Learning and Teaching – the Progression

Posted on August 8, 2016 by Steven Friedland

I have become interested in progression and ordering lately.  Not so much with chickens and eggs, but more with respect to progressions used in the classroom.  Traditionally, I would start a class with a case and deploy it to open up an area of substantive law, utilizing questions, problems, canons of interpretation, and other cases to explore the meaning of concepts presented in the initial case or topic. The substantive areas depended on the course and ran from appurtenant easements (Property Law), to impeachment by prior untruthful acts (Evidence), to searches incident to lawful arrests (Criminal Procedure). My interest in ordering made me aware of the fact that I approached each class with a duality of teaching and learning.  Teaching usually was first in my progression.  The spotlight was on me as the teacher; I opened and conducted the class and then ended it when time ran out. I had many assumptions.  I assumed student motivation existed; that students started, followed, and ended the class with me; that students had effective practices of adding information to their understanding; and that students readily retrieved the information when needed.

But I wondered what would happen if I reversed the norm of ordering?  What if I placed learning first in the progression, especially in reference to motivation?  Motivation in law school is a lot like a roller coaster (at least it was for me) – it ebbs and flows quite a bit, sometimes within the same day. Motivation is often invisible to the classroom, but weighs heavily on learning.  Early in the first year there is a surfeit of it, and by the third year, well, lets just say there is not as much of it.

This reversal of progression, with learning first, changed a lot for me in the classroom.  In the past year or two, it has allowed for more variation, for greater focus on student improvement, for more experiential “doing” as part of basic courses, and for more direct consideration of student motivation.  For example, in this new progression, students fill out cards explaining what motivates them to learn the most and the least. Students also start each class by indicating where we are in the tapestry of subject matter – something they were used to me doing.  Since experiences often are helpful motivators, many more experiences are blended into the course — students now interview real world participants in law (e.g., police officers in a Criminal Procedure course) or Evidence (trial lawyers) and create short but deep PowerPoint presentations or videos in all courses about a point in the course that was worth further exploration.  These presentations served to recap what people had learned and to offer a combined “outline” of sorts for exam preparation.  Further, classes now end (at the students’ request) with a brief synopsis of what we did, to see if everyone finished around the same place.

In all, I found that focusing on learning generally, and motivation in particular, were very worthwhile.  I enjoyed the new way of guiding the course even more than I did the old.   There were different assumptions made, but I think they were more accurate.  Priorities can inform progression.

Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Best Practices for Institutional Effectiveness, Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques, Teaching Methodology, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

Teaching Tips to Think about Early in the New Semester- By Steven Friedland

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Steven Friedland

With the beginning of a new semester upon us, these thoughts and tips are a great thing to keep in the back of everyone’s mind whether you are a student or a professor.  This great post was done by Steven Friedland.

Flexibility and Mobility in Law School Learning

As a professor who has been teaching for more than two decades, it is easy to feel like a dinosaur in classes populated by students mostly in their 20s.  But within that notion lies the fact that not only do ages change, but cultures as well.  It is evident that within the born-digital generation, cultural understandings, particularly involving learning, are different than mine.

While I think cross-cultural competency is more important than ever in this global era, it also applies to us teaching dinosaurs.  I learned in law school in a linear and fixed fashion – go to class, take notes, go to the library, study and prepare for the next class.  Based on studies and my own anecdotal evidence, there is an increasing preference for mobility and flexibility in learning.  I am becoming a believer in both — using Web platforms like TWEN, Blackboard or Moodle as integral parts of a course, and allowing students to have flexibility in where and when they learn.

I am now experimenting in doctrinal courses to include several flex classes — audiotaped, with an option to take each over a 24 hour period in a self-paced fashion.  These self-paced classes are combined with deliverables — writing an answer to a problem based on the class material and then posting it on the Web platform, or doing some other relevant task based on the material to ensure that some form of learning has occurred.  So far, these classes have been well-received; to my surprise, students like the flexibility about when they take class as much as the remote opportunity. I am enjoying shaking it up in this way.  What is the saying?  Even an old dinosaur can learn….

