5 Ways Themis Pedagogy Strategies Help Students Pass the Bar Exam

What advice would you offer to students and professors who need a better solution to prepare for the bar?

One of the things we encourage students to do, whether they’re in our program or in any other program, is to try to deal with smaller amounts of information at any given time. Our videos are presented in 15 to 20 minute segments, and this is something that is written in ed tech circles, where things should be broken into segments. Try to make the information “learner size,” so that it’s a [good] piece of information, long enough that there’s something really there, but short enough that your attention span doesn’t weigh in considerably. Whether it’s in a classroom setting or if you’re just watching a video, try to find a way to not sit and watch two and a half to three hours’ worth of videos continuously, but instead take some breaks. We build those in, where we stop the video and have some questions to do.

Even in a classroom setting, encouraging professors to break their lectures up in that style, to break every 15 to 20 minutes and do something else. We think it drives more engagement with the material and higher gains in learning. Even if you were just watching an hour-long video lecture, I would encourage students to stop every 15 to 20 minutes and ask, what am I watching? Am I getting something out of this? And do some small assessment on yourself to see if you need to change your posture in regards to that video.

Andrew Humphries is the Director of Online Learning for Themis Bar Review. In that role, Andrew focuses on improving Themis as an educational platform. Prior to coming to Themis, Andrew worked in a middle school, a venture capital firm, and as an improviser. He has taught in a variety of settings, including at Stanford’s d.school. Andrew holds a B.S from Duke University and an M.A. from Stanford.