if you managed not to suffer) or , if you did not manage to overcome this problem., stop extrapolating from your single anedoctal personal point to a general truth. We had enough messianic leaders in human history ...

@EarlGrey I did not. I suffer. Fortunately, after graduation, you might have access to jobs where it is more tolerated. I am watching people with similar behavior carefully and I think they are doing the same. I am also thinking, it is somehow a mental problem and there is no cure.

The solution probably depends in part on why the students are late. Are they

dorm dwellers waking up late and stumbling across campus to arrive late
car commuters who struggle to find parking until the students in 7 am classes leave
public transit commuters taking a bus that is scheduled to arrive at campus at 8:15 but usually arrives at 8:20 or 8:25

I'd have more sympathy for students in the last group, especially if they are dealing with an inefficient transit system; someone who signs up for an 8:30 class and then finds that they need to leave the house at 6:25 to guarantee on-time attendance may simply not be able to make all the pieces work.
(Source, in part:  8:00 am Calculus and the T4 bus; 7:30 am English and taking the Q8 bus (every half hour) to the C2 bus (every half hour))
One possible solution way to mitigate the disruption is to adopt a policy that you will open the door once to admit the latecomers as a group, as some theaters and sporting events do.
But absolutely talk to the students and figure out a solution that works with them, even if it involves reducing their grades or banning questions on material covered at the beginning of the class from students who missed part of the class.

Many students tell me that they just could not wake up on time. Sleeping late is very trendy.

Then they just should not have signed up for such an early class.

If the class is in person with students available for the following: Hand out a written test at the start of class time. Make it a very short test that should take up at most 2 minutes to complete. Make it on the subject of the previous class day and make it easy. Walk around the class and hand out the tests quickly. Then walk around the class and pick up the tests quickly, completed or not pick them up. Make these tests sufficient to prove or disprove the student's retention of the previous class instruction, and make the results directly influence the final grade. If a student walks in late, after the tests have been handed out, and after you are back in your chair, then do not hand them a test. They get a zero credit for that test that day. Adjust your logic for this sufficient to cover your self legally, which you should know how to do since you probably have a four year teaching degree. Then if they later bring an excuse to you that you alone find acceptable, at that time adjust the zero to whatever you decide. No excuse that you alone find acceptable = no removal of the zero. Get your logic straight and then stand your ground and do not give in even one time.

In many places, such as UK, lecturer's can't give out summative assignments at their will. All summative assignments need to be included in the course specification, timetabled in advance, prepared in advance and vetted by another staff member. Provisions should be made for students with special learning needs, e.g. separate classroom to take an exam and a separate invigilator. No wonder in the UK we rarely give students summative 2-minute quizes.

+1 - can't beleive the number of people saying just ignore it!!

Your proposal is at odds with the basic paradigm that assessments should be aligned with the learning target. You are primarily testing the abilities to regurgitate memorised stuff (you cannot demonstrate understanding in two minutes), to comprehend and solve tasks as well as possibly guess the answers under extreme time pressure and stress, and to be on time. On top, to be actually fair about excuses for being late, you are forcing a huge amount of minutiae unto yourself and others: E.g., consider what a student needs to do to show that a train was late and what you need to do to check it.

Are you suggesting that the teacher change the course requirements partway through the course?  I can't imagine the customers (i.e. the students) tolerating that.  In every university where I've taught, the students are paying to be there, and the professor is the one being paid, not the other way around.

@LineItem Constructive criticism in comments is permitted; I would consider a comment pointing out that an answer recommends a course of action that is not permitted in some contexts to be constructive criticism and is certainly not personal, it's based entirely on the answer posted. Comments are not expected to answer the original question, so please don't flag them to complain that they don't.

Though it is appropriate to [edit] your answer in response to comments, you should keep in mind that comments are ephemeral and may be removed at any time, so your answer should not include argument or debate with the comments. Instead, you can incorporate responses to the comments as part of the answer itself, which should still primarily address the original question, not the commenters.

@Bryan Krause, Thank you. I shall attempt to adapt as you are instructing.

@Wrzlprmft Not that I entirely disagree, but this is a bit situational.  I teach at a small community college in an area where many of the high school instructors lack proper certification. Students often come to me without basic college readiness skills, so many of the learning objectives in all of my classes pertain to these skills---a small portion of every student's grade is dependent up on attending office hours, coming to class (on time!), simply turning in work, and so on.  I also think that there is some value in a certain (small) quantity of rote work, as this builds a foundation.


text:
How to deal with students wanting the answer versus working through the process
I am currently teaching an undergraduate forensic photography course, but I'm having a difficult time this semester. Many of my students seem disengaged, and they expect me to simply give them the answers instead of putting in the effort to find the solutions on their own. This has resulted in a negative classroom environment, making it harder for me to teach and for them to learn.
It's important to understand that this course is not just about memorizing things in the short-term, but about developing a skill that requires practice and persistence. I feel disrespected and frustrated when within 10 minutes of giving directions, there are those complaining that I didn't explain what they needed to do. No, I did explain, I just didn't spell out an exact way to do it.
I'm at a loss for what to do, and after just about four years of being an instructor, I've begun questioning if I'm an effective educator.

I don't have an answer for you, but this is also a common problem in mathematics courses (my own area).  The best that I have managed is to say (early, and often, and often, and early) that the whole point of mathematics is to explain how an answer was obtained, and that the answer itself is often completely irrelevant.  In forensic photography, I wonder if you might be able to come at it from a (likely somewhat artificial, but maybe relevant) "how do you convince a jury?" point of view...

@XanderHenderson : I would say exactly the opposite: if you are talking about proofs, maybe knowing about how the proofs were found is what you like in math, but it's not what math is about. Math is about proving things, that's it. And in my experience, students get very bad exactly at the moment they start to be confused between proving something and telling me how they find the "proof" they are giving me.

@Plop proof irrelevance is a topic of its own right. It's a central idea behind formal frameworks like homotopy type theory. But it absolutely doesn't imply that maths is only about proving things. Maths is actually much more about figuring out what theorems/conjectures are interesting, what the definitions should be, and what axioms are appropriate, than about just proving given theorems.

@plop What is a proof other than an explanation about why something is true?  The proof IS how a mathematician explains how an answer was obtained.