 

Note-Taking Breaks

In a law school class, there are a variety of note-takers.  Some are the “court reporters,” taking down every word.  Some take far fewer notes, within their own organizational schemes. Many students are using computers, with note-taking programs. I also have had some “deep observers,” who appear to take no notes at all.

But all students seem to rely on the notes they take in putting a course together for deep understanding, especially in the first year of school.  Interestingly, teachers do not generally know how students are taking notes and whether those notes taken are even accurate.  This is why I have started using a colleague’s technique (yes, I like borrowing good ideas from others, no hiding there), of taking “note breaks” in the middle of a doctrinal class — allowing students to check their notes with other students, particularly about important rules, principles or insights. I usually prompt the break by asking, “What were the most important points in class so far?”  This has several effects.  Everyone perks up and the students appear present and engaged.  Students also are more likely to ask questions about what has occurred thus far.  I get useful feedback on what I have communicated well and what I have done poorly.  So all the way around, I find it to be a helpful technique. When students walk out of class, they should be able to rely on and have ready access to useful notes.

 

Retention and Retrieval

Lots of studies have been done that show experts learn differently than novices.  In any educational process, the goal is to move up the scale, from unconscious incompetence, to conscious incompetence, to conscious competence, to the highest level, unconscious competence.  I know about the lowest level, having been there in law school and many other contexts (just thinking back on the longest years of my life taking piano lessons).  The highest level of competence is epitomized by Captain Sully, the U.S. Air pilot who landed his commercial plane without engines in the Hudson River.

So what learning features are associated with experts? Experts recognize patterns of information, have deep understanding of material within a domain, organize their information well for ready access, and constantly self-monitor.  We can learn from these characteristics in law school.  It is traditional for law school professors to evaluate student performance through a single final examination, (although sometimes mid-terms are also offered).  The traditional summative evaluation framework promotes a particular type of studying.  Students study like crazy just before an exam, and then dump all of their knowledge on the test. (This approach was a familiar one for me when I was in school.) To help students progress from novice to expert, though, we should teach for long-term retention and retrieval.  This can occur through the use of numerous problems and opportunities throughout a course by which to practice organizing and storing material before a final exam, the use of structures or outlines by which to approach topics, and a greater emphasis on mnemonics, anchor words and other learning devices.   Sometimes, in our desire to cover great swaths of material, we don’t drill as deeply as we could or should.

Filed under: Bar Exam, Best Practices, Best Practices & Curriculum, Best Practices & Setting Goals, Best Practices and Clinics, Teaching Methodology | Comments Off on Teaching Tips to Think about Early in the New Semester- By Steven Friedland

Lawyer Job Satisfaction and Comparing Downward

Posted on July 20, 2015 by Steven Friedland

In law school, we learn about model answers, class ranking and, for lack of a better term, perfection. It usually seems to be about striving to perform better and comparing to others ahead of ourselves, no matter where we are placed – or place ourselves – in the ranking queue. Yet, along comes work by Nancy Levit and Doug Linder, two professors of law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, who examined lawyer happiness. While many people think that money would have a huge impact on happiness, that apparently was just not accurate according to a reported study. But other factors mattered. What struck me about this exploration, in particular, was the finding that “comparing downward” was a good way to promote happiness.

The way I understand it, a downward comparison means to appreciate what we have and see the hundreds, thousands and more people who have less than we do, not those people/lawyers who have more. That would be comparing upward – to the friend at the more prestigious firm, the other friend who is ranked higher in six different categories at school, or to the person who just received the prestigious clerkship you applied for as well.

I know I compare upward quite a bit. I went to Harvard, but was not a top performer (no summa for me), did not get the top clerkship, job, etc. It actually is pragmatically useful, though, to recognize the advantages to comparing down. I really like and use a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson that does indeed implicitly compare down:

 “Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”

This quote is posted in my office and at home, for good reason.

Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

LEGAL EDUCATION: TAKING PRIDE IN TURNING OUT LAWYERS?

