Article Review | Institute for Law Teaching and Learning

Review: Strategies & Techniques for Integrating DEI into the Core Law Curriculum…

07SepSeptember 7, 2021 By Vicky Daniels

Review by Emily Grant, Washburn University School of Law.

Professor Teri McMurtry-Chubb once again steps into a gap to provide much-needed information, suggestions, and resources for the law teaching community. This time, she has written a book about incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) into all of our classrooms.

Strategies & Techniques for Integrating DEI into the Core Law Curriculum: A Comprehensive Guide to DEI Pedagogy, Course Planning, and Classroom Practice by Teri McMurtry-Chubb is available for free download here: https://www.wklegaledu.com/resources/law-school-faculty/law-school-faculty

The book features DEI learning outcomes and assessments, course planning templates for each course in the core law curriculum, and racial trauma-informed teaching approaches. It also includes FAQs and discussion questions by chapter to work through as you and your colleagues plan and implement DEI curricular initiatives at your law school. The book is organized in three main parts, as described in the Introduction:

Part I, Chapter 1, The Scope of DEI Education & Pedagogy details the evolution of teaching with a DEI lens. DEI education and pedagogy work to make the greatest positive change within the core structures of legal education by strategically employing critical pedagogies and curricula. Chapter 2, The First Amendment, Academic Freedom, and the DEI Curricular Lens, examines the pushback students, faculty, and administration have encountered when advocating for DEI pedagogical and curricular interventions. This pushback has been cast as a conflict around academic freedom. This chapter discusses the current conflicts in the battle between DEI and academic freedom, and provides strategies for how to navigate these issues on law school campuses. Chapter 3, Assessing the Institutional Climate for DEI Curricula, explores the varied considerations professors of all ranks and statuses (e.g., Assistant, Associate, and Full Professors, non-tenure-track full-time faculty; adjunct faculty, etc.) should make when implementing DEI issues into the classroom and curriculum. This chapter explores how rank, status, and campus climate influence which pedagogical and curricular choices are available to faculty. It also examines professor positionality and teaching, or how a professor “presents” to the class impacts available DEI curricular choices and pedagogical strategies.

Part II, Chapter 4, Racial Trauma Informed Approaches to DEI Pedagogy, discusses how microaggressions, macroaggressions, and other discriminatory practices leave an indelible mark on those who have survived them. The psychological and social science communities have examined these phenomena as trauma, and have detailed the emotional, psychological, and physical effects they have on minoritized groups. It is imperative that professors have an understanding of racial trauma and racial trauma informed pedagogies as they prepare to discuss DEI issues in the classroom and design DEI curricula. Chapter 5, Course Planning and Assessment for the DEI Classroom & Curriculum, provides instruction on how to build a course that integrates a DEI curricular lens. It offers course planning templates that link skills and knowledge to learning outcomes, performance criteria, and learning activities – both for traditional and online classroom environments. It also connects the information in Chapter 4: Racial Trauma Informed Approaches to DEI Pedagogy to the course planning and assessment processes. Chapter 6, Developing Instructional Materials for DEI Pedagogy & Practice, lays out the processes for developing classroom DEI instructional materials that serve as learning activities to advance and measure learning outcomes. The chapter surveys multimedia resources, traditional learning techniques, microlearning techniques, and the like that are appropriate for traditional and online learning environments. It also provides levels of difficulty (easy, intermediate, difficult, and advanced) at which professors can access this work.

Answers to a list of frequently asked questions (FAQs) is located in Chapter 7. If you are working through this book with a committee, faculty, or other group, Chapter 7 also provides discussion questions for Chapters 1-6 to facilitate group dialogue. Lastly, Part III, Chapters 8-14, provides examples of course planning, instructional materials, and assessment for core curriculum courses at the easy, intermediate, and difficult levels. The courses included are Contracts, Civil Procedure, Criminal Law, Property, Constitutional Law, Legal Writing, and Torts.

Review: The Deconstructed Issue-Spotting Exam

12FebFebruary 12, 2020 By Sandra Simpson

By Jeremiah A. Ho, University of Massachusetts School of Law

Jamie R. Abrams, The Deconstructed Issue-Spotting Exam, 68 J. Legal Educ. 194 (2019).

