 My name is Professor Vanille Randall and this is part of our Teaching and Learning series by the JD Project. So, one of the questions always students in law school wondered about is how to use study aids, which study aids to use, and whether using study aids is an effective tool. The reality is everyone uses some form of study aids. Even some of those study aids are commercially prepared study aids. Some of those study aids are study aids that are prepared by other students or by faculty members. Some of those study aids are things that they found on the internet that are free. And some are commercially prepared study aids. And finally, study aids includes those things students prepare for themselves like flashcards to help them learn. No one specific study aid is essential. However, the caveat to that is if a faculty member puts a study aid that they recommend are required, then that's the study aid you should choose over all others. Because that faculty member is probably using that study aid to help them draw out the law or will use the law from that study aid to help them instructing their class. Exam. So, a study aid then is anything device or procedure or even behavior other than attending class or doing the assignments, which will assist you in learning the information and the skills for a particular course. So when you think about study aids, they're clearly some real benefits to using study aid. They provide a useful background. They provide a context often a context that is not being provided by most casebooks, although over the last 30 years that I've been teaching casebooks have become better and better about providing context. In fact, many casebooks have the kind of text that you often expect in study aids. Study aids also study aids can give you an overview of the big picture, the policy, the trends that may not be readily available in your casebook or your class. And finally, when you're stuck on a particular concept, a study aid can really help the proverbable light bulb come on as you try to gain a better understanding of a concept. So one of the things that you need to do is you need to develop your own course summaries. Casebooks are notoriously bad for giving you all of the law that you need in order to be able to do well on law school exams, be able to do well on the baby bar, and ultimately the bar exam. And so you need to realize that you are going to have to gain much of the basic knowledge rules and laws from something other than cases, unless your casebook has been edited in a way to clearly give you the law, which many casebooks are not. You can end up preparing for class every day and still not having a clear idea of what the rules of law are that you need to know for the class and study aids are helpful for helping clear that up. Finally, one of the things that you must do throughout law school and preparing for the baby bar and preparing for the bar is to self test yourself. You need to know what you don't know, what you don't understand and where your writing skills are. Our study aid can provide a source of material for doing that kind of self testing. There are all types of study aids. There are porn books, which are summaries of the law put together by one person, usually a person or two usually recognized as a expert in the field. It's more thorough than an outline, a commercial outline, but still someone else's summary of the law. There are narrative study guides that you can use, obviously outlines, commercial outlines, outlines prepared by other students and in that from that particular professor outlines that they're just tons of the commercial outlines prepared by students and students prepared by professors available. Cali is a computer assisted learning institute, which your school has to have a membership in Cali, but if your school does have a membership, it's an amazing source of technological based learning aids. So you should take a look at that flashcards are indispensable. You will have to learn and memorize and understand a ton of information and reading and rereading outlines, reading and rereading casebooks won't help you learn that flashcards are one of the ways. Tapes, but particularly if you are an auditory learner listening to tapes of people talk about the law, talk about the rules of law. In addition, there's a technique called super learning, which involves making your own learning tape. It's a very specific technique which we won't go into here, but it's a technique that I highly recommend. I used it myself in law school and I've used it with other students. And finally, not finally, because there's there's all kinds of study aids, but one kind of study aid that I want to end with is can brief. The problem with can brief is, first of all, there's someone else analysis of a case and particularly cases in your casebook. And so they can be wrong. But more importantly, especially for a first and second year third year student, you are one of the skills that you have to learn is to read cases critically. To the extent that you use case briefs, you sure change that process. Now, if you say, well, I'll go back and learn later. Well, that's like skipping over a necessary component of learning to play the piano and thinking that you can just come back later and pick that component up and play just as well. No, it's not going to be that easy to pick up because you develop the nasty habit of reading other people's briefs. So, while they are available and they can be incredibly useful in general, you should use them only for an emergency situation. And I really don't think I'd rather see you go to class unprepared than to rely on can briefs because at the end of the day with can briefs, you could really hurt yourself more than help yourself, particularly for your ultimate goal, though, which is to be an outstanding attorney. And my interest in doing this is those people who are interested in doing social justice work, racial justice work, and you need to have strong case reading skills because you will need to be very creative when you work with social justice and racial justice. That gets into the issue of misusing study aids. When you use study aids to replace them for doing your own work, you sure change your own learning process. You may not really