I don't have time right now for a full answer, but when you "give directions" for 10 minutes and students complain that you didn't tell them how to actually do it, there has got to be some pedagogical issue (mismatch of expectations, insufficient pre-requisites, not so great teaching, etc.). Rather than having an emotional response it may be more productive to find out what that pedagogical issue is.

@XanderHenderson : Exactly the opposite. A proof is just an algorithm given to help a disbeliever of the result to find out which hypothesis he or she should reject. For example, the proof: https://people.mpim-bonn.mpg.de/zagier/files/doi/10.2307/2323918/fulltext.pdf is not at all an explanation of why something is true.

@Plop I think that we are going to have to agree to disagree.  My original comment was that mathematics is about explaining why things are true or not.  I consider a well-written proof to be a partial explanation of how we know that a thing is true (and it can be both "an algorithm" and "an explanation"; these are not mutually exclusive).  Moreover, while I only responded to your comment that a proof is not an explanation, I also reject the premise of your comment, i.e. that math is only about proof.  Almost no paper in mathematics is just results and proofs without exposition.

Do students pays to enroll in your class? If they pay, why they pay if they are not interested? Assuming they have to pay for the course and they are enrolled because they are interested—have you considered how effective and interesting your teaching approach is? If it is most of the students acting like they want answers, I first ask you to reconsider your teaching approach as well as tey to understand why students seeking answers instead of learning.

forensic photography sounds awesome. I'd love to take that class one day. What major would this class be for?

Hmmm. The answer is 42. Always 42.
If your scale is small enough you can do two things. Instead of answering questions, ask your own questions. "What have you tried?". "How have you failed?". "What does the book say?" "What makes sense and what doesn't?" "What do you know that doesn't work?" "Why doesn't it work?" "Can you break the problem down?" "Can you explain it to your younger sibling?"
The other trick is to only give minimal hints for questions rather than answers, leaving the work to the student. "Have you tried...?" "What about...?" "Think about..." But this trick relies somewhat on the first one. Understand where their block is and give them a small push to get over it.
Sometimes you also want to ask the class "Who else has this problem?". If it is several people, you may need to devise a mini-lecture on some technique. But often if one person has an issue, others will too.
In some sense you are giving them more work. But that is probably a good thing.

Agreed with this answer, I have oftened told students that I will not be following them to the workplace to answer questions for them, so I am trying to get them to think how to answer the question for themselves. What is that saying, give a person a fish vs teach a person to fish...

If the student is just lazy and has no interest at all in the topic, then there's little you can do.
But let's assume they student is willing to learn:

there are those complaining that I didn't explain what they needed to do. No, I did explain, I just didn't spell out an exact way to do it.

So, whatever you explained didn't make sense to the student. Often times, after working for a long time in the field, we can forget that things might not be immediately obvious for the "uninitiated", compared to ourselves.
Ask at what step they're stuck. Usually they'll say "I don't have any idea at all where to start". Repeat your first instruction. Ask them if that's clear or if not, ask them what's unclear about it. Never give them the answer. Keep asking questions until they find the answer for themselves. And yes, this can get down to very basic questions like "what is 1+1". But the important thing is that the student learns how to do this for themselves. Backtracking so far until it makes sense and working from there.
The student will eventually get tired of asking you for help once they realise you ask them 100 questions first, so they will do those steps by themselves, for you. So instead of saying "I have no idea how to do it", they'll aproach you saying "I want to do X, I tried WYZ but I can't figure out how to get from U to V". Then you can again ask questions to point them in the right direction.

"Afterall, he's there by choice" - I mean, that's not automatically true just because the course is in an undergraduate programme. I had to attend a lot of stuff I didn't care about in the slightest while attaining my CS degree, including an English course that was several levels below my ability, and a bunch of people were there because of pressure from their parents who were financing their education.

Yeah, I see that caveat. I too had to attend classes I really couldn't care less about. However, if it's required for your actual degree, it should give you the motivation to pass the class, even though a "barely passed" might be all you're aiming for.

This is a great answer.  The only effective followup to "I spent 10 minutes giving directions and they are saying I didn't give directions" is for OP to tell them that and find out exactly where the disconnect is, and doing it the way you've suggested should work well.  Sort of like a less antagonistic version of the Socratic method.

@Davor A class like Forensic Photography is going to be an elective course except maybe for criminal justice majors. And even then that sounds like an in-major elective.  For anyone who it's not a mandatory graduation requirement they want to be there.

Adding onto this, the way the directions tend to be structured for the CS class I'm a TA for is that the answer is in there if you read it, but that's contingent on you understanding the principles from the lecture and the readings. Not attending lecture or doing the reading (or both) sets students up for failure in a major way.

@davolfman - mate, there is a world outside of US. Major? What is that?

@Davor department? program? course-of-study? Probably stems from 'major course of study' that usually yields a particular degree as opposed to a "minor" which is at most adds some verbiage to a degree or a certificate if that.  If you're particularly masochistic you have a "double-major" that gets you two degrees and hope enough classes overlap that you don't die from overwork.
So an in-major elective is taught by the department associated with your degree, but only counts towards "must have this many classes in the department to graduate" instead of "everyone must take this class"

In teaching undergraduate mathematics, I've opted to provide all assignment solutions but base grades on weekly closed-book quizzes. This method acknowledges the ease of finding solutions online, focusing instead on the importance of self-driven practice for success. It reflects a broader educational challenge: fostering intrinsic motivation in students.
Intellectual curiosity varies among students, influenced by numerous factors. As educators, we can only structure our courses to encourage engagement and independent learning, setting clear expectations and offering support. Balancing guidance with the need for students to tackle challenges independently is key. If we have made our subject engaging and provided the necessary tools, we should feel content knowing we've done our part.

When a class does not match students' expectations, you need to spend time on setting expectations. (As opposed to changing the class to fit the students' preconceptions, or giving up and blaming the students, two common traps.)
At the moment they are expecting to be taught a technique with step-by-step instructions. When you don't, they think you tried but just did it badly. And so now they see themselves in the impossible situation of being expected to follow a sequence of steps they have not been given.
So I would suggest spending some time now, and at the start of the course in the future, explaining what you expect them to do in the course. Forensic photography is a complex skill that cannot be reduced to an algorithm. They must try different things, find out what works and what does not when there's no way to know this in advance. Talk about problem solving strategies. Explain how you take this into account when grading, otherwise the class will feel unfair.
Good news - once you get the students on board, courses that involve actual thinking and problem solving tend to have very high evaluations.

