6 STEPS TO IMPROVE CLASS PARTICIPATION

1.  Use a seating chart.
Placed in compassionate hands, [a seating chart] can be a gentle tool for coaxing even the shyest students out of their cocoons.
Strategies and Techniques of Law School Teaching: A Primer for New (and Not So New) Professors Howard E. Katz, Legal Educator-In-Residence, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, and Kevin Francis O’Neill, Associate Professor of Law, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law

2.  Pronounce students' names correctly.
Learning your students' names is the first step in knowing who they are. Calling students by name communicates respect, helps them feel recognized as individuals, and helps to draw out and include shy students in class discussions.
Tamara Glenz,The Importance of Learning Students' Names, J. on Best Teaching Practices, (2014)

3.  Use correct pronouns, preferred names, and knowledge about each student.
[The 2018] LSSSE annual report concludes, “[r]elationships with faculty, administrators, and peers are among the most influential aspects of the law student experience.” With this information, as educators, we must leverage our strengths, resources, and relationships to help students understand and navigate non-cognitive factors that can impact their success in law school and on the bar examination.
2018 Annual Survey Results: Relationships Matter. LSSSE

4.  Take attendance.
I require class attendance. I say [that] not because I think I have something so brilliant to say every second of the day but because this is a professional responsibility…. [Students] have to be [in class] not because [they] have an obligation to [the professor] but because [they] have an obligation to … classmates … to share … ideas, and [students] have an obligation to the people who are going to be depending on [them] to know how to do this stuff. Michael Hunter Schwartz, Gerald F. Hess, Sophie M. Sparrow, What the Best Law Teachers Do 145 (2013).

5.  Flip your classes.
The latest word on the use of "pre-class activities" — flipped learning — is that it improves student engagement in the class itself as well as students' assessment scores.
Dian Schaffhauser, Research: Flipped Learning Boosts Test Scores, Campus Technology (2019).

6.  Vary Your Teaching Techniques.
Throughout the class session, the students were central. One message [the professor] consistently communicated as he taught is that the only difference between him and his students is that he has been studying the material a lot longer. He used a variety of teaching techniques, including cooperative learning groups, Socratic-style questioning, guest speakers, and lecture. He knew his students’ names and used them regularly. … He explained the rationales for his teaching choices and acknowledged the demands on the students other than the demands of his class.
Michael Hunter Schwartz, Gerald F. Hess, Sophie M. Sparrow, What the Best Law Teachers Do 206 (2013).

Check out The Faculty Toolkit to learn how we can help you implement each of these strategies.