Marjorie A. Silver, Touro College How to Have an Intimate Relationship with 150 New Students For those of us teach who teach first semester students in large classes, it is a formidable challenge to forge the kind of individual teacher/student relationships needed to maximize their learning process. This year, I had the entire first year day class of Civil Procedure: two sections of approximately 75 students each. I began the semester with a renewed commitment to help each and every student develop into an outstanding lawyer. Could I deliver on that commitment? I believe that fundamental to that mission is inspiring and empowering each student to seize responsibility for his or her own education. The vast majority of students arrive at law school expecting the venerated law faculty to fill them with knowledge of the law. We must convince our students instead that while we know a lot about the law, and while there is much we have to share, their success as law students and lawyers is dependent on their mastery of the skills of self-education. Towards that end, I decided to devote most of the second hour of class1 to brainstorming with the students about expectations and commitments. I asked two basic questions: “What do you want to get out of this class? What are you prepared to give to this class? Out of that discussion came a list of mutual commitments which formed the basis for a sort of “learning contract” between and among the members of the class and me.2 I posted the resulting list on the course’s Discussion Forum on TWEN, the virtual adjunct classroom created by Westlaw. I invited students to critique the commitments, and to offer additions, deletions, or amendments. Although the commitments were never reduced to a written contract, as a community we proceeded to operate with these as our fundamental principles. I will discuss (anecdotally, not empirically) the success of these efforts. In addition, there are two or three other ideas I will touch on as tools for getting to know the students individually. These include distributing and collecting index cards at the beginning of the term on which I ask each student to share where they come from, their education and work background, as well as two or three things they would like me to know about them. Also, I have each student give me a small face shot from which I make a pictorial seating chart that enables me to get to know the majority of them by name relatively quickly. Finally, I utilize TWEN as a vehicle to encourage ongoing dialogue among the students as well as to enhance their preparation for class discussion through posting discussion questions in advance of each class. I use TWEN’s email notification system to apprise students of these postings, thus insuring frequent out of class communications from me to each of them. 1 In the very first class, we do the first of twelve exercises from Professor Phil Schrag’s Lucy Lockett simulation for Civil Procedure. These materials were published as Philip G. Schrag, Civil Procedure: A Simulation Supplement (Little, Brown 1990). Further information is available from the author or me. Thus from the very first day of law school, students are engaged in the experiential practice of law, learning that the common sense and worldly knowledge with which they enter law school will be a critical asset in their professional development. 2 I must give credit for the idea for this discussion to a participant in the on-line community “Abuzz.” I solicited advice and resources on developing learning contracts for higher education, and received a response describing a similar successful and memorable undertaking by a political science professor this participant had had as an undergraduate.