Students at Dickinson School of Law (DSL) can now evaluate their individual courtroom performance skills on a weekly basis thanks to a new classroom technology collaboratively developed by Microsoft and Penn State. The new teaching tool a Web-based program that enables students to digitally view clips of themselves practicing opening statements, closing arguments, cross-examinations, and other class exercises made its debut in a Trial Advocacy I course at the Dickinson campus this fall.
"It's very important for law students to learn about the jury's perspective," said Gary Gildin, a DSL Professor who has taught Trial Advocacy for 21 years. "The Trial Advocacy Web Site was designed so that individuals can learn from their mistakes here first, instead of in the real courtroom."
Known officially as the Penn State Dickinson Video Web Site, the program has a folder for each of the students in Gildin's class that contains digitized video of the presentations they've made during the semester. The oral exercises enable students to learn about courtroom etiquette by presenting evidence, delivering opening statements, conducting closing arguments, and performing direct and cross examination of witnesses. One hundred thirty students enrolled in the Advocacy course in the fall were able to retrieve digital recordings of their presentations from computers located at campus labs, by clicking on their respective folders at the Web site.
According to Gildin, class instructors previously used videotape to provide visual feedback for students, but this proved to be a difficult process because all of the students in the class had to share the videotapes at once. "It was very challenging for the library to handle the volume of requests for the tapes and frustrating for students who had to fast-forward through other people's presentations to find their own," he noted.
The Web site has also made visual feedback more consistently available to students, since the folders in the program are able to hold the complete assortment of presentations they do each semester. Originally (with the exception of opening and closing remarks) video tapes were re-used in the following week's section meeting, therefore the students could not re-review all of their previous performances to chart their progress in the class.
To produce such features, Kaspar Stromme, Dickinson Web Site project manager and multimedia producer at Educational Technology Services (ETS), explains that DSL faculty and administrators worked closely with technical specialists and instructional designers at the CAC to create a flexible Web site interface that could be adapted to future needs as the class evolved. "In addition, the CAC collaborated with Microsoft in implementing a solution that was easy to use and to maintain," Stromme said.
A survey taken at the end of the semester indicates that Advocacy students share in their instructor's enthusiasm for the new program. Eighty percent of those who responded reported they used the system after every class to watch and review their performances; and 66% reported that they used it to compare previous video performances with their current one.
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The following are some of their comments:
"You can easily review past videos at the click of a button to gauge your progress; with videotapes this wouldn't be possible."
"It's time efficient and allows you to view how you really look. Many times the way I thought I presented myself (sounded, looked, etc.) was not really what came across on video."
"Someone can tell you about it, but it has greater impact when you actually see it yourself, week after week."
"Being able to see myself forced me to accept and deal with some embarrassment and also to work to improve the things I felt I could change."
"It is invaluable. I can't imagine having to fast-forward to find my video on videotape every week; much less having to schedule time in library. Also, you can go back and forth with ease to find what you need."
Although he considers the initial launch of the Web site successful, Gildin anticipates that the concept will continue to evolve. He predicts that faculty members will soon want to add comments about student performances to the site; and that eventually legal specialists will be able to provide exemplary models for students to view. In addition, he says that other areas of law that emphasize performance skills, such as Mediation, could benefit from similar sites.
"Law school is a blending of theory and practice, Gildin added, and this Web site provides an excellent medium for both."
