How can teaching staff improve a passive student group? I have been assigned to a section of student where I am teaching probabilistic models. From the starting day itself, I feel something strange is happening in the class. For example:


I like to have two-way communication inside the class. i.e. I prefer to have some sort of active discussions. However, the students do not respond at all.
Given the above point, I initially thought that it was my fault that they are not finding my teaching interesting. But, I sat with them in other courses which they are taking. It is the same. It sounds strange, but, it is.
I can't say they are lazy (c.f. How to deal with lazy students?) because they are doing something else in class. Some are busy coding, some are reading research articles, some are doing something else. Out of 40 students, only ~5 students are interacting.
I can't throw them out of the class, as it is against the university rules.


Due to the above reasons, I (and a few other faculty members) do not feel interested in teaching these students.

How can we improve the class environment, given the passiveness of these students?
Some are busy in coding, some are reading research articles, some are doing something else.


I have seen (and participated in) this exact behaviour in classes that are minor and irrelevant to the study path students take. This might be an Ecology class for Physics majors, or a Science class for Language majors. Thus, step 1 is to understand students' motivations behind taking your class. If your students only take classes because some governing body requires them to, you have little room to improve their motivation.

To find if this is the case, try asking the students: either directly or by collecting an anonymous poll with 'What is your motivation for this course?' question. If the answers indicate that their motivation is external, adapt.

One strategy I can think of is changing the lectures to project work, literally making the students learn on their own. However, what to do with students who only have external motivation is a separate question.
EDIT: since the students seem to be taking the class for the sake of a good transcript, they will not interact with you in the lectures. Their goal is to sit through the lecture, "nine-to-five", and minimize the effort, subject to reaching a passing grade. (Ironically, students are good at solving these kinds of optimization problems.) My advice still holds: if a student is given a project to work on, be it a program, a research report, an essay, a survey, you name it, he has much less space to slack than in a lecture.