On-campus learning may have returned, but some of the online technology that schools relied on during the darkest days of the pandemic are not being shelved.
The ABA has given variances to a handful of schools to offer hybrid J.D. programs, which allow most courses to be held online. However, there are some on-campus requirements.
“COVID-19 has accelerated the move online,” said Nina Kohn, faculty director of online education at Syracuse University College of Law, which has a hybrid program called JDinteractive. “COVID-19 has shown us that there are many ways to deliver legal education. It does not have to be one size fits all.”
AccessLex Institute and Gallup did a poll to help evaluate student experience with remote learning. Overall, students did not give it outstanding grades.
But first-year students, who had yet to experience campus life, gave it good marks. Many even said they felt a strong connection with their fellow students, despite the fact that they were learning remotely.
“Despite having never set foot on their law school’s campus, 1L students who have completed all their first-year courses online are about as likely as those who have completed some of their courses on campus to say they feel as if they belong at their law school and have a sense of community with their peers,” a report on the poll results said. “The AccessLex-Gallup findings also suggest that if law schools can provide students with online or hybrid in-person/online arrangements that broaden students’ learning experiences and leverage the advantage of both formats, perceptions of online courses may improve.”
We surveyed law schools to find out what the pandemic year taught them about online legal education. We asked what programs or courses they implemented this year that stemmed from something learned during the first year of the pandemic, and if there was anything new online that they implemented this year.
Michael J. Hussey, dean and associate professor of law at Widener University Commonwealth Law, said his team was successful in adopting innovative approaches to remote learning during the height of the pandemic.
“Our faculty spent countless hours to adapt their classes to a Zoom learning environment, ensuring students remained connected and engaged,” he said.
In his Federal Income Taxation class, Hussey utilized breakout rooms in Zoom, where students would work in small groups, sharing their answers to problems with each other. He said he would pop in and out of each breakout room, just like he would do in an in-person classroom environment.
“Students would then regroup remotely and share their answers and rationale with the larger group,” he said. “I found the students to be very engaged and involved.”
Widener Law Commonwealth Professor Robyn Meadows adapted her “escape room” review session for her in-person Remedies class remotely via Zoom, using breakout rooms and student volunteers. The class used four sets of exercises for students: problems, word scrambles, multiple-choice, and term identification. One group of students would do one of the exercises, submit their answers to Meadows, and then once the answers were confirmed to be correct, they would move on to the next exercise. She reported her virtual “escape room” approach worked very well and the student groups would compete with one another to finish first.
Mitchell Hamline School of Law has a robust blended learning program, with a mix of blended and fully online courses. Historically, not many students in the on-campus program registered for blended or online courses, as their preferred method of instruction was in-person, on-campus. With the pandemic, the law school saw an increase in student interest.
“We have always let students, regardless of enrollment type, register for these courses, but are encouraging faculty teaching in our on-campus courses to adapt some of the blended and online course strategies and incorporate them into the on-campus and HyFlex courses,” the law school noted.
For the 2021-2022 academic year, Mitchell Hamline decided to offer several courses in a HyFlex format. HyFlex courses have a mix of on-campus and fully remote students participating together in the same course each week. While the on-campus students come to campus to participate, the remote students log in at the same time remotely via Zoom.
Students from both the on-campus and blended learning programs can register for HyFlex courses, which has led to an integration of enrollment types, the law school noted.
“The HyFlex format has allowed greater flexibility in our course offerings, a focus on student and faculty health and safety, as well as a more inclusive learning environment for students.”
Read more about how the pandemic pushed online legal education into the mainstream, and several other law school online updates in the digital issue of the Online Jurist.
