Journal of Academic Development and Education JADE Issue 10 | Page 86

ARTICLE #6 | 87 86 | JADE FABIENNE EMMERICH & ASH MURPHY or the tutorial a print out of the judgment. There had been specific instructions to do so. And second, after we gave them a paper copy of the case headnote (a one page summary of the key facts and rulings) the majority of students were reluctant to work with the paper copy. First puzzle: in our teaching we noticed that an increasing number of students clearly demonstrate a preference for digital or screen reading. This may be for various reasons: from ease of access to digital texts through electronic reading lists to the cost of printing for students as well as for the environment. We have also observed a significant move from students reading on laptops to exclusively using smartphones as a one-stop shop device for researching, reading and note taking. Long academic texts, judgments, articles or books are designed with paper in mind. Rose (2011) focuses on the experiences of screen reading texts designed for paper. E-books and .pdf documents’ page structures are experienced as inhibitive and irritating. The page that is so functional and integral to the experience of typographical space, on screen breaks up the text and disrupts the flow. Rose (2011) also finds that focus or getting in focus is straightforward when reading paper texts. But when reading digitally focus is a continual effort. There are a number of things that divert our attention. For instance digital reading requires us to swipe or scroll, so part of our brain function is diverted to co-ordination. Moreover the reader has to locate the change of the line after the scrolling of the page (Rose, 2011). 6 Other research has suggested that students tire more easily when reading on screen and complain of eye fatigue which may lead to gaps in comprehension (Jeong, 2010). This waterfall effect of digital space works well for apps, but it makes it difficult for readers to produce “effective cognitive maps” of texts, particularly long academic texts (Li et al., 2012). Readers experience an increased sense of dislocation, problems with identifying sequence in narratives and remembering details (Mangen and Kuiken, 2014). Students’ focus on the screen first as a multiple platform and second for reading long academic texts, we argue, may be creating barriers to reading. To address this we need to encourage students to engage with paper and to support students to develop reading skills for typographical space. For typographic space is structured and framed by the static page (Rose, 2011). This creates the physicality of the text rich in contextual information, a physicality that stimulates the senses (feel of the paper, the smell of old books) and reinforces a connectedness to a scholarly community through the traces of other 6. Moreover the functionality of the screen presents a variety of distractions that need to be consciously ignored or disabled (for instance notifications). DIGITAL NATIVE FIRST YEAR LAW STUDENTS AND THEIR READING SKILLS IN A POST READING WORLD readers in the text (e.g. annotations in library books). This connects to our second puzzle: the students’ reluctance to take ownership of the paper text. During the reading workshop students had two separate pieces of paper, the case headnote and their worksheet. We found students would read the headnote and then write on the worksheet. We also noticed that many students had difficulty in understanding the facts of the case summarised in the headnote. Many of them did not annotate or mark the paper text of the headnote in any way to assist or enable their comprehension. They kept the two documents separate. Yet, taking ownership of the text is a key experience of reading on paper (Rose, 2011). We then used this insight to guide our approach during the subsequent tutorial to demonstrate the ways in which students could annotate and take ownership of the text. Angela Rhead had prepared annotated scrolls of the entire judgment that we brought along to the tutorial. We also sat with students in small groups to demonstrate how to map texts. The reading exercises were also an attempt to introduce students to collective effort reading. The purpose of collective effort reading is to create an environment of collective support where all those participating do not feel isolated to the task (Murray, 2015). Each student is encouraged and motivated to read, because the burden appears to be shared. An added benefit is that students can also discuss the reading and work through difficult concepts as a group. On reflection collective effort reading was not as easy to sell to the students as we thought. Encouraging proactive attitudes within the student groups was challenging because the benefit of collective effort reading was not immediately obvious to students. Yet, when groups did manage to participate in the exercise the feedