Davis, W B --- "Collaborating with students as co-authors" [2013] LegEdDig 40; (2013) 21(3) Legal Education Digest 29

• Collaborating with students as co-authors

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Collaborating with students as co-authors

W B Davis

The Law Teacher, Vol 47, No 1, 2013, pp 44-63

Most law professors seek to maximise the effectiveness of the learning processes of their students, hoping to inspire them to learn skills, gain knowledge, and enhance their sense of justice. I have written two published casebooks, with significant portions of each book written by students as contributing authors. Aviation Law: Cases and Problems was written while I was a visitor at Roger Williams Law School in Rhode Island in 2003. Mergers & Acquisitions: Cases and Problems written while I was on the faculty at Albany Law School in New York in 2006.

Many law schools and professors are examining the effectiveness of their teaching methods and analysing how students learn. This may be due, in part, to the recent criticism of how law schools teach. Most professors accept the premise that employing a variety of teaching methods facilitates learning by our students. Most of us attempt to add variety to our classrooms with hypotheticals, written quizzes, oral presentations by students, practical skills problems, and other exercises. Many schools teach practical skills through clinics, internships and externships, adding variety to their students’ experience.

While this article only describes one end result, the creation of a casebook, the process of creating that book involves many different teaching methods, thus many different opportunities to address students’ differing learning styles. My suggestion is that writing a book or other publishable work with your students not only adds variety to the teaching methods to which they are exposed, but has other benefits for both the professor and the student. The relationship becomes one of collaborators rather than teacher–student. My former students have benefited from the enhancement to their résumé. Most students told me that it was one of the more rewarding experiences of their law school career. I have benefited from the encouragement, enforced deadlines, inspiration, and quality contributions from my students.

Each student in my course was expected to do the following: (1) Write a chapter to be published, including at least three featured cases, edited to approximately five pages, plus four notes for each case with references to at least five other cases, and one essay question; (2) Write the accompanying chapter of the teachers’ manual, with summaries of each featured case, explanations of the notes, and answers to the essay question; (3) Present the chapter topic to the class, facilitating a discussion. Preparations for this presentation, as well as the actual presentation, may have been the most effective learning tool in this process. Studies have shown that students gain a more in-depth knowledge of a subject when they teach the topic to other students, which they were required to do both in their written chapter as well as in their classroom presentation; and (4) Edit two other chapters, assisting the student-authors with editing, proofreading, and research. This editing will take some, but not all, of the burden off the professor, as editor, while enhancing the confidence and competence of the students.

The added value of working with students as collaborators is multi-faceted. The theory of behaviourism proposes that students learn when an environmental stimulus causes an appropriate response, reinforced by feedback. The collaboration among students provided feedback when the students presented their materials in class and assisted classmates in editing their chapters. The environmental stimulus of expecting their work to be published, and working collaboratively on a group project encouraged them to do their best.

The experience of working collaboratively with colleagues is much more similar to the anticipated experience of working in a law firm, rather than the artificial environment of law school competition caused by class rank and grade curves. Learning to work as a team to create a complex finished product teaches students skills in communication, cooperation, negotiation, and management.

Cognitive learning theories, which are currently dominant, focus on the sensory input, which leads to selective perception, only a small portion of which is stored as long-term memory. Information that is more deeply processed is more likely to be remembered longer. Students in my classes were required to deeply process all information in their chapters, by researching their subject to identify appropriate case law and statutes, analysing those cases, summarising those cases in the teachers’ manual, creating essay questions, comparing to other cases, presenting before the class, and editing their writing. They spent an entire semester intensely involved in their chapter subject, often working independently.

Metacognitive theories of learning, where students are encouraged to actively participate in their learning process and the methods that work best for their individual learning style, support the process of collaboration. As stated by Miriam Felsenberg and Laura Graham, ‘... the student who expects to be a passive vessel for knowledge supplied by expert teachers is less likely to be successful than the student who carefully monitors her own learning process’. Collaboration requires some active involvement of the students at each step. Students were required to independently develop the materials from which they would learn the legal foundation of their chapter subject. Classroom discussions among the students were lively, where each student’s expertise in their subject was added to the mix of classroom knowledge. Students had the freedom and flexibility to work at their own pace and in their own style, with an end result of a completed chapter as the goal.

Scholars have suggested the use of scaffolding of taxonomies, where students are given specific goals for the stages of learning the skills, as a method of teaching legal analysis in legal writing. This was my intent in encouraging students to attend a symposium which I organised early in the semester, where they could obtain an overview of the various subjects encompassed in the topic. My first few classes were similarly intended as an introduction to the simpler concepts of the topic. We added to this knowledge by building on the students’ skills as writers, which was a familiar skill from first-year writing courses. We then built upon these skills by requiring a classroom presentation and editing the work of a classmate. At each stage, the students met with me individually to assess their progress. This provided not only feedback on their progress, but also individual attention. Because the class was not designed around a final exam, the students were given multiple goals in stages dependent on their research and knowledge progress.

Unlike other courses, where students are handed a book to passively read, these students were actively involved in the selection of cases, the scope of the subject matter, and the format of the chapter. Presenting to the class involved using the blackboards or slide projectors for PowerPoint presentations, as well as visual aids. Touring the airport and interacting with professionals at work helped my aviation students who were able to touch radar screens, luggage carriers, and other equipment. My mergers and acquisitions students were involved in setting up the symposium and interacting with the presenters.

Although each of the steps I took could be modified, enhanced, or eliminated to suit the needs and desires of the professor, the following are the steps I used for both casebooks. Both of these casebooks were the result of a seminar class where students were expected to learn the doctrinal subject as well as collaborate in the writing of the book.

