I think that you’re right to stress the importance of feedback and to take the discussion one step further by inquiring what is actually a feasible mode for feedback in large law school courses. A class like this that is concerned with society, current events, and quite a bit of history, is much more suited to individual responses and creative discussion than are substantive law courses . It would be much harder to set up a similar wiki for, let’s say, torts—unless it is mainly focused on policy aspects or reform. As important as discussion and critical thought are, I feel comfortable knowing that some of my classes are teaching me black letter law at least some of the time. Of the classes I’ve had over the past year, I was not incredibly frustrated with the lack of collaboration in class, mostly because the subjects didn’t seem keyed toward collaboration. It’s like the difference between collaboration in an geometry class versus a writing seminar.

That said, I would have liked explanations of my grades or maybe multiple assignments throughout the semester. In Civ Pro, we were assigned to write a complaint and engage in a discovery exercise with a partner, both of which were actually more memorable to me than the exam itself or even reviewing before the exam. Even if the assignments weren’t graded or included in the final grade, having projects to complete would give students more incentive to talk with their professors in office hours or engage with their fellow students. I know many times I’ve thought I should go in for office hours but I couldn’t think of a “good reason” to be there—which is frankly just stupid for me to think in the first place. The thing that I like most about this course specifically is that it focuses on improving throughout the semester, and I think that can be true for any course regardless of subject matter. But to improve, you have to have something to improve upon. In my mind that something should be a project or assignment—written, oral, or quantitative—something more than just reading the cases for each class.

-- AnneFox - 15 June 2012