Interesting article in the NYTimes today, entitled "At M.I.T. Large Lectures are Going the Way of the Blackboard." It describes how, in the past, the basic freshman physics course was taught in large lectures with little student feedback or interaction. But now M.I.T. has built two special classrooms - now used for the basic physics course, and others, that emphasize "hands-on, interactive, collaborative learning." It also reports that instead of blackboards, the walls are covered with whiteboards and "huge display screens." The teachers who have used this room have found that students learn better in this classroom than the huge lecture class.
Of course, it took a $10M donation to build these classrooms. New technology is not free, and rebuilding law school classrooms will require similar investments. But these sorts of learning spaces can help law students learn better as well. I describe this more in the LS2 book (p. 133), and a great book on the subject is Diana Oblinger, Learning Spaces.
