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Conference on New Ideas for Experienced Teachers

June 9–13, 2001
Calgary, Alberta, Canada

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  Teaching and Learning Law - Breaking Out of the Classroom's Constraints

A Conversation Between Jack R. Goetz and Peter W. Martin

  1. A thought experiment
    • Lead a law school course on a subject you have taught regularly -- readings, syllabus, exam (and any other form of evaluated performance you ordinarily employ) -- with no classroom meetings
    • A softer variant - only one meeting a week or the equivalent, bunched together
    • The challenge - reach the same level of student mastery or greater, along with any other educational outputs you customarily aim for and achieve
  2. Why?
    • Huge costs of many kinds are inherent in having to assemble faculty and students in one place at regularly scheduled times. Eliminate that requirement and there are large potential savings for both students and institution.
    • The technology predicate is established. U.S. law students are increasingly comfortable with digital work spaces.
    • Additional students and additional categories of students can be reached (possible additional revenue, greater accessibility).
    • Current educational practices leave substantial room for improvement
  3. A report on two different but complementary approaches to the challenge

    Concord's on-line curriculum (Goetz)

    • Year long courses constructed in modular format (30 modules)
    • Each module may contain:
      • Reading assignments of casebooks and other supplementary material
      • Lecture assignments organizing the "black letter law" material
      • Synchronous internet classrooms with professors
      • Assessments (multiple choice or essay) with extensive "road mapping"
    • Unique features of Concord:
    • Small classes (average 1st year section is 35 students)
      • Unique method of conducting classrooms, wherein everyone answers the professor's questions
    • 11 units devoted to Legal Writing and Research
      • 2 units 1st year teaching basic "IRAC"
      • 6 units 3rd year teaching electronic legal research, legal writing and moot court
      • 3 units 4th year teaching advanced legal writing
    • Heavy emphasis on Professional Responsibility and Ethics
      • Listserv conducted by Assistant Dean Weston addressing current issues
      • 4 unit 3rd year course on Professional Responsibility

    The LII's on-line courses (Martin)

    Two upperclass electives taken by 160 students at 7 different law schools in 2000-2001:

    • a scheduled progression through a sequence of topics, paced by Web-based discussion and mandatory interactive exercises
    • hypermedia presentation (streaming audio linked to assigned texts and diverse supplementary materials - including tables, charts, and a presentation outline)
    • computer-based tutorials and exercises (similar to those CALI has long distributed) tightly integrated with the readings and presentation material
    • asynchronous but paced teacher-student, student-student written discussion, frequently begun after all in the class had submitted tentative positions on the issue or problem
    • four short problem-solving and writing assignments submitted via the Net for teacher evaluation and feedback
    • e-mail communication for both group announcements and issues involving a single student
    • a final exam
  4. Viewing these non-traditional approaches in relation to the needs of adult learners
    • Learner centered
      • Material taught based on student needs; teachers pay close attention to knowledge, skills and attitudes of learners
      • Individual progress of each student is tracked, and appropriate tasks to the learner devised
    • Knowledge centered
      • Curriculum supports learning with understanding rather than factual memory
      • Engagement not enough; structure of activities integrated within content of curriculum
    • Assessment centered
      • Assessments learner-friendly; provide students with opportunities to revise and improve thinking
    • Community centered
      • Encourage academic risk-taking and opportunities to make mistakes, obtain feedback, and revise as opposed to "don't get caught not knowing something."

  5. Some evident gains

    From the students' perspective:

    • level of effort
    • level of mastery
    • feedback and interaction
    • other factors (choice of time, place, medium, and depth)

    From the teacher's perspective:

    • the possibility of endless repetition, boundless patience
    • a capacity to monitor the engagement and mastery of individual students
    • the possibility of being a more attentive listener and a more reflective responder

  6. Why implementation (by established law schools) on any serious scale is so difficult

    The serious impediments lie not in the technology or its capacity to provide for effective learning, but in deeply seated pedagogical assumptions and practices and institutional limitations

    • The skill set and mindset of existing faculty (and students)
    • The atomistic structure of academic units
    • Patterns of distance education that are the easiest to implement (given the preceding factors) are bound to disappoint (being high on cost and short on gain)

    The interesting questions are not whether but who:

    • When significant portions of professional legal education are being delivered by digital technology to students who need not report to a classroom who (which institutions) will be the major players?
    • When digital technology is used to provide education on U.S. and International law topics to students other than U.S. JD seekers who (which institutions) will be the major players?
    • The apparent comparative advantage of "start from scratch" entities

  7. For more details

    On the Concord curriculum: http://www.concordlawschool.com

    On the LII's on- line courses: A student-eye view of this past term's Social Security Law offering is available at the course Web site: http://www.law.cornell.edu/socsec/spring01/

    [All of the "welcome" and "how to" material on the first page and the course introduction at the top of the syllabus are accessible without a password. Anyone wanting to go further, can secure a guest password from martin@lii.law.cornell.edu ]

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