A brilliant and very dedicated new colleague asked me what advice he should give students about how they can do well in his class. That question inspired this blog post. My plan is to share four examples of what I regard as bad advice and, for each, suggest why I do not like the advice and a better alternative. I have to confess that some of the examples of bad advice are, more or less, quotes of things I have heard from other law professors. In the numbered paragraphs below, the bad advice is in bold font. My preferred advice follows.

• “Just listen in my class. Don’t try to take notes so you can focus on the discussion.” OMG. Don’t get me started on this one; it is fine advice for someone with the kind of brain the speaker has. For all the rest of us, the other 95%+ of the population, that suggestion is a roadmap to failure street. As a ten year old once said to me, “Writing is learning.” The act of translating one’s understanding from class as it is happening in real time and the ability to take notes on facets of the lesson that are confusing are core learning opportunities. Thus, instead, encourage your students to note the page numbers of any key quotes and focus on restating what they are hearing in their own words; you should also encourage them to note any areas of confusion.

• “You must have a formal course outline.” The advice to create a course outline is not inherently bad advice. It encourages every student to engage in a valuable student task, developing a deep understanding of the structural relationships of the concepts they are learning. But there are other, equally valuable ways to develop that understanding. A student could also develop that structural/relational understanding by creating a series of flowcharts or mind maps depicting the doctrine or even an artistic depiction of the doctrine. Thus, the optimal advice is to encourage your students to do something to depict the structural relationships among the concepts in the course. 

• “Memorize by making flashcards.” Like the outline advice, the flashcard advice is not completely wrong. It is good advice in one way and potentially even better advice in a second way. It is good advice to encourage students to write what they want to learn. As I noted in a past blog post, a recent study out of Norway found that writing anything, including flashcards, activates parts of the brain associated with memory. The problems with the advice are (1) that the advice suggests that flashcards are the only way to memorize, and (2) the advice implies that writing the cards is all the students need to do. There are many ways to memorize, such as by creating a gradually shrinking outline and then trying to recall the parts that have been edited out so that, by the time of the exam, the student can look at a single sheet of paper and recall the entire outline. Another way is to translate all the big concepts into a series of self-created mnemonics.  We also should be emphasizing that simply writing the cards is far from enough to memorize. Instead, we should advise our students to hand write what they want to learn and then practice remembering what they have written (rehearse) and correct any errors. Let them know they are ready for the exam when they can recall from memory everything they have learned.

• “If you prepare for my class every day in the right way, you will do fine on my exams.” I am certain that, if all our students prepare for our classes in the right way, we, the professors, will have wonderful, enjoyable class sessions because our students will be excellent in class discussions. But there is no evidence that students who are great contributors to class discussions all get high grades. Instead, do encourage your students to prepare for class because schema theory teaches us that they are more likely to understand and retain what we teach them if they come to class with even partially-developed schemas. But you also need to share all the advice in items 1-4 and more.

• “Don’t try any practice exams.” I am fairly confident no faculty member ever says “Don’t try any practice exams.” I included this one so that I can encourage you to encourage your students to write as many practice exams as they can, get feedback from you if you will give it, and, if you will not, find past exams, answer them from memory, and review their answers with peers or in comparison to any model answer provided.