If every complaint on here about lazy students were justified, humanity would never have made it this far.
There are many explanations for the response you describe and thinking of your students as lazy or entitled is about the least productive one. Sure, you didn't use those words, but it shows in your answer that you think the problem is with your students' attitude, and not in your approach to the material. Whether this is true or not, it shuts down any avenue to a productive solution.
Consider the possibility that your students are communicating a genuine concern and being frustrated by your unwillingness to change anything. Sure, you don't want to give away the answer, and the students don't feel like they can get there with what they're given and no further instruction. What makes you think those are the only two options?
Imagine being taught improvisational piano playing, having no background in the piano whatsoever. You ask the teacher to tell you which keys to press. The teacher tells you, no, that's not what we do here. You can learn to play music somebody else has written down the hall. Here, you learn to improvise. Now play.
This might help you to understand your students' frustration. Just because your teacher doesn't want to tell you which music to play, doesn't mean he can't help you figure out how to do it.
You ask for which keys to press because you don't know any better. It's not the right question, but you're the student. How are you supposed to know where to start?
The truth is that there are plenty of other things to try, but it's the teacher's job to come up with them.

The teacher could play something himself and describe what choices he's making.
You could watch some great improvisers play and discuss what they are doing.
The teacher could explain some basic chords and progressions that help with improvisation.
The teacher could allow you to copy a few simple improvisations, just to help you get familiar with the piano. So long as you both understand that this is only part of the process.
The teacher could design a curriculum from simple improvisation to more difficult so that each step seems manageable.

All this, the teacher can do to help you learn how to improvise. Just because some of these exercises are not full improvisation, doesn't change the end goal. It's just a matter of finding the right training wheels.
Most likely, this is what your students are telling you. They don't want you to tell them the answer, they want you to meet them half-way.
Maybe not. Maybe these students are really just lazy and entitled. But once you draw that conclusion, the battle is lost, so you might as well start with the interpretation that they are trying to communicate a legitimate frustration.

This may not be your problem but it could be:
Work through more problems with them during class.  Treat it like a good math class and spend the majority of your lectures working through problems with a little cooperation from the class. They need to build confidence in a set of tools for approaching new problems themselves. They need to see how you approach the work and learn to think with those techniques. They won't get that from lectures on theory and technique.
If you do that they should be able to demonstrate the approaches in their own work, just much slower.

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How do you deal with a dishonest graduate advisor?
Assume that you are a Ph.D. student in math who after a few years of working in the field discovers a new idea (independently). You present the idea to your advisor. Later your advisor realizes the importance of this idea and claims that he discovered it.
How do you deal with this situation?

This depends on how much effort you want to put in to it and how much risk you want to assume.

First, pick an advisor with integrity that you respect and trust. Second, if you don't trust the advisor, then don't share the idea with him.

"Later" if later is anything longer than 3 weeks, and the PhD student did not bring the idea forward again, I am rather sure that the advisor forgot completely about PhD presentation and either reached the same idea of PhD because of being exposed to similar environment, or simlpy the advisor forgot that the idea was not their idea but an idea they borrowed from someone else.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

@ EarlGrey This is not the case. I continued showing him the work. He started writing a paper on it and asked me to keep working on it. There were a lot of unknowns that had to be figured out. This was done collaboratively and I mostly attribute him as much as possible because of his encouragement. But the original idea was completely mine and I wish that people would know that.

"But the original idea was completely mine and I wish that people would know that." This is not really how mathematical collaboration works. It could be that you have a "dishonest advisor" if they are trying to claim the idea as exclusively theirs.  But if the real cause of your unhappiness is that you came up with an idea, fleshed out the details in collaboration with your advisor, and now are unhappy with the fact that the reader cannot deduce from reading your paper that "the original idea was completely yours", then that's a very different situation.

That said, it would be more gracious of your advisor if he were to emphasize your role in obtaining the result and de-emphasize his.

I did not flush out all the details with the advisor. A significant part of the details is already in the first file I wrote independently. He started working on this maybe 8 months after I showed it. He did his part, but also claims to have done mine.

The question is phrased as a completely hypothetical scenario, but I am going to assume that this actually happened to you.
There are lots of personality-related factors that make it impossible to answer the question in general, but if I were to give generic advice, I would recommend talking this through openly with your advisor, and trying to establish a timeline that you agree on, who said what to whom and when. It is possible that you two have different perceptions of what happened.
I once talked to Michael Atiyah about some of these issues, and something he said stuck in my mind. Supervising PhD students is hard work, he said: first you have to prove a theorem, which can already be hard, depending on the theorem; then you have to explain the theorem to the student, which can be hard, depending on the theorem and the student; and then, the hardest step, you have to convince the student that it was them who proved the theorem. Now, this is Atiyah we are talking about, and not all supervisors operate this way, but it illustrates the point: often the supervisor will have fed you lots of ideas that you assimilated without realising it.

An alternate story, probably apocrvaphyl, is a professor (math?) who said to a student "I don't mind writing your dissertation for you, but I'll be damned if I'll explain it to you when I'm done."

Emil Artin allegedly said that a Ph.D. thesis is a paper of the adviser written under unusually trying conditions.

This is a nice story, but it is also a problem. No one would believe if a grad student claims an idea, as the professor is always right. In my case there is actual evidence of me informing the professor in email that I have an interesting new idea, and then typing it up and sending to the professor. Then there was in person communication in which I said how this can be used to extend some existing theorems. He claims vaguely that some of this was his idea. Further asking for details and presenting evidence, he goes silent.

The opposite experience is possible. Andy Gleason, my advisor, said he would much rather his students found their own problems to solve. He was a lot of help (both mathematical and psychological) with mine, but we both knew it was mine.

If you've had email backing it up, it may make sense to talk to the department chair.

@JoshuaZ Actually this is what I did. But the department only wants this to settle down. They do not care much about who did what. They agreed to make sure that my name will be in the joint paper and I will be able to graduate.