Posted on May 11, 2015 by Steven Friedland

It is interesting that of all the professional schools domains, from business, to law, to medicine, to design, to engineering and more, legal education seems to be particularly unexcited with the prospect of turning out lawyers. Why is that? It might have something to do with the straddling of the law school between the higher education academy and the trade school.   It is clear, from just rereading what I wrote that the term “trade school” carries baggage with it and likely serving as such is not an attractive idea to many. Thus, we teach students to think critically, but not necessarily the mundane, routinized activities of lawyers. Yet, the actions and performance of lawyers are both important and must coalesce with the thinking agenda. Also, acting or performing without integrity would be more than a distraction, but even a dereliction of duty. So turning out lawyers should be a positive outcome from day #1 of law school – and the practicality of lawyering should be held in high esteem as well as the sometimes disconnected critical thinking.

But what do lawyers make? This question is usually associated with money, but I like it because it also allows for an answer regarding relationships. Lawyers make the rule of law in society, fair processes, dispute resolution more likely and less violent, people who are discriminated against have a way to stand up for their rights, and generally make the our systems function. Lastly, of course, lawyers often make a difference to others. So while lawyers often make nothing tangible, lawyering remains a noble profession that ought to be viewed that way by the academy. The legal education process provides a training and background that offers the tools to navigate the system and help us work together in greater harmony. In an era of uncertainty and volatility, we need competent, community-minded lawyers who operate with integrity.

Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Teaching “Doing” as a Lawyer During Law School

Posted on March 2, 2015 by Steven Friedland

In doctrinal courses, we are used to teaching students to think critically, an activity often referred to in the legal education domain as “thinking like a lawyer.” This thinking component is central to what lawyers do. But Lee Schulman, a co-author of the Carnegie Report (2007) and author of “Signature Pedagogies in the Professions,” in Daedalus 52 (Summer 2005)and a former professor at Stanford U. has observed that preparing students for the professions requires not only thinking critically, but also acting and performing with integrity. (Integrity is a nice way to describe ethics, using new vocabulary to wrap lawyering in a high standard.)

The ideas of action and performance are not new, but when held up alongside critical thinking, they create a nice trilogy of legal education outcomes. Acting is how lawyers interact with others, prepare, and behave while working, but not performing. Performing is when a lawyer is engaged in a law practice activity requiring competency, such as oral argument, examining a witness at a deposition or trial, or mediating a dispute.

Now that I have provided some background, my essential point in this brief blog post is as follows — If acting and performing are so important, we should be teaching students to do these things throughout law school, starting on the very first day of the first year of school, woven throughout doctrinal courses as well as clinical and legal writing offerings. Learning science supports this integration. In learning science, it has been shown that engaged learners perform better. Creating deliverables is a way to engage students in a positive fashion. Deliverables such as, “Do a direct examination of the plaintiff in this case,” or “Take a picture of an easement on real property and explain why,” or, “Write down ten questions you would have of the plaintiff in this case if you were able to ask them,” are just some illustrations of deliverables. Role-playing generally falls within the rubric of a deliverable, since students must give a performance as an attorney, judge, witness or other person – just not as a student.

Yet, it is hard to get out of our own way. After teaching for a long time, we develop habits that are difficult to shake, and taking risks with new approaches provides its own set of issues as well. But if legal education is really transitioning students through school into practice – and not just teaching discrete substantive segments – we probably ought to try doing something like this, even if only as a Beta test.

Filed under: Best Practices | Comments Off on Teaching “Doing” as a Lawyer During Law School

Legal Education and Professional Identity

Posted on August 18, 2014 by Steven Friedland

I participated in a discussion group about teaching the formation of professional identity at the Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS) conference in early August, led by Professors Ben Madison of Regent University School of Law and David Thomson of the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.  It was clear there was lots of passion in the room to engage students in the formation of professional identity directly and throughout law school.  The real question was how to do it.  There were some very good ideas of how to do it within the parameters of traditional classes, such as Professional Ethics, and how to do it outside of classes by affecting the culture of a school and its environments.

