Online Bar Support: an XBlog Series

Being thrust into Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) has downsides to be sure, but there are some silver linings.  For law students generally, exposure to ERT has given them cause to develop greater flexilibity requiring more focus on time management and self-guided learning—both critical skills for success as lawyers.

An example of a “positive” in online bar preparation is that when complex concepts are taught and recorded (in online lectures or class discussions), students can review the material multiple times at their own pace. This is no doubt an advantage for many. It is hard to ask a professor to “rewind” in a live class, and many students are reluctant to raise hands, especially those who are struggling, and politely ask professors to repeat themselves.

Online bar support has also been a particularly helpful as a way of providing assistance to at-risk students in a way that does not stigmatize. (They can get extra help without their peers “seeing” that they are asking for that help.)

Some of the many other reasons that online learning is well suited to bar support include:

• Students can review recorded information as many times as needed to help make certain that all concepts make sense to the students.
• Students can ask questions and can hear/read questions of others (and answers to those questions) that they may be embarrassed to ask in class.
• Students can access the information at any time of the day or night. In “normal” times, this is particularly helpful for working students, and also helps “traditional” students who may keep odd hours or who may be at their peak learning time other than when a live class is held. In these unusual times, it may be that students are required to be helping others or engaged in other survival activities
• Students who might otherwise not “speak up” or ask questions in a fixed facility classroom might be more “talkative” or inquisitive in online communication (live online classrooms, discussion boards, blogs, Twitter, etc.). This is similar to the phenomenon most professors experience of students being more willing to email questions that they might not have dared ask in person, face-to-face.

More to follow in the next post in this XBlog series.