Professor Jamie Abrams from University of Louisville has recently published an article in the Journal of Legal Education with an innovative technique for exam preparation, formative assessment, and lawyering simulation all through what she calls the “deconstructed exam.” In her piece, The Deconstructed Issue-Spotting Exam, she uses the exam review opportunity in a large case-method class not only for its formative assessment purposes, but also for facilitating more comprehensive curricular reforms that today’s law schools are implementing—particularly in the area of developing lawyering competencies.

Abrams’ approach begins with the use of a traditional issue-spotting cumulative essay. Once administered and then reviewed with students for legal analysis and issue-spotting skills, Abrams suggests extending the opportunity for further instruction based off the same fact pattern. Abrams recommends using the exam to further the student’s ability to redo the exam from a client-centered perspective. This approach is handled particularly by “invit[ing] students to explain why rules are as they are, to provide context for how a rule developed to be what it is, to highlight whether claims are strong or weak, to put issues in procedural context, and to anticipate client reactions.” Her article details a step-by-step guideline that lays out how her approach is accomplished.

For those of us who teach large Socratic courses, Abrams’ approach may sound ambitious at the start—and it is! However, her article is precisely written and her approach is very well calculated. Overall, her approach takes the large fact patterns that we spend days (or weeks) to write for our students and imbues it with more than just its customary finite purpose in the exam room and for grading. Rather it repurposes the traditional law school exam from its goals for formative assessments to effectuating larger professional competencies within our students. Abrams gives us a new thoughtful approach to law school testing that imparts more usefulness for both faculty and students.

Review: Office Hours Are Not Obsolete: Fostering Learning Through One-on-One Student Meetings

12NovNovember 12, 2019 By Sandra Simpson

By Tonya Krause-Phelan, WMU-Cooley Law School

Office Hours Are Not Obsolete: Fostering Learning Through One-on-One Student Meetings
By DeShun Harris
57 Duquesne Law Review 43 (Winter, 2019)

In her article Office Hours Are Not Obsolete: Fostering Learning Through One-on-One Student Meetings, Professor DeShun Harris encourages professors to rethink how they use office appointments to enhance student learning. Professor Harris addresses the current notion that technology has reduced, if not eliminated, the need for in-person office hours. While research shows that students tend to typically underuse, or even avoid altogether, the in-person office appointment, professors can overcome students’ perception that office meetings are not worth their time. Because one-on-one meetings provide rich learning opportunities, improve student performance on assessments, and potentially improve grades, legal educators should use effective learning strategies, many of which are being integrated into law school classrooms, to provide students with one-on-one learning opportunities during office hours.

Using strategies to encourage office meetings, professors can overcome the underutilization of office hours. One common misperception students have is that faculty are unavailable or not interested in hosting office meetings; consequently, professors must explain why one-on-one office meetings are important to students. Professors can convey a message through an invitation to attend office hours in the course syllabus; the message can be reinforced during the first class and before and after assessments during subsequent classes.

Once students decide to attend an office meeting, professors must create a welcoming office setting. Doing so conveys a message that the professor is available and does not think the meeting is an interruption. Things to consider when creating a suitable office atmosphere are ease in scheduling the meeting, an uncluttered office, a blank computer screen, and arranging furniture in a way that does not form barriers between the student and the professor.

The student meeting itself should be structured according to the common office hour framework. While there has been little research in the law school setting, Professor Harris points to research conducted at German universities where it was noted that most one-on-one conferences take on a five-sequenced framework. First, the prefacing sequence, involves inviting the student into the office; this can be done by general invitation or a specific request for the student to meet with the professor. The invitation must be extended in a way that is non-threatening. Second, the identification sequence is typically the beginning of the meeting, where the professor greets the student and engages in small talk. Flowing naturally from the identification sequence, the third sequence is outlining the academic business the student wishes to discuss. This sequence should be task-oriented to address the student’s concern/goals. Once the academic business has been outlined, the professor and student can move to the fourth sequence is negotiating academic business sequence. Here, the professor guides the student to a solution. Attention should be paid to writing, thought processing, and behavior that can lead to academic and career success. In working toward a solution, the professor is encouraged to use research on learning science to foster student learning. The fifth and final sequence is the closing sequence. Here, the solution is acknowledged.

Finally, professors must use effective learning methods to create a learner-centered meeting. One method professors can use is retrieval, the act of trying to recall information once learned from memory. Retrieving information is a powerful way to retain information because it strengthens the memory and association with the material, even when students give wrong answers. Another effective learning strategy to use in the office meeting setting is problem-solving. Professors can ask students to answer something that is new to them; then the student explains their thought process in reaching the answer. This also allows professors to give constructive feedback. As a way to aid students in becoming self-regulated learners, professors can also discuss professional development concepts like training, self-study, critical reflection, and feedback.