that includes using case briefs instead of reading cases that includes using someone else's prepared outline instead of doing your own course summary. And I use the word course summary very intentionally because I believe that you can use commercial outlines to get the necessary information that you need. But at the end of the day, you have to make a summary that is for the course. And it's that process of making the summary that will help you understand how things fit together in order to be able to do good analysis. And the other work that you need to use is making your own flow charts and people will use flow charts made by other people because they think that having the flow chart is the important part of learning. No, it's the process of making the flow chart that is the important part of learning. And we will be doing a videotape on flow charting later. So we talked about using outlines prepared by other students inappropriately. And that's whenever you replace doing the work yourself, that's an inappropriate use. Whenever you go with what a student has in their outline as opposed to what you know the faculty members to be teaching. Faculty members change their understanding, their view, their expectation. And so an outline that worked well for another student won't necessarily. An outline that worked well for another student won't necessarily work well for you. And remember, when you say you got an outline from a student who made an A in the course, why do you think they made an A? Because they did the work. You think that it's all about memorization and knowing what the expectations are? No, it's about the thinking process that goes into making an outline that goes into making a summary. And you can get an A outlined, you can use horn books, you can use commercial outlines, you can use outlines prepared by your faculty member themselves. And they do have them and still not do well. Because at the end of the day, the process of thinking has been shortchanged because you didn't do the work yourself. The other misuse is using too many study aids. We see students all the time who keep buying study aids thinking that there's a magic study aid. And if they just find the right study aid, it'll all click together. First of all, it can be overwhelming. Secondly, because the law tested is the same on the bar exam, and especially generally is a no-person law that is designed to be taught in 51 states and territories so that it doesn't represent any particular law in any particular state, but is a generalization and summary of the law. The study aids are going to be essentially the same. It's just going to be how they're worded. So one of the things you should look for at your school is do they have a study aid library? If not, you should work with students to get one started. The purpose of a study aid library is not to get study aids that students then check out and use all semester, but to allow students to look at and use different study aids until they settle in on a study aid that speaks to them, that like study aids vary in the amount of detail and students vary in the amount of detail they need. So check out the study aids before you start buying a bunch of different study aids. The other problem of using too many study aids is it really does add to your workload. If you end up at reading all the different study aids that you have acquired, then instead of going with the one that you like or the one that you've settled on, then you just add to your reading. And if you are a slow reader, that can be a significant amount of time added to your workload. The other problem with the misuse of study aids is that you can end up getting more information than you will ever need for the course and ultimately for the bar and the baby bar. And obviously the final problem with too many study aids is it's just costly. You need a good outline that you like and you need flashcards, although my inclination is that you should team up to make your own flashcards. But you need one outline, you need a law dictionary, a good law dictionary and possibly a good horn book because the horn book goes into a lot more detail than an outline. And then you need to be really judicious in using those study aids. So final thoughts. Don't use too many. Be careful on how you pick them. Remember that you have to issue spot you have to analyze and you have to write and memorizing the law is essential to doing that. But at the end of the day, you're going to be able to need to know the law and the more you do for yourself. And unless you rely on things prepared by other people, the better you will do study aids and exams won't identify the issue. Your professor for the most part is going to label questions as a battery question or an issue as a consent issue. And you're going to have to pick up that skill and that skill will only be picked up from practicing short answer questions, practicing multiple choice questions, practicing exams. In fact, it may be better to practice those things and use a commercial outline to check when you get the answer wrong. You need to get your own, you need to start your own course summary from the beginning of the semester and add to it. We will be doing a, we will have a video on doing a course summary. You need to start your course summary, keep it up all semester and use study aids judiciously to help you in doing that. The other thing that I wanted to talk about is using study groups and I flash state partner. Law schools always talk about study groups. Many people don't use study groups. Many, many people in fact more people than admit because oftentimes study groups are seen as an essential part of law school learning and they are an important part. But part of the benefit can be having partners, law school partners, and this is particularly important for people who are working full time, or have family, or have other responsibility that doesn't allow them to meet frequently with a group. It's also important for people who don't really work well in groups. Know yourself if you're not a good group worker, know that, or who don't learn that well from group process learning. So, but you need a partner. You need a partner because part of the issue is to do analysis and to understand how analysis can be done. And having a partner who is different from yourself politically can be an invaluable too. When I was in law school, my study partner was this very conservative young man who we disagreed almost on everything. But at the end of the day, working with him helped me to understand his point of view and his perspective, which made me stronger in my analysis. So try to pick people who are not going to be like you and how they view the world. At least if you're only going to have a partner, have a partner who is different from yourself. If you're going to work in a group, then have a diverse group, diverse racially, diverse gender, diverse age, diverse culturally. Because the more the more the more perspectives you can bring in the group, the more effective the group will be in helping you improve your analysis. But there's a huge caveat. Study groups are only effective to the extent that individuals come prepared to the study group. And don't try to substitute study group learning for individual learning. To the extent that there are different levels of preparations, then that will make study groups ineffective. Why study groups are partners helpful? Well, they help you think as I talked about, they foster the ability to think critically. They, if done right, and we'll talk about the things that you should be doing in a study group, they foster critical thinking. They can foster critical thinking and critical analysis. They can force students to support their opinions with reasoning. Reasoning that's based on facts and definitions, concepts and principles. It's too often students think that the right conclusion is the end of the day. Is there battery? Yes. And I think they've done it. But if that's all you know, even if you're 100% correct, you won't do well on law school exams because you need to support your conclusion with reasoning and analysis. And that includes using the facts, using the definitions, using critical thinking to develop why your perspective on the conclusion is correct. A study group, if it's members who will push you to explain, will help you in that analysis. So study groups are great for test taking preparation, but they also, if you do... So study, why are study groups and partners useful? We talked about the obviously foster ability to think critically. Well, let's go back a second. It depends on what you end up doing in a study group. They can foster the ability to think critically and analytically by forcing students to support their reasons with opinions and to argue against others who have opposite views. This is why it's important for study groups to be diverse in terms of experience, cultural background, gender, race, politics, religion, culture. The more diverse you have, diversity you have in your study group, the more likely you are going to have to argue with someone on a point that they see totally different from you. And that's good because that builds your analytical skills. So study groups and study partners teaches you to listen critically to others, teaches you to evaluate their arguments and your own arguments, and they teach you to formulate your own views on issues. Study groups promote understanding of concepts, and study groups help to develop your problem-solving skills. Study groups can be horribly ineffective. So study groups should not meet unless the members have already done the basic. They've gone to class, they've briefed their cases, they've started their course summaries, and they've narrowly identified beforehand what they're going to talk about in the study group. You can do this all by email. So there's no reason to show up for a study group and say, what are we going to do? That's wasted time. Develop that whole what are we going to do via email before the study group, and then be prepared when you go to the study group. So the purpose of the study group should be to help you prepare for exams and help you prepare for class participation. And we will talk about the difference in what you can do in terms of preparing for class participation and exam. One effective way of preparing for study groups depends on whether you're going to do for class or exams or both. But I would suggest that at any given meeting, you should either come to the meeting with a narrowly focused idea. Study groups should start on time and end on time. The biggest waste of time is sitting around waiting for someone to show up in the study group. The second waste of time and what may ultimately destroy a group is study groups that consistently go over time. So if you're going to have a study group that's going to meet an hour, an hour and a half, start on time, end on time, set a timer, and stop. Stop mid-sentence. So there is nothing so important going on in the study group that you cannot stop. And for people who have other commitments, they're taking care of their family, they're working, they need to know that if they're going to participate in a study group, that study group won't suck up unscheduled time. Where to meet for a study group? Don't meet at someone's home. You're likely to get sucked up into whatever is going on in their home. You may not even want to meet at the law school because other people likely will get drawn in and suck up at your time. But have a very distinct place, maybe in a room in a library, your public library, schedule a room, meet in that room. It should be away from other distraction. Make it a rule of your study group that cell phones should be cut off. That no one should come into the study group with a cell phone on. And that if people have something going on in their lives that require that they have a cell phone on, then being in a study group may not be the best use of their time. Also, don't allow people to answer a call in the study group. If people want to make a call, the rule of the study group is, leave the study group. Don't engage in distracting behavior inside the study group. So how long? An hour at least. And maybe that's it. An hour of focus time is worth four hours of rambling and going on about a lot of different things. So if you schedule a real clear idea of what you're going to cover, what you intend to accomplish beforehand. And if everybody shows up ready with prepared, then your hour would be an amazing amount of