00:00:03.210 - 00:00:30.030

Good afternoon everybody. Hi. What we've got folks coming in from the waiting room, so thank you all so much for joining us. Just give this a moment as everyone is filtering in. All right, fantastic. Um, well, I'd like to start by saying welcome. Thanks to all

00:00:30.030 - 00:00:45.389

of you for joining us. Um, this is, of course, the latest. This will be the last event in our Biddle speaker series for the 25, 26th season, uh, co-sponsored by the Biddle Law Library here at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and the Society of

00:00:45.389 - 00:01:00.130

Academic Law Librarians. My name is Genevieve Tang. I'm going to be your host for today's session. If you've joined us before, you know, but if you haven't, the Speaker series exists to showcase emerging and impactful scholarship on all aspects of legal information and law librarianship, and

00:01:00.130 - 00:01:14.378

it is my pleasure to introduce our speaker today, Professor Julie Tajeski Crane. Uh, I know personally that Julie has several publication projects in the works. Um, I'm so pleased that she's going to be speaking with us today about her new paper using Fink's Taxonomy to design

00:01:14.378 - 00:01:32.580

legal research courses that promote significant learning. Uh, I was actually not aware of LD Fink's taxonomy before I learned about Julie's research, um, but like many of you, I'm always interested in. New frameworks, uh, new ways of rigorously thinking about our instructional design, uh, particularly design

00:01:32.580 - 00:01:50.440

that carries real weight and helps our work be as meaningful as possible. Uh, so I'm very excited to learn from Julie today. Julie is a reference librarian and professor of legal research at the H. Laddie Montague Jr. Law Library at Penn State Dickinson Law. In addition

00:01:50.440 - 00:02:07.879

to her research and instructional design, user experience, critical legal information literacy, and open educational resources, Julie is an experienced law teacher focusing on legal research courses both for 1Ls and upper level students, and I will also Throw in a plug here, Julie. I noticed you're speaking

00:02:07.879 - 00:02:24.130

at the, uh, uh, Cali conference on legal research, teaching and critical analysis and evaluation of generative AI next month. Um, so, uh, I, I will be watching the, uh, the replay of that, and I'd encourage others to check it out as well. Um, program note, throughout

00:02:24.130 - 00:02:36.479

today's talk, please feel free to add your questions to the Q&A below, and I am going to be monitoring the chat and the Q&A so that Julie can focus on her talk. And then we will have time at the end for your questions. So please put

00:02:36.479 - 00:02:52.889

those in as they come to you, and we'll address them at the end. So thanks all, thanks again to all of you for joining us, and I'm going to turn it over to Julie. OK, um, hi, everyone. Um, thank you very much for coming today, and,

00:02:52.899 - 00:03:10.070

um, my paper is titled Uh, using Fink's taxonomy to design legal research courses to promote significant learning. So it is a work in progress. So I don't have a draft that's ready to share yet, but I do have that QR code there. What I did was

00:03:10.070 - 00:03:26.380

I created an annotated bibliography of a lot of the resources that I used in the paper. Obviously not everything I cited, but it does give you some of the background on the things that I will be talking about today. And the way I have this structured,

00:03:26.440 - 00:03:44.389

it has two portions. So the first part will be a background, and we're going to talk about things like Bloom's taxonomy and how it relates to Fink's taxonomy, um, backward design, and some of the ABA accreditation standards. And then in the second half, what we're going

00:03:44.389 - 00:04:02.589

to do is we're going to change things up and I'm going to take the existing literature in legal research and legal writing and sort of slot our research into the six categories in Fink's taxonomy, and what that will do is it will give you a framework

00:04:02.589 - 00:04:20.089

for using all this information that's already out there and using the taxonomy as a way of thinking about sort of holistic course design. So I'm going to get started here um with the background, and we're gonna start with a little background on De Fink. So the

00:04:20.089 - 00:04:40.500

first question is, who is LD Fink? And he is retired now. He's like in his mid-eighties, but he was a professor and a faculty developer, so somebody from uh Teaching and Learning Institute, and he had most of his career at the University of Oklahoma. And what

00:04:40.500 - 00:04:57.890

one of the things he's really known for is that he was an early proponent of the idea of learner-centered pedagogy. So these days, that's something that everybody's heard about, the idea of moving from like a teacher or instructor-centered model to a student or learner-centered model, but

00:04:57.890 - 00:05:18.309

he was really right there at the beginning. Um, I have his dissertation here. Um, he published his dissertation in 1977, and the title of the dissertation was Listening to the Learner. So he was really there at the forefront of that movement. And, um, This taxonomy is

00:05:18.309 - 00:05:42.179

part of a larger backward design model that he has, and he calls his version of backward design integrated course design ICD, and you can find both that and the taxonomy in this book here, creating significant learning. Experiences and it was first published in 2003 and it

00:05:42.179 - 00:06:03.170

was updated in 2013. So that's the background on Fink. And here's what his taxonomy looks like. We'll be working with this for the entire talk. You can see it is a circle with 6 subsections. So on the right-hand side, you have foundational knowledge, application, and integration.

00:06:03.489 - 00:06:22.470

So these are where it overlaps with Bloom's taxonomy. And then on the left-hand side you have human dimension, caring, and learning how to learn, and that's sort of Fink's own unique contribution. So we're gonna start with um Bloom's taxonomy because I assume that's what a lot

00:06:22.470 - 00:06:42.529

of people here are more familiar with. And um here is Bloom's taxonomy. The first thing to notice is that there are a couple of different versions of Bloom's taxonomy. The second thing to know about Bloom's taxonomy is it's really not actually Benjamin Bloom's taxonomy. It wasn't

00:06:42.529 - 00:07:02.940

like he was sitting in his office coming up with this sort of framework. Instead, it was a group project. It was something they started in the late 1940s and they published in. Um, 1956, and it was a bunch of educators, psychologists, assessment people, and um they

00:07:02.940 - 00:07:21.100

were interested in college and universities being able to share assessment data amongst institutions. So the taxonomy was, um, in 2001, they came out with a new edition of it. They changed like nouns to verbs and they flipped around a couple of things at the top, but

