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Whether distance education and other modern learning tools work in legal education is no longer in question. Outcomes-oriented design, integral formative and summative assessment, online simulations, asynchronous learning, and other hallmarks of distance education have demonstrated efficacy in law teaching for 20 years (though a robust empirical research agenda has yet to develop.) The interesting questions now center around how and where these modern learning tools and disciplines can be used to best advantage.
Expertise now abounds among the academy, and this conference aims to collect and share it. The ABA has opened up legal education to a full year of online learning, and perhaps more significantly, to as much as a third of the first year. Bringing together leaders of legal education and law school innovation, “Online & Hybrid Learning Pedagogy: Toward Defining Best Practices in Legal Education” will nurture the emerging consensus on best practices in a new era of change and challenge in legal education.
For faculty looking to engage distracted students, there’s no better place to come and learn. For deans and administrators considering online learning offerings at their schools, and who are looking to encourage stronger academic performance and better outcomes for a new generation of law students, the tools discussed at this conference will help to improve evaluation and development of student capacities. For the practice minded, experts on classroom and hybrid online applications will critically examine questions of balance, when live classrooms work best, and where teaching is better done in a hybrid or fully online learning environment.