Category Archives: learning

Moving to Best Practices in Online Learning

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By now, all law schools are—or are about to be—fully online. My sense is that professors are mostly teaching synchronously (i.e., live) using Zoom, Webex, or some other platform. In this respect, faculty are trying their best to replicate the in-person law school classroom; in some cases, this even includes cold calling on students to recite cases. Class sizes remain as they were before the Coronavirus hit. That means that some professors are teaching in this format to 60, 80, or even 100 students.

To experts in online teaching and learning, this is not how any of this is supposed to work. Successfully moving a class online requires time, effort, and training, as this helpful post describes. And it typically requires smaller class sizes than we’re used to in legal education, although experts acknowledge that there is no magic number.

A common misconception about moving a course to an online format is that the professor merely delivers the same content in the same manner as a face-to-face classroom … just on video. Not so. Professors new to online learning often view their teaching—incorrectly—through the “lens” of face-to-face classes. In actuality, adapting a course for online learning requires starting anew with course objectives and working backwards from those outcomes the professor hopes to achieve. The steps in students’ development become “modules” (typically on a week-by-week schedule) that are thoughtfully designed to achieve smaller outcomes, like guideposts on a trail. The course is not a march through a casebook.

Each module uses the learning tools that are best designed to achieve that module’s objectives. A module may include a synchronous discussion (as Nina Kohn [Syracuse] persuasively notes) or not. Asynchronous activities, which can be completed at different times in the week, can also be effective. Pre-recorded video lectures (of no more than 15-20 minutes, since attention spans wander after that point), quizzes, discussion posts, writing assignments, readings, and creative projects (such as students creating their own narrated PowerPoints on a subject) are all arrows in the professor’s asynchronous instructional quiver. Many of these activities are themselves formative or summative assessments of students’ progress in meeting the outcomes of the modules and, in turn, the course. The key is to make deliberate, strategic choices about what mode of delivery (synchronous or asynchronous) works best for a particular module or course. Often the best courses will include a blend of the two approaches.

So let us be clear: what we’re doing right now is not best practices; it is a bandaid. It is an emergency response so that we can continue instruction in some format so that our students do not lose the entire semester.

We have a responsibility, however, to do better in the weeks ahead, not just to satisfy accreditors but as part of our obligation to provide a quality education to our students. We should embrace a culture of continuous, quality improvement. This is especially true if the current crisis continues for a significant period and requires law schools to continue to be fully online into the Fall semester.

The Short-Term

There are things we can do in the short-term to improve teaching and learning this semester. In the coming weeks, we should:

  • For faculty who are just recording and posting lectures, encourage them to move to synchronous delivery so students can ask real-time questions and otherwise participate actively.
  • For faculty who are already meeting synchronously, encourage them to adopt active, rather than passive, learning activities in their virtual classrooms. Most videoconference platforms have polling or quizzing features, for instance, which can engage all students, not just those who are participating in a discussion. Get out of the mindset of looking at your online course through a face-to-face lens.
  • Encourage small group interactions to spur discussion and participation. Both Zoom and Webex have “breakout” rooms, and I have become a big fan of using them to spur think-pair-share type exercises. Like polling, breakout sessions turn students into active, rather than passive, participants.
  • Encourage faculty to supplement synchronous sessions with optional, asynchronous exercises, such as quizzes or discussion boards. I recommend making them optional at this point, since we do not want to overwhelm students, who are also adapting to new circumstances.
  • Make ourselves reasonably available for “office hours” through drop-in Zoom or Webex sessions. Not only does this foster personal connection during this time of isolation, but these meetings also give students an opportunity to clarify points they may have missed during pre-recorded lectures or live videoconferences.
  • Help each other.  Having all been thrown in the deep end of the pool at the same time, we are all learning how to swim, some better than others. We can help each other to say afloat. Faculty should share tips, suggestions, and solutions to common problems with one another. As an example, several of us at my school have been struggling with playing videos through our videoconference platform because of “lag” issues. Last night, an adjunct professor came up with an ingenious, but low tech, solution. He turned his laptop (with webcam) to a secondary monitor, brought it close to the monitor, and played the video from the secondary monitor at full volume. It wasn’t perfect, but it allowed students to hear and see the video with decent quality.

I recognize that this is a difficult time for many law professors. Some may be dealing themselves with illness or adjusting to disruption at home. Some of my colleagues now have two full-time jobs: teaching and taking care of school-aged children. Therefore, in my list above, I use words like “try,” “encourage,” and “reasonably available,” not “must” or “require.” The suggestions I have offered must be adapted to each individual faculty member’s circumstances and capabilities at this time.

Nevertheless, to the extent we are able, we should all be thinking about how to get better at teaching in this new format over the next few weeks. For some, that may mean exploring many of the asynchronous tools at our disposal. For others, it may mean trying to facilitate greater discussions versus lecture. Some of the suggestions I list above require no additional time on the professor’s part. If we take these steps, the teaching taking place at the end of April should be better than that being offered now.