00:07:21.100 - 00:07:38.859

it was basically the same. And what they did was they took the framework from the original Bloom's taxonomy and they labeled that the cognitive process, so it ends up being sort of like this x axis, and then they added a whole another y axis which they

00:07:38.859 - 00:07:54.459

call knowledge dimensions. So when you see the revised taxonomy, sometimes it will be in sort of a chart because it has these two dimensions to it. Now, it didn't really catch on as well as the original, and I think the part of the reason that Bloom's

00:07:54.459 - 00:08:10.790

taxonomy has had such staying power is it's simple. It has 6 steps, you can make colorful triangles out of it, although you don't have to make a triangle out of it, um, but it's easy. And think's taxonomy has the same thing. It's 6 portions and it's

00:08:10.790 - 00:08:31.660

easy to remember. Um, and I would be remiss if I did not mention that, um, as many of you probably already know, Paul Callister has a version of the taxonomy that is specifically for legal research, and his taxonomy, um. The 1st 3 levels are pretty much

00:08:31.660 - 00:08:51.659

like the earlier taxonomies. Then what he did was he combined analysis and synthesis and made them one level in the taxonomy, which lay two things that are unique to legal research, one of which is concluding, which a lot of times our students have a hard time

00:08:51.659 - 00:09:11.280

doing. You know, you can't blame them for one hour, you know every other class, the answer is it depends, so why not legal research? And then also metacognition. So metacognition actually was in the 2001 model. Um, it was part of those knowledge dimensions. And to be

00:09:11.280 - 00:09:29.349

fair to the people who came up with the 1950s version, you know, metacognition, that wasn't a word people were using back in the 1950s, so that's why they really weren't focused on that. So, um, In terms of where Fink fits in with Bloom, um, Fink wasn't

00:09:29.349 - 00:09:45.429

really trying to do like a takedown of Bloom or anything like that. Um, as it turns out, Fink did his graduate work at University of Chicago, and that's where Benjamin Bloom taught, and Fink actually took a class from Benjamin Bloom. So he saw his taxonomy is

00:09:45.429 - 00:10:02.919

sort of building on Benjamin Bloom's work and This is a quote from Fink on Bloom's taxonomy. He says, I feel I'm standing on Bloom's shoulders, borrowing the whole idea of a taxonomy, but by standing on his shoulders, trying to look a little further and see some

00:10:02.919 - 00:10:22.479

kinds of learning that he didn't come up with. So it is sort of building on and expanding the idea of Bloom's taxonomy. There are a lot of differences between the taxonomies, however, um, first of all is structure. So if you are familiar with Bloom's taxonomy, you

00:10:22.479 - 00:10:40.280

probably know it's a hierarchy. So the idea is you have more concrete learning at the bottom and then you move up to more creative, um, abstract thinking at the top. Thinks is different. It's a circle and they have 6 components to the circle, but they're all

00:10:40.280 - 00:11:03.760

interactive. It's not a building or hierarchy. In terms of the scope, Bloom's taxonomy, I have it here, it is actually the taxonomy of the cognitive domain. Here. It's actually the true title isn't Bloom's taxonomy, it's taxonomy of educational objectives, and then cognitive and affective domains are

00:11:03.760 - 00:11:27.070

separate taxonomies. But usually whenever people talk about blooms, they're talking about just the cognitive portion. When you look at Fink, he combined both cognitive and affective together in one taxonomy. So remember, Fink is working in 2003. Bloom and his colleagues were back in the 1940s. So

00:11:27.070 - 00:11:45.679

there was a lot of learning science in between the two of them. So by 2003, there was a lot of feelings that emotions could impact learning. The orientations are very different between these two. So Bloom and his colleagues, what they were doing was very teacher-centered. It

00:11:45.679 - 00:12:07.260

was focused on instructors and instructors being able to share information. Whereas Fink is coming at things from very much a learner-centered perspective. Again, going back to his um Dissertation here, listening to the learner. Whenever he was working on that, this is really where he got the

00:12:07.260 - 00:12:25.109

idea for the taxonomy. They had some NSF funding, and the job that Fink had was to go out and interview people who had taken geography classes, and he was supposed to ask them what they remembered from the class, and he threw in his own question that

00:12:25.109 - 00:12:41.150

he was interested in. Which was, um, at, you know, any class you've taken ever, um, how has it changed you as a person either in your work life or in your personal life? And that was the kind of stuff that Fink himself was really interested in.

00:12:41.679 - 00:13:02.619

And then finally, they are very different in terms of their goals. Remember that Bloom and Bloom's colleagues are operating in the 1940s, 1950s. So this is very much a BF Skinner scientific approach to things. They're looking for things that are things you can describe and measure,

00:13:02.919 - 00:13:22.771

and then it's also a hierarchy. So the goal is to move. Um, teaching and learning from sort of these lower, more concrete levels up to these higher, more abstract, creative levels. So that is how, um, Bloom and his colleagues are thinking about, um, learning and learning

00:13:22.771 - 00:13:44.463

outcome. So Bin thinks about learning in a completely different way. Again, he's extremely learner-centered. So whenever I think he's thinking about learning. He calls it something that changes the learner's life in somehow. He calls his taxonomy a taxonomy of significant learning, and when he uses the

00:13:44.463 - 00:14:04.216

word significant, he means significant to the learner. So those are some of the differences between the two taxonomies. And next I have um just some words on think about what he thinks. Um, his taxonomy ads, you know, why, why does he, it's something that we need,

00:14:04.556 - 00:14:20.356

and he's talking about certainly the non-cognitive dimensions, the things that go beyond blooms. And what he says is, um, people so often say to me, I just always sort of felt that it ought to be valuable, but I never thought it was legitimate to include it

00:14:20.356 - 00:14:38.210

as an explicit learning goal in a course. And what this taxonomy and my book has done is give permission to people to do that. So that's kind of where he sees his contribution is sort of giving a permission structure to think about designing courses in a

00:14:38.210 - 00:14:55.010

more holistic way. So now we're going to talk about backward design, and here I'm just going to assume that many of you are familiar with backward design. You end with the, um, you begin with the ending in mind, you start with learning goals, then you design

