Novelty and fun can help the brain in learning and retention. Yesterday I blogged about a professor who is using Night of the Living Dead to teach about neuroscience. Today I saw this article: "Stanford biology instructor uses raps to teach complicated material." Click to watch him in action.
In an effort to find novel, fun teaching in law schools, I e-mailed a listserv with many law professors to ask them if they knew of any examples. I got the most delightful e-mail from Mark Hoch which I am posting with his permission.
I love to use music, video, film, whatever I can find, to help in classes. Here are a couple of examples of music use:
In the first semester legal research, analysis, and writing course, I try to find a song that establishes a theme for the legal problems that we're working through. For our predictive memo writing problem, I have often used a variation on an immigration/asylum case and matched The Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go." The song is recent and rockin' enough that the students know it and keep it in the back of their mind throughout the months that we spend working through the problem and their writing of the memo.
In a similar vein, in the first few minutes of their very first oral advocacy class in the second semester, the 1L students must get up on their feet to make the conscious break from playing the role of a seated law clerk in the fall semester to the ultimate point of the second semester - being on your feet as an attorney in court arguing before a panel of judges. So, as they're rising from their chairs, the students are listening to and seeing the You Tube video of Bob Marley and the
Wailers performing "Get Up, StandUp." This song and video work great together - the reggae rhythms make the students start to dance and they see crowds of people dancing, thus they really get the idea that you have to know how to "dance" up there in court!
Lastly, along the lines of your article on "rap," about six years ago two students put together a surprise rap to present some of their oral argument for Family Day at the Law Center. It worked fabulously well to get across the arguments and everyone loved it. Although I videotape all my classes now, alas, we were not equipped to do it back then so sadly it was not recorded. It's always stayed in the back of my mind, though, to reintroduce rapping into the oral advocacy course and your posting has inspired me to get going on it!
Isn't that great to read? If I receive other responses, I will post them.
Added April 14, 2009: Received this e-mail from Susan Daicoff (posted with permission):
I had a very creative student last year who put 5 old songs to new lyrics relating to her first-year law school courses – we put together a band from her section and performed the songs for our class, some others, and in other venues around the school. I used the songs again this year to teach the parol evidence rule in contracts. I also use music clips in contracts to help remember things – for example, I use Gilbert O-Sullivan’s Alone Again Naturally to remind the students that with implied in fact contracts, “no words were ever spoken” which is a line from the song. I also use a video clip from Roy Scheider’s All That Jazz on “denial anger bargaining depression acceptance” to teach the 5 stages of grief, in law school interviewing and counseling.
Comments