Self-regulated learning[1] is a valuable tool that many law students should learn in their first year. While some may already have this skill upon entering law school, others will learn how to self-regulate their learning as part of a first-year skills course. On the other hand, other students may struggle with this. Some students who work with academic and bar support educators, whether voluntarily or as part of a mandated program, often need assistance in developing their ability to self-regulate their learning.

As academic and bar success educators, we can help law students build this skill more purposefully in our student meetings. In practice, it requires us to resist the urge to prescribe tasks a student should complete prior to a follow-up meeting. Instead, to allow a student more actively participate in their own learning, we should simply ask: “What would you like to prepare for me next week?”

By shifting the responsibility for evaluation and planning to the student, the student learner is able to more actively engage with self-regulated learning. Students who do this can also better implement this learning strategy outside of the guided academic meeting environment. It also helps them develop a growth mindset because once they (perhaps with your help) have identified a learning challenge, they establish the mindset that it can be remedied and create the plan to do so. Doing this allows the student to take one more step closer to being an expert learner, capable of law school and bar exam success—and future practice success.

Not only does this approach support law student learning, but it also reduces the mental load you, as an academic or bar success educator, manage. Rather than having to determine what a student can and cannot accomplish yet based on where they are in course work or hoping they will complete the task they may not want to, you shift the onus off of you and back onto them. (Afterall, you have completed law school and passed the bar exam—that’s now their task.)

Plus, when a student decides what they want to bring to the next meeting, I find they are also more likely to accomplish the task. They did not get told to do something; they came up with the task and know they can do it because they told you they could. And because you did not have to come up with the task, it also provides a great opening for your next meeting: “Remind me what you planned to accomplish today and let me know how that went.”

Our students are adults learning a profession. Even as educators, we cannot always give them the answers (nor should we); the ability to find the answer and execute the solution is something they are capable of doing. And by shifting your mindset in student meetings, you’re also helping them to realize the tools that will help make them expert life-long learners.

(Erica M. Lux)

[1] Self-regulated learning is a skill that requires the learner to assess and plan, implement the plan while monitoring progress towards a goal, and evaluate the success of the plan before starting the cycle over again.  See this great article by Michael Hunter Schwartz on Self-Regulated Learning: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=959467.