00:14:55.010 - 00:15:12.599

your assessments based on those goals, and then you have only then you plan your learning activities, your instruction. Most backward design models like understanding by design, which many of you may be familiar with, and then um the ICD which is Fink's version, start actually with a

00:15:12.599 - 00:15:31.239

step above that, sort of brainstorming on very big picture things that you want out of your class. And with Fink, what he called this was the big dream. So, um, he would ask instructors, so when the course is over and it's now 1 or 2 years

00:15:31.239 - 00:15:48.049

later, What would you like to be true about students who have participated in your courses that is not true of others? So what he's really asking is, you know, not just, you know, the learning that the students did for a test and then forgot two weeks

00:15:48.049 - 00:16:07.840

later. Instead, you know, what is the value add that um you are giving to your students, um, by taking your course that is something that is long term valuable to them. So this is an example that comes not from law, but just from the literature on

00:16:07.840 - 00:16:26.919

things taxonomy. Say you have a professor and they are teaching math and their big dream is that students leave the course knowing that they can do math. So they want people to feel empowered and confident. So how might you build things to pursue that goal into

00:16:26.919 - 00:16:43.739

the course? Uh, one thing you could do is have quick win, so give students a sense of, um, they can do this thing. Uh, then self-assessment. So not like law school where you go to the final exam and surprise at your grade, um, having lots of

00:16:43.739 - 00:17:09.410

formative assessment, having self-check opportunities and places where people can adjust their learning strategies. Uh, reflection. So either having discussions or discussion boards or reflections, um, where you deal head on with the ideas of math anxiety and frustration with math. And then finally, um, maybe application to

00:17:09.410 - 00:17:26.979

career, like have somebody come in and explain why math is useful in a work environment. So it gives, um, students some, you know, Objective, some reason that they might want to do math, and that could um facilitate this sort of big dream of getting students to

00:17:26.979 - 00:17:41.170

be engaged with math and know that they can do it. So I tried this um with my own classes, and I can't say that I have landed on necessarily things that I'm sure are going to be my big dreams, but, um, here's what I came up

00:17:41.170 - 00:17:58.160

with. So, we teach a two-credit um class for the 1L's. We're very fortunate, we're separate from, um, legal writing. So we have our own 1L class. And my big dream for that class would be that students will be confident in their ability to use their research

00:17:58.160 - 00:18:14.430

skills to teach themselves new areas of law. What I mean by that is, like, say they are like me and they go into their summer job or into their new work environment and somebody says something like, we want you to research blue sky laws, and you

00:18:14.430 - 00:18:29.719

don't know what that means. So I want them to be confident that they have the research skills that they can go figure out what that means and deal with this issue. For my upper levels, it's a little different. I want students to be able to recognize

00:18:29.719 - 00:18:48.839

good legal research and do that level of work. So that's more of an evaluative, uh, evaluative mindset. So those are sort of my big dreams, and again, these are works in progress. Anytime we are talking about backward design, people are always going to want verbs to

00:18:48.839 - 00:19:07.469

make their learning objectives. So Fink has them in his book. You can find them online. Blooms is the dominant sort of taxonomy out there, but a lot of teaching and learning centers also have. Thinks, um, so you can get Finks verbs. Um, this comes from Syracuse

00:19:07.469 - 00:19:24.400

and the nice thing about the, um, Syracuse Teaching and Learning Center is they also have this other chart where you have bloom on one axis and then fink on the other so you can sort of cross reference them. So if you are in an institution, or

00:19:24.400 - 00:19:39.150

if you are just somebody who feels much more confident, if you have sort of bloom approved verbs for your learning objectives, you can do that. So if you like your hierarchy, you can keep your hierarchy, um, and you can combine it with Finks. And that's a

00:19:40.819 - 00:19:59.204

basic idea behind this, um, when, whenever you're dealing with verbs in Finks because some of the things he deals with. Are more internal. They're not as measurable and visible as things that are in Bloom's taxonomy. Sometimes, you know, the idea of assessment, you just have to

00:19:59.204 - 00:20:12.005

be a little more flexible. And the way I like to think about it, and it's one of the things I saw whenever I was doing the research for the paper, one of the papers said, you know, these things are tools, they're not a dogma, and that's

00:20:12.005 - 00:20:28.530

really how you need to approach this. So now I'm going to finish up this first part by talking about some of the ABA requirements that kind of mesh well with the think perspective on things and we're going to talk about professional identity formation and then also

00:20:28.530 - 00:20:53.479

experiential learning. So, um, professional identity formation, this is a requirement under the ABA standards, so students have to have quote unquote substantial opportunities for professional identity formation. Um, so professional identity is really a balancing act. So it goes both the inward personal meaning, and then your

00:20:53.479 - 00:21:15.050

outward obligations, your professional responsibilities to the client in the court, etc. And whenever you say the word formation in professional identity formation, it means becoming an insider, somebody who has internalized the profession's values and norms. So all of that is nice, but it's all kind of

00:21:15.050 - 00:21:33.650

a little fuzzy. So what I did was I went into the literature and I found some research on people who have been looking at how law schools are actually operationalizing what does professional identity formation mean. And I have something from Neil Hamilton. Many of you will

00:21:33.650 - 00:21:51.430

probably recognize that name. He's like a huge leader in this field. And then I also have another one from a legal writing instructor. I won't try to accidentally butcher her last name, but they both have, um, you know, components of um how law schools are approaching

00:21:51.430 - 00:22:12.869

professional identity formation. And I thought these were very interesting because they meshed very well with Fink's taxonomy and those aspects of Fink's taxonomy that kind of go beyond blooms. So Fink has a category called human dimension that really maps onto professionalism and then competency, remembering that

00:22:12.869 - 00:22:33.119

competency is both soft and hard skills. Fink has a dimension called caring that maps onto value-centered development and well-being. And then he has learning how to learn as a category, and one of the subcategories of learning how to learn is self-directed learning. So there's a lot

00:22:33.119 - 00:22:53.439

of synergy there. Um, experiential learning is another place where things maps very well onto ABA requirements. As most of you probably know, um, the ABA requires 6 credits experiential learning, and one way you can do that is simulation courses. I think a lot of us probably

