The semester-interregnum is the period of grading, planning for next semester, and (hopefully) doing a little writing, as well as whatever holiday and family festivities we have. It also is a good time to look back at the prior semester, figure out what we did right and wrong, and think about how to carry those lessons into the next semester and to the next time we teach that class (often a year later).
Once again, my biggest problem last semester was the pacing of my classes. In Fed Courts, we got through jurisdiction, 11th Amendment, justiciability (although not Political Question Doctrine), and abstention (but not Rooker-Feldman). I did not get to jurisdiction stripping, Boumedienne and the War on Terror, or congressional control over the courts–the fun, theoretical stuff that I save until the end. In Civil Rights, we basically had about 1/2 a class of lecture on civil rights injunctionsThe last time I taught civ pro in a single semester (spring 2007), I was able to do only one day on the basic principle of Erie and I am trying to figure out how not to repeat that mistake next semester.
My problem is that I do not organize my courses by days–we will do one day on this topic, two days on this topic, etc. Instead, I organize by topic. And we stay on a topic until I get them the information and detail I want them to have and until they “get it” (or at least until there is no one left raising her hand and saying “I don’t get it”). The inevitable consequence is that we spend a longer period on the material early in the semester and rush through (or do not reach) some stuff towards the end. And this has gotten worse as I have become more “Socratic” (danger quotes intentional) the more times I teach a course. When material leads to free-wheeling discussions, we stay on a topic that much longer–and I confess to not being very good at cutting off or reining in discussions.
So I would like to hear about how folks control the pace and coverage of courses. Any thoughts and suggestions?
Posted by Howard Wasserman on December 26, 2008 at 09:06 PM
Comments
As a 1L, my experience is somewhat limited. Nonetheless, I have strong feelings regarding this subject. As with any dense and highly complicated subject matter crammed into limited time for instruction, there exists a difficult choice for the instructor: should one cover the most ground possible at the expense of depth, or should one give a thorough treatment to that which is covered, the syllabus be damned?
Personally, I think that in law school, breadth should trump depth. It seems that the professors who have trouble getting to the end of their syllabi do so because they indulge every single question, hypothetical, and self-indulgent comment often offered by students. Instead, I think that the majority of students appreciate a professor unafraid to assert his/her authority in the interests of covering the subject matter economically and on-time. While you “confess to not being very good at cutting off or reining in discussions,” I think that working on these skills will be of significant benefit to both you and your students. Doing so is surprisingly easy – don’t forget the authority that you wield over our befuddled little minds! – a simple “let’s move along” usually does the trick. And in the end, students desirous of more depth whom you cut off can always meet for office hours (indeed, this will attract those genuinely interested and save you the time and energy of indulging the bloviators and blow-hards).
In terms of the syllabus and lesson plan, students MUCH prefer having each day fully mapped-out ahead of time. While some deviation and falling behind naturally occurs, I can ASSURE you that students favor this approach. In contrast, the open-ended, “we’ll cover what gets covered” topic-based approach (favored by one of my professors) served as an endless frustration for students who try to plan their preparations with a degree of precision.
Good luck with your pedagogical fine-tuning and crack that whip like a taskmaster!
Posted by: HLS 1L | Dec 29, 2008 1:19:22 AM
It is tough to balance depth, coverage, pace, class size etc. so in some of my classes I have a day to day, class by class, written syllabus of what we will cover and in others I will tell my students on Day 1 here is what I want to do this semester in general terms (put it in writing too). In a required course like Civil Procedure (two semesters, both semesters) where I have been using the same book for several years (Yeazell), I can be fairly precise about what we will cover while building in a couple classes for catching up, review, clarification, etc. If I switch books – and I should – I will not give them a class by class syllabus but be more general, knowing that there are certain topics I need to cover in the fall whether I am using Yeazell or any other casebook – personal jurisdiction, subject matter jurisdiction, complications from multiple parties and Erie. I also teach Administative Law and Copyright – sometimes to 70 students each, sometimes to 20 each – if I have used the casebook a couple of times I can be fairly precise but there are semesters when I want to spend more time on particular issues/problems than in other semesters. The trump card in all of this is what our central administraton or our governing bodies might require – at a public university like mine the governing board (Regents, Trustees etc.) might have in regulations requiring all classes to have a syllabus … and the same goes for accrediting bodies like SACS (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools). I have no idea whether that means class by class instead of a general, here is what we will cover, type of syllabus. In any event, how many of us tell our students on Day 1 what we plan to accomplish, how we will evaluate them etc.? … Happy New Year. Dave Shipley
Posted by: David Shipley | Dec 27, 2008 6:37:03 PM
I like the tv analogy. I like to believe my courses are structured and flow together logically and coherently (you have to ask my students about that), but it is by topic, with one toic possibly going across multiple classes.