Let me answer with a question: Why are you so obsessed with whose idea it was? In the end, good ideas are plenty and in the end it's what you do with them.
As a PhD student, with less experience than a more senior scientist, it's easy to think that you have done the bulk of the work. Maybe in this case it's true. Maybe it isn't. The important thing is, that you share the idea with the world in the form of a publication, presentation, talks etc. From your question it's not clear what the current status of the idea is. Is it an ongoing project? Do you have evidence that your advisor is also claiming the entire idea/all of the work as their own? What exactly do you want to get more credit for?
So I would say - focus on the actual work and insights/problems/answers that stem from the idea, do the best work you can, treat this as a scientific collaboration with your advisor (it sounds like they did encourage you to keep working on the idea, so you could argue that they understood it's value and are supporting you to work in this direction), and be happy that you are capable of coming up with good ideas - this will come in useful later in your career, should you care to continue in academia.

Why am I so obsessed with whose idea it was? Because that is kind of the point of doing research in math. I do not have a six figure salary. The only satisfaction is having come up with interesting ideas and people knowing it.

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PhD programs in Maths
I am a first gen masters student and I hope to get into a PhD program in Applied Math. My grades are honestly okay. I am a solid B student and every now and then I get an A.
School has ways been a challenge for me and I have recently been diagnosed with cptsd. There are days where it’s difficult to do much. Recently it has gotten a lot better. My main saving grace is that my professors like me and I have a paper from undergrad and a paper from my masters that are part of my application. I am trying to get an A- for my classes this semester to help my GPA and might take a class in the fall also.
I want to know, is it possible to get in somewhere? Is my condition something I share in a vague way for my personal statement? Everyone tells me its incredibly competitive so I’m very nervous. I was thinking of getting a job at a research lab after I graduate to help my application as well.

it definitely explains a lot that I wasnt aware of. thank you!


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How to deal with students who regularly ignore my ban on using laptops in the classroom?
In my class (for undergraduate students) I do not allow students to use laptops so that you can focus more the lecture. (I do allow taking notes on tablets or using mobile phones.) Most students comply without any complaints. However, I noticed one student keep turning it on even after I have reminded them twice. I am not sure how should I deal with it. Should I talk with the student and see if they have any special reason? Or should I simply ignore it since it's just one student?
Update: The reason that I allow tablet instead of laptop is the research on the negative effects on their use to other students sitting nearby: On or off task: The negative influence of laptops on neighboring students’ learning depends on how they are used

Update 2: There seems to be quite a lot interest in this question. I didn't realize this is such a controversial topic. I suppose that I have met quite a few colleagues and my own teachers who do not allow laptops in classrooms, so I did not see it as out of ordinary. A little bit Googling shows that I am far from alone in doing this:

A Truce in the Laptop Wars
The Case for Banning Laptops in the Classroom

Also I teach math instead of something like programming. There is really no need for students to use laptop in the room. If they want to take notes, paper notebook and tablet with stylus pen would be much faster than typing on a laptop. And from my experience when students on laptop are called upon to answer questions, most of the time their answer is "Sorry, what is your question?"
As for the distinction of tablet and computer is that students usually use them as a notebook and write on them using electronic pens. And yes, most of our students, if not everyone, have a tablet computer. Mobile phones are not really possible to ban anyway. They are too small.
End of story: I made a compromise with the student and suggested them to sit in the 3rd row in the room.  Out of consideration for fairness, I also told other students they can do the same thing.

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If you don't already have too many inputs, the Q&A here seems related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/101419/should-i-ban-electronic-devices-smartphones-tablets-and-laptops-from-a-course  "Should I ban electronic devices (smartphones, tablets and laptops) from a course?"

There is no meaningful difference between a laptop and tablet as far as distraction. Students today take notes on these devices more often than paper. You shouldn't expect them to purchase the exact combinations of devices you find acceptable; if a student has only a laptop they should be able to use one for notes. A phone is far less convenient for note taking. I'm old now compared to an undergrad but I would definitely prefer a laptop I can type on to a tablet that has no keyboard or a finicky one.
I would do nothing and I'd reconsider the policy so that it's fair to everyone and students who are obeying the current rule aren't disadvantaged.
Remember also that these students are adults and it's in large part up to them to find what is and isn't distracting for them. You should only consider intervening in a case where it's hurting other students.

+1. The common theme on OP's questions seems to be "your students are adults; don't try to micro-manage them." If there is really such concern about students sitting nearby, I would instead ask students using laptops to sit in the back of the room.

@cag51 To be fair to the OP, the study they cite claims that laptops have a detrimental effect even to students sitting in front of the laptop. The validity of the study, of course, and whether its purported results warrant a complete ban, is a different matter.

@DavidH It made me really curious what their results actually show.  Like if everyone performed worse, what controls do they have in place?  I mean surely they have some way to rule out students doing worse on those questions even without distractions, but the abstract made it sound like they didnt.

@JMac I could see that study being true, just because laptop screens are oriented in a way where the people in the rows behind (especially in height-staggered seating) can immediately see the screen. BUT the solution to that would be to send the Laptop kids a bit further back, not to ban it

I think you are by far underestimating the main problem: devices distracting others students. A laptop's screen will face many people, while a tablet will lie flat and will be visible, at most, to those sitting adjacent. This will always hurt (the attention of) everyone who has the screen in their field of view. (Anecdata warning.) Back in my day, there was a guy sitting in the very front row with a laptop open all the time. At least 50 people could barely focus on the lecture. See highlight #1 (linked paper): "Students' classroom laptop use negatively affects their neighbors' learning."

@cheersmate a tablet won't necessarily lie flat, though it might if writing on the screen.  And a flat tablet is very visible to the row behind in a steep lecture theatre. But the content is more of of an issue than the device.  If someone in the row in front of you is watching cute cat videos on the their laptop it's far more distracting then taking notes on a plain screen.  If they're watching the same videos on a tablet or phone, they'll hold the screen for optimal viewing (by themself, and not by the lecturer), so a pretty similar angle to a laptop screen.

@cheersmate The study compares laptops to no device at all, not laptops to tablets. The laptop users were not real students, they were planted by the experimenters so their behavior is not necessarily indicative of the average behavior of laptop users in a classroom. As far as I can tell, the context of the study is also an artificial class held solely for a research purpose, so the students likely didn't have much motivation to actually pay attention - they're not getting a grade for the class, they're not in the class because they're specifically interested in drought, etc.

There is a huge difference between laptops and tablets in terms of the noise generated by typing keys and clicking buttons versus tapping a screen with a finger or stylus.

This, what @barbecue said. It is extremely distracting and annoying to have even one person typing next to you. Many people all typing at once would make it impossible for me to even hear the lecture. The screen distraction is a minor issue compared to the noise.

