How do you handle PDA on your team?

[JohnChristensen]

Originally Posted by ttldomination

This seems a little...uptight. I know that even while I'm working with a student or a group, I'll entertain the occasional tangent about football or a new video game release. As long the discussion finds its way back in about 1-3 mins, I'm okay with it.

PDA in general isn't an issue that I face day to day. Most students are civil about these things and don't spend the time snogging (excuse the British). However, when PDA becomes detrimental to the process, students are given one warning, and if it continues, then asked to leave to return another day. In this case, I find the direct approach is usually the best one.

I'm 22, but I also had to look up PDA on urbandictionary. I originally thought if someone bought a Palm device off ebay, who cares? Anyway... Our policy may appear uptight in writing, but that is the point with written contracts. We operate with the understanding a quick conversation, comment, etc. is fine, but we have an issue when a group of students and mentors are discussing a robot related topic and it gets derailed by an off-hand comment.

We have also had cases in the past where kids would go stand off in a corner and discuss video games at length. I don't might the occasional COD reference, but with the amount of opportunities for students to be productive and learning something when the mentors are on-site, spending that time having a discussion which could be had later is frustrating to me (and our other mentors).

Getting back to the original question of PDA, in my opinion, if you are going to be a distraction, then I think you should go home. That is why our policy exists. Whatever the distraction is, if you are preventing others from working then: a) You're not working. b) You just had a negative impact on the whole team. This behavior would never fly in the corporate world, and so we want to teach our students how to handle it now while they are in school.