Stetson Uses Technology to Transform Legal Education
By Davina Y. Gould BA ’97
 This article was first published in Stetson Lawyer, Vol. 49. ›› Download PDF |
A second-year J.D. student doing a summer clerkship in Washington. A veteran elder law attorney practicing in Texas. A hurricane victim whose home law school is temporarily closed for repairs.
These students from very different backgrounds are among the many who have benefited from Stetson’s expanding electronic education curriculum.
Compared to traditional “live” classes, online courses at Stetson University College of Law are not easier—in fact, far from it. Students and professors are discovering that the advantages of distance learning extend beyond flexibility in time and location.
In contrast to the correspondence courses of the past, electronic education is bringing distance learning to mainstream higher education. Nearly all public universities offer distance learning courses, and some top universities require students to take at least one distance education course to graduate.
Traditional Courses Transformed
Stetson electronic education courses work through a system that combines video-on-demand broadcasts of lectures and PowerPoint presentations with discussion boards. To make the best use of the technology, professors must re-think their strategy for each course.
“Trying to replicate a live classroom doesn’t work,” explained Ellen Podgor, Stetson’s associate dean of faculty development and electronic education. “The key is not replicating a live classroom, but making a classroom that’s better. What we’re doing here is unique and cutting-edge.”
All classes are asynchronous, as students may listen to lectures and contribute to discussions 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The recorded lectures are high-quality productions, with the vast majority filmed in a studio with professional lighting. Most classes average around 17 students.
Even though Stetson has no intentions of offering required J.D. or bar-subject courses online, the law school has discovered that student performance in electronic classes has been identical, and sometimes better, than in the live classroom.
“There are no absences, no way to miss class, no way to avoid interaction,” Podgor said, noting that a survey of one online class found that 70 percent of students reported investing more time into their electronic courses, with the remainder reporting that the workload was the same.
Associate Dean of Academics Mark Bauer noted another major advantage of using new media: “They have the ability to replay material and listen to lectures at their own pace. We find that comprehension is higher, and students do better on exams.”
Total Class Participation
In lieu of calling on students to answer in class, all Stetson electronic education courses require students to submit a number of posts to discussion forums each week.
“You get to hear from students who may be shy or intimidated and don’t usually speak up in regular classes,” said Professor Rebecca Trammell, who taught Advanced Legal Research electronically this summer.
Students have been enthusiastic about the format as well. “There was total class participation during this summer’s media law class. I was able to hear the views and thoughts of all my classmates on every week, during every topic we were discussing,” said Claudine Duclos, who took the Media Law Seminar online. “If I would ever have the choice of an electronic or live class covering the same subject, I would have to choose the electronic class.”
Professor Catherine Cameron discovered that online format led to more in-depth, intellectual conversations among students. “There was robust discussion; students had more time to deliberate on what to write. They would bring in case law cites and interesting information you couldn’t expect in a classroom.”
Adapting Traditional Classes
Even though the online format allows for most of the same communication as traditional classes through video, handouts and discussion forums, Stetson’s asynchronous classes require professors to carefully plan each semester and become more accessible to students.
“You can’t take the same course you’ve been teaching for 20 years and put it straight online. You have to think about how you’re going to communicate this, and make sure the students understand what you’re saying.” Trammell said.
Trammell added that the online format usually results in more faculty/student engagement. Instead of two days of class and a few office hours a week, most professors respond to their online students more often because of increased e-mail and off-campus accessibility.
Because lectures are usually recorded early in the semester, some professors find that they must plan their schedules in more detail. “Live classes are really malleable—we can tell students what to read for tomorrow,” Cameron said.
Lecturing for a camera creates an interesting dynamic for new online instructors. “You don’t get an immediate reaction from the classroom, which takes some getting used to,” described Bauer. “Teaching online requires a complementary set of skills, but there are also new ones involved.”
New Academic Horizons
Another advantage of electronic learning is the ability to expand the market of potential students for each class.
Several summer seminar courses have been taught online, increasing access for students in internships outside the Tampa Bay area or from other law schools. In the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Stetson also offered distance education for students from New Orleans area law schools.
“This is never a replacement for the classroom experience; it’s an adjunct for where there could be no class,” Bauer said. He cited Stetson’s new LL.M. in elder law and M.J. in law and aging programs as examples of Stetson extending its reach.
“We have a remarkable amount of talent and experience here in regard to elder law. It was desirable to offer an LL.M. program, but how many people in Tampa Bay need an elder law degree? Even if it’s several hundred, once we’ve taught them, we’re done.
“Through the online program, we’re reaching the U.S., and the entire world, for everyone who desires advanced training in elder law, but can’t take a year off and relocate to attend class. Distance learning allows us to bring education to attorneys wherever they are. We couldn’t even conceive of offering this degree if it were held on campus, and that’s exciting,” said Bauer.
The system also is used for Stetson’s Advocacy Resource Center, a free subscription service for public service attorneys nationwide, and for the Overview of the U.S. Legal System program, which is a 17-part lecture series that will be available for pre-law students, foreign lawyers and foreign government personnel in 2009. In addition to the online lectures, Stetson is publishing a book with LexisNexis to accompany the course.
Stetson remains committed to the highest standards of legal education regardless of how courses are delivered, according to Dean Podgor. “Our strategy is to do it better, or don’t do it at all.”
Post date: May 4, 2009
Media contact: Kate Bradshaw
[email protected] | 727-430-1580