time to spend and you will walk away feeling like that you accomplished a lot. Sometimes people think more time is better, but the idea is if you're stopped every few minutes so people can go to the bathroom that people can engage in fun and people are carrying on side conversations. That's the other thing. You know, one of the rules and one of the things you need to do is make up a rule for how your study group function and one study group function should be no side conversations. You, everything has to be spoken to the group as a whole, not between different people in the group. And that's one reason to keep it short because it may be more profitable for people to talk in pairs and partner. And if the group decides that at this on this particular concept on this particular day, you're going to pair off in pairs. That's an appropriate way to approach a topic. So who in the study group, anyone who is committed to being prepared, committed to doing the work. You need a way to ask people to stop participating in a study group if they are always a distraction are never prepared. You have to have serious people that are part of your study group no matter how much you like someone no matter how much you may be personal friends with them in another space. If they are procrastinators if they always have a reason for why they are not fully prepared no matter how legitimate their reason sound and it may be legitimate. But you do not have the time to have them as a part of a group. Study groups are not a place for helping people solve their problems are enabling people to be less than prepared for law school. And for the exam and for the baby bar in California into the first year and the bar if you're studying for the bar. So you need people who are as serious as you are about your personal success. Draw up guidelines before your first meeting don't need to be a long list of don't do this and don't do that, but draw up expectations. You can agree on expectations before you even have your first meeting. What are the three or four principles that you think are essential to make your study group effective. The other people can do that you all can then talk about those principles and come up with three or four that you all agree with. Identify how you plan to deal with someone who for whatever reason has become a mutual or a free loader or is just having problems that they can't handle. Study group is not a place for helping people solve the problems they can't handle. Before study group after study group but in study group itself is for learning the skills and information you need to do well on the exam. So what size is a study group not so large that everyone that you allow mutuals. See if you get a group that's too large people can just sit back without having to give to do anything and not everybody will get able to talk. So maybe five is about the good size maybe even three can be a very small group. Anything over five is probably you're going to get into managing the group as opposed to just managing your learning process. So remember that your study group should have two goals. Help you prepare for class. Help you prepare for exam. So how do you use study groups to help prepare study groups, study partners to help prepare for class. For the group meet set a topic that you're going to discuss. Decide which class you're going to be working on. Set a topic that you're going to be working on. Focus on a particular class or a particular concept. I mean your course so say that you may be focusing on the most recent class that you had in a course or a class that you had several weeks ago that everybody walked away not understanding things. Identify what it is you're going to be covering from the class specific cases specific reading assignments get things. If there's things that can help you like study notes, study worksheets are things that can help you from the class. If your professor has handed out things bring those to the study group review the concept review what went on in the class that is having the problem of the concepts that you're having a problem with and review how you can prepare for the next class in a way that that will be helpful. Go over potential case briefs if quiz people on the case, the reasoning of the court. Those are all things you can do for class preparation trading outlines for different subjects are trading summaries with different subjects. If you're going to do you're going to everyone is going to come to the group with their summary and outline done for the specific area of the course you're going to be studying. You can't do exam preparation if people don't already understand and have some knowledge of the law. And so this this is not at all a substitute for individual preparation. You do want to share your outlines that are done so that you can see what is weak and what is strong and if you miss some irrelevant point connections to be made. You want to practice exam questions, writing them and critiquing them practice high hypotheticals writing short answer hypotheticals the one issue hypotheticals. Practice flashcards writing writing and orally remember you and then critiquing each other's response. You want to prepare for success. You need to think sound and write like a lawyer. For your essay exams for your bar exam baby bar exam and for the bar exam. Using study aids and using study groups will help you depending on how you use them. And that's why the stars by them because you can use them in ways that don't help you with your writing if you don't write anything and critique each other. You can use things that don't you can do things that don't help you with your thinking if you don't talk about hypotheticals and critique each other's analysis. So you want to use study aids and use groups, study groups in a way that will help you prepare for your success. You want to trust the process. You're going to load up the process with things you need to think you're going to load up your process with things to help you sound like a lawyer. And then you're going to translate all that into writing and that will give you the success that you want. If you have any questions or comments. Post them on moodle. LawSchoolMoodle.com if you're in the class. If you're not, you can post them below.