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Note-Taking Mode and Academic Performance in Two Law School Courses
No full textThe use of laptops in law school classrooms has become fairly commonplace, especially in the last decade. Yet, studies in other higher education settings have found an association between note-taking mode and academic performance; specifically, using a laptop to take notes in the classroom is associated with negative academic performance outcomes.
This study endeavors to assess the relationship between note-taking mode and academic performance in the law school setting. We compare the academic performance of handwriters to laptop users in two required, doctrinal courses as well as the effect of a randomly assigned treatment, exposing roughly half of the students in our analysis to a memorandum explaining the possible pitfalls of using a laptop to take class notes. We find that handwriting class notes has a strong positive association with academic performance in these two law school courses, supporting findings of the benefits of handwriting class notes in other academic settings
Normalizing Struggle
No full textLearning lawyering skills, and becoming competent or proficient in them, is a struggle. This article is a call to action for all legal educators: We need to acknowledge that students struggle, to expect it, and to convey to students that their struggle is normal. In fact, struggle is productive — learning is hard, and lawyers learn and struggle throughout their careers.
This article examines and criticizes the ways legal academia treats law students’ academic struggle as a problem, and suggests that legal educators reorient their attitudes toward struggle, forgiving and embracing student struggle, even building opportunities for struggle into the curriculum. By normalizing the fact of struggle, law schools will not only improve the wellness of their students, but will create lawyers who are better prepared to cope with the constant problem-solving required of a successful lawyer
Measuring Actual Learning Versus Feeling of Learning in Response to Being Actively Engaged in the Classroom
No full textWe compared students’ self-reported perception of learning with their actual learning under controlled conditions in large-enrollment introductory college physics courses taught using 1) active instruction (following best practices in the discipline) and 2) passive instruction (lectures by experienced and highly rated instructors). Both groups received identical class content and handouts, students were randomly assigned, and the instructor made no effort to persuade students of the benefit of either method. Students in active classrooms learned more (as would be expected based on prior research), but their perception of learning, while positive, was lower than that of their peers in passive environments. This suggests that attempts to evaluate instruction based on students’ perceptions of learning could inadvertently promote inferior (passive) pedagogical methods. For instance, a superstar lecturer could create such a positive feeling of learning that students would choose those lectures over active learning. Most importantly, these results suggest that when students experience the increased cognitive effort associated with active learning, they initially take that effort to signify poorer learning. That disconnect may have a detrimental effect on students’ motivation, engagement, and ability to self-regulate their own learning. Although students can, on their own, discover the increased value of being actively engaged during a semester-long course, their learning may be impaired during the initial part of the course. We discuss strategies that instructors can use, early in the semester, to improve students’ response to being actively engaged in the classroom
Pennsylvania Bar Exam Statistics
No full textThis source includes data on Pennsylvania bar exam outcomes
More Transparency, Please
No full textTransparency comes in many forms, from data to documents. Yet what matters most is what transparency does. It reveals. Through revelation, transparency can reduce information asymmetry to help markets, policymakers, and even decisionmakers at the institutions subject to scrutiny. It exposes blind spots and signals opportunities for change. As such, transparency is not a final step in progress—it is an early step. Whatever transparency reveals, the value is severely limited without action because progress is not inevitable. Progress depends on what people and institutions do with what is revealed. (p. 465)
The proposals in this article are the product of discussions with young lawyers, law students, legal academics, and leadership in various sections and divisions in the ABA. Part A outlines transparency proposals related to student debt, scholarships, and diversity. Part B considers the costs to law schools and the Section from additional data collection and reporting. Part C considers constraints related to making the resultant datasets public. Finally, Part D provides concluding remarks about the balance between the costs and benefits of these proposals. (p. 468
Aspirations and Decisions to Enroll in Graduate Programs: A Literature Review of Contributing Factors
No full textEnrollment in graduate programs has increased dramatically over the years and continues to grow. Deciding to enroll in graduate school or even aspiring to a graduate degree are outcomes of a complex process influenced by an array of factors ranging from demographic characteristics to undergraduate academic and life experiences to financial variables. In this review, we synthesize recent research on aspirations to pursue graduate education and the enrollment decision process. While some contradictions exist in the literature, several factors consistently influence enrollment in graduate education programs. This review calls for additional theoretical work and reveals several directions for future scholarship in this area of inquiry
UGPA/LSAT Search
No full textWhat makes a law school the right one for you? Is it the location, the type of law you want to practice, its size? There are many variables involved with choosing a law school, and the more information you collect about the schools that interest you, the greater the likelihood of making the right choice. In addition to tuition, research other costs, along with acceptance rates, and the average LSAT score and GPA of students who have been accepted. Your school choice ultimately affects your career, so it’s important to determine the best fit for your goals.
Use this tool to search for law schools by LSAT score/UGPA acceptance range and geographic area