To be honest, I think you've got it backwards.  I also think you're potentially discriminating against students with accessibility needs or those without much money.
A phone is a major source of distraction. Note-taking on a laptop allows far more concentration of the subject matter than having chat notifications pop up while you're trying to type on a tiny screen, let alone if your note-taking ever requires a sketch.
I'm older than an undergrad, but I, my postgrads and my (school-age) daughter all seem to agree that a phone is only really useful for taking notes if you have nothing else, i.e. paper beats phones.
Tablets are nice if you can afford them, but to take legible notes on one at any speed  requires a keyboard, and at that  point you've got something functionally equivalent to a laptop.  Laptops are often required equipment, and poor students can often get support to rent/buy one.  I've never seen such support for tablets.
The reason I really think this needs to stop though is that assistive technology is far better on laptops than phones, for many conditions.  As an example, consider simply large text for the partially sighted.  On a phone you may not even be able to see an entire sentence at once, with sufficient text size to read it, and if you have more complicated notes than just text (such as equations) they often don't get scaled - if they can even be done properly on a phone.  LaTeX (for which options on Android and iOS are limited and a problem in the context of assistive tech) can be used by people who are completely blind, and now that Word uses LaTeX equation syntax, laptop users can have both large-print equations and a format that can be read by screen readers.  Similarly students using text-to-speech because they struggle to hear you have more options on a more powerful device with a bigger screen.

Touchscreen are for consumption of work. Production of work is for mouse and keyboards. It was so frustrating. I nearly threw my tablet through my PC computer screen at work when were instructed to work with a tablet-based app of such a nature .

@DKNguyen yes. OTOH I've had some success typing notes on a tablet screen, but the brief sort of notes you might take at a conference, not lecture notes, and a tablet is  better for sketching  than a laptop, though far behind paper. I'd wind up the OP by folding my touchscreen laptop back on itself ("it's a tablet, honest") then unfolding it to actually do some work

The laptop itself might be an accessibility tool for students with fine motor/graphomotor difficulties that make it difficult to take notes on paper, too (where a phone, due to size, really doesn't cut it, and tablet keyboards are a pain to type on).

I disagree with the notion that tablets are not useful to take notes in classes. My wife is exclusively using her tablet and stylus for notetaking. She is not a bit slower than with a paper notebook and has better capabilities for adding images and references and later re-organization. Her (Windows) notebook is mainly used for Office documents.

@KeyboardCat I'm sure it might be.  I only set out to mention an example.  Personally I take the approach of supporting this sort of need very willingly, even preferences, unless they cause clear immediate disruption.  So hopefully my teaching is as accessible as possible, and I only need to make special arrangements if there's something unusual that I haven't thought of.

@Dubu  I've tried myself, and have to use on-screen typing.  A senior colleague uses one with a stylus, which has the major disadvantage that he can then share his notes easily.  I say disadvantage because no one else can read them (sketches aren't so bad). He can't even  read them himself sometimes.

... But I don't really mean to condemn tablets for those that have them and get on with them.  A bottom-of-the-range Samsung with a stylus (as an measure of something that should work if anything does) costs about the same as a month's groceries for me, and I've got a salary.  So it's a lot of money for a student, for something that might not even work, because it often doesn't.

I would add regarding the accessibility component that @KeyboardCat mentioned - this is also true for the visually impaired or blind students, who may be relying on a combination of a screen-reader software like JAWS and/or a braille keyboard. Sure, they can probably go to the effort of getting an official accommodation request document to you to prove they need it, but...you're probably better off just allowing laptops in general.

@AlexanderThe1st yes, just allow something that can act as assistive tech, whether for a declared disability or a minor difficulty. Less effort, less hassle, less admin, more support.

@ChrisH I agree that it depends. I would always prefer a keyboard device as my handwriting is not great, and a slow tablet is no fun to use with a stylus. My wife admittedly has an iPad Pro and uses GoodNotes, so it is a major investment but a very satisfying experience for her.

@Dubu I got on with handwriting recognition in the PalmOS days, when you had to learn different letter forms but they were distinctive.  Modern handwriting recognition is another matter and completely mangles my writing (or that of the senior academic I mentioned above); realtime correction is a big distraction

@ChrisH re: my laptop comment, sorry if I came across as disagreeing with you - I wanted to express agreement and add an example in support; I completely agree with your policy of allowing unless it's clearly disruptive.

@KeyboardCat not at all - most of us here, certainly including us 2, seem to be in the same space, with variation only in nuances

completely agree with your answer - as an undergrad student with a physical motor disability, I'm unable to handwrite notes and rely on a laptop to type notes (which I primarily do in math classes, where I use a system of keyboard macros and expansions to live-transcribe LaTeX faster than the instructor can write math on the board). I can imagine a lot of students also find typing easier/more suited to their workflow than trying to handwrite notes, and if an instructor prevented laptop use I (and many others) would struggle to succeed academically in the class.

@Merlin04 just the sort of disability I failed to imagine in detail, but knew would exist.  And the sort of thing I'd like to support students in dealing with, without needing to be prompted by the assistance office.  That also means issues without a diagnosis (yet) can be supported, and people don't have to go into detail about stuff they may not want to, just to get adjustments

Why do you decide which device (laptop, tablet or smartphone) students should use? The goal of lectures is transfer of knowledge and student's notes is important part of this process as long as it doesn't bother others. Why do you create an artificial obstacle in this process? Many scholars prefer laptops to other devices and work more productively.

"...as long as it doesn't bother others." This is in fact the exact reason given by the OP.

Enforce your rules, however arbitrarily they may be chosen (*)
The best recipe for chaos is setting up rules and then not enforcing them. IF you want your students to follow your rules (any of your rules), at the minimum you have to call them out on breaking them. Repeat and escalate, mild but firm:

mention generally ("I would like all laptops to be put away now")
warn generally ("I see there are people using laptops against my instructions - please put those away")
notify specific person ("You there at the second rank, please put that laptop away")
warn specific ("I am sorry, but if you do not put away your laptop, I will have to ask you to leave")
"Allright, you had your warning, now please leave the room"
Call security and have them escort the person away.
Call their mom. (no, just kidding - but you can take a minute to reinforce your rules to the group)

(*) As others have mentioned, the gap between premise and conclusion in your argument is probably larger than what you like. I wouldn't make such a distinction between tablet or laptop, nor would I conclude it is disturbing other students without further (direct) evidence or complaint. But, rules are rules and it is your room for as long as the lecture lasts.

