Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Interesting study on law students' laptop use

I just read a brief synopsis of Professor Kim Novak Morse's PhD dissertation on the use of laptops in law school classes.  As a fairly recent graduate of law school, I definitely remember being off-task myself in class and seeing other people be off-task.  It does not surprise me at all that the students with the higher LSAT scores tend to be off-task more than the students with lower scores.  That reflects law students' driven nature and sense of self-accomplishment.  I personally do not allow students to use the computers in my class, but I keep the lecture to a minimum and try to incorporate more exercises, so they are actually involved during class time.  Any notes they want to take can easily be taken on paper.

Anyway, take a look at the article about her study here:  http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_skills/2012/02/new-teaching-scholarship-before-you-ban-empirical-data-on-student-laptop-use.html

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