Professor Harris concludes that office hours are not obsolete. Instead, office hours should be encouraged as they provide important learning opportunities for students. Professors can easily modify the manner in which they currently host office appointments and incorporate effective learning strategies, many of which are being integrated into law school classrooms, to provide students with one-on-one opportunities designed to enhance their knowledges, skills and education.

Racial Anxiety

31MarApril 8, 2019 By Sandra Simpson

By Anastasia M. Boles, UA Little Rock, William H. Bowen School of Law

As law professors, we care deeply about our students. We put a tremendous amount of effort into our teaching, advising student organizations, and serving as formal and informal mentors. Unfortunately, science has taught us that unconscious racism may be operating to degrade our student interactions. Many of us are familiar with the term “implicit bias.” Over the last few decades, social psychologists have explored the ways implicit preferences and biases permeate society, including criminal justice, health, and education. Thus, unconscious racism may be interfering with our student interactions.

While lesser known than implicit bias, a common consequence of unconscious racism is “racial anxiety,” which is the unconscious anxiety we may experience or exhibit when interacting with a person of a different race. For example, racial anxiety can cause undetectable physical changes in our bodies such as nervousness, discomfort, stiffness, and decreased eye contact. The experience of unconscious racial anxiety sets up a vicious cycle; we unconsciously minimize interactions that have made us uncomfortable in the past, even if we cannot name the source of the discomfort. Racial anxiety expresses differently depending on race – people of color may be anxious about experiencing racism; whites may fear saying the wrong thing, or being labeled a racist. Whatever the cause, as our cognitive resources are directed to mitigating any racial anxiety we are experiencing, the quality of our personal interaction with the differently-raced person can degrade.[1]

Racial anxiety is likely present in the halls and classrooms of law schools as well. Despite our best intentions, law professors may experience racial anxiety symptoms in cross-racial conservations and interactions with our students. At the same time, our differently-raced students may experience racial anxiety as they interact with us. Consider this common scenario: a white law professor and a student of color meet outside of class for the first time to review an exam, talk about an issue from class, or discuss a paper. Racial anxiety can affect the professor’s ability to build rapport with the student, appear open and friendly, evaluate the student’s learning needs, engage the student’s questions, and build trust. The student of color, if also affected by racial anxiety, is less able to ask questions, absorb feedback, and seek mentoring. If either the law professor or law student experienced unconscious racial anxiety during the meeting, future interactions between the professor and student may be affected. Now imagine the potential for racial anxiety to disrupt the law school classroom where a sensitive issue related to race comes up in class discussion. Racial anxiety may degrade the ability or willingness of the professor to engage the issue. The ensuring student discussion could suffer. Our students require our full attention; if racial anxiety is depleting the attention we give, we should do something about it.

What can we do? If racial anxiety operates in our unconscious minds, can we ever hope to banish it? The great news is that we can. To combat racial anxiety, psychologists recommend that we start by increasing our cross-racial interactions with our students. Psychologists call this “intergroup contact.” Strategies such as encouraging students to attend office hours to increase familiarity, attending and supporting student events with differently-raced students, and increasing the amount and depth of conversations with differently-raced students can help. During cross-racial interactions, seek to understand cultural differences as well as identifying similarities; the goal is to recognize and appreciate the varying cultural backgrounds of our students – not minimize them. The more law teachers and law students from different racial backgrounds interact with one another, the less potential for racial anxiety to disrupt those interactions.

[1] For more information about racial anxiety see here, and here.

The Compounding Effects of Assessment

21MarMarch 21, 2019 By Sandra Simpson

By Lindsey P. Gustafson, UA Little Rock, William H. Bowen School of Law

If you’ve found your way to the Institute of Law Teaching and Learning, you are likely already a believer in formative assessment. We do have empirical evidence that formative assessment improves student learning in law: Two recent studies have shown that students who received individualized feedback during the semester outperformed students who did not on final exams, and not just in the class where they received the feedback but in every single class they were taking.^[1] One study’s authors note the “likelihood of this occurring by chance is one in 256.”^[2]