00:22:53.439 - 00:23:12.319

teach upper-level simulation courses. Legal research is a good place to have that sort of thing, and if you're doing your simulation right, it should have opportunities for self-evaluation. So that would map onto the think categories of human dimension, learning about yourself, and then also learning how

00:23:12.319 - 00:23:35.079

to learn. And if ideal world, your simulations would include cognitive, performative, and affective objectives. In other words, they would be sort of like the Carnegie report and the idea of three apprenticeships, integrating doctrine, skills, and ethics, and that sort of perspective is exactly sort of like

00:23:35.079 - 00:23:51.209

the holistic thing that you get out of the Finks taxonomy. So that is the whole background, um, sort of explaining where it fits in with blooms and backward design and sort of ABA requirements. For the rest of the talk, what I'm going to be doing is

00:23:51.209 - 00:24:10.680

talking about our literature, um, legal research, legal writing literature, and um how you can slot it into the categories in Fink's taxonomy to sort of do some course design. So the first thing we're going to look at is, um. Of the 1st 6 categories is foundational

00:24:10.680 - 00:24:28.030

knowledge, and this is exactly what it sounds like, this, you know, basic stuff people need to know. And a great place to look for that would be the AALL principles and standards for Legal Research competency. Um, these standards can be used for other aspects of things

00:24:28.030 - 00:24:46.449

taxonomy, but this is kind of where I slotted them in in the paper. So things that students need to know, things like the US legal system structure and the associated forms of legal information, um, primary and secondary sources, citators and citation validation methods, and then also

00:24:46.449 - 00:25:06.170

things like how algorithms impact search results. So you'll notice that last one is more of a concept, which is fine. The background foundational knowledge in a field, it can be conceptual in addition to just being. Um, facts and definitions of things. So those are the kinds

00:25:06.170 - 00:25:24.329

of things that, um, you know, would be very foundational for students to know. So the next category is application, and that's really where, that's our bread and butter, that's where a lot of our teaching sort of lands. Um, I have 3 things that I chose for

00:25:24.329 - 00:25:47.199

application, um, in terms of papers. I could probably have gone with like 300 papers. So what I um sort of narrowed things down to was managing complex projects. Analysis, and then also analysis in AI assisted research. So managing complex projects, and this comes straight out of

00:25:47.199 - 00:26:08.344

bank. So he says he uses research projects as an example of something that fits into the application category in the subcategory, manage complex projects. Now, he's talking about undergraduate research papers for the most part, but We have the same sort of planning and organizational structure in

00:26:08.564 - 00:26:28.765

teaching legal research and the paper that I have here is Carolyn Osborne Legal Research Plan and the research log that was in Legal Reference Services Quarterly and um she's talking about, you know, the things we do that help students manage a research project. Up front we

00:26:28.765 - 00:26:45.540

have the plan and as they're working, they have the log. So the plan shows students how to slow down and think before they just start typing things into Lexus or Westlaw. And then the research log shows them a lot of different things. Um, it can signal

00:26:45.540 - 00:26:58.959

when to stop, um, so if they see the same things over and over on their log, that can be a good sign of when to stop. And then also, um, it can show them that research is iterative. So if they write something down and then later

00:26:58.959 - 00:27:14.550

on, um, They wrote it down. It didn't seem important at the time, but later on they can go back to it and see, oh yes, actually that is important. That shows how research is iterative. So next we're gonna talk about analysis in thinks terms. Um, this

00:27:14.550 - 00:27:34.640

is learning different thinking styles. He calls it critical thinking, but that's really translates to analysis for us. And the paper I decided to use here was Yasmin Soker Harker's Information is cheap, but meaning is expensive. So in the paper, there's a lot of talk about how

00:27:34.640 - 00:27:54.505

students struggle with abstract or conceptual research. So in a traditional electronic. Database environment, it's very easy to search for keywords and to get really focused in on getting something that's all for on the facts rather than dealing with these more abstract concepts. And there's a lot

00:27:54.505 - 00:28:16.030

of research showing that when you switch from print to traditional database, that's what happened. Um, in the article that really talks about um analysis helping students to evaluate and then apply information that they find. Remember, we're teaching our students to become not librarians who analyze sources

00:28:16.030 - 00:28:36.180

for quality, um, but people who find information in sources and then apply it to a client problem. So that's the kind of analysis they need to do. And the article has a lot about metacognitive questioning and reflective exercises. So metacognitive questioning, the examples would be, say

00:28:36.180 - 00:28:51.790

you have a case with a yellow flag. So how do you work through the process of deciding whether or not you can use such a case in your research? or if you have a legal. Encyclopedia entry. So what are the next steps? How do you use

00:28:51.790 - 00:29:08.209

that to kind of mine the footnotes to get you to primary law resources when it comes to sort of reflective things in their program and also in a lot of other programs, um, one of the things they do is they give students a fact pattern, but

00:29:08.209 - 00:29:23.859

they're missing. One of the facts that relates to one of the elements, so they ask, you know, students, what else do you need to know to be able to um analyze this situation? What facts are you missing? Or you can just do an overall reflective exercise,

00:29:24.079 - 00:29:40.229

you know, what went well, what, what not as well, and what would you do differently, that kind of thing. So that is um sort of analysis. So the next paper I have to highlight deals with analysis only in the AI world, and this is a very

00:29:40.229 - 00:30:06.040

new paper. It is Stephanie Grace 2025 Finding Equilibrium and Integrative Approach to balancing Human and artificial intelligence in legal research and so. It's different whenever you move from the traditional electronic environment to the AI environment, you have different things to worry about. Traditional database searching, you

00:30:06.040 - 00:30:25.939

just end up with information overload, infinite list of things that could be potentially relevant. Um, with the AI report, you kind of get the opposite thing. You get this prepackaged analysis, and it has um citations with it, but you have no idea how this came to

00:30:25.939 - 00:30:44.020

be. Um, you don't know what was left out, so it's almost the opposite problem. In terms of teaching with AI generally, she has some tips, one of which is to sequence your class to build fundamental skills first. So you want to do traditional legal research first

