Teaching Electronically: The Chicago-Kent Experiment

Certain basic goals are widely shared, relatively uncontroversial, and sufficiently important that it makes sense to ask whether computer technology can improve our ability to achieve those goals. Consider the following four goals. This Review will focus primarily on the second goal (understanding the rationales behind the rules). Of course, to improve students' abilities to achieve this goal may also improve their abilities to achieve the first goal (knowledge of black letter rules) as a knowledge of a rule is obviously a precondition of understanding its purpose.

Improving students' abilities to understand the rationale behind a rule may also improve their abilities to achieve the third goal (analyzing independently), for independent analysis builds on a prior understanding of the law. I will not discuss the fourth goal (research and writing). Computers have proven helpful here, but our focus is on the use of computers to teach the traditional substantive law courses.