But as we add formative assessments to students’ semesters, we must consider how we are altering the demands on their time. The middle of the semesters, which have traditionally been the playground for the Socratic Method and for legal writing assignments, may now be filled with a variety of assessment activities, and some of them may dominate students’ time in a way that impacts students’ learning in other classes. When our assessments interfere with students’ participation in other classes, or vice versa, the inferences that we draw from our assessments about student learning may not be valid. And an assessment that provides invalid data is worse than no assessment at all. Consequently, we must all consider our assessments as students experience them, “holistically and interactively.”^[3]

How do we deeply coordinate assessments and avoid an assessment system that instead overwhelms students, clutters or fragments their learning, or discourages them early in their first semester? We must coordinate beyond shared calendars, starting in our own classrooms by ensuring that our own assessment activities, as a slice of the student-time pie, are designed with and justified by best practices that encourage an assessment’s validity. In a recent article, I’ve identified five relevant best practices:

Make the assessments’ alignment with learning goals transparent to students and to other faculty members with whom we intend to coordinate: A clear alignment with learning goals helps students understand how the assessments will move them towards learning goals, and helps them make informed decisions about their allocation of time. A clear alignment also allows us to clearly communicate our assessment choices to other faculty members.
Use rubrics to create a shared language of instruction: Once we identify learning goals, rubrics help us refine our communication with students. They see how they will be assessed, and we see with specificity what they have learned.
Ensure the assessments encourage student autonomy: One particularly harmful potential outcome of a tightly orchestrated assessment system is that it may overly dictate student decisions, rather than facilitate student autonomy. Our assessment systems should build students’ feelings of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, which are fundamental to learning.
Set high expectations and display confidence that students can meet those expectations: Students prone to maladaptive responses to feedback are likely to be overwhelmed and discouraged by frequent assessments. Explaining our high expectations and displaying confidence in students can help address these tendencies.
Regularly review the entire assessment system, paying particular attention to students’ ownership of their own learning within the system.

When we ground our formative assessment decisions in best practices, we are better able to communicate our decisions to students, and better able to more deeply coordinate with other faculty members.

[1] See Daniel Schwarcz & Dion Farganis, The Impact of Individualized Feedback on Law Student Performance, 67 J. Legal Educ. 139, 142 (2017) (finding that formative assessment improved performance on final exams for students with below-median entering credientials); Ruth Colker et al., Formative Assessments: A Law School Case Study, 94 U. Det. Mercy L. Rev. 387 (2017) (finding the same); Carol Springer Sargent, Andrea A. Curcio, Empirical Evidence That Formative Assessments Improve Final Exams, 61 J. Legal Educ. 379, 383–84 (2012) (finding that formative assessment improved performance on final exams for students with above-median entering credentials); Andrea A. Curcio, Gregory Todd Jones & Tanya M. Washington, Developing an Empirical Model to Test Whether Required Writing Exercises or Other Changes in Large-Section Law Class Teaching Methodologies Result in Improved Exam Performance, 57 J. Legal Educ. 195, 197 (2007) (finding the same); Andrea A. Curcio, Gregory Todd Jones & Tanya M. Washington, Does Practice Make Perfect? An Empirical Examination of the Impact of Practice Essays on Essay Exam Performance, 35 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 271, 280-82, 302-306 (2008)(finding the same).

[2] Schwarcz, supra note 1, at 142.

[3] See Harry Torrance, Formative Assessment at the Crossroads: Conformative, Deformative and Transformative Assessment, 38 Oxford Rev. of Educ. 323, 334 (2012) (noting that “assessment is always formative, but not necessarily in a positive way”).

Review: Feb. 2019 Article(s) of The Month

04MarMarch 4, 2019 By Sandra Simpson

By Rory Bahadur, Washburn University School of Law

This month’s contribution departs from the format of reviewing and recommending a law review article. Rather it summarizes four separate articles which are published in journals other than law reviews. The articles are:

“Understanding Generation Z Students to Promote a Contemporary Learning Environment,” available on line at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=jete
“How Generation Z is Shaping the Change in Education,” available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sievakozinsky/2017/07/24/how-generation-z-is-shaping-the-change-in-education/#2086c0e46520
“Designing Performer-Centric Learning Systems for Millennials, Generation Z and Beyond,” available at: https://trainingindustry.com/magazine/issue/designing-performer-centric-learning-systems-for-millennials-generation-z-and-beyond/ ; and
“The Challenge of Teaching Generation Z,” available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312659039_The_challenge_of_teaching_generation_Z

The reason I felt justified in departing from the usual format of this column is because I was alarmed recently by a discussion on a list-serve by legal pedagogy experts who were trying to minimize the impact of the current information environment on reshaping what we consider effective pedagogy.