Vladimir: I would love to be that sanguine about it. And at the small level, you are right–it is not so essential that they get Rooker. At the level of a larger topic such as congressional control, this becomes tougher. And moving it up is not a solution. First, I have the class organized in such a way that it only will make sense at the end (when I also think they are most ready for it). Second, if I move that up, something else would have to fall away. The structural center is not “most important early, less important late.” I want to be able to do both. Maybe that requires class-level structure.
Posted by: Howard Wassermam | Dec 27, 2008 8:44:56 AM
Howard, my suggestion is to live with it. I think the scope of coverage is much less important than depth. Lack of Rooker-Feldman won’t hurt. If you really want to focus on Congressional Control, then move it up in the syllabus! I find, anyway, that I wind up bringing things into the discussion that may come later, so the net loss is small, and greatly outweighted by the added depth and student engagement in any case.
Posted by: Vladimir | Dec 27, 2008 2:25:49 AM
Oh, and I should add, having read James Grimmelmann’s comment, that I think I approach things very much like he does: A class is like a 39-chapter book, or 39-episode season of a TV show, in which each episode has a specific plot line that advances the story line of the course in a specific way. That’s the goal, at least.
Posted by: Orin Kerr | Dec 26, 2008 11:13:10 PM
I generally control the pace and coverage by having my syllabus divided into classes, all planned at the beginning of the semester. I have specific coverage for specific classes, and pace each class so we cover all the material for that class. Once in a while we will get into a good discussion and I’ll let it run a few more minutes than planned, but if that happens I just lecture through the next case (or cut some other corners a bit) so we catch back up. More broadly, I find that the “proper” length of coverage for any topic is very widely malleable: You can do 5 minutes on a topic or 50 minutes or 200 minutes, all depending on how far down you want to go and how many asides you’re willing to throw in.
Of course, what works well or less well depend on the prof: I find it works for me, but I’m sure it wouldn’t work for everyone.
Posted by: Orin Kerr | Dec 26, 2008 11:09:11 PM
I draw up a syllabus divided into giornata. One can only teach so much material or paint so much of a fresco in one day, and I’d rather be able to draw natural lines between topics than have everything run together. Planning out the giornata drives me to articulate each day’s “story.” Each class should ideally be memorable on its own and connect naturally to the ones before and after. It also resembles individual TV episodes that fit together into the arc of a season. The best long-form shows aren’t totally free-form. Giving each day its own internal logic keeps the class moving forward; it gives the students a sense of the course’s genre. Constraint is the basis of creativity.
Of course, sometimes a day runs slowly. If I’m running five minutes behind halfway through, I may just curtail discussion more aggressively in the second half. If I’m running ten minutes behind, I may throw the last case or case study overboard (I often plan for this option by including a case or a case study that we could discuss for five minutes or for thirty, depending on how much depth we’ll get into). if I’m running fifteen minutes behind, I may steal that time from the start of the next class, making a few adjustments to its own coverage to make room. If I’m running further behind, I may just let things go, juggle the next few classes, and ultimately slip the schedule by deleting an entire class. (I did this in my patent unit of IP last year; the basics needed more time, so I pulled the prosecution history estoppel material.)
It’s a wide range of options, but I find that confronting the tradeoffs explicitly by having a schedule on which all changes will be officially noted helps me be mindful of making them responsibly. That mindfulness then carries over into how we use class time — when I’m deciding whether to take more student comments or to say “okay, last thought and then we move on,” I have in mind what we’d use the time for if we’re not using it for further discussion of this point.
As a student, I had teachers who taught both ways, and while both could be brilliant, I found the structured approach more satisfying. It was easier to keep track of where we’d been and where we were going, and I had more of a sense of how the course fit together.
Posted by: James Grimmelmann | Dec 26, 2008 9:34:59 PM