Barbara J. Flagg, Washington University School of Law Problem-Based Learning in Constitutional Law I am using a small group, active learning teaching method in my Constitutional Law II course (which covers the Fourteenth Amendment and is open to second- and third-year students). The technique is a variant of the problem-based approach first developed at the McMaster University medical school and now in use at several other medical schools, including the New Pathways program at Harvard Medical School. Problem-based learning was designed to develop students’ skills at “clinical reasoning” and “self-evaluation and study.”1 In other words, the problem-based approach emphasizes applied knowledge and aspires to help students learn how to learn. At McMaster, medical students work in small groups at their own pace on a problem selected by them from a menu of problems designed to present a variety of issues. Each group meets regularly with a teacher whose role is more that of a facilitator than a dispenser of information. The teacher guides the students, largely by posing appropriate questions for further thought or study, as they move through a process of initial information-gathering, hypothesis formation, additional study, application of the new information to the initial hypothesis, and so forth. Finally, when the problem has been satisfactorily resolved, the teacher leads a discussion intended to formalize and integrate what has been learned, both as to substance and as to self-study techniques.2 Clearly, applied knowledge and the acquisition of self-study and self-evaluation skills are as important in law as in medicine. I am using a modified version of the problem-based method in Constitutional Law II. Students work in groups of four on a series of increasingly complex problems, with the objective in each case of preparing a bench memo or judicial opinion resolving the problem. Initially, the students are provided with the problem and a list of cases relevant to its disposition; they may do any additional research they wish. I meet with each group at least once weekly to discuss their progress, answer questions where appropriate, make suggestions for further inquiry, etc. At the end of the period allotted for each problem, the class meets as a whole to critique selected papers completed by class members, and to review the substance of the doctrines and principles implicated by the problem in question. Over the course of a semester the students take on a total of four problems and writing assignments, some of which raise multiple issues. The substantive coverage of this four-credit course is roughly equivalent to what it was when I used a traditional casebook and traditional, Socratic classroom techniques. This approach to constitutional law departs in some respects from the problem-based method described above. Because the universe of information relevant to the resolution of constitutional issues is dominated by existing U.S. Supreme Court opinions, there is limited novelty in this portion of the research process. Thus I identify relevant USSC cases, at least as a starting point. This also serves as a time-saving measure; as this is just one of several courses in which the students are enrolled in a given semester, I don’t wish research tasks to overshadow the other aspects of the course. I also specify a fixed time-frame for the resolution of each problem, rather than the open-ended method used at McMaster, in order to harmonize this process with the rest of the students’ schedules. Finally, I meet with the entire class at the stage of formalizing and integrating learned material and techniques as an accommodation to the class size needs of legal education. Even with these differences, however, I find this approach effective at meeting the objectives of enhancing students’ applied knowledge, and self-study and self-evaluation skills. 1 Howard S. Barrows & Robyn M. Tamblyn, Problem-Based Learning: An Approach to Medical Education 7 (1980). 2 Problem-based learning differs from the problem method (as we use the term in legal education) in several respects. These will be described in the presentation, but would exceed space limitations here.