One of the main problems in this area, it seems to me, is that the notion of ‘professionalism’ is often a foreign concept to students; after all, until someone becomes a lawyer, how will they understand what this means?  This is where learning science comes into play, specifically experiential education, the kind advocated by David Kolb in his famous experiential learning cycle way back in 1984.  Kolb suggested that experience should be used as a learning tool in stages. An experience serves as the first stage, and is then followed by reflection, abstraction and theorization, and finally, the transfer of knowledge to new problems or questions.

This learning cycle fits into real life quite well.  If one is learning to drive, for example, then it is important to progress from the classroom to the passenger seat to the driver’s seat.  Of course, the ‘driver’s seat’ need not be attached to a two thousand pounds of nuts, bolts and engine, but can at first be behind the wheel of a simulator.  Simulation and exercises in legal education also can serve as a platform for the formation of professional identity.  For example, a simulated oral argument about a case could involve two teams of students asked to argue different positions.  This division into groups requires collaborative work and presents an opportunity to explore how professionals participate and communicate on teams.

Students also could be given non-legal exercises that raise professional identity issues.  If students were walking home from school one night and see a $20 bill sticking out of an ATM machine with no one else around, would they take it?  Why or why not?  Does it matter whether the students were now working in a courthouse where the ATM is located or working as a lawyer for the bank that owns the ATM?

From a different perspective, what if the students were mountain climbing in the Andes Mountains and were roped up with the person closest to them in the entire world at 20,000 feet. In this hypo, the person roped to the student slips and falls off of the mountain.  The only way the student can save him or herself is to cut the rope, leading to a long fall for person #2.  Would the student cut the rope?  This question raises professional ethics of a different kind — what is the mountain climber code in this situation?  Also, what factors would the student consider in making such a decision? (A somewhat similar situation actually occurred in real life with two mountain climbers high in the Andes.  The mountain climber on the mountain cut the rope and the other climber, dangling below, fell, but survived.  I would have loved to have eavesdropped on their conversation at the bottom of the mountain. See Touching the Void (2003), based on a 1988 book by Joe Simpson of the same name.)

All told, the formation of professional identity can help students connect with and maintain the values that might have landed them in law school in the first place.  And it could weave into the understanding of law the importance of the lawyer’s role within the system – and how service to others might require a different application of values than service to oneself.

Filed under: Best Practices | Comments Off on Legal Education and Professional Identity

Best Law Teachers Conference

Posted on July 5, 2014 by Steven Friedland

While attending the Best Law Teachers Conference in Chicago last week I was struck by how much I learned by simply observing terrific law teachers. I saw contrasting styles, from Heather Gerken’s Socratic Method, to Meredith Duncan’s distinctive discussion approach, to Rory Bahadur’s combination method. Actually, all three blended different methods and shared some basic characteristics. It was obvious that each was passionate, dedicated to having their students learn, highly organized and focused on learning outcomes, and had a structure that they intentionally shared with students. Just because they did not hide the ball did not mean they did not have high expectations; students were on notice that they needed to put on their learning hats while in the room. I took notes furiously on my laptop and felt like a student again – until my poor eyesight and creaky hands reminded me that my “youthful student” days were long over.

Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Teaching Methodology | 1 Comment »

Why Not an Engaged Legal Education?

Posted on March 22, 2011 by Steven Friedland

Is it time to transform the Langdellian core of legal education?  Despite notable calls for change from respected sources, from the Carnegie Report, Educating Lawyers, to Roy Stuckey et al.’s Best Practices for Legal Education, the traditional vision of law as an academic science, taught by iconic experts out of casebooks carved up by subject matter, continues to dominate.  Teaching students to “think like a lawyer” sufficed for many decades, even if students were not fully prepared for the practice of law.  That partial preparation is less satisfactory, given the recession and the apparent scarcity of jobs.

