First Year Academic Support
Program Workshops and Presentations
Creating
Exam-Targeted Course Summaries A course summary (often referred
to an "outline" by law students
and professors) is a personal compilation
of the essentials of a course.
This presentation stresses that the generative
process of outline production is more important
than the product produced, and explains
why no other student's outline, or any commercial
summary can possibly take the place of a
self-produced product. Students are taught
how, why and when to produce course summaries.
Manage Your Life-Time Students are introduced to the
concept that the higher orders of thinking
associated with lawyering demand focus and
concentration - and that to achieve the
life/time balance essential for maximum
focus and concentration, law students and
lawyers need to exercise their executive
management capabilities to the utmost.
This means aggressive assertion of total
control over their most personal asset -
their lifetime. During this presentation,
practical solutions are offered for the
seeming conundrum of "not enough time"
experienced by most beginning law students.
Essay Exam Answering Workshops:
Attend one each week for six weeks
Step-by-step, students learn how to answer
law school essay examinations. Week one
introduces the elemental skills, which are
built upon each week.
Working through all six workshops, followed
by attendance at Powerful Exam Answering
sessions will provide the essential information
and methods law students need to perform
at their personal best levels during finals.
Fortify Your Learning: Developing
Dynamic Flowcharts The most powerful learning tool
for many students is the self-created flowchart.
This graphic organizational "mind map"
guides you through exam-targeted analysis
structures.
The flowchart's cousin, the text-based
"skeletal outline," is preferred
by other students. Learn the whys and hows
of both - including the use of state-of-the-art
software programs.
Simulated Exams: Contracts and
Torts In the words of Joseph Glannon,
Professor of Law at Suffolk University,
and author of The Law of Torts: Examples
and Explanations, "The best way to
prepare for your law exams, once you have
mastered the basic legal rules, is to take
some law exams.
There's a big difference between reading
about chess and playing the game. If you
were going to a chess tournament, you would
prepare by playing a lot of chess.
Similarly, there's a big difference between
learning legal rules and using them effectively
to answer an essay question. If you want
to develop a facility for clearly applying
the law you have studied to new facts, the
best way to do it is to practice at it."
These November simulations provide students
with opportunities to take exams under actual
examination conditions - examinations questions
written by their own professors.
A powerful addition to each student's own
individual exam-answering study component,
these simulations "take the edge off,"
reduce exam anxiety, and provide a sound
basis for discovery of a student's exam
readiness.