The Long-Term

While we are all hopeful that things will get back to normal soon, law schools must nevertheless plan for the possibility that online teaching will need continue into the Fall (depending, of course, on how the virus progresses). What we can get away doing now on an emergency basis is not going to be acceptable to either our accreditors or our students by the Fall. They can, and should, expect a higher quality of instruction from us given the lead-up time we have until the next semester. Here, time is on our side but only if we begin planning now. The key, in my view, is training. Faculty need training on the best practices for online teaching and learning. The Quality Matters Standards and Rubric are a great place to start in terms of where we need to be (eventually) with online learning. The summer months provide an opportunity for such training and development.

Of course, someone has to develop and deliver such training. Law schools that are attached to universities can take advantage of courses that likely already exist through their universities’ centers for teaching and learning. Typically those courses include ones on Blackboard/Canvas, online pedagogy, and similar topics. Standalone law schools should consider working together to develop such courses. Training law faculty, full-time and adjuncts, on a massive scale to deliver “best practices” online teaching will require a great deal of planning to prioritize and rollout development opportunities in a smart way. That planning should take place now, even if the medium-term future is uncertain. I’ll likely have more to say, in a future blog post, on what that planning should look like.

Something else to consider for the Fall is section size. In the academic research, 20 is the recommended, outer limit for class size, and that number is for undergraduate courses. Graduate courses typically have smaller enrollments. Class size affects the ability of a professor to provide interactive experiences and feedback.  The more interactive a course is, the better the learning experience for students. Faculty can successfully provide an interactive experience only to a limited number of students. This may require reconsideration of the class schedule, such as cutting back on electives so that additional, smaller sections of required or core courses can be offered while a law school is in a fully online mode.

Needless to say, these are difficult times for everyone. Adopting a continuous improvement mindset, though, will benefit all of our stakeholders, especially our students.

What This Professor Learned by Becoming a Student Again

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For the past year, I have been a student again.  Once I finish a final paper (hopefully tomorrow), I will be receiving a Graduate Certificate in Assessment and Institutional Research from Sam Houston State University.

I enrolled in the program at “Sam” (as students call it) because I wanted to receive formal instruction in assessment, institutional research, data management, statistics, and, more generally, higher education.  These were areas where I was mainly self-taught, and I thought the online program at Sam Houston would give me beneficial skills and knowledge.  The program has certainly not disappointed.  The courses were excellent, the professors knowledgeable, and the technology flawless.  I paid for the program out-of-pocket, and it was worth every penny.  It has made me better at programmatic assessment and institutional research.  (I also turned one of my research papers into an article, which just came out this week.)

But the program had another benefit: It has made me a better teacher. Continue reading →

Minnesota Study: Formative Assessment in One First-Year Class Leads to Higher Grades in Other Classes

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Over at TaxProf, Dean Caron reports on a University of Minnesota study that found that students who were randomly assigned to 1L sections that had a class with individualized, formative assessments performed better in their other courses than those who did not.  Daniel Schwarcz and Dion Farganis authored the study, which appears in the Journal of Legal Education.

From the overview section of the study:

The natural experiment arises from the assignment of first-year law students to one of several “sections,” each of which is taught by a common slate of professors. A random subset of these professors provides students with individualized feedback other than their final grades. Meanwhile, students in two different sections are occasionally grouped together in a “double- section” first-year class. We find that in these double-section classes, students in sections that have previously or concurrently had a professor who provides individualized feedback consistently outperform students in sections that have not received any such feedback. The effect is both statistically significant and hardly trivial in magnitude, approaching about one-third of a grade increment after controlling for students’ LSAT scores, undergraduate GPA, gender, race, and country of birth. This effect corresponds to a 3.7-point increase in students’ LSAT scores in our model. Additionally, the positive impact of feedback is stronger among students whose combined LSAT score and undergraduate GPA fall below the median at the University of Minnesota Law School.

What’s particularly interesting is how this study came about. Minnesota’s use of “double sections” created a natural control group to compare students who previously had formative assessment with those who did not.

The results should come as no surprise. Intuitively, students who practice and get feedback on a new skills should outperform students who do not. This study advances the literature by providing empirical evidence for this point in a law school context. The study is also significant because it shows that individualized, formative assessment in one class can benefit those students in their other classes.

There are policy implications from this study. Should associate deans assign professors who practice formative assessment evenly across 1L sections so that all students benefit? Should all classes be required to have individualized, formative assessments? What resources are needed to promote greater use of formative assessments—smaller sections and  teaching assistants, for example?