The argument made in support of the statement that we don’t need to teach differently in the internet-era was essentially, “We should just keep teaching the way we have because even though information access and portability have reshaped the way the world functions, we don’t need to change the way we have always taught since before the dawn of the internet.” Ironically, even a superficial google search reveals the patent lack of empirical support for that argument.

The truth about how teaching needs to change for it to be effective teaching to today’s students is discussed in the above referenced articles and a summary of the articles’ findings is as follows:

Today’s students live in a world where information is instantly accessible;
Communication needs to be replaced with interaction for these students;
Learning needs to be more learner centered;
The teacher needs to create a classroom environment that facilitates creativity and critical thinking as the delivery of information is no longer something we need teachers for;
Because information is now widely and instantly accessible, teachers must find ways other than providing information to grasp and engage students;
Most non-Generation Z teachers will need professional development help in order to effectively communicate with today’s students;
Current students are dissatisfied being passive learners and educational experiences need to be fully immersive and these students need to learn by doing; and
Collaborative learning environments are essential to teaching them. We can’t just be Professor Kingsfield at the head of a hierarchical learning environment as has been the norm since Langdell walked Harvard’s hallowed halls.

Unfortunately, our resistance to confronting the inertia involved in changing the way we teach is no longer a valid excuse if we want to teach effectively to the students who are now entering law schools.

Review: Critical Reading for Success in Law School and Beyond

08DecDecember 8, 2018 By Sandra Simpson

By Jane Bloom Grisé, University of Kentucky College of Law

Scott Turow, the bestselling author of One L, compared reading cases to “stirring concrete with my eyelashes.” Reading cases is challenging for many law students, but critical reading skills are incredibly important for success in law school and legal practice. Empirical research shows that lawyers read cases differently than non-lawyers. In addition, top law students use different reading strategies than lower performing students. While expert legal readers read cases to solve client problems, novices often read to memorize facts. Higher performing law students use an arsenal of different reading strategies depending upon the complexity of the case, but novices tend to indiscriminately highlight large quantities of text. Critical Reading for Success in Law School and Beyond was written to teach students the skills utilized by lawyers and higher performing law students. This book introduces students to a series of critical reading strategies so that they can become effective readers and move on to be successful in law school and law practice.

The Critical Reading program is premised on two ideas. First, it is based on the idea that critical reading should be taught. While it is often assumed that students enter law school fully equipped to read and understand cases and statutes, there is no evidence to support this assumption. One student in a focus group conducted in connection with the Critical Reading program indicated that reading a case was like looking for a purple dinosaur without knowing what a dinosaur was or what the color purple looked like. Critical reading strategies can be taught, and it is important to explain to students, as adult learners, how these strategies will improve their ultimate performance.

Second, Critical Reading is based on the idea that strategies should be presented in a sequential manner. As Bloom’s taxonomy suggests, students must master the lower level skill of understanding before they can be expected to engage in higher level skills, such as analysis and synthesis. For this reason, Critical Reading starts by examining the purpose for reading cases—to solve problems. Students are also introduced to the structure of cases so that they can understand different sections of cases. Critical Reading then presents information about civil and criminal procedure so that students can understand some of the commonly used terminology found in cases.

Then the program teaches students pre-reading strategies such as understanding the context of cases and doing case overviews before reading more carefully. After students master these foundational skills, they are introduced to techniques for reading facts and understanding complicated text. Rather than simply providing a template for a case brief, the program examines the components of a case such as the issue, holding, and dictum, and provides techniques to understand the main ideas in the case. Higher level skills such as finding rules, synthesizing cases, and evaluating cases are addressed at the end of the book.

These strategies can be introduced and incorporated into all classrooms in a few ways. First, students can be advised that they should read cases to identify rules and concepts that will be used to solve client problems or hypotheticals on a final exam. Students should be explicitly told that they do not need to memorize most cases.

Second, students can be instructed to read actively and pretend that they are either one of the parties in the case or the judge. Studies have found that higher performing students read actively in this way. Professors who ask students how they would decide the case or how one of the parties would argue in the case are encouraging students to adopt this active reading strategy. Finally, professors can take one sentence from an opinion and model good comprehension techniques such as paying attention to conjunctions, noticing repeated words, and shortening long sentences by inserting periods.

