Learning Science Meets the Socratic Method: Transforming Teaching Strategies In the Law School Classroom

Steven I. FriedlandFebruary 8, 2013

University of Louisville

• This session explores how outcome-based, threshold and other learning strategies have offered fresh perspectives to more than a century of deep-rooted Socratic instruction. Moving from a linear educational approach to various methods that embrace mobility in learning, the session illustrates how the classroom experience can be enhanced across the disciplines. Collaborative exercises and discussions will be used to create connections and engagement.

Goals

• 1. Create a dialogue

• 2. Create some take-aways

Traditional Legal Education Narrative

• Socratic Method - “Thinking Like a Lawyer”

• Appellate Case Reports/ Coverage of Material

• Linearity

• Abstraction and Separation – course buckets, teacher “silos”

The Traditional Legal Education Architecture

• The spotlight?

• The context?

• The assessment?

Problem: Disconnects

• Teaching --- Learning: identity or dichotomy?

• What do we teach? – Substance-Processes-Skills-Values

• Lawyering relationships?– Lawyer-client; lawyer-witness; lawyer-judge; lawyer-jury

• Feedback and tacit understandings?

Response: Reconceptualize the Narrative

• “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” ---- William Butler Yeats

• Mental Zumba, Mental Aerobics

• Google Introductions

• Days of the Week?

Response: Use the Science of Learning

• Why?

• More effective, • better process, • more adaptive to reality

• Focuses the Salient Question: What are students learning because of us?

Major Premise #1: People Learn Differently

– “Learning results from what the student does and thinks…The teacher can advance learning only by influencing what the student does to learn.”

• -- Herbert A. Simon, Nobel Laureate in cognitive sci.

Fixed and Mobile Learners

• Sub-Premise: There are generational differences in learners

• “Born Digital,” Gamers

• Youtube; Facebook; Instagram

Global and Sequential Learners

• Sub-Premise: Learners have preferences for global or sequential learning

• Global: [Forest] Course-Area-Rule

• Sequential: [Trees] Elements of rules and their meanings

Auditory, Visual and Kinesthetic Learners

• Sub-Premise: Learners have auditory, visual or kinesthetic preferences

• Auditory

• Visual

• Kinesthetic

Threshold Learners

• Sub-Premise: Some learners need to spend time with concepts before understanding them.

• Meaning – once through is not enough. Need repetition to move up to the next plateau.

Expert and Novice Learners

• Sub-Premise: Experts learn differently than novices

• Experts - Chunk knowledge

• The world of tacit understandings– Elon study – read this piece on philosophy, with

introduction

Major Premise #2: Outcomes Matter

• “What we measure affects what we do” – Joseph Stiglitz

• Jobs and competencies

• Proposed ABA Standard 302: Learning Outcomes• Current Standard 302: Curriculum

Promoting Outcomes

• Sub-Premise: Feedback Matters

• --Diagnostic, Formative and Summative• • --Constructive, Prompt, and Clear

Promoting Outcomes

• Sub-Premise: Engaged education promotes better outcomes

• Features: Active, Challenging, Collaborative, Deliverables, Self-regulated, experiential (big context)

• Piano Lessons -- Functional outcomes and competencies

Types of Assessment

• Self-Assessment – performance-tracking, Individual development plans, rubrics, review exams

• Other-Assessment – non-graded quizzes; discussion posts, create hypos

Rubrics – Measuring Devices

• 1. Reach Mastery in topic

• 2. Attain competency in topic

• 3. Develop skills in topic

• 4. Be exposed to topic

Applying these Premises In the Classroom

• App #1: Class Scaffolding – initial problem, then rule analysis, then more problems

• App #2: All writes

• App #3: Collaboration -- Small groups/ students write on board

Additional Applications

• App #4: Visuals – photos of case, Youtube videos

• App #5: Engagement – deliverables. Role-playing, Developing inquiry and advocacy questions

• App #6: Formative Feedback - Non-graded Quiz, edit a response, rewrite an answer

Kelo v. City of New London, 545 US. 469 (2005)

Outside the Classroom

• App #1: Pod Casts

• App #2: Discussion thread Web posts

• App #3: Deliverables – Go find an easement; attend a criminal proceeding in court, take a field trip to the jail

• App #4: Create and post hypo based on real case. Write rule statement paragraph.

Curricular Applications

• 1. Modules• self-contained specialized units• 2. Transition classes• 3. Wraparound classes

Additional Curricular Applications

• 4. Capstones• 5. Varying delivery formats• scale-up studio teaching• synchronous• asynchronous

A New Age?

• Are we in the beginning of a new age of education, where learning science permeates all aspects of a law school course?

Ancient Egyptian 3,050 BC - 900BC

Classical (850 BC – 476 AD)

Renaissance (1400 - 1600 AD)

• ???????

• THE END OF AN ERA….or the BEGINNING?