What are they doing when they nod off?

Years ago I came to understand that people bring their world into a classroom. If they are tired or distracted, that comes with them too and sometimes, no matter what I do, people will nod off. I include in that concept the idea the people have wandered off, away from the moment in the classroom.  People will succumb to whatever exigencies of life are a higher priority. I understand that. Still, at least in my situation, I think that most people have chosen to be in the room at that time, to participate in a face-to-face learning situation. And to do that they have physically extricated themselves from their day-to-day life to be there. I owe it to them to make it worthwhile.

When people nod off, I wonder if I have failed to meet the basic requirement to create a compelling experience that is better than wherever they have gone. I talk about this at the beginning of my courses. I ask people to question the relevance of every activity in the room and to speak openly about it if the reason for something isn’t apparent.

When I’m teaching or doing a lecture I am very mindful of the activity in the room. Usually I am in a computer lab so it is fairly easy to tell if people are in following the rhythm of the room. When the web became part of the environment it was harder to know what was happening but I accepted that because I moved my resources to the web so that participants could access to the materials during and after the sessions.  Things were okay when each person had only the computer that we provided for them. That is, when there was only one screen for each person to manage.

Over the past couple of years, it has been interesting to watch as people brought their own devices to the lab.  I have adapted my material so that where feasible, it was consumable on smaller devices.  I have also added activities that could (optionally) be done from a portable device.  But lately I have noticed activity that seemed out of synch with the rhythm of the room.  It’s impossible to know what people are doing, but if it’s taking longer than it might to enter a web address or do a search for related material, then I wonder if I have lost someone to the world inside their device. I wonder if s/he has nodded off.  Am I the only one in the room wondering where  that person has gone? Is anyone else distracted when that happens?