00:30:44.020 - 00:31:04.849

and then move on to incorporating AI. So even whenever you're talking about a project that's using AI, the sequencing still matters. So she suggests not, you know, as you often hear, starting with AI because you don't want students to let AI frame the issue. Instead, they

00:31:04.849 - 00:31:21.780

should do that, you know, traditional research planning, maybe look at some secondary sources first so that they are not relying on AI to do the analysis and thinking for them. She also talks about being explicit about when to use AI, when not to use it. You

00:31:21.780 - 00:31:35.660

can't just have like a couple lines in the syllabus, and that's it. Instead, for each project, say, you know, you can use AI for this and this is why, and you can't use it here, and here's the reason why. Um, so you need to be explicit

00:31:35.660 - 00:31:52.089

about that and explain, um, the reasoning to the students. And then finally, what she talks about, and I like to think of this as personally like the idea of Ethan Moli's idea of co-intelligence, the real goal here should be to have research that is better than

00:31:52.089 - 00:32:09.890

what either the AI or the human would produce alone. So that is sort of application again that's the bread and butter of what we do. Now we're going to move on to integration. This is that last category in the cognitive field where it sort of overlaps

00:32:09.890 - 00:32:32.300

with blooms. And here I have 3 categories again, one of which is integration in a course, the other one is integration in law as a discipline, and then finally interdisciplinary connections. So for um integrating ideas in a course, the paper that I decided to highlight was

00:32:32.300 - 00:32:50.555

um Jennifer Chapman, and this is a great paper. I really like it. Um, it is teaching critical use of legal research technology, and she talks about how we need to um sort of deal with the fact that Our students are sort of Google style searchers and

00:32:50.555 - 00:33:09.300

sort of build from that foundation whenever we are teaching them legal research skills. One of the other papers I came across whenever I was doing the research said that, you know, prior knowledge can either help or hinder learning. And when it comes to our students' prior

00:33:09.300 - 00:33:25.890

research skills, they very well may be hindering their learning when it comes to legal databases, but we need to sort of build off that and explain to them why what worked in the past may not work here. Um, also integrating information about different databases so that

00:33:25.890 - 00:33:40.770

students don't just assume Westlaw and Lexus are the same thing. You can use that great Susan Melville Mart exercise where you take like the little natural language search. You take the exact same search and you put it in different databases and you end up with very

00:33:40.770 - 00:33:58.239

different results. And then finally, you do want to integrate and talk a little bit about print organization because a lot of the stuff they're going to find in the databases was not born digital. It's something that was print and was had its organizational structure in print

00:33:58.380 - 00:34:18.879

and then got sort of morphed into the. Digital realm. So she talks about showing people like a reporter, um, good old fashioned print reporter, and then explaining um the pagination, sort of the star pagination that you find in the databases. So that's integrating information in a

00:34:18.879 - 00:34:38.929

course. Um, taking stuff that people are learning from other law classes and bringing into legal writing. And here I have Alison Drake's article, Building on CRA, reimagining the Research log as a tool for legal analysis. And one of the many things whenever you do this. Um,

00:34:38.939 - 00:34:52.750

that is beneficial to students is it does reduce cognitive load. So it's not like they're having to learn a whole set of ways of doing things for legal research that doesn't apply in legal writing. Instead, you take a concept from legal writing and sort of import

00:34:52.750 - 00:35:09.050

it in, so they already know it, um, so it's easier on them. And what she talks about is taking a traditional research log and then adding some CRA or IRA or whatever it is you use features to it. So your log just doesn't have, um, you

00:35:09.050 - 00:35:24.320

know, what they found and where they found it, but also, you know, what was the rule in this particular case, um, what is, how is it applied to the facts we're looking at, etc. So what that does is it revises the log to capture thinking, not

00:35:24.320 - 00:35:43.344

just search, and it also shows them that analysis is part of research. So Creak sort of bridges the idea of doctrinal analysis into writing. So rather than having them think, you know, research is this other thing. Over here using the CRA in research kind of lets

00:35:43.344 - 00:35:57.114

them also see that analysis is part of research. You don't start analysis just whenever you have a stack of cases that you're going to go through for writing. Instead, as you are selecting the cases that are going to end up in that stack, you should be

00:35:57.114 - 00:36:18.199

doing analysis. So and then, um, my final category in integration is into disciplinary resources, and here I'd like to give a plug for last month's, um, Biddle lecture, which I thought was fantastic, and that was, um, Steven Mitchell and Claire Willis. They, um, have classes they're

00:36:18.199 - 00:36:37.040

both teaching at different, uh, institutions about taking sort of the. Jurisprudence of originalism, which no matter how you feel about it probably isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and giving students tools on how to research. So that would be bringing in historical research and things like dictionaries

00:36:37.040 - 00:36:56.239

and linguistics things into the legal research process. So that's very interdisciplinary integration. Um, also, in the paper, this is where I decided to slot in the idea of critical legal research, which could go in a lot of different slots, but they all, um, a lot of

00:36:56.239 - 00:37:15.310

this literature talks about using interdisciplinary research. Resources and I have some citations there. I will say this is something I do in my classes whenever I'm teaching administrative law, we do have a week when we go into regulations.gov and see the comments and see some of

00:37:15.310 - 00:37:37.304

the non-law, um, sort of resources. That are being given to the regulatory agencies in um by the commenting process to sort of sway regulatory decisions and I think that makes it a lot more alive and something that um is much more meaningful to the students. So

00:37:37.304 - 00:37:53.129

um now we're going to switch gears and we're going to talk about the human dimension. And here, there's actually two components to this. There is learning about the self and then learning about others. So learning about the self includes learning, um, not only about who you

00:37:53.129 - 00:38:14.120

are now, but who you aspire to be. It's also about building self-confidence. Learning about others is many different things, one of which is sort of multiculturalism, but, um, it can also have other aspects to it. So in the human dimension, I have um growth mindset. Collaboration,

00:38:14.689 - 00:38:32.169

and then also interacting with AI because um Fink sees interacting with technology as part of the human dimension. So for growth mindset, this is sort of the learning about the self. Um, I'm just going to assume many of you know about growth mindset. For Fink, this

00:38:32.169 - 00:38:51.320

kind of thing is important because he thinks that overcoming academic challenges is something that builds self-confidence and helps students see themselves as capable individuals. So that goes beyond just this particular class. When you succeed in an academic endeavor, it gives you um a stronger self-image overall.

