Law School Academic Support Blog

Opportunities to Experiment

Law schools are overflowing with discussions about how to help our students learn.  The hard part is implementing new exercises or ideas.  Not only do we have to create the exercises, we also have to find time during our classes to try new things.  However, many professors, including ourselves, need to cancel class on occasion, so we may be able to seize opportunities in cancelled classes to try new ideas. 

I am relatively habitual in my classes.  If I think an exercise works or if my goals are being met, then I don’t change much in the class.  I have clear objectives, so I focus mainly on meeting those objectives.  I make changes to my classes, but I usually focus on the areas that I don’t think are working.  I will tweak an exercise, but after teaching a similar bar prep essay class for over 9 years, the class is relatively stable right now.  The stability is good, except I don’t try enough new ideas.  This summer though, I inadvertently found opportunities to experiment I can carry over to my bar prep class.

During the summer, I teach Remedies.  I taught it for a few years, so it is also somewhat stable.  However, the course schedule this year fell during AASE and a family trip we had planned.  I needed to cancel both those classes but also design work to comply with the ABA rule for minutes per credit hour.  I remember a couple previous conference sessions about hybrid learning and flipped classrooms.  I decided for one of the classes to record a lecture covering the reading, have students complete my normal in-class questions to turn in, and record a review of the questions.  I have a mid-term, so I can evaluate the understanding of the reading on the mid-term compared to previous years.  AASE forced me to try a form of hybrid learning.

I will admit, I am not entirely comfortable with the format.  I believe students need to be in seats interacting with the professor guiding learning.  However, I also know bar prep is increasingly online.  Instead of constantly complaining about no one showing up to bar prep lectures, I can help them figure out how to learn in a more online setting with specific exercises throughout law school.  Cancelled classes is a great opportunity to explore online learning formats. 

In the other class I needed to cancel, I tried a modified negotiation based on their Remedies readings.  Students needed to understand the material to be able to negotiate for his/her client.  Students practiced lawyering skills while also applying knowledge to a hypo.  Self-reflection after the exercise indicated students liked seeing the rules in practice, which is the context many of us talk about.  I will probably continue to use this exercise each year, even when I don’t need to cancel class.

Both of these exercises arose out of necessity, but the exercises also provided me an opportunity to try things I learned from the community.  As everyone plans the fall, there will probably be similar opportunities for you.  Think about days you need to miss.  I miss class the day of the Oklahoma swearing in ceremony each fall.  I can sometimes schedule a test on that day, and someone else proctor’s the exam.  Going forward, I plan try some new ideas on hybrid or individual skill building.

The other opportunity is when 1L faculty need to cancel class.  We could all contact our 1L faculty and ask them if they plan to cancel a class during the semester.  If so, we could offer to try a skills class or a video review.  It helps them satisfy the ABA minutes requirement, helps us interact with 1Ls, and could help the students understand the material in a different way.

Opportunities to experiment are more apparent than we think.  Events that seem difficult to navigate may be the events we need to experiment with the great ideas we hear at conferences.  Try something new this fall to see if it works.

(Steven Foster)

Looking for a summer conference?

For those of you who are fortunate enough to have some extra conference funds, think about the June 18-20 Institute for Law Teaching and Learning (ILTL) technology conference in Spokane, Washington: http://lawteaching.org/conferences/.

A "Get-To" vs. "Got-To" Attitude as a Spring Board to Learning!

We're just about three weeks into bar prep.  The excitement of graduation seems so long ago.  We're back in the same 'ole schoolhouse setting, watching bar review lectures and working through hypothetical legal problems.  Sure seems like the same old pattern as law school.  But, it need not be.

But first, a bit of background...

In aviation, air traffic controllers will often query pilots about their altitude.  It's a bit of a hint from the controllers to the pilots that something might be amiss.  And, it almost sounds sort of polite:  "Easy-Go Airline Flight 100, Say Altitude."  

In response, the pilots make a quick check of the altimeter - the instrument that measures altitude (i.e, height of the airplane in the skies) to confirm that they are at proper altitude as assigned by air traffic control:  "Roger Denver Approach Control, Easy-Go Airline Flight 100, level at 15,000 feet."  

In between the two communications, however, you can bet that the pilots were quickly making some fast-footed adjustments to the aircraft's altitude to make sure that they would not be busted by the air traffic controllers.

That brings us back to the world of bar prep.  A quick "attitude check" might be similarly helpful for your learning.