Critical Reading describes these and other strategies that can be introduced in the fall and/or spring semesters. As you are planning the spring semester, consider incorporating critical reading strategies into your courses. If you would like to discuss how you can introduce these strategies to your students, please feel free to contact me at jane.grise@uky.edu.

Review: Feedback Distortion: The Shortcomings of Model Answers as Formative Feedback

26NovNovember 26, 2018 By Sandra Simpson

By Lindsey P. Gustafson, UA Little Rock, William H. Bowen School of Law

Elizabeth Ruiz Frost, Feedback Distortion: The Shortcomings of Model Answers as Formative Feedback, 65 J. Legal Educ. 938 (2016)

Elizabeth Ruiz Frost’s article Feedback Distortion: The Shortcomings of Model Answers as Formative Feedback was published in 2016, but it continues to affect the way I design and critique my students’ assessment activities—both in my classroom and across our curriculum—as we respond to the ABA’s mandate for more formative assessment. Professor Frost posits that, while providing a model answer (either student- or professor-authored) in place of individual feedback may allow for efficient formative feedback, in most situations it does not provide effective formative feedback. She points to evidence that weaker students tend to misinterpret model answers and are less capable of accurately assessing their own work against the model.

In her article, Professor Frost gives reasons beyond efficiency a professor may have for giving feedback through a model answer, including that learning through a model answer encourages a students to self-teach, a skill they will rely on throughout their career; model answers provide feedback quickly, while students are still primed for it; model answers will not alienate students with personalized, negative comments; and model answers are what students clamor for. Professor Frost explains why each of these reasons is inadequate to justify what she describes as a shift in the learning burden: the professor avoids learning how to provide effective feedback by forcing a student to learn how to improve from a model.

Model answers provide effective formative assessment only if students are able to compare their work with a model and see what they did wrong. Professor Frost roots the assumption students do this in the “Vicarious Learning and Self-Teaching models of education, which have pervaded legal teaching since the nineteenth century.” In fact, whether this feedback is effective depends first on the characteristics and mindset of the learners, and second on the type of knowledge the professor is assessing. As to the first variable, because weaker students are less self-aware, they face a “double curse”: “[t]he weakest students, who lack the ability to distinguish between the standard exemplified by a model answer and their own work, will learn the least from a model answer. So the students who need feedback most for continued learning will get the least.”

The second variable is relevant because model answers can provide effective feedback for questions of factual knowledge and concept identification. But any assessment that requires higher-order thinking—where students need to demonstrate analysis, for example—model answers are not as effective. Students instead need elaborative feedback.

Professor Frost ends her article with methods for using model answers to give feedback that best promote student learning: (a) providing an annotated model answer together with individualized feedback; (b) creating opportunities for remediation and reassessment for students after they have reviewed model answers; (c) using a student’s own work as a model answer; (d) requiring students to review model answers in small groups instead of individually; (e) providing multiple sample answers for review, including both strong and weak samples; and (f) focusing on metacognitive skills throughout so that students can better self-evaluate against model answers.

Several of her methods have worked for my students. Recently, I’ve noticed the first method recommended above working across the curriculum: students learn more from a model answer when the same skill (here, answering a midterm essay question) is tested in another course and personalized feedback is given there. In short, learning in one course is improved by the efforts of professors in other courses.

Review: Spaced Repetition: A Method for Learning More Law In Less Time

30OctOctober 30, 2018 By Sandra Simpson

By Tonya Krause-Phelan, WMU-Cooley Law School

Spaced Repetition: A Method for Learning More Law In Less Time by Gabriel H. Teninbaum
17 JOURNAL HIGH TECHNOLOGY LAW 273 (2017)

Spaced Repetition explains why spaced repetition is so much more than learning from flashcards. This article presents a concise tutorial detailing the psychological phenomena known as spaced repetition and how it can help to law students, bar preppers, and practitioners learn the law more quickly, effectively and efficiently. Discovered in the 1800’s, spaced repetition is a learning and memorization method that not only improves the way people learn and prepare for exams, it also fosters faster learning and greater retention. To understand how spaced repetition promotes learning and aids memory, it is important to consider the three related psychological phenomena that form a spaced repetition system: the forgetting curve, the spacing effect, and the testing effect.

