{"id":2290,"date":"2008-12-01T15:37:03","date_gmt":"2008-12-01T20:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=2290"},"modified":"2008-12-01T16:03:25","modified_gmt":"2008-12-01T21:03:25","slug":"whats-new-in-the-classroom-common-law-in-crim-but-nothing-on-laptops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2008\/12\/whats-new-in-the-classroom-common-law-in-crim-but-nothing-on-laptops\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s New in the Classroom: Common Law in Crim, But Nothing on Laptops"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This is the first in a new series of posts this month on new things we did in our teaching last semester or expect to do next semester.<\/em><\/p>\n

One thing I did not<\/em> do this past semester, but seriously thought about, was restricting laptop use in some way. I have a hard time pulling the trigger on this, in part because all of my strongest instincts are antipaternalist. But I can’t help feeling laptops are doing something pernicious in the law school classroom. Lisa Hatlen had a good post on the topic <\/a>earlier this fall, which also generated several thoughtful comments. My basic concern is that the laptop has turned many law students into stenographers, with the quality of their learning and of classroom discussion suffering as a result. I find it a bit dismaying when students send me e-mails at the end of the semester quoting something verbatim that I said in class at the start of the semester and asking what I meant by it — this suggests that too much mental energy is going into transcription and not enough into comprehension and critical engagement with the material.<\/p>\n

As a potential experiment, I have thought about sharing with students a detailed outline of the material I cover in class (so students don’t feel they need to transcribe) and banning laptops. On the other hand, I respect the fact that most upper-level students are used to having laptops, and that it would no doubt be perceived as unfair to ask them to abandon their well-established classroom practices so that I could conduct my little pedagogical experiment. For that reason, I would not try this except in a first-year class. I would also be reluctant to do it except as part of a cooperative venture with other first-year professors.<\/p>\n

So, my only innovation this past semester was rather modest: I decided that I would test my first-year Criminal Law students on certain common-law rules. <\/p>\n

I have always emphasized the Model Penal Code in Criminal Law, in part because I like to use the course as an introduction to statutory interpretation — an important skill that students may get little exposure to in their other first-semester doctrinal courses (Torts and Contracts) — and in part because the MPC, with its greater terminological precision, promotes clearer thinking and speaking by students than the common law. But, despite my desire to emphasize the MPC, I inevitably assign many cases decided under the common-law rules. Not only do some of these cases present some of my favorite fact patterns, but they also serve to demonstrate the significance of many of the important decisions made by the MPC drafters. So, for instance, State v. Kihnel, <\/em>488 So.2d 1238 (La. App. 1986), gives us not only a laughably inept criminal defendant, but also a clear illustration of why the MPC did the right thing in eliminating the plurality requirement for conspiracy liability.<\/p>\n

I have thus always taught common law in Crim, but I have never held students responsible for knowing it at exam time. Still, I have long had the nagging sense that it is a bit unfair (and perhaps ineffective, as well) to ask students to invest the effort required to understand the common-law rules without offering a grade-related payback at the end of the semester. At the same time, I don’t want to distract too much attention during the final-exam study period from what I most want students to be doing, i.e., immersing themselves in the MPC’s statutory scheme. My solution this past semester has been to give students a list of about a dozen common-law doctrines that I consider fair game for the exam. My hope is that students will see mastery of these doctrines as worth their time, while still perceiving the MPC as the body of “law” that should receive their greatest attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the first in a new series of posts this month on new things we did in our teaching last semester or expect to do next semester. One thing I did not do this past semester, but seriously thought about, was restricting laptop use in some way. I have a hard time pulling the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-education","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}