Seems overly harsh. Teacher as bully.

@Buffy  Rules are meant to be enforced. If you don't want people to follow them, don't have them. The absolutely worst thing would be presenting rules and then willfully ignoring those who break them. Thats disrespectful to everyone, but yourself the most.

@Stian - stupid rules are stupid to enforce. College students these days use their laptops (or tablets) to take notes. Thinking a "tablet" is any different from a "laptop" is not realistic. Sure, I think paper and pen is better. My son disagrees and seems to be doing more than fine with his laptop.

Certainly, having stupid rules is stupid. A somewhat worse thing is not only pretending to plan to enforce them, but really following through to the bitter end ("calling security...") The real point here (given what the follow-through does seem to entail) is to not have rules so stupid that the follow-through is visibly crazy. :)

@JonCuster I must have had a stroke while writing, if that is what you caught from my answer. I agree the rule is stupid. I would not recommend having such a rule. I do recommend following up the rules you do set, always. Never angrily, never losing patience, just always reacting on it, and escalating it. What I recommend for rules is that you spend your very first session (session zero) at setting only the absolute most basic of rules, and then let the class decide on the rest. People arriving 10 minutes after shouting hello and making a ruckus fine for you all? Its fine for me then.

@Buffy This is addressing another important aspect of the question that the other answers seem to ignore. The other answers explain that the specific rule OP tries to impose on the students is not a good rule and should be changed. This might be true but is independent of the general question how to enforce rules imposed on the students. This aspect is addressed in this answer.

This is a good escalation list on how to enforce rules, in general. I'm reluctant to give it (+1) though, because as others have noted, enforcing a stupid rule, is stupid.

At the risk of being labeled as draconian by other Academia SE users, I admit that I "ban" laptops (but not phones and tablets) in most of my courses.  That said, such a rule must be supported with good reasoning.
Some context:

I teach undergraduate mathematics at a small liberal arts college in the US.
I encourage any students who feel that they could benefit by using a laptop during class to speak to me about accommodations.
I provide printed or PDF "outline notes" for students to fill in by with a pen/pencil or on a tablet during class.

The outline notes make laptops unnecessary for note-taking purposes, except for the previously mentioned accommodation cases.  (Although I'm sure there are occasionally students who don't ask for accommodations that should, sadly.)
While I agree that students are adults and should be able to decide if they wish to be distracted or not, I am not ok with students distracting those sitting around them by watching soccer matches, playing games, or streaming Netflix.  (All of these things have happened in my classes.)  If they want to do that during class, they're welcome to do that on their phone.
So, how do I enforce this?  I explain the "no laptops" rule and the reason for it on the first day of class, and I find students are generally pretty agreeable about the rule.  Each class day comes with a simple "classwork" assignment that students complete in assigned groups for a participation/attendance grade.  Students who ignore the "ban" receive a tiny penalty on this classwork grade and an email reminder that laptops should be put away during class.
I have gotten very little pushback with this system, and many, many students have told me how helpful it is for their learning to have the notes outline to fill out, whether on paper or PDF.
That said, without outline notes AND a willingness to provide exceptions, I think it is unreasonable to ban laptops--there are simply too many students for whom it is the most effective form of unstructured note-taking.

If students distracting others is the problem, then why not ban that?  (Would you be happy with students making and flying paper aeroplanes, or drawing large rude pictures, simply because it was on paper?  No?  Then why is it fair to ban students using laptops in a completely legitimate and non-distracting way?)

I am thoroughly confused as to how a laptop is more distracting than a tablet. Also, where do you draw the line? Is a Microsoft Surface a tablet or a laptop?

Technically, my rule is this: If you want to use a computer in class, you should be writing on it with a stylus.  If you feel that you can take better notes by typing than you can by writing on my PDF/paper handouts, talk to me.  No one ever does though, because the number of undergraduates which can capably type mathematics is minuscule.  As such, laptops rarely serve a useful purpose in my classroom and are mostly a distraction device.  Again, I have no problem with students using laptops legitimately, and I encourage them to talk to me if they want to do that.

I'm unconvinced by your premises:

Your linked paper (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360131520301007) does not seem to support your conclusion.

It is examining the effect of screens on nearby students, not the effect of typing on nearby students.
Specifically, its finding is that internet browsing (which is not a keyboard activity!) to look at off-topic stuff on the screen is deleterious to those nearby.
Other sources claim about 40% of lecture time is spent on off-topic multitasking per student, which as your linked paper shows will also affect others. But there's an implicit assumption in these studies that it's "laptop vs no screens present" rather than "laptop vs phone and tablet".

Your claim "If they want to take notes, paper notebook and tablet with stylus pen would be much faster than typing on a laptop." does not seem backed by evidence, and seems contrary to reality.

Average WPM (words per minute) is 40, for normal computer users. 60 for touch-typists. 80 for advanced touch typists.
By comparison, the average handwriting speed is 8 WPM, with variance up to perhaps 20WPM for very skilled writers. Call it a quarter of the speed.

You write "I do not allow students to use laptops so that you can focus more the lecture. (I do allow taking notes on tablets or using mobile phones.)" yet with touchtyping you can watch the lecture and keep notes, whereas with stylus or pen, you're forced to look at what you're writing and ignore the lecturer.

However, your experience of laptop users being more distracted counts for a lot.
And in support of your position, I'd add that there is also debate on whether handwriting, by being such a terrible way to take notes, actually forces people to memorize things better, eg https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24760141/ claiming that "We show that whereas taking more notes can be beneficial, laptop note takers' tendency to transcribe lectures verbatim rather than processing information and reframing it in their own words is detrimental to learning". That's definitely open to argument, though. Does length of time of recall matter? Do verbatim notes improve recall at exams because you can study them? And so on. Feels more like something to warn students about, than pass a rule on, though, as not everyone learns the same way, and in general they should find what works best for them.

Overall, though, and to finally answer your question: if you have a rule, I'd argue you should never ignore because it's just one student, or you will not only foster resentment among the non-rulebreakers, but also imply to others that rulebreaking is OK. So you pretty much have to engage, either to lay down the law, revise the rule, or discuss with the student involved.
So, while I might be somewhat skeptical of your premises, I feel you did the exact right thing.

