Can online teaching disrupt legal education?

In the post COVID era, most leading law schools in India have opted to continue their teaching online, and some have even begun examining their students online. Many hitherto reluctant converts to online teachers have become adept at teaching online and are even revelling in the new experience.

However one must remember that new technologies do not replace old problems. Online teaching has a major pedagogical challenge as opposed to classroom teaching: how to make classes more interesting and more effective than classroom teaching?

This is not the problem for online teaching alone but for any activity conducted online. I hear many of my lawyer friends complain about the fact that they find online court proceedings boring and lifeless.

Traditional Classroom instruction is more interesting and effective because of the personal connection between the teacher and the student, and among the students. If online instruction can find a way to overcome the lack of a personal connect, it can match and at times surpass classroom instruction in terms of interest and effectiveness.

This is not an easy task, and therefore I believe that while technology will certainly disrupt legal education, it will not entirely replace the old ways of imparting education.

There are different strategies to overcome the lack of a personal connect. One obvious method is to make the online classroom even more interactive than usual. The old lecture method has to be consigned to the dustbin, where it should have been consigned a long time ago in any case.

For any law subject, an interactive class is not a problem, as the Socratic method of back and forth questions and answers is a fairly well known method of imparting knowledge and skills in the law schools. The Socratic method is a natural candidate for online teaching and the only problem the teacher should be concerned about is how to ensure that there is no cacophony in the online classroom with everyone talking over each other.

This is usually a problem only in the beginning and a well organised teacher can coordinate classroom instruction in such a way that students await their turn to speak. The mute button is a teacher’s best friend in an online classroom.

The lack of a personal connect can also be overcome by breaking up the classes into smaller segments with some segments devoted to students working offline or discussing the subject among themselves.

For example a contract law class can have some segments confined to students working offline on drafting or case law problems. Some online teaching platforms allow break out sessions to facilitate this kind of teaching. I believe that another effective method is to flip the problem on its head: intensify the personal contact. Have one on one exclusive sessions with students in addition to or in substitution of some classes.

In this case, online teaching might have a better impact compared to live teaching. Live one on one sessions can be uncomfortable; online sessions might provide the space needed for the sessions to go smoothly and yet provide the benefits of personalised teaching.

The personalised sessions can be a mix of synchronised (live) teaching and asynchronous (email. WhatsApp, telegram) communications. The personalised sessions are particularly useful for tutorial sessions and feedback on written assignments, where they serve one of the most important objectives of legal education: enabling the student’s autonomy in engaging with and solving legal problems.

Online teaching has another advantage compared to traditional classroom teaching. One can literally bring the world to the classroom in online teaching. It is much easier to arrange for interesting talks with a variety of people from law firms and academia to add flavour to any subject being taught.

In such cases, it is sometimes best to arrange the sessions as conversations between the teacher and the external speaker, because the external speakers may not always be in a position to handle the class on their own.

The participation of external speakers makes for a more effective teaching experience as they bring their unique perspectives to the class. The challenge is to ensure that the external speakers are integrated well into classroom teaching, and this is the responsibility of the teacher.

At the very minimum, a few meetings on structuring the session between the teacher and the external speaker should take place prior to the actual teaching session, much like a preparatory session between a late night talk show host and his guests!

The guests might not have to detail everything that they will talk about but they will be aware of the questions and of the general flow of the conversation. Thus there is a balance between banter and prepared text which makes the conversation interesting as well as useful for the students.

Ultimately, online teaching will transform legal education. While it will not replace classroom teaching, it will bring in many changes that will make the teaching more effective and engaging.

By Nigam Nuggehalli, Dean, School of Law, BML Munjal University