00:38:51.899 - 00:39:12.409

So I am looking at Mary Godfried Rickards, um, Article reconceptualizing the F Word, introducing failure into Legal Research Classrooms, and she talks about reframing struggle as learning, not failure, um, tying success to effort and reflection. If you're familiar with growth mindset, that's kind of the, the

00:39:12.409 - 00:39:29.419

bread and butter of that. And she talks about how legal research is a great place to do that in the curriculum. Um, next, we're going to talk about collaboration. So this is where I slotted in learning about others, and I'm using the article Work with me

00:39:29.419 - 00:39:52.739

here, collaborative Learning in the Legal Research Classroom. And here, um, not every group project is collaboration. If for collaboration, what you need is shared decision making and responsibility, and it has sort of a twofer advantage because it teaches students about um learning material in the class

00:39:52.739 - 00:40:07.000

and then also learning those soft skills of working with other people. My students are all over the map on whether they like the group project, so I only put it in about half my classes, but for people who like it, they really like seeing the perspectives

00:40:07.300 - 00:40:23.870

of other students who were working on the same project they were. Um, and that is where you kind of want to use ill-structured problems that require judgment. If the problem has a clear answer, then you don't really have to have discussion and shared decision-making. And then

00:40:23.870 - 00:40:44.149

finally, to finish up with this category, the idea of interactions with generative AI. Again, for Fink, the way he sees things, the human dimension covers interactions with technology and the non-human world. There have been people who have written papers on interactions with the environment. Um, but

00:40:44.149 - 00:41:00.709

here we're going to talk about AI because, you know, it's legal research and we always have to talk about AI. Um, so the paper I'm relying on is now just on SSRN. It's by a legal writing instructor. It is the supervision gap, AI and emerging professional

00:41:00.709 - 00:41:23.959

identity formation obligation that begins in law's first year. And when you look at the guidance that's coming out of the ABA, the opinions on that, um, these obligations are supervisory, not just competency-based, which is kind of an interesting thing. So you don't usually have like supervisory

00:41:23.959 - 00:41:43.300

obligations over word. You would have it over, say, a paralegal or a more junior associate. So it's a different way of seeing things, and she stresses in her paper that students need to internalize the supervisory mindset. Exercising judgment, not just because a checklist requires it, but

00:41:43.300 - 00:41:59.250

because it is who they are. So this is this idea that, you know, it's not that they are quality control for the AI. They're producing their own work product. They have to go beyond just checking to see if a case exists and if the case, you

00:41:59.250 - 00:42:15.639

know, says what the AI says it says and go beyond that to say, is this the best case for this particular point that I'm trying to get across. So now we're going to move into caring. Um, this is 5th out of 6th, and this is a

00:42:15.860 - 00:42:31.580

thing that Fink finds to be very important. And um for Fink, um, he says that the goal you should have is for students to move what they've learned in your class from their class file in their mind to their life file, because if it remains in

00:42:31.580 - 00:42:45.800

their class file when the class is over, then they're just going to forget about it. And he has this quote, When students care about something, then they have the energy they need for learning more about it and making it part of their lives. Without the energy

00:42:45.800 - 00:43:08.649

for learning, nothing significant happens. And I break this into three categories, motivation, interest, and values. So for motivation, I'm using the book teaching students how to learn strategies you can incorporate into any course to improve student meta-cognition, study skills, and motivation. It's a fantastic book overall.

00:43:08.969 - 00:43:27.439

The woman who wrote it was a chemistry professor. I think she's now like retired slash consultant. So in terms of motivation, she breaks down three things, um, perceiving personal relevance, feeling supported, and then believing they can succeed. And those last two are things that the instructor

00:43:27.439 - 00:43:43.179

can really influence. And here's a great quote from the book. I cannot underscore this point enough. I always thought students needed to bring their own motivation. But I have been bowled over by the number of students who became willing to do enormous amounts of work once

00:43:43.179 - 00:43:59.780

I expressed support and a belief in their abilities. So that is this idea of motivation. If you are familiar with the idea of wise feedback, it kind of ties into that, the idea of expressing to students that A, you have very high standards, but B, you

00:43:59.780 - 00:44:12.540

believe they can meet those standards. Um, when it comes to interest, there's a whole bunch of things that I could mention here, but, um, the one article that kind of stuck out to me, and it's not the only article to bring this up, is a lot

00:44:12.540 - 00:44:28.449

of times when we're trying to get students interested in legal research, we'll tell them, you know, um, they have to be, um, cost effective whenever they're in a real-world environment because Lexus and Westla aren't free. So this is a legal writing instructor sort of pushing back

00:44:28.449 - 00:44:46.110

on that on a variety of different reasons. Um, just it adds to students' cognitive load. Um, Second, um, they don't actually, if they're 1 ounce, they don't have the mental structures and knowledge of vocabulary to be efficient in research. They don't know enough law. And finally,

00:44:46.229 - 00:45:01.010

they're students, they're not practicing attorneys. So, um, You know, this is the time that they should be able to experiment. Like I had one of the students in one of my reflections say they like to go after class and just, you know, log into Westlawn, just,

00:45:01.209 - 00:45:16.810

you know, poke around and click on things and see what happens. So it's important to, you know, give students reasons to be interested in learning legal research, but maybe that's not the best approach. I know that not everybody feels that way. And then, um, just going

00:45:16.810 - 00:45:32.719

pretty quickly here on values. Again, in the paper, I have a lot on values, but one thing I just wanted to highlight is, um, what I've been doing in my class, I have several, um, places where students can talk about their feelings towards AI and a

00:45:32.719 - 00:45:48.370

lot of them have very Strong feelings. Um, it goes to their personal values, their personal ethics, and, um, I don't know how other law schools are doing this. I feel like we don't have a lot of um places for them to express their feelings on that,

00:45:48.449 - 00:46:09.620

but I do feel like it's part of their professional identity and that's something we should be doing. And then finally, um, the last part of the taxonomy is learning how to learn. And here again, we have 3 things, um, succeeding in a course, learning discipline-specific processes,

00:46:10.020 - 00:46:30.639

and then finally becoming a lifelong learner. So for succeeding in the course, what I chose was Taryn Marks' article Feed Forward Instruction in Legal Research and Writing Courses, and she had a problem where her students weren't able to effectively do a research vlog, basically. She let

00:46:30.639 - 00:46:47.479

them have any format, but it had to be. Specific enough that she could replicate their um way of doing things. And so what she did was before they even did one of these assignments, she had them grade an exemplar. So they could see from the grader's

00:46:47.479 - 00:47:04.020

perspective why having all the detail wasn't just busy work, it was something that the grader actually needed. And she found this to be highly successful. And that's an example of showing how students learning how to learn, but learning something to succeed in a particular course. So

00:47:04.020 - 00:47:24.000

the second thing here is learning discipline-specific processes, and, um, again, in terms of these are frameworks that the student can use going forward after the class. I would say in our discipline, probably the Rombauer method or variations on the Rombauer method is how we do that.

00:47:24.300 - 00:47:42.889

Sort of, you know, starting by working the problems, secondary sources, then starting with codified law, then binding precedent, and then persuasive precedent, some variation on that. Um, as AI gets integrated, it may change that, and I talk a little bit about that in the paper, but

00:47:42.889 - 00:48:02.439

we really don't know where this is going. And then finally, to sort of wrap up, um, the last subcategory is self-directed learning, and just like analysis, this deals a lot with meta-cognition. So we want our students to be able to plan, monitor, and evaluate learning, particularly

00:48:02.439 - 00:48:21.219

that evaluate, helps them have transfer where they'll be able to use it outside of the particular assignment. Then one of the things that really influenced me, um, in doing this research was, um, Ellie Margolis, um, who is a writing instructor. Her article Doing Less Reflections on

00:48:21.219 - 00:48:37.129

cognitive load and Hard Choices in Teaching first year legal writing. She's talking about from a writing perspective, you know, having all these different exemplars of all these different things they have to do and then having Graded and having a lot of the grading be like um

00:48:37.129 - 00:48:53.209

citation formatting and grammar, um, students are going to act in their own self-interest and um really spend all their time on producing that product. Um, they're not going to have the bandwidth, um, to be able to be thinking of things and reflecting and coming up with

00:48:53.209 - 00:49:10.989

the sort of transfer that we want, um, and that you would get for self-directed learning. And then finally, this comes from another, um. Legal writing professor's article and you don't have to rework the entire course. Um, you can just make small tweaks. So an example is

00:49:10.989 - 00:49:30.110

rather than having a learning objective of writing concisely, you can have a learning objective of develop and apply effective methods for improving writing style. So, again, and this really comes back to the idea of think to wrap up here, here's the taxonomy, and his idea was

00:49:30.110 - 00:49:47.613

that you're trying to Not necessarily jam in a bunch of reflections and discussion boards to um add these extra things in the taxonomy. Instead, you cover less content and you cover it in a deeper sort of way. So what he said was, um, if we include

00:49:47.613 - 00:50:00.062

lots of content, but students end up neither caring about the subject nor learning how to keep on learning, what are the chances that the student will either retain what they have learned or make an effort to keep on learning? And of course, the answer is not

00:50:00.062 - 00:50:15.875

much. But if you do things Bin's way, it will be different. So um if students learn how to apply the content, can see how it connects with other knowledge, understand the human implications of what they learned, and come to care about the subject and learning how

00:50:15.875 - 00:50:32.320

to keep on learning, it will seem much likelier that they will both retain what they have learned and continue to enlarge their knowledge after the course is over, and that is sort of the hope and the inspiration behind Fink's taxonomy. And um that's a little over,

00:50:32.399 - 00:50:49.840

but that's um what I have, and again, I have that um QR code if you're interested in the annotated bibliography. Thank you so much, and you already anticipated my first question, which is, uh, folks, we're, we're looking for the QR code again after we moved from

00:50:49.840 - 00:51:07.000

the title slide. Thank you, thank you for anticipating that need, um, and including it here. Um, uh, thank you so much. Uh, I'm gonna, the, the, the floor is open for your questions. So, uh, while we are, uh, while you might be typing those up, um,

00:51:07.679 - 00:51:24.860

Oh, wait, we have something here we go. Um, we have our first question. Um, with AI being so prevalent in academia now, how much of the lesson plan would you dedicate to learning about using and mastering AI assisted research? 50%, 30%, etc. Um, I will say,

00:51:25.189 - 00:51:45.370

yeah, it just depends, um, the way we have been teaching it here, um, we, again, we want to start with the foundational skills, I think, um, so, We've been teaching AI in the 1L program really just um at the end. I had two sessions dedicated to

00:51:45.370 - 00:51:57.889

it. Now, I had weaved it throughout, so like whenever we were talking about coming up with search terms, I showed them that they could use AI for search terms. And when we were talking about case law, I showed them that they can, you know, query it

00:51:57.889 - 00:52:13.040

for these summaries, but then also explained, you know, you have these headnotes here and you can actually read the case and that it may not be the most useful thing. So, um, where it's going, I don't know. I do think one of the things that comes

00:52:13.040 - 00:52:28.760

from Fink is this idea of, I spend a lot of time in my class, um, We started off with like an exercise which came from a AALL program where I put up, you know, sort of, you know, are you sort of a skeptic or a doomer

00:52:28.760 - 00:52:44.889

or an enthusiast, and then I had them do a private canvas survey, and most of them took it very seriously and answered it. Um, then we also had a discussion board where I had a lot of readings related to, um, AI in practice and just in

00:52:44.889 - 00:53:02.120

general. And then for the final project, I had them, they could do one of two reflections, either reflect on AI, um, or they could reflect on just takeaways, um, writing to the next class, what are, you know, their takeaways from legal research. So I really do

00:53:02.120 - 00:53:16.840

think that I'm kind of playing into the Finks value sort of thing. Our students really, I mean, this is impacting their life, their career, just at the very beginning of their career, so they have many thoughts, I found out. So, um, in addition to just teaching

