Professor Todd Berger’s online Trial Practice course was recognized by the Syracuse University Center for Online & Digital Learning at its recent Digital Spotlight event, which celebrated collaboration in online course design and development.
The Trial Practice course, offered to students in Syracuse Law’s JDinteractive hybrid online J.D. program, features lectures on the actual skills used in trial practice followed by demonstrations of the skills in action. For example, students might hear a lecture on impeachment by prior inconsistent statement and then see a demonstration of the classic three-step impeachment process.
“The demonstrations help make abstract descriptions more concrete and help students understand how to perform the skills themselves,” said Berger, director of the College of Law’s Advocacy program.
The demonstrations are conducted by trial team members, following scripts created for the class. The demonstrations feature on-screen indicators identifying the essential components of each skill set as it is performed.
“Empirical research supports the benefits of demonstration as an effective pedagogical tool to enhance student learning,” said Berger. “Or said differently, a picture is worth a thousand words.”
A study notes that, “demonstration can benefit verbal recall of instruction sequences through the engagement of visuo-motor processes that provide additional forms of coding to support working memory performance.” Allen RJ, Hill LJB, Eddy LH, Waterman AH, Exploring the effects of demonstration and enactment in facilitating recall of instructions in working memory. Mem Cognit. 2020 Apr;48.