You see, as Professor Chad Noreuil from Arizona State University puts it in his book entitled "The Zen of Passing the Bar Exam," it can be mighty helpful for your learning to have what I call an "attitude check."  In particular, as Professor Noreuil cites in his book, researchers have identified a positive relationship between an optimistic approach to learning and achievement in learning.  Consequently, Professor Noreuil counsels bar takers to take on a "get-to" attitude rather than a "have-to" attitude towards bar prep because a "get-to" attitude improves one's chances of succeeding on the bar exam.  That's what I refer to as a "get-to" versus a "got-to" attitude.

But how do you change your attitude from a "got-to" to a "get-to" attitude?  Well, here's a possible approach that might just help provide some perspective about the wonderful opportunity that you have to take the bar exam this summer.  You see, very few have that opportunity.  That's because the numbers are just stacked against most people.  They'll never get the chance that you have this summer.  

Here are the details.  According to the U.S. government, there are about 7.5 billion people worldwide, and the U.S. population is close to 330 million.  https://www.census.gov/popclock/   Out of that population, according to the ABA, there are about 35,000 law school JD graduates per year.  That's it.  https://www.americanbar.org/content/  And, because most states require a JD in order to to the bar exam, very few people get to take a bar exam, very few indeed.  

That brings me back to you.  As a JD grad preparing for the bar exam, you are one of the very few who get to take the bar exam.  So, take advantage of that opportunity this summer by approaching your bar exam studies as once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to "get-to" show your state supreme court all the wonderful things that you have learned about practicing law.  You've worked hard in law school for just such a season as this, so, to paraphrase a popular slogan, "Just do it...but do it with a get-to attitude this summer!  (Scott Johns).

 

Veteran ASP Spotlight: Suzanne Darrow-Kleinhaus

For two years in a row, several Academic Support colleague recommended that Suzanne Darrow-Kleinhaus be highlighted in the Veteran ASP Spotlight Series. I was excited to read what Suzanne had to share. Let’s all learn about Suzanne. (Goldie Pritchard)

Q: Please indicate your full name, title, and institution of employment.

Suzanne Darrow-Kleinhaus

Professor of Law, Director of Academic Development and Bar Programs

Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center

Q: Please briefly describe your ASP work including length of time associated with it and what initially stimulated your interest.  

The law was a second career for me so I didn’t exactly pick ASP but think that it picked me. My work in bar preparation goes back to 1998, not long after I passed the bar exam.  Having developed very close relationships with my classmates, I was devastated when I passed the bar exam and they did not.  I wanted to help so I began hosting weekly sessions on Sundays in my home to study with them. This experience helped me see the individual and highly different ways that people learned.  I was in private practice at the time, but when I shared what I was doing with Howard Glickstein, Touro Law’s dean at the time, he started referring students seeking assistance with the bar to me. By the spring of 1999, I was teaching Sunday workshops at Touro Law to guide students with essay writing and by 2000, I was offered an opportunity to teach Legal Process for a professor on sabbatical.  While I enjoyed my work at the firm, I realized how much I loved teaching and helping students so I decided to take this opportunity.  I taught Legal Process for three years and developed academic workshops focusing on developing legal reasoning and writing skills for students at all levels.  Touro did not have a formal academic support program at the time --- like many other law schools in 2000 --- so we developed one, a program at a time.  I was named Director of Academic Development in August 2003 and devoted my time exclusively to ASP functions, including teaching a first-year Contracts class that combined skills and doctrine for at-risk students. 

Q: Which aspect(s) of ASP work do you enjoy the most?  What would you consider your greatest challenge thus far and how have you overcome the challenge?

Like most of my ASP colleagues, I enjoy working one-on-one with students.  Still, as crazy as it might seem, I most enjoy that time between graduation and the bar exam when I work with our graduates to prepare for the bar exam.  This is the one of the best things about being a law professor because once students graduate, we’re all lawyers together, just peers, and I can help them navigate that next step to becoming a practitioner.  The bar prep period can be the loneliest, most anxiety-producing part of a student’s educational process. I want to make it less so by sharing that burden with them.     

The greatest challenge is helping first year students overcome their shock and loss of confidence when they do not do as well as they expected. The key to helping students in this situation is to remember that every student is unique; while the students who “get it” are pretty much alike in how they connect with the process of legal reasoning and analysis, those who struggle do so each in their own way.  It is my job to help them figure out what they need to do to get a different result.  Everything is on the table, beginning with setting up a daily study schedule.  Having said that, it’s important to stress that every schedule has to be flexible so we monitor how that schedule works on a weekly basis and make adjustments.  I am constantly surprised to learn how many students have never used a schedule before so that means they never knew how long it would take to perform a task --- which translates into not knowing how much time to allocate for a law school assignment.

