Interactive Ethics Tutorial for HLS Clinical Students

A subgroup of the HLS Clinical Standards Task Force members created four illustrative scenarios of student practice situations, accompanied by questions on ethical decision making. HLS Teaching, Learning & Curriculum staff produced a proposed design, and met with clinical professors to gather input. Once design decisions were in place, the PITF produced videos of the scenes using animation software, and recorded voiceovers of the dialogue. The videos were embedded in a Captivate tutorial which included quizzes, prompts and hints for incorrect questions, links out to additional instructional materials, and a feature to track student completion. The output was a flash product that could also be delivered in pdf form. Faculty were given the option to place the tutorial within their course iSites.

Teaching Challenge:

Through the Clinical Legal Education program, HLS students represent clients in actual cases under the supervision of Harvard faculty and staff attorneys. With clinical placements in more than 30 areas of the law and the opportunity for students to create their own, HLS has more clinical opportunities than any law school in the world. Students participating in these clinics need to get up to speed very quickly on the professional ethics principles that will most often come in to play as they work with clients. With hundreds of HLS students participating in a clinic each year, an efficient and effective method of providing this essential training was needed.