It's been 15 years since I was an undergrad, but I went completely paperless halfway through my degree, and learned quickly how to take advanced mathematics notes on my laptop. I seriously doubt I would've been able to take accurate Linear Algebra notes on a tablet or phone, since using the keyboard (and keyboard shortcuts) was absolutely fundamental to being able to type out stuff like this on the fly. Due to the large amount of social media apps these day, without having read any recent papers on the topic, I would hypothesize that a tablet or phone would be more distracting to the individual than a laptop. At the time (this was circa 2008), the majority of my classmates were taking notes on paper, so I did once have my professor call me back after class demanding proof that I was actually taking notes and not gaming or otherwise distracted. I showed him my Word document containing that day's notes and he never again questioned my laptop. Looking back, I hope that it had opened his eyes to expect this possible of other students he would encounter after I was gone.

While this anecdote is interesting, your answer does not provide an answer to the question. See [answer] for details, then consider [edit]ing your answer.

This is a very important answer, as a lot of people in math (the OP's context) really do not think it is very easy to do this.  You have to be a special kind of wizard at the keyboard (kudos to you StalePhish), and most professors (let alone students) are just not, especially in undergrad.

These days, it's not impossible for a phone to have a keyboard…

@mathishard.butweloveit Unless I am also a wizard, I have to respectfully disagree. Once I learned Latex I could type notes in my math classes much faster than I could handwrite them and the notes were MUCH more legible. While we were a minority, I was hardly the only one taking notes on my laptop in those math classes.

@TimothyAWiseman Feel free to respectfully disagree, but notice in your own comment you stated that you were in the minority of students taking notes on their computer.  I did not say all math people find it difficult to take technical notes on the computer, I said many.  I even know people whose note taking method is not to take notes at all, and this is because they cannot focus on the content and write it down at the same time.  So they get notes from classmates later.  To each his own, some of us are better wizards at the keyboard than others (again, kudos to you too then :) ).

Also, when you start doing high-level technical proofs in, e.g., algebra and real analysis, I find it much, much harder to keep up on a computer.  I don't know many mathematicians who do their scratch thinking on a LaTeX processor, even at my stage of postdoc.  You usually use that stage of Overleaf to "debug" your proofs.  This is still the trademark of many research mathematicians (who are often the ones teaching courses at large universities), hence again, the importance of @StalePhish's answer.

Your students are adults and should be treated such as.
You bring here some evidence about a research done on a single experiment about the effects of laptop on attention in a classroom.
Students are attending your class because they willingly decided to attend university (or because of social pressure to attend university). They have enough intellectual capability to read the paper and understand it, so share the paper with them (great lesson for them, research can have a direct impact on their life, a part from dubious economics paper) and set a rule that students using a laptop should preferrably sit in the last row or in the last seat of a row, to minimize the possible impact on others.
Regarding your experience,

from my experience when students on laptop are called upon to answer
questions, most of the time their answer is "Sorry, what is your
question?"

I suggest to call upon any student, not only the ones on laptop, and please share the statistics.

Introduction
Existing answers that discuss this rule mostly discuss about the effect of using a laptop or not on students. Therefore, I want to start by stating that, if the use of laptops affects the lecturer negatively, then it is arguably reasonable to enforce such a rule. Then, I will give an example of that situation in real world and describe how the rule had been enforced in that example to answer the poster's question.
As some other answers have pointed out, university students should be treated as adults. Therefore, even if not using laptops is truly beneficial to students, or in general, if there is some way to learn better, I believe a professor still should not force a student to use that way, because a student has freedom to choose how to learn. On the other hand, if using laptops can be proven to affect the professor's performance, which in turn affects all students who listen to his lecture, then that could be a good reason to ban laptops.
Example
I am not a professor, but I have experienced lectures of a professor who enforced a no-laptop rule there, and who arguably had good reasons. That is the example that I will give in my answer.
Last summer I was self-learning 6.034 Artificial Intelligence by Prof. Winston (R.I.P. Prof.) at MIT OpenCourseware. He published the recordings of his lectures, and in the first lecture where he did an introduction to the course, he emphasized that one of the class rules was no-laptop.

"..., and conclude with some of the covenants by which we run the course.
One of which is no laptops, please.
I'll explain why we have these covenants at the end."

Unfortunately, he probably had forgotten to explain why no laptop was allowed at the end of that lecture. Nevertheless, his gave his explanation elsewhere. But instead of directly going there, I want to sequentially narrate the events.
When I heard this rule, I was quite skeptical of the benefit of it. Partly because I didn't know the professor before, partly because I had been taking notes in a paperless way --- in classes I used to take notes by my keyboard attached tablet, on which I can both type in LaTeX and draw. Yet only after completing a few more of his lectures, I noticed they were really enjoyable, which meant they took great efforts to prepare and the prof. cared about his lectures and his students. So I was quite eager to know his reasons behind that laptop rule.
Throughout the whole course of 23 lectures, there were three times when he took action for some student(s) violating this rule.

Lecture 8, before starting, he was showing a program that was performing a task in a computationally impossibly way: "We're going to wait till either all the laptops are closed, or this program terminates, whichever comes first." He sounded quite firm from the recording, but he didn't actually pause the lecture for that. Because it is a recording, I don't know if the students obeyed or not.

Lecture 11, When he noticed an open laptop, probably. "Can you put that laptop away, please?" No further action. Also unclear if the student obeyed.

Lecture 14, "Could you close the laptop, please?" Same as in Lecture 11.

To conclude, he probably only took action when he noticed open laptops and only took action verbally. He fully explained this no-laptop rule instead at the start of his How to Speak talk.

"Now, in order to do that, we have to have a rule of engagement, and that is no laptops, no cell phones. So if you could close those, I'll start up as soon as you're done. Some people ask why that is a rule of engagement, and the answer is, we humans only have one language processor. And if your language processor is enga-- could you shut the laptop, please? If your language processor is engaged browsing the web or reading your email, you're distracted. And worse yet, you distract all of the people around you. Studies have shown that. And worse yet, if I see a open laptop somewhere back there or up here, it drives me nuts, and I do a worse job. And so that ensures that all of your friends who are paying attention don't get the performance that they came to have. So that's it for preamble. Let's get started."