An alternative successful educational narrative exists that aligns more closely with training students to improve various skill sets – engaged education.  This term has differing meanings, but for law school, it connotes substantial change in both the form and execution of the education and often includes an active or experiential component, from a field trip, to meetings with the professor, to course-related independent projects.  Some changes include: teaching less around the coverage of substantive material and more for achieving student competencies; focusing class and outside time on a series of student deliverables with a high degree of complexity and frequency, so students are challenged and involved, doing and experiencing outside the classroom as well as in it, all on a regular basis; enlisting students in sharing the responsibility to learn as an on-going process, and not as a sprint just before final exams; and evaluating students by at least several benchmarks, and not just a single, summative final examination.

While what is being proposed here could be called engaged learning, the learning is directed, with specific outcomes sought, so the active and experiential tasks are better described as engaged education. The methodology is designed to enhance specifically framed educational outcomes, facilitate the development of competencies and result in an education that bridges theory and practice, better equipping students for the real-world on the day after their graduation.

So what would this look like? First, it would start right away in the first year of school, especially if it is to affect and reach the core of the educational process.  Without primacy, the message sent will be that experiential, engaged education is secondary to case analysis. Second, the level of engagement would be adjusted to fit the particular context, including the nature of the school, its location, and its students.  Some schools might want engaged components or modules built within courses; other schools might want a single course focusing on engaged learning each semester.  Third, engagement would vary from course to course and year to year.  For example, in a first year Criminal Law course, there could be several engaged or active learning modules.  Students could be required to observe a criminal court case, take a guided tour of the local jail, interview a criminal defense lawyer or prosecutor, or participate in forensic evidence demonstrations.  Property law, on the other hand, could have a single engaged component, such as finding an easement in the community or creating a land sale contract.

The concept of engaged education is accepted and promoted in business and other graduate schools and undergraduate domains, among other educational venues. Should legal education at least check it out, especially as market forces and globalization keep pushing adaptation?

See more like this at: Center for Engaged Learning in the Law

Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Want to Contribute to a Book on Law Teaching and Learning?

Posted on May 30, 2008 by Steven Friedland

The Center for Engaged Learning in the Law (CELL) of Elon Law School plans to publish a short book on law teaching and learning this fall with the Carolina Academic Press.  The goal of the book is to provide a handy and concise reference guide from the perspectives of practitioners, students and teachers. Consequently, the book will feature this triumvirate of perspectives with comments and thoughts from all three groups.  the rationale for combining perspectives is that for a teacher, it is relatively easy to hear what other teachers are saying, but not what students are saying, save for the end of the semester evaluations (which, by their nature, often offer only a small slice of the available feedback) — and certainly not what practitioners might be opining after they leave the academic campus.  Comments on the following topics are especially desired: Continue reading →

Filed under: Catalysts For Change | Comments Off on Want to Contribute to a Book on Law Teaching and Learning?

What Does Competency Look Like?

Posted on April 21, 2008 by Steven Friedland

Lately, I find myself asking myself a question right before teaching some material, “What does competency look like in this subject area?”  I ask this in part because of student statements about the opaqueness of legal ed — that they do not know what we want them to be learning, exactly.  I also ask this question in part from recent realizations that teaching from a case book and being attentive to case law (or statutes or even problems) does not indicate what I really want students to learn about that material — namely the frameworks for analysis, the depth of knowledge and the application of that material to other fact patterns.  By covering material, I still am teaching law students as law students — not as test-takers or attorneys.  So I have tried to shift my approach sometimes and be more explicit about what competency looks like.  I may suggest a court’s or student’s analysis merits competency in an area or announce in class, “Here’s what a competent statement of a rule might look like,” or “Here’s how a defense lawyer might argue this issue.”  I know that this might be construed as spoon-feeding, but I want students to understand the general framework of a competent answer before I ask them many more hypothetical fact patterns.  (After all, piano teachers demonstrate competency before asking their charges to practice toward that goal.)  Has this express use of competency been successful?  I don’t know.  I do know it feels right to treat students not always as students, but also as future test-takers and lawyers — as “doers” and not just as note-takers or listeners.