Like others in ASP, I am constantly learning from my students and use what I learn in helping them to help others.  If one student has a problem, then others have it too.

Q: What do you want your professional legacy to be?

For students:  Touro Law gave me the opportunity to have the life I always dreamed of having. Each student comes to law school with a dream and I want to help them achieve it. I want them to realize their dream of becoming licensed and practicing attorneys. 

For colleagues: I’ve never really thought of a legacy because I am so busy in the here and now.  There is always another student and another bar exam.  I guess I would like to be remembered as one who was always available to help a colleague.  Professionally, I value most the work that I’ve done to try to change the National Conference of Bar Examiners’ scoring practices to ensure that the bar exam is a fair and reliable assessment of an individual's minimum competency to practice law. 

Q: What motivational advice or encouragement would you offer to new and/or midcareer ASPers or law students?

New and mid-career ASP’ers:  Do not hesitate to reach out to your ASP colleagues.  We are an invaluable resource for advice and practical materials.  And just like we tell our students, do not lose perspective.  It is easy to get caught up in our students’ anxiety and emotionally drained by all that we give of ourselves.  We need to remember to take care of ourselves!  I know that it is difficult, but you need to set limits on your availability, especially in responding to emails.  Unless it is a bona-fide emergency, you must let students know that you will respond within a certain window --- set that line and keep to it, or you will be answering emails around the clock.  Finally, remember that everything changes --- whether it is good or bad. There will always be changes in administration, faculty, and policies.  Keep steady and steer the course.

 Q: Is there anything else you deem necessary to share (quote, encouragement, inspiration, visual, etc.…)?

My favorite quote is from Benjamin Franklin --- it got me through law school and continues to guide me in my teaching: “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”

Test Driving Khan Academy's LSAT course

Last week I posted about The Future of the LSAT, including LSAC’s collaboration with Khan Academy to provide free online LSAT prep to everyone.  This week I am taking Khan Academy’s LSAT course for a test drive.

Registering for the course was simple.  I just needed to input my name, date of birth, and email address.  Then I selected LSAT prep from the list of available courses.  Once I was officially enrolled, Khan Academy provided me with an overview of their 4 step system:

“1. ... Take a mini-test or a full practice test, and [Khan Academy] will identify the skills you should focus on to improve your score the most.

2. ... Unlock your personalized practice plan. Based on your score goal, schedule, and starting skill strengths, [Khan Academy] will craft a unique practice plan with lessons and exercises at just the right level.

3. ... Step-by-step lessons and explanations will help you understand the questions and concepts on the LSAT, and official LSAT practice tests develop the test-taking and time-management skills you’ll need to reach your goal.

4. ... Your practice plan is divided into stages that start with focused skill practice and end with a LSAT practice test. As your weaknesses turn into strengths, you’ll see your test scores rise towards your goal.”

Because I was strangely curious about how I’d score with 15 years of legal analysis under my wing, I opted to take the 3 hour full-length exam instead of the 70 minute mini-diagnostic.  The diagnostic exam—comprised of four graded sections—did not have an official timer (you had to time yourself), but did let you skip between questions within each section and highlight passages in the reading comprehension section.  I get the impression that the system may allow for timed tests,  however, because under the personal settings tab I was given the option to adjust the testing timer for time-and-a-half or double-time. 

I found completing the diagnostic exam online slightly more difficult than a pencil and paper version because I could not engage in active reading techniques or quickly cross-out obviously wrong answer choices.  Unsurprisingly, I’ve heard the same complaint from law students who are studying for the multiple-choice section of the bar exam using primarily online resources.  My experience this week, combined with my students’ feedback, reinforced a growing concern that I have about LSAC’s decision to explore a digital LSAT exam. 

All that aside, at the conclusion of the diagnostic exam, I received my overall score, as well as my score on each particular section.  I was then given the option to create a personalized study schedule based on (1) my upcoming LSAT exam date and (2) my target score.

I selected a test date three months away (September) and a target score 9 points higher than my diagnostic score.  With that information, the program suggested that I complete 10 full-length practice exams and study approximately 2 hours per week to reach my goal.  I could also opt-in to receive automatic email reminders to help me stay on track.  My personal study plan included “sub-goals” and very specific target areas on which to focus my efforts (e.g. reading comprehension passages dealing with science), based on my diagnostic performance.  This project chunking and mini-goal setting system is definitely a fantastic skill to teach aspiring law students and a welcome feature in the program.  