First-year courses are probably not an appropriate topic for a casebook to be written by students, because first-year students may not be capable of producing a quality chapter. While it may be possible to have an upper-level writing course where upper-level students write a book on a first- year topic that they have already studied, this undermines the concept of using collaboration as a teaching method; the students would be learning how to write but perhaps not learning a great deal more about a subject matter they have already studied. My goal was to introduce them to a new subject matter which they had not previously studied, so that they could get credit for a new course, while using the book as an effective and creative method for them to learn the new topic.

The ideal topic for a student-written legal casebook may be an upper-level elective course for which there are currently relatively few casebooks on the market. The topic should be one which fascinates you, since you will be focused on it for months, and one in which you have both fundamental knowledge and a unique outlook, so that you can add to the field of knowledge in the topic.

The table of contents will be used as the syllabus for the course. It will also determine the number of students who can be involved in this project, and enrolled on your course. If the proposed book has only 10 chapters, then the course probably cannot have more than eight student co- authors, because the professor will need to write at least two chapters, as explained below. Chapter subjects should be divided as equally as possible, so that chapters can be nearly equal in length and complexity.

The professor will need to draft a sample chapter to send to potential publishers. The professor may want to choose a subject that would be too complex for a student to handle.

Most publishers will want to see a table of contents and at least one sample chapter, as well as the professor’s personal qualifications. Execution of the publishing contract prior to student registration for the course will add credibility, assuring the students that their hard work on a chapter will indeed be published. William S. Hein & Co. published both of the books written by my students.

If you have a choice of more than one publisher, here are some points to bear in mind: (1) Consider the format of the finished work. Some publishers will publish in paperback or online. I elected to go with the publisher who would print it in hard cover; (2) Consider the percentage of royalties: 10 per cent of sales is common, but some publishers offer as low as 7 per cent, and many deduct their costs of printing before royalties accrue; (3) Consider whether you will be sharing your royalties with your contributing authors. I told my students that I would not seek them out years after graduation unless their share of the annual royalties exceeded US$100. It never has; (4) The professor may want to negotiate additional complementary author copies of the book for all students. I also negotiated for additional copies at half-price, in case a student wanted more than one to share with parents, spouses, or others; and (5) When agreeing to a deadline with the publisher, recognise that although the students will be submitting their chapters by the end of the semester, the professor will need months to edit and proofread, as well as time to write any additional chapters that were not assigned to students.

I wanted my students to have a general understanding of merger and acquisition issues before they began drafting their chapters. In order to frontload their absorption of the material, I planned a symposium in early September, a few weeks after classes began. Speakers were not difficult to find, as most were working at firms that would give them pro bono credit, or teaching at other law schools for which their participation would be a CV enhancement. I also invited several of the speakers to contribute a chapter to the book, using their lecture notes from the symposium as a start. One or two became contributing authors.

Alternatively, it might be helpful to invite guest lecturers to share their expertise in areas about which the professor is less familiar. For my aviation students, I invited several guest lecturers for an hour’s presentation. The head of the Boston airport control tower discussed his job with my class, providing insight into the technical operations and challenges faced by air traffic controllers. I also arranged for guest lectures by a former military aviation mechanic and a litigator who represented passengers in aviation accidents.

For my aviation students, I also took them on a tour of the local airport, T.F. Green Airport in Providence, Rhode Island. The airport manager personally took us around the airport, showing us the backroom operations of the security systems, luggage handling, and other airport operations. Although it could be argued that a tour of an airport may convey minimal legal knowledge to students, many of the students asked pertinent questions and became engaged in lively discussions to increase their knowledge of the operations of air traffic controllers and responsibilities of the Federal Aviation Administration. It also helped the students to understand their subject in ontext

Although the professor will be presenting the chapters written by the professor during the first few class meetings, most of the class meetings will include student presentations. Because these presentations cannot all occur during the last couple of weeks of classes, the professor will need to prepare some students to present earlier in the semester. I chose students I knew and asked them during the break, long before the class commenced. Their reward was that they completed most of their work for this course early in the semester.

Early selection of topics allows students to start the process early, and rewards those who register early. This also allows the professor to begin assisting by providing each student with relevant cases, articles, and materials.

I required each student to meet with me individually several times during the semester, at times they selected. Each individual meeting coincided with a deadline for a particular stage in their preparation. I met with them first when they identified and selected the cases they would use in their chapter; again when they had a draft of the chapter; a third time when they were preparing to present their chapter to the class; and a fourth time to go over the final draft of their chapter. They were allowed to work independently within these deadlines.

Many of the students told me that this was their favourite course in law school. Many of them became friends with whom I am still in contact. Cognitive learning theories, indicating that students retain more of the material if they process it more intensely, were proven accurate when students retained an interest in the subject matter of their topics. Not only did they gain a more in depth knowledge of the topic than they could have gained by reading a book written by another, but many became convinced that their topic was the most interesting and important in the field.

Theories of behaviourism, suggesting that feedback and external stimuli assist in the learning process, were supported by the students working cooperatively with their classmates, and forming close relationships during the process.

This method involved metacognitive learning, because students were able to control their own method for researching, compiling, and processing the material, as well as preparing the presentation to the class. The freedom to choose their own pace and system was successful, with the result that every student met every deadline.

The scaffolding of taxonomies was particularly effective, where students added to their skills and knowledge and were evaluated at each task, from outlining, drafting, presenting, editing, and final chapter production. Students were sufficiently confident of their subject matter knowledge that none was intimidated by the prospect of presenting their topic for 45 minutes to their classmates.

Students gained confidence by producing the finished product, and their pride was evident when most of the students purchased extra copies to give to grandparents and other family members.

Students learn best when they are allowed some independence, actively participate in the learning process, and are proud of the finished product. Collaborating with students to produce a casebook provided this environment, and was a successful teaching method.