Hold a Socratic Chat: A Law Professor Teaches Students at a Distance.

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Author: Carnevale, Dan

AS STUDENTS ENTER Mark Kaufman's constitutional-law class on a recent Tuesday evening, they are greeted with the Pat Benatar song "Hit Me With Your Best Shot."

The music does more than entertain the students and induce some early-1980's nostalgia. It is also testing the audio connection on the students' computers. The class is being conducted online, using a Web-based multimedia chat forum, and the students and professor log on from all over the country.

Mr. Kaufman's course is run through the Concord University School of Law, the only accredited law school in the country that is completely online. Here, the Socratic method translates to Web chats and e-mail messages.

"A lot of communication relies on body language and intonation," Mr. Kaufman says. "And that's not available because we don't see each other. And that means we have to substitute language for that."

But that's OK, he says, because law, more than just about any other subject, is about precision of language. And in the class, Mr. Kaufman can speak to his students through the audio system, but they must type their responses. The students can hear him, but he can't hear them. So while the students don't get to practice standing up and speaking, they are forced to hone their language skills when writing their responses during class discussion. Mr. Kaufman doesn't call on specific students to answer, as is often done in face-to-face law classes. Instead, he presents questions to the entire class and waits for several responses before moving forward with the discussion, allowing more people to be involved.

As class begins, Mr. Kaufman talks to his class through a microphone attached to a headset as he stares at his computer screen. Today's lecture is about a legal concept called substantive due process, which was devised by the Supreme Court in the 20th century in reaction to an earlier ruling that weakened part of the 14th Amendment. "You remember what the court did to the 14th Amendment?" Mr. Kaufman asks his class in a deep, melodic voice that sounds like it belongs on National Public Radio. "They essentially dismissed it."

Mr. Kaufman has his students describe the issues surrounding the Griswold v. Connecticut case. Most answer correctly that it was about states' prohibitions on contraception. Another student answers, incorrectly, that the case was about states' banning interracial marriage.

The students' answers appear on one side of Mr. Kaufman's computer screen, allowing him to choose, with the click of a mouse, which responses the rest of the class will see. In this case he chooses a couple of the correct answers, then types a private message to the student who got the wrong answer, explaining that the interracial marriage case was Loving v. Virginia.

He continues to speak almost nonstop for the next hour, incorporating students' answers and comments as he goes along. The conversation flows to other cases, such as Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion, and more contemporary cases, such as Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down legislation outlawing sodomy.

Mr. Kaufman says that he lets the students' comments drive the discussion. His job as an online instructor, he says, is to provide the voice behind the typed responses and make sure the students are heading in the right direction. He tries to get his students to discuss not only the facts of the court cases, but the court's thinking that led to the decision, letting the students learn from each other's observations.

"I kind of make life difficult by asking what's going on behind it," Mr. Kaufman says. "There's no better way to learn something than to try to teach it."

The chats are only part of the online course. The students spend much of their time reading textbooks and case law, and then send e-mail messages to the professor asking questions. Mr. Kaufman says he likes this setup because he can think about the questions before answering, unlike being caught on the campus during office hours, when an answer is expected on the spot.

Another large chunk of his teaching time is spent grading essays. Many law schools determine students' grades for each class with one big test at the end of the semester. But Concord gives the students three essay tests per semester.

Mr. Kaufman says he usually teaches six courses per year, split between two six-month terms, and that he spends about 40 hours a week working. Students tend to e-mail questions at all hours of the day and night, and he tries to respond as soon as he can.

Donna Skibbe, vice president of development at Concord, says the university's policy is for instructors to answer e-mailed questions within 48 hours, and preferably within 24 hours. "The immediacy of their responses is important," she says.

THE STUDENTS put in the hours as well. In addition to reading the material, answering essay questions, and attending chats, they can participate in informal online discussions with fellow students. Concord has Web chat rooms available for students who want to talk about what they are learning.

Students also watch several videos of lectures online during the semester. Notable professors, such as Arthur R. Miller, of Harvard University Law School, have recorded lectures for Concord.

Marek J. Wybraniec, a 40-year-old computer programmer for the law firm White & Case, in New York, is in his second year at Concord and is taking Mr. Kaufman's constitutional-law course. With a full-time job and a family, he decided that he could not get his degree from a traditional institution. But he says he initially had reservations about the quality of online teaching. The idea of listening to an instructor's speech through live audio and typing responses seemed a little strange, he says.

"I felt, hmmm, that's going to be weird," Mr. Wybraniec says. "But once you get used to it, you don't have a second thought about it."

As Mr. Wybraniec continued taking courses at the online law school, he found other technological innovations to help his studies. For example, Concord allows students to download the lectures and listen to them on an iPod.

"Some of these lectures are amazing," Mr. Wybraniec says. "I walk around and listen to them. People think I'm listening to music, but I'm not. I'm listening to lectures."

Mr. Kaufman, who was a practicing attorney for 18 years before he decided to teach full time, has taught both face to face and online. He says students who graduate from an online law school are no less prepared to become lawyers than students from traditional schools. In fact, he says, neither type of school teaches how to be a good litigator--that can come only through experience.

"No law student walks out of law school competent to practice law," Mr. Kaufman says. "That's not something that law schools deal with, by and large."

Learning a subject--any subject--online does take some getting used to, he says, and some people take to the online environment more quickly than others. And that goes for both the instructors and the students.

"That's an adjustment, I think, for both sides," Mr. Kaufman says. "I don't know that I'd describe it as a disadvantage or an advantage. It's simply different."

PHOTO (COLOR): Mark Kaufman of Concord University's law school says that students who graduate from an online institution are no less prepared to become lawyers than students from traditional schools.

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By Dan Carnevale