Law Commons^™

Thinking About Students' Learning: Metacognition Across The Disciplines, Saryn R. Goldberg, Jennifer Gundlach, Amy M. Masnick, Jennifer A. Rich, Jessica R. Santangelo

Hofstra University Distinguished Faculty Lecture Series

The ability to think about one’s own thinking—metacognition—is identified as one of the keys to subject mastery in most, if not all, disciplines. It is clear that being able to be one’s own critic — assessing and reassessing one’s understanding — is of critical importance to learning. Rarely, however, is metacognition explicitly taught or discussed as a centerpiece of learning in a content-heavy classroom, even with the best intentions of the professors.

A panel of Hofstra faculty from the disciplines of psychology, biology, law, engineering and writing studies will share results from their ongoing research about the impact of integrating …

Learning Intentionally And The Metacognitive Task, Patti Alleva, Jennifer A. Gundlach

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

This article serves both to frame The Pedagogy of Procedure symposium it introduces and to itself explore the importance of metacognition and learning about learning to legal education and lawyering. The authors begin by suggesting why Civil Procedure doctrine is so challenging to teach and learn, noting how the symposium pieces help to tackle those challenges. They then join the growing number of law professors who advocate that learning how to learn deserves greater attention in the law school curriculum, suggesting that law schools should do more to demonstrate respect for the process of learning as an end in itself. …

The Professional Responsibility Of The Law Professor: Three Neglected Questions, Monroe H. Freedman

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

Law professors have a great deal to say about the ethics of law practitioners. We write law review articles about lawyers' professional responsibilities, and we have participated in drafting codes of conduct for practicing lawyers.

Many of us bring to that task a significant perspective. We can be both informed about and detached from the pressures of daily practice. We are free of involvement or (worse yet) identification with particular clients. Indeed, in choosing to become law professors, we have made the choice to dissociate ourselves from contact with clients.

Not surprisingly, therefore, most law professors tend to minimize the …

Professional Responsibility Of The Civil Practitioner: Teaching Legal Ethics In The Contracts Course, Monroe H. Freedman

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

In two earlier papers I have written about the professional responsibility of the attorney in criminal practice. Surprisingly, a number of intelligent and experienced lawyers have suggested that problems of the same kind and complexity do not arise, at least with the same frequency, in the work of the civil practitioner. This is a serious misconception, although there are certainly important differences in the civil practitioner's role. For example, unlike the criminal defense lawyer, the civil practitioner does not have the same problems relating to the presumption of innocence, the constitutional right to counsel, and the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination.? …

Testing For Analytic Ability In The Law School Admission Test, Monroe H. Freedman

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

The Law School Admission Test, in conjunction with college grades, has, for many years, provided a significant prediction of performance in law school. We are, however, at present conducting a study of a section of the Test known as "Principles and Cases" to determine in what ways it might be improved. Specifically, we have considered whether the question forms that are currently being used in this section provide the best possible test of a student's ability to cope with the precise kinds of intellectual problems involved in the study of law.