Avoiding pedagogy roadblocks to create advances in the delivery of legal education

Steven Friedland (Elon University, USA) presented some proposals for how to bridge the gaps between the teaching of theory and practice and promote a learning centric educational platform.

Download Steven’s full paper (Word doc, 6 pages, 26 Kb) at the bottom of the page.

While many advances in American legal education pedagogy have occurred over the years there have been just as many impediments, limiting pedagogical innovation in an educational system that arguably has failed to bridge theory and practice in a meaningful fashion. These roadblocks have been procedural and substantive, structural and idiosyncratic.

One significant impediment has been the entrenched objective of coverage of substantive material. While not a problem in and of itself, the coverage goal has in application tilted the educational process toward a professor centric system, focusing on whether the professor is reaching material, not whether and how students are learning. The coverage objective, especially when combined with traditional law school texts, also has served to limit active learning approaches.

Another impediment issue is structural, in that institutions have not given credit for and/or supported pedagogical innovation. In addition, student use of computers in the classroom has impacted the nature of the educational environment. In particular, computers connected to the Internet have enhanced the problem of student multi-tasking. Data from a recent American law school study sheds light on the nature and quantity of unauthorised Internet use.

Sandra Warfield (University of Bedfordshire) reports:

American law schools appear to have changed their teaching methods less than many UK law schools. The central issue addressed was the need to create ‘doers’. Participants were encouraged to focus on how well students are learning rather than how well we are teaching. The emphasis was on a move towards contextual learning, with the analogy drawn that of a runner – you do not teach someone to run by getting them to take notes on running.

About Steven

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Steven Friedland is a professor of law and Founding Director of the Center for Engaged Learning in the Law (CELL) at Elon University School of Law, USA. He presented a paper at Learning in Law Annual Conference 2008 on Adapting law school learning to the 21st century and has presented widely on legal education teaching techniques and pedagogy.
 
Steven has written and edited several books on teaching techniques, including the co-edited Teaching techniques for law 2, to be published by Carolina Academic Press in 2010, and has been the recipient of many teaching awards, earned at three different law schools.

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Last Modified: 9 July 2010