The Typical lecture style of education calls for a passive rather than an active approach. So whats the problem?  Problem is....Most students don’t really engage the material and as a result have little or no application skills to put to the test. To excel on the Bar Exam, you have to be engaged!

We all have had the kind of class that bores you to tears.  The professor stands at the front of the class and puts raw boring information on the board, or worse lectures from the podium for an hour and half.  This author has been through some incredibly boring lifeless lectures and has been through vibrant interesting classes that are etched forever in the mind.  Why are some classes engaging while other put us to sleep?  In a word, active rather than passive teaching best describes the key difference. Typical Law Schools are ripe with this dichotomy.  On the one hand, professors attempt to engage the students with a “modified” Socratic Method^[1], yet on the other hand they lecture with drab and boring material.  When it comes to retention the experts agree, active teaching works.  In the same way, you must learn to be an active learner because passive learning doesn’t work for the long term. 

Historically, there have been two distinct paradigms at work in Law School.  On the one hand, the student (first year for example) is expected to switch gears and learn in a highly competitive environment based on the Case Book Method.  On the other hand, the student is typically been spoon fed information at the undergraduate level in a passive way where the typical undergraduate does not need to aggressively engage the material.  Since the student has been raised on the more passive approach, that being lecture and absorb the material, once in the crucible of Law School, the approach must change. 

Today, in the modern Law School, the passive approach will only go so far.  To be an excellent student of law, the student must go beyond the typical passive approach. The problem develops however for first year law students because most typical students don’t understand the active vs. passive learning approach. NILAS instructs first year law students for example to engage the material by using the time tested briefing of the case material.  In case you forgot, or never learned this technique, NILAS teaches first year law students to read the case material and create a brief of the case for class^[2].  The Brief is a simple but effective tool that helps to unlock the case material for more understanding^[3]. We learned in the last chapter, that NILAS teaches first years to master brief writing. Writing a brief of the case material stands as one of the single most effective tools in your war chest to understanding as a first year.  Similarly, the active approach to Bar Prep works the same way.  As a first year you must create an active approach on your own, the duty falls upon you individually, what better place to gain active understanding than your daily briefs.  Sadly, most students give up on briefing early in the semester thinking it is a waste of time.  

The illustration of briefing dovetails with the Bar Exam very well.  In the same way briefing creates the mental pathways needed to transport the law from the abstract to the concrete, from the passive text to an active tool of understanding; you need some sort of pedagogy in your Bar Study plan that does the same thing. At NILAS, students learn how to use several very helpful writing techniques that help turn them into top notch active rather than passive “Bar” learners.  Remember, legal writing must be practiced, but if you practice poor writing skills, from the start you will be at a disadvantage.

How does a student translate this into a real world example for the Bar Exam?  One excellent way to learn how to be a great active learner stems from finding creative ways to learn the material.  For the exam, the importance of practice writing cannot be over emphasized. When working with students in review sessions, NILAS professors realized that most students who did not have passing scores on the Essay portion of the Bar Exam needed more writing skills not just more knowledge of the law. 

Becoming an active learner however will take practice.  Old habits die hard.  If you find yourself slipping back into passive learning, you need to shake out of it and move back into an active learning model.  The most important part of active learning however develops from the learner themselves.  The best way to explain active learning is that the learned takes the responsibility for the education by creating a plan (like we mentioned in the first article).

The following list highlights some of the things you can do to create your own
active rather than passive Bar Study Plan:

1. See if you can actually define exactly what that word or doctrine is in your own words, either by writing definitions down or explaining them out loud to others.
2. Find people that you can teach law to, for example friend, parents or children.  The MAXIM, if you can explain it to others, then you are actively reinforcing your own learning.
3. Find ways to learn that really work for you.  For example, NILAS teaches its students to write their own study cards, with examples and illustrations.  By making your own study cards, it will reinforce the learning.
4. Determine what your strengths and weaknesses are.  You will have the opportunity to take the LLI later, but for now, realize that if reading is your strength, don’t use audio tapes to learn by.  If you find that you do best play to the strength actively.
5. Think in dualities.  Often the law comes in pairs.  So when you are working on active learning, make a game out of finding the logical or legal pair to a doctrine or area of law.
6. NILAS teaches in an “active” rather than passive way.  Look for a Law School or Bar Prep Academic Support program that is active rather than passive in nature.  (There are a few out there other than NILAS, but we like NILAS the best).

The Active vs. Passive debate may rage on, but in the end, NILAS Professors have learned that Active students perform better overall compared to passive learners.Take time to examine your learning method.  In particular for the Bar Exam.  If you find that your learning style tends to lean toward passive learning, call us at NILAS or talk to your academic support person to discuss how to be more active.