Engagement is everything in clinical education. All the efforts, resources, and skills of a clinical law program cannot help a student learn and improve if the student does not engage with the clinical experience. Every clinician has worked with a talented student who, at times, misses deadlines, fails to take notes, and uses copy/paste as a primary drafting technique.
Much has been written and said about the pedagogy and theory of student engagement, but the overwhelming volume of resources can make it hard for a clinician to find and apply new techniques to their existing curriculum. Fortunately, this session’s presenters have made mistakes (and had successes!) and have the funny stories to prove it.
This session will use dramatic storytelling techniques and an interactive choose-your-own adventure format to focus on 3 areas:
1. Engagement with clinical work;
2. Engagement with a partner; and
3. Engagement in the larger seminar.
It will present several engagement techniques that clinicians can implement immediately, including:
1. How to identify a student struggling with engagement;
2. How to reframe the engagement issue into an opportunity for a teachable moment; and
3. How to execute for results.
In the second half of the session, attendees will break into small groups to discuss how to implement or supplement these techniques in their clinics.
The presenters will provide participants with a one-page “takeaways” sheet that summarizes the strategies and exercises taught in the session. The sheet will also feature a selected bibliography.