00:53:16.840 - 00:53:35.729

them about AI and what it is, um, really making a space for that, I think is really important. I completely agree. Um, I, I think a lot of times, perhaps even it's not us, but our administrators assume that students all think a certain way about new

00:53:35.729 - 00:53:55.929

technology, which is not true. Um, another question, um, what has student feedback revealed since you made the shift towards Fink in your own teaching? Um, now, I will admit I have not fully implemented Think. I've been working on the, um, you know, paper, but I do

00:53:55.929 - 00:54:13.159

have some things that are very think-like that I have done. One of which is this idea of, um, you know, making space for their feelings, their values, their ethics, and AI. I think that's very think-like. Another think-like thing I've always done is, um, in the one

00:54:13.159 - 00:54:31.000

hour class, this goes to both interest in learning how to learn. I have one month where they follow a news feed, so it's either a Law 360 feed or Bloomberg Law or Westlaw Today where they're learning about a subject that they're interested in because in one

00:54:31.000 - 00:54:43.935

hour you never, you know, so much of it's, you know, just pre-canned, so this is something. Where they get to have some sort of thing that is tied to their interests. It's also learning how to learn. I tell them, you know, when you're practicing, the reason

00:54:43.935 - 00:55:00.760

Law 360 exists is because practicing learners, lawyers have to learn about their subject matter. So that's a very think-like thing I do. And then like maybe one other think like thing I do and in terms of student feedback, most students like that. I've had a lot

00:55:00.760 - 00:55:15.600

of students tell me that it's been useful in job interviews, so they can sound like they're really in tune with things and they're keeping up with things and they have like something to talk about in the interview. Um, and then also, um, when I teach regulatory

00:55:15.600 - 00:55:32.239

law, um, I do do this thing where the second class is just regulations.gov, which I really don't think they're going, most of them are going to be using, but looking at the comments and seeing, you know, organizations and how the sort of sausage gets made in

00:55:32.239 - 00:55:50.060

the regulatory environment, I think it really kind of brings it alive to them, and they really seem to enjoy that. Thank you so much. Um, probably related again, thinking to your own teaching experience, a questioner asks, have you incorporated ideas about enriching the why in research

00:55:50.060 - 00:56:09.290

logs, and how have you done so, if so? I have not, um, in part because, um, in our one hour, most of the, um, big assignments are standardized, so we have a research vlog, but it's like, um, everybody has the same one. I am intrigued by

00:56:09.290 - 00:56:27.189

the, um, um, Alison Drake's, uh. Um, paper, and I have not done it, but I would really think that, you know, that is one way of incorporating the why. Now, we do a lot of questions for the why. A lot of our, um, things on the

00:56:27.189 - 00:56:43.840

um assessments we'll ask a lot of why sorts of questions. We have a lot of reflection, and that is one thing I worry about with think and just this sort of move towards these sorts of um internal things. I think we're may be reflecting students to

00:56:43.840 - 00:57:01.649

death. I guess I feel like there's some um performative um reflections that you sort of get the right answers to, so you do want to balance there. So I do think that's, that's one challenge. Uh, that kind of tees up the next question that I had,

00:57:01.750 - 00:57:17.340

which was when I thinking about a lot of the kind of the, the, the think specific kind of elements of this taxonomy, it feels very subjective. Um, I feel this way about A lot of anxiety I have around professional identity formation. What are your thoughts about

00:57:17.350 - 00:57:30.270

kind of the assessment piece when we're assessing something that is so personal and internal to the learner? Yeah, and I think I, I listened to an interview that he gave late in his career, like he was in his mid-70s. He said that, you know, every single

00:57:30.270 - 00:57:44.199

time he does this, that's like the first question he gets, um, is assessment because, you know, the nice thing about Blooms is you do have this measurable, smart goal that, you know, exactly what the ABA is looking for. Um, these other things are important, but, um,

00:57:44.209 - 00:57:58.969

in terms of assessment, um, there's a couple of things you can look at. Um, you can get feedback without grading. Um, a lot of times you end up doing essentially completion grading when it comes to reflections, which is where we get into the whole problem with

00:57:58.969 - 00:58:21.320

law schools and curves and, um, grading and that sort of thing. Um, also, um, not everything necessarily has to have an assessment, which is, um, there are varying, um, Thinking on that, in the annotated bibliography, there is a fantastic article by a bunch of people from

00:58:21.320 - 00:58:38.750

very fancy medical schools who are talking about this very question where they, you know, they're working with people in residencies, and they have a lot more experiential learning. And so one of the quotes that came from that is that the adage is that assessment drives learning.

00:58:39.159 - 00:58:56.439

Well, Yes, it does, but it's not the only thing that drives learning. Meaning also drives learning. So sometimes you just may need to make space for meaning-making with not really worrying about assessment, certainly not in the ranking and sorting grading assessment. But yeah, that's always the

00:58:56.439 - 00:59:14.830

big um tension with think and backward design. Thank you. I think we have time for one last question. Paul Callister says, Is there any, is there value in having students do some subject pathfinders at the end of a course under Fink or any taxonomy? Um, I

00:59:14.830 - 00:59:34.254

don't know. I personally am not a big Pathfinder person just because I come from 17 years of practice experience, so my mindset is very much that of a practicing lawyer. I do know in some of my previous. Institutions have used Pathfinders. I would say from a

00:59:34.254 - 00:59:55.370

think perspective, he would probably find value in the idea that students are sort of student directed learning. They're doing something that they are interested in. So that's kind of both sides answer. Uh, I appreciate it. Um, we are out of time, so, uh, that timing worked

00:59:55.370 - 01:00:14.100

out very beautifully. Julie, thank you so, so much for doing this and for sharing, um, your incredible. Bibliography that was so very rich, much appreciated. Thank you all for attending, and that's a wrap for our season. So Julie is our closer. I hope everyone has a

01:00:14.100 - 01:00:27.360

fantastic afternoon and that you will join us again in the fall for more important papers in law librarianship and legal research. So a great afternoon to all. Thank you, Julie. OK, bye everyone.