The forgetting curve is the decline in the ability to recall information. This occurs because as soon as a person learns something, they begin to forget it. To combat the forgetting curve, spaced repetition cues learners to restudy immediately before the learned material is predicted to be forgotten. Research shows there is an ideal moment to reinforce learned information. Recalling the information at just the right time allows learners to not only keep the memory active, but to identify the information that has already been forgotten so it can be targeted for restudying.

The spacing effect requires study sessions to be properly spaced to slow down the forgetting curve. Because of the initial steep decline of the forgetting curve, learners will need to review information frequently at first. Over time, the spacing effect increases allowing learners to wait for longer periods of time between review sessions. If done correctly the spacing can go from hours, to days, to weeks, to months, and even to years. As a result, material learned via spaced repetition in the first year of law school could be reviewed periodically throughout the second and third year of law school to be easily recalled during bar review and the bar examination.

The testing effect describes the ability of people to more readily recall learned information. Learners experience the testing effect when they recall learned information by testing themselves instead of passively observing the information. The benefit is even more pronounced when assessment is followed by meaningful feedback that includes exposure to the correct answer. The most effective spaced repetition techniques involve learners answering questions which force them to use their memory as much as possible such as free recall, short answer, multiple-choice, Cloze deletion exercises, and recognition. But spaced repetition can be so much more than just definitional flash cards and fill-in-the blank exercises; it can also be used to help learners apply complex content.

Early on, spaced repetition systems had to be created and used by hand. However, today, mobile applications have opened up a whole new world of possibilities for staging spaced repetition platforms. While Spaced Repetition is a primer on the basics of spaced repetition systems, it also promotes the author’s web-based platform: SpacedRepetition.com. The author has built in several key benefits into his platform including: it’s a web-based platform easily used on smartphones and mobile devices; it uses an algorithm to apply spaced repetition; it includes expertly created core content; it allows for editable content; it provides a third slide option (to include other pieces of black letter law or context); and, the content is shareable.

Spaced repetition can help law students, bar preppers, and practitioners learn more effectively and efficiently. The author cautions, however, that spaced repetition requires more than just looking at flashcards. Users of spaced repetition must still learn how to organize, apply, and express the law. But, if learners use spaced repetition outside of the classroom, legal educators can make more effective use of flipped classrooms as well as active learning and application exercises. While this article promotes the author’s platform, it is worthwhile read for legal educators looking to understand and provide spaced repetition learning opportunities for their students.

Review: Of Courtrooms and Classrooms

05OctOctober 5, 2018 By Sandra Simpson

By Rory Bahadur, Washburn University School of Law

Daniel Cover, Of Courtrooms and Classrooms, 27 B.U. Pub. Int. L.J. 291 (2018)

In her recently published article “Of Courtrooms and Classrooms,” professor Cover suggests ways that trial lawyers can increase the efficacy of their presentations to juries by analogizing the jurors to students in a law school classroom. Even though the article is targeted at practicing attorneys her comparisons of jurors and law school students provide useful insight in to the hallmarks of effective pedagogy.

In her introduction, Cover points out that essentially a trial lawyer’s job is to convince jurors who have no idea going in what the case is about. She does this through a storytelling/narrative technique that captures the jurors’ attention even though many of the concepts coming at them are new and they are in a difficult environment where long days promote fatigue. This she suggests is akin to the law professor’s job in the traditional doctrinal classroom.

She then examines the theory of how adults learn or andragogical information and concludes that some essential components of adult education are:

The student rather than the subject matter is the center of the inquiry
Adults learn better when they have a need or experience learning will satisfy
Adults want to be self-directed in their learning
Because of the various experiences acquired over the time it takes to become an adult, effective pedagogy must take into account difference in style, time, pace and place of learning.

The article goes on to describe in tangible and very useful ways law professors and trial lawyers can ensure the principles listed above are incorporated into presentations. However, the most fascinating of these is here reference to the “disorienting moment.”

Cover explains that in the law school classroom and in trials students and jurors experience moments when their previously held beliefs and assumptions are challenged. This she explains is a “disorienting moment.” She suggests that these disorienting moments, when an adult’s schema are challenged, provide the most fertile ground for planting the seeds of new information. This is because challenges to schemas facilitate the incorporation of new information into the schemas and the creation of new schemas.

If you take only one useful piece of information (though the article is chocked full of useful information) form Cover’s work, then consider she suggests designing classroom presentations to deliberately include disorienting moments which facilitate significant incorporation of new knowledge into old knowledge.

Ultimately, the article is well researched and very useful. It is a must read