Filed under: Teaching Methodology | 2 Comments »

Adaptive Learning Environments: Interactive Outlining?

Posted on February 28, 2008 by Steven Friedland

After recently having numerous discussions with teachers and students about the value of students outlining a course, one thing is clear — the age-old practice of outling is thriving.  One thing that is not as clear is the value of a practice that does not involve any teacher-student interaction. So, I thought it would be fun and interesting to ask, “What if….?”  As an experiment, I have started an interactive outline on my class Blackboard site.   Students can post their outlines on this Web platform — anonymously if they want — and I can post comments.   This type of mutual access might allow information to flow in different directions — to the student who posted, to the prof as formative feedback, and to other students who read the posts.  The site is intended to help visual students, give profs an understanding of how students are learning and permit mid-course corrections and fill-ins.   Will this idea crash and burn?  I will keep you posted.

Filed under: Who is Using the Best Practices Book? | 6 Comments »

March 4th: Formative Feedback Day in America

Posted on February 20, 2008 by Steven Friedland

I was asked in a comment to my last post on formative feedback, How are we going to motivate teachers to do the extra work required to give such feedback?  The answer is to show how learning increases if formative feedback is a regular part of the educational process.  Change often is incremental.  While institutions won’t simply give credit for such feedback, grass roots changes are possible.  Why not have a formative feedback day, where across America, law teachers everywhere can incorporate some form of formative feedback (even a single multiple choice question) in their classes?  How about March 4th? We have to start somewhere.

Filed under: Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques | Comments Off on March 4th: Formative Feedback Day in America

Adaptive Learning Environments

Posted on February 20, 2008 by Steven Friedland

The theme of the CALI conference this year is transforming legal education, picking up on the Best Practices theme and the Carnegie Foundation Report, Educating Lawyers.  One area where the horse already has left the barn involves learning environments.  In the 20th Century, the environment was entirely linear:  teachers taught, students learned, students studied in the library and then returned to class to learn some more.  In the 21st Century, that linearity has disappeared and a multidimensional set of environments has taken its place.  Learning is not so much a function of place anymore.  Students learn on the go — have laptop or Ipod, will travel.  Law school should adapt to the portability of learning in the 21st Century, encouraging TWEN, CALI, laptops and Ipod learning — because while these adaptive environments may be uncomfortable for us 20th Century dinosaurs, 21st Century students learn in this fashion.

Filed under: Catalysts For Change, Teaching Methodology, Technology, Who is Using the Best Practices Book? | 1 Comment »

Whatever Happened to Formative Feedback?

Posted on February 19, 2008 by Steven Friedland

Imagine taking a piano lesson with a teacher who asks questions, but gives little on-the-spot feedback.  Imagine the teacher returning week after week, stating after each lesson, “I will give you feedback after our big, end of the session recital.”  Imagine the recital occurring and the teacher taking notes and walking away. One month later, in the mail, you receive your feedback, a single letter grade,  B.  

That is the way we traditionally do feedback in legal education, including only a single summative final examination as the sole evaluation and feedback mechanism.  Is it not time to formally include formative feedback measures within our educational process? Why not include in each course:  1.  a single multiple choice question, once a week; 2. an “all-write” after a question, (asking all students to write out brief answers to a question posed in class), so everyone is participating and can evaluate their responses against what the teacher says; 3. a note break during class to allow all students to check with others and see if they are answering correctly; 4. posting a sample old exam question followed by a  “model” answer or answers; or  5. a threaded discussion problem to allow students to apply their knowledge.  Other academic fora understand the importance of formative feedback.  Somehow, we in legal education need to get the message.

Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques | 4 Comments »

The January 2008 United Kingdom Conference on Legal Education

Posted on January 21, 2008 by Steven Friedland

Here are a few observations after participating in the second annual UK Conference on Legal Education on January 3rd and 4th of 2008:

1.  In Sync….  Continue reading →

Filed under: Best Practices for Institutional Effectiveness, Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques, International Initiatives and Models | 5 Comments »