Regardless of whether I opted to complete the diagnostic exam, I could click on the “lessons” tab at the top of the page to instantly access the full repository of available handouts, videos, and practice problems.  Click here to Download List of Khan Academy's LSAT Lessons.  The 1 to 10 minute lecture videos stream via an embedded You Tube player and include closed captioning, if desired.  The quick guides and handouts had helpful tips, but were entirely online.  I also received “energy points” for each goal achieved and activity completed, in the same vein as a video game.

Overall, the Khan Academy LSAT program appears to be quite robust—especially given its zero dollar price tag.  I would recommend this website to law school hopefuls.  (Kirsha Trychta)

Procrastination Avoidance

A report is due next week, and I could do it today.  However, I think tomorrow is a better time to complete it.  The next day, I think tomorrow is a better time to complete it.  The 1L appellate brief is due, but facebook is much more fun than Lexis.  The Statute of Limitations runs next week, but I know I can draft a petition in no time.  Sound familiar?  I won’t assume any of you encounter these problems, but I am sure you talk to students about them.

Procrastination is a problem in law schools, and honestly, throughout society.  Some people always think tomorrow is a better day or justify putting something off because he/she works well under pressure.  Procrastination strategies have serious ramifications in law school, on the bar exam, and especially, the practice of law.  Any time is a great time to stop procrastinating.

Stopping procrastination is easier said than done, but I am recommending a short and great book to my students titled Solving the Procrastination Puzzle by Timothy Pychyl.  Pychyl researched procrastination, and he wrote the book to make it easy to apply in everyday life.

Pychyl addresses all the comments we hear from students and explains why people have certain procrastination feelings, why the feelings are wrong, and how to overcome putting off the task.  He discusses how most of our explanations are merely justifications for procrastination behavior.  People tend to always think tomorrow is a better day than today to complete a difficult task (affective forecasting).  Unfortunately, tomorrow is always a day away, and nothing is completed.  We never really feel like doing it tomorrow, so we continually delay. 

He also addresses the common justification of working better under stress.  Many of our students, and many attorneys unfortunately, think waiting to the last minute produces better work product.  His research indicates what we all know.  Last minute writing leads to more errors and less accuracy.  Our students could overcome the errors in undergrad by being near the top of the class.  We all know that doesn’t work in LRW or in front of judges in practice.

The good news is he provides practical actions to overcome those issues and others, including digital distractions.  Each chapter has a mantra to help get past the delay.  He does emphasize just getting started, but he moves beyond just telling readers to start.  He provides good mental models and advice to overcome procrastination.  His advice could make a huge difference for many of our students putting off briefs and outlines.  I will definitely recommend to my students.

(Steven Foster)

Voting in Run-Off Election for AASE Members - Watch Your Inbox

Dear ASP Colleagues:

As explained at today’s business meeting at AASE’s Sixth Annual National Conference, there was a tie in the votes cast for the position of President-Elect.  The following two candidates (listed in alphabetical order by last name) received an equal number of votes cast by active AASE members:

                DeShun Harris (Texas A&M School of Law)

                Antonia Miceli (Saint Louis University School of Law)

In accordance with AASE’s Bylaws, I am using this e-mail to give notice to AASE members that AASE will hold a run-off election.  We will conduct the run-off election online, beginning Thursday, May 31, 2018 and ending on Wednesday, June 20, 2018.  Please watch your e-mail for a link to the voting page.  Only individuals with an active AASE membership may vote.

Thank you for your participation in selecting our leaders.  AASE’s success depends on your engagement.

Best regards,

Russell McClain

AASE President

Extension of the AASE Survey Deadline to August 10th

Law school contacts who have not completed the survey for AASE yet for their law schools have been emailed this week with information on the restructuring of the survey to make it easier to complete and on the new deadline. The new deadline is 11:59 p.m. on Friday, August 10, 2018 – please use 2017-2018 information still.

If you were previously contacted during April to fill out the survey and did not have time to do so, please check your inbox (and junk mail folder) for the email about the survey that was sent this past week.

If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Amy L. Jarmon at [email protected].

Best regards,

Amy L. Jarmon, Co-Chair AASE Assessment Committee, Texas Tech School of Law

Karen M. Harkins, Co-Chair AASE Assessment Committee, Thomas Jefferson School of Law

Assistant Director of Academic Support Position at California Western

California Western has posted a job opening for the Assistant Director position. Here are two sources for the job posting:

CWSL website posting - https://www.cwsl.edu/community/current-job-openings 

Chronicle of Higher Ed posting - https://www.higheredjobs.com/region/details.cfm?JobCode=176730343&Title=Assistant%20Director%20of%20Academic%20Support