Using distance learning to enhance cross-listed interdisciplinary law school courses.

• Author: Berg, Paula E.

1. INTRODUCTION

   Courses that are interdisciplinary in their approach to teaching substance and skills and that include graduate students from other disciplines can be a valuable addition to legal education. (1) In addition to enabling students to share different perspectives, such courses provide an ideal environment for teaching law students to collaborate with other types of professionals. This is increasingly essential to the effective practice of law? (2) Cross-listed courses can also provide access to classes on subjects that are not otherwise offered and to the expertise of faculty members from other parts of an academic institution. Not surprisingly, such courses receive high ratings from law students. (3)

   Notwithstanding these benefits, the capacity of law schools to offer cross-listed courses is constrained by numerous logistical and administrative challenges. (4) Distance learning, or distance education--the use of computers, telecommunications, and digital networking to permit learning outside the boundaries of the classroom--holds the potential to expand the availability of cross-listed courses by reducing these barriers. (5) Equally important, distance learning can provide professors of cross-listed courses with pedagogical tools for enhancing interdisciplinary communication and collaboration, and circumventing some of the problems inherent in teaching students from different disciplines.

   Since many law schools are physically separate from other parts of the university, it can be difficult to find a convenient location to hold cross-listed classes. (6) Similarly, it is often difficult to find a suitable class time because the semester calendars and course schedules of law schools are frequently different from other university divisions. (7)

   For law professors specifically, cross-listed courses present unique pedagogical challenges stemming from the difficulty of teaching a class comprised of students who are near-experts in legal analysis, the language of the law, and the legal system, and students who are novices. Moreover, it is crucial but extremely difficult to create an environment in which these two groups of students, coming from different backgrounds, professional cultures, and knowledge bases, are not mutually intimidated. (8) Indeed, one commentator has argued that impediments to cross-professional communication are so great that "English-speaking members of a particular profession may in fact communicate more clearly with non-English-speaking members of their profession from other cultures than they do with English-speaking persons who are not part of the profession." (9)

   In a class I recently taught on public health law, I used distance learning and evaluated its ability to: (1) facilitate teaching at different levels to students from two disciplines; (2) enhance interdisciplinary interaction and collaboration; and (3) reduce the barriers associated with time and place constraints. (10)

   The course, offered to law students and graduate students in public health, presented the usual problems. The public health students, on the one hand, had considerable academic training and employment experience in their field, but most had never read a statute, regulation, or judicial opinion. The law students, on the other hand, had extensive training in legal analysis, legal process, and many relevant areas of law, but most knew nothing about the theory, methods, and practice of public health.

   Additionally, the law and public health schools are located miles apart and the difference between the two schools' schedules was substantial. The law school's classes meet during the day and the public health school holds classes at night. As a consequence, it was impossible to schedule more than one "live" two-hour class each week, which did not provide sufficient time to accomplish the course's substantive and skills objectives.

   The purpose of this Article is to evaluate the capacity of distance education technology to enhance the effectiveness of cross-listed interdisciplinary courses. It is intended to help professors use distance education to make new and established law school courses accessible to graduate students studying other disciplines. Additionally, since there is little scholarship on the unique pedagogical challenges presented by cross-listed law school courses, this Article offers some general observations and suggestions that will hopefully be useful to teachers of these courses, regardless of whether or not they employ distance

2. COURSE OBJECTIVES AND PEDAGOGY

   1. Live Class Pedagogy

      The course's objective was not to make public health experts of the law students or to teach the public health students to think like lawyers. (12) Instead, it sought to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration by introducing each group of students to the foundational principles, language, theoretical perspectives, and problem-solving approaches of the other discipline. (13) Because both groups of students intended to practice their respective professions within a public-interest setting, (14) the course concentrated on the public policy implications of the law (15) and provided training in interdisciplinary collaboration within the simulated context of a government public health agency.

      Aside from separate introductory lectures delivered to each group of students on the first day, (16) live classes were conducted using the discussion method. Each class typically began with the explication of an assigned statute, regulation, or case, usually by a law student volunteer. (17) The goal of this exercise was twofold. First, it offered the law students the opportunity to develop their ability to explain the law in a manner accessible to novices--a skill essential to effective collaboration with other professionals. (18) Second, the exercise ensured that the public health students had a basic understanding of the rights at stake in various public health conflicts and the sources and scope of the legal protection of those rights.

      Once this foundation was established, the discussion moved to the underlying objectives, philosophy, and social, political, and economic consequences of the judicial, legislative, or administrative solution to a particular public health problem. Students were encouraged to consider how the law promoted or thwarted public health objectives and to articulate alternative legal and public health approaches.

      A considerable portion of live classes was devoted to surfacing differences and similarities between the problem-solving methodologies of law and public health. The goal of these discussions was to identify the distinct contributions that each discipline can make to the formulation of public health policy. These discussions culminated in the creation of a holistic model for generating and evaluating alternative solutions to public health problems that incorporated the dominant concerns and perspectives of both disciplines.

      During a mid-semester class project, which was conducted partly online and partly in the live class, interdisciplinary teams of law and public health students employed this method to propose solutions to a particular public health problem. (19) Students also used this interdisciplinary methodology to problem-solve on the final exam. (20)

   2. Distance Education Pedagogy

      Distance education technology was employed to enhance the scope and depth of the course's substantive coverage, increase opportunities for and reduce barriers to interdisciplinary interaction, and remedy specific administrative and logistical problems. Specifically, I created a course website to enlarge the sphere of informational resources used in the course and expedite communication with the class. (21) I also used the course website to post the syllabi (i.e., original and revised), announcements, reading materials, links to relevant Internet websites, and student surveys. (22)

      Asynchronous online discussion forums were used to increase opportunities for student-to-student and student-to-teacher communication by reducing the constraints imposed by time and space. In addition to limited live class time, geography and scheduling conflicts made it virtually impossible for the law and public health students to get together to discuss assigned readings outside of class. To alleviate this problem, and to provide an additional opportunity for students to benefit from each other's expertise, I posted two discussion forums each week in advance of the live class--one on legal issues and the other on public health issues. (23) Each week one or two law and public health students were assigned to be "on-call experts," responding to questions or initiating discussions in their respective forums. The primary purpose of these pre-class discussions was to enable each group of students to obtain answers to basic questions about the other discipline in an expedient manner. Additionally, the pre-class discussion environment was intended to be less intimidating than the live class. (24) Equally important, the pre-class forums provided an opportunity for both groups of students to function as experts in their respective fields and explain concepts to novices. (25)

      Post-class online discussion forums were used to compensate for the limited amount of live class time. After every class, I initiated and closely supervised an asynchronous discussion to explore issues in greater depth, cover additional topics, and analyze hypothetical problems. Also, I hoped these discussions, in addition to expanding course coverage, would encourage participation amongst students who found the live classroom intimidating. (26)

      E-mail was used to increase student-teacher interaction and to compensate for my own unavailability to the public health students. (27) E-mail allowed students to discuss any questions they had regarding the material. It also offered a means of communicating with me that was perhaps less daunting than meeting after...