He explained why the language processor he mentioned was important near the end in Lecture 19, by mentioning a series of experiments conducted in Harvard University (link to paper), which he remarked as "in my way of thinking, is the most important series of experiments ever done in cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, actually", and which basically demonstrated the language processor played a vital role in the difference between the intelligence (mostly spatial capabilities in that research) of a human adult and that of a child below 5 or a rat.
Conclusion
Putting all these together, Prof. Winston believed using a laptop in lectures could

negatively affect the student, especially by jamming the student's "language processor"
more importantly, distract surrounding students
most importantly in his opinion, affect him as the professor, which implies all students would be affected.

And he had enforced such rules only verbally by

Before the start of some lectures, warning that he would not start until laptops were gone, although he didn't actually seem to stop for that
During some lectures, asking the student who he spotted to have opened a laptop to put that away.

, which may not have good effect on some students who regularly ignores your ban, but at least respects the students' freedom as adults. On the other hand, I believe you could use Prof. Winston's reasons to persuade these students.
As I have only been a student, I don't personally know if a professor's performance will really be affected by seeing a laptop. But I hope Prof. Winston's reasons and how he enforced the rule could help you.

While it may be better to have compliance by your students than to forcibly hold them to certain events. These are adults we are referring to here.
Perhaps the single student prefers take notes more efficiently with a physical keyboard.
Subjecting them to personal opinion or research based on what is more helpful is circumstantial, and may be harmful rather than helpful in this situation.
However, I'm glad you made the decision to allow students to utilize their hardware. In this case the more the merrier, when it comes to taking notes with the diversity is a good thing.


text:
How best can I explain the professional ethics of GenAI to students?
Recently, a decision was made to allow the removal of AI-generated content in response to a letter from Moderators at Stack Exchange. This type of AI-generated content is increasingly used in response to LLMs such as ChatGPT being widely available for free. Professionals also need to be aware that the technology allows for AI-generated text to be created easily for publications without author effort beyond prompting.
Because these concepts are important to understand, but I have had difficulty communicating them, I am interested in how to explain some of the pros and cons of the complex morality of GenAI. By this, I mean the use of a tool such as ChatGPT to answer questions, edit posts, or even make administrative decisions. I am looking for a non-technical answer, but it could include some of the mechanics, such as a description of processes (the what more than the how). This also seems to be something of a problem more generally based on the existance of Incubators such as ECCRI.
I find some good anecdotes in response to this closed Meta post. Still, I am curious how to explain the complex answers I find covered in that response simply to students who do not have professional experience yet.
I am not asking if there should be GenAI content allowed on SE - but instead, why it is not done (appropriate as an explanation for an undergraduate student in information technology). This example may help point to issues in the broader area of GenAI use. I see three main issues I would like feedback on how to address:
No Professional Code of Ethics
The answer that it is against professional codes is good, but without lived experience, the consequences of going against these can seem intangible to students.
For example, a concept like misuse of Personally Identifiable Information by a generative AI is too far removed from the immediacy to solve the problem. For the most part, they haven't been victims of this type of crime yet.
AI is viewed as accurate
Presenting examples of hacks or hallucinations also leads to the argument that “we will make it better.” They minimize the errors.
Similarly, when I go down the strong vs weak argument, it is not clear that a distinction exists between what they are seeing/using, and they dismiss the difference. They think Furby is conscious. The students do not understand that the AI is effective only at what it is trained to produce.
The facts are uncomfortable
It is also possible that some of the difficulty in teaching the material stems from a cognitive conflict since many of the students have grown up with the type of recommendation algorithms already assumed as a part of life.
In my opinion, all these expanations miss what I feel to be a sort of instinctual humanistic Great Revolt in a lot of the responses I read in researching the morality of using GenAI. Sorry, I'm not sure how to phrase the underlying assumption I perceive in response to the idea of machines replacing people other than a reference to Science Fiction worst-case scenarios. I want to convey this ideal of what Sara Baase calls a Gift of Fire.
But the preservation of human creativity (leadership) alongside the support of computers is something that I feel like is worth teaching—and wonder if anyone has written, read, seen, etc. a work that would convey this at an entry-level. The responses in this GenAI question are close to what I am seeking, but there still is a level of complexity I would like to simplify and address the specific issues mentioned above. Another source might be ACM Software Engineering Code of Ethics, but again the issue of lived experience limits this. Just throwing out some ideas to try and explain what I have tried in the past.


text:
What questions would you ask a V-P of a Semiconductor Company?
I am working on a project for college with a classmate. Our subject is semiconductors. In the essay we have to write, we must discuss theory, practical uses, and economical implications. Our professor highly values the testimony of experts. So, we aimed for the sky, we contacted an important company and asked if any expert on the subject was available to answer some of our questions.
We were lucky, the company granted us 1 hour to ask any questions. My partner and I have about a week to prepare for the interview. Currently, we are reading all we can about semiconductors to have pertinent questions to ask during the interview. But we cannot become experts on the subject in one week.
So, I came here because you guys are more knowledgeable than I am. I wanted to gather ideas of questions I could ask during the interview.
Also, if any of you is an expert on semiconductors and would like to answer some questions or provide explanations, it would be greatly appreciated. However, please note, that I cannot take theoretical information from this subreddit unless you can prove that you are an expert (e.g. degrees in physics or electrical engineering).


text:
Difficulty in displaying the relationship on the ER-Diagram
An assignment from my university told me to make a chart that would display an airline company database. but there was a difficulty with the task:
Certain flights wait for other flights if possible. Such flights form pairs of  connecting flights.
As I assume, a recursive relationship with an attribute is being used here. Something like that:
Flight ---- awaits ---- Flight
But the problem is that I couldn't find anywhere to support this hypothesis. I was misled by the statement that such flights form connection flights. It is not clear to me, should I implement this as an attribute at the received relation, or should it be an associative entity? If it is an associative entity, then how should it be related to the Flight entity

Sorry, but this site is for questions about Academia and how to navigate it, so this is off topic here. Frankly, I think you just need to ask your professor since nobody else can know what exactly they expect of you.

It's been a long time since I did ER (but learned it from a master). I thought ER only captured static relationships and you are asking about dynamics. What is the static relationship between the entities?


text:
How is chamomile tea different from other herbal teas in terms of its effects and properties?
How is chamomile tea different from other herbal teas in terms of its effects and properties?