Online Socrates: A New Pedagogy

Online education was already expanding before the COVID-19 pandemic. The introduction of online teaching into the mainstream learning experience has been an ongoing process in higher education, especially in the law school environment. Today, the nation’s colleges and universities are in the midst of a swifter shift. The climate has changed drastically in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this time of transition there are both pedagogical challenges and opportunities for implementing teaching techniques and expanding resources that improve learning and advance inclusiveness.  

This will be a joint presentation of the research and teaching practice. This presentation will discuss the challenges in legal education of applying traditional teaching methods in an online learning environment. We will communicate to participants the issues with the traditional pedagogy and technology and how they adapted and evolved this teaching method into an evolved structure we like to call The New Pedagogy: Online Socrates. 

We examine and apply the traditional pedagogy used in legal education – the Socratic Method. It creates an environment for the learner where they are defending and forging their own understanding of the information they are learning. Together, we will present a new online pedagogy that is based in the Socratic method, where the professor or instructor is playing more of a guide role in learning. It is more suitable for the online learning environment and its application will serve to improve legal education by applying already recognized educational best practices, such as the flipped classroom model and discovery-based learning, in what we believe could be a more widely accessible and inclusive learning environment online.  

It already requires intentional action to advance equity and inclusion through in-person classroom teaching.  Online teaching is similar in that sense and comes with the added challenge of transitioning into an online learning environment in the face of the digital divide. Nonetheless, the opportunities for broadening access to higher education to a broader audience is real and is already occurring.  

Online learning environments have a plethora of tools that can be used in the learning process. Not all learning tools are equal and to use a tool haphazardly in your online course could have more of a negative result and may lead to apprehension to learning in this virtual environment. The tools introduced in this presentation are easily accessible and have a high level of “ease of use” for both the instructor and the learners within the course. Although this presentation of The New Pedagogy: Socrates Online, is primarily based in the legal education context, it has already been successfully applied in non-JD programs and is expected to be broadly relevant and applicable outside of legal education. 

1. Traditional Pedagogy 

The presentation will begin in part one of the presentation with background regarding the traditional pedagogy in law school – the Socratic Method. The harshest approaches to the Socratic Method have indeed been long left behind, but the questioning and answer format continues to drive much of the traditional classroom teaching. While many have sought to modernize this method through discovery-based learning frames, the most frequent adjustment has in fact been to incorporate lecture into what had traditionally been a question and answer learning format.

We will then discuss how the need for technology in this realm is extremely low on the side of the instructor but that it is different on the side of the students. Their use of laptops and handheld devices to record, take notes, and store information to be used at a later point for studying. 

2. Challenges with Traditional Pedagogy Online  

In part two of the presentation, we will discuss the challenges with applying the predominant legal education pedagogy online. Both the student and instructor frustrations with the online format will be discussed before presenting in part three, The New Pedagogy: Online Socrates.  

Then we will discuss how with the lack of technology used in the classroom it leads to issues when technology is implemented haphazardly. The effects it has on both the faculty and learner. 

3. The New Pedagogy: Socrates Online 

The core to this new pedagogy is to apply something old and well-established - the best aspects of the Socratic Method. The new pedagogy combines this ancient method with the best of the modern discovery-based learning frames, with the help of the more inclusive tools of the online environment. The flipped classroom, discovery-based learning, and learner driven classroom approaches are not just helpful, but essential in an online environment.   

We will then discuss the tools used in this new pedagogy and how they can be implemented effectively and efficiently. He will also describe how the tools will be structured within the course to create an ease of use for the learners. 

4. Improvements with The New Pedagogy  

Finally, we will conclude by discussing the potential improvements for learners and educators that go over and above merely providing comparable education for online and in-person classrooms. We see a real opportunity to truly broaden access to online learning through these platforms and through applying The New Pedagogy: Socrates Online.