Making Educational Videos for Law Teaching

Summer is a great time to make educational videos for your law school courses. Videos are the perfect medium for capturing short lessons. And, migrating some of my teaching to online videos frees up class time for more active, problem-based learning that asks students to put their learning to work - which, of course, is how students learn best.

Once I make the videos, I can assign them to students year after year. I've been making educational videos for more than 10 years and some of them have tens of thousands of views, from my students, but also from other law students interested in the topic. Indeed, some of my colleagues assign my videos in their courses, and I assign some of my colleagues videos in mine. It is a great way to cross-fertilize, bring new voices and perspectives into your teaching and reduce redundancies and duplication.

The primary audiences for my videos are law schools and lawyers.??But I find that it goes beyond that as well; my videos are viewed by professionals from other disciplines who want to learn the law, by adult learners, by foreign law students, and possibly others.??

Want to get started? Here are some tips from my experience.

Length: no single lesson should be longer than 6 minutes, strive to give yours within 3-5 minutes.??Shorter lessons are welcome; if you can make the point in 2-3 minutes, then do it.??If you think your topic cannot be explained in 6 minutes, then consider ways to break it out into two or three segments.??But make sure each single video can stand on its own as a discrete topic.

Content:??Remember that successful lawyering requires much more than legal analysis and reasoning (see the attached chart).??If you can, try to bring the other successful lawyering factors into your lesson.??Or devote an entire lesson to one or more of them.??And remember not to mention dates (or anything that will date the video, such a political elections or events in the news) or filming locations.?

Show us the real you:??Relate the topic to your own experience and your own development as a lawyer or law professor.??Share why you like teaching this particular topic; what is it that made you decide to do a lesson on this???Is it particularly challenging, have you developed a well-organized way to teach it, did you struggle with it as a student, is it exciting because it demonstrates the power of the law, is it something that you wished you had been taught at the beginning of your career, how did you learn it and make it stick, how did you use it in your own professional development and formation.??For example,?“this topic was challenging to me when I first started to focus on it because . . .” “this topic excites me because I see how it can be used to . . . “ “I love teaching this topic because . . . ” “I chose to specialize in this area of law because . . .”

Make the complex simple:??We know you’re smart.??We know you know your stuff.??If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be in the position you’re in.??And we wouldn’t ask you to give a lesson for the project.??So, don’t turn us off with abstractions and legalese.??Break complex ideas down, and explain each concept clearly.??Give examples.??Tell stories.??Be specific.??Tell us how these concepts relate to the everyday practice of law.

Connect with the audience:??Make us laugh.??Make us smile.??Make us cry.?

Show the human side of the law:??Each legal principle comes out of controversy involving people, real people – it could be the listener’s neighbor, friend, family member.??The law is full of emotions – emotions on the side of the parties and also on the side of the lawyers.??Yet, we don’t often see that when we read dry cases in books.??Video can make the underlying stor(ies) come alive and help us to understand that law lives and interacts with us and shapes how we act regularly.??Help the audience to understand and humanize the law.

Write out your ideas or script: You may have taught this topic a hundred times and can do it in your sleep.??But, capturing it on video is different.??You want to get this right.??The potential reach of the internet is broader than a single lecture hall.??Strive to create the best lesson you have ever given.??

Start and end strong:??Start by telling us where you’re taking us and end by reminding us where we traveled.

Rehearse:??We want the audience to engage with you.??Rehearse your lesson, including the intonation, the pauses, the places where you need to provide emphasis and videotape yourself delivering the lesson. This is a performance.??It is different from teaching a live, interactive class. So find that hidden actor within and exploit him or her.

Each lesson stands alone:??Each lesson should seek to teach a single topic.??If there is a related topic, cover it in another video.??But do not cross-reference videos, the computer software will do all of that for us. Each lesson stands alone as a finished product.

What is on screen??Adults’ attention span is about (sadly) only about 8 seconds. These are educational videos, so the typical attention span will be longer, for sure. But remember that we are all very easily distracted, so change things up during the video to keep people's attention. Try to use your own materials. If you are using other’s work, get copyright agreements.

Making videos can be a lot of fun! I hope you enjoy the process.

I'd love to see the end product. Please add the links to your videos in the comments.