Note Taking Advice to My Evidence Students

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I recently sent out an e-mail to students in my Evidence class, sharing my views on classroom laptop bans and note taking.  In the past, I’ve banned laptops, but I’ve gone back to allowing them. As with most things in the law, the question is not the rule but who gets to decide the rule. Here, with a group of adult learners, I prefer a deferential approach. I’m also cognizant that there may be generational issues at play and that what would work for me as a student might not work for the current generation of law students. So, I’ve taken to offering advice on note taking, a skill that must be honed like any other.

Dear Class:

As you begin your study of the law of Evidence, I wanted to offer my perspective on note taking.  Specifically, I’d like to weigh in on the debate about whether students should take notes by hand or using a laptop.

As you will soon find out, Evidence is a heavy, 4-credit course. Our class time—4 hours per week—will be spent working through difficult rules, cases, and problems.  Classes will build on your out-of-class preparation and will not be a mere review of what you’ve read in advance.  Thus, it is important that the way you take notes helps, not hurts, your learning.

The research overwhelmingly shows that students retain information better when they take notes by hand rather than computer. This article has a nice summary of the literature: http://www.npr.org/2016/04/17/474525392/attention-students-put-your-laptops-away?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social.  The reason why handwriting is better is pretty simple: when you handwrite, you are forced to process and synthesize the material, since it’s impossible to take down every word said in class. In contrast, when you type, you tend to function more like a court reporter, trying to take down every word that is said. Additionally, laptops present a host of distractions: e-mail, chat, the web, and games are all there to tempt you away from the task at hand, which is to stay engaged with the discussion. I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve called on a student engrossed in his or her laptop, only to get “Can you repeat the question?” as the response.

Of course, it’s possible to be distracted without a computer, too.  Crossword puzzles, the buzzing of a cell phone, daydreaming, or the off-topic computer usage of the person in front of you can all present distractions. And it’s more difficult to integrate handwritten notes with your outline and other materials.

If I were you, I would handwrite my notes.  But I’m not you.  You are adults and presumably know best how you study and retain information.  For this reason, I don’t ban laptops.  But if you choose to use a laptop or similar device to take notes, I have some additional suggestions.  Look into distraction avoidance software, such as FocusMe, Cold Turkey, or Freedom.  These programs block out distracting apps like web browsers and text messaging.  Turn off your wireless connection.  Turn down the display of your screen so that your on-screen activity is not distracting to those behind you.  Of course, turn off the sound.  Learn to type quietly so you’re not annoying your neighbors with the clickety-clack of your keys.

Finally, and most importantly, think strategically about what you’re typing.  You don’t need a written record of everything said in class.  Indeed, one of the reasons I record all of my classes and make the recordings available to registered students is so you don’t have to worry about missing something.  You can always go back and rewatch a portion of class that wasn’t clear to you. It’s not necessary to type background material, such as the facts of a case or the basic rule.  Most of this should be in your notes that you took when reading the materials for class (you are taking notes as you read, right?).  Instead of having a new set of notes for class, think about integrating them with what you’ve already written as you prepared for class.  That is, synthesize and integrate what is said in class about the cases and problems with what you’ve written out about them in advance.  Try your best to take fewer notes, not more.  Focus on listening and thinking along with the class discussion.  Sometimes less is more.

Above all else, do what works best for you.  If you’ve done well on law school exams while taking verbose notes, by all means continue doing so.  But, if you’ve found yourself not doing as well as you’d like, now is the time to try a new means of studying and note-taking.  You may be pleasantly surprised by experimenting with handwritten notes or, if you do use a laptop, adapting your note-taking style as suggested above.

Of course, please let me know if you’d like further advice.  I’m here to help you learn.

Regards,

Prof. Cunningham

Do exams measure speed or performance?

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A new study out of BYU attempts to answer the question.  It’s summarized at TaxProf and the full article is here. From the abstract on SSRN:

What, if any, is the relationship between speed and grades on first year law school examinations? Are time-pressured law school examinations typing speed tests? Employing both simple linear regression and mixed effects linear regression, we present an empirical hypothesis test on the relationship between first year law school grades and speed, with speed represented by two variables: word count and student typing speed. Our empirical findings of a strong statistically significant positive correlation between total words written on first year law school examinations and grades suggest that speed matters. On average, the more a student types, the better her grade. In the end, however, typing speed was not a statistically significant variable explaining first year law students’ grades. At the same time, factors other than speed are relevant to student performance.

In addition to our empirical analysis, we discuss the importance of speed in law school examinations as a theoretical question and indicator of future performance as a lawyer, contextualizing the question in relation to the debate in the relevant psychometric literature regarding speed and ability or intelligence. Given that empirically, speed matters, we encourage law professors to consider more explicitly whether their exams over-reward length, and thus speed, or whether length and assumptions about speed are actually a useful proxy for future professional performance and success as lawyers.

The study raises important questions of how we structure exams. I know of colleagues who impose word count limits (enforceable thanks to exam software), and I think I may be joining the ranks. More broadly, are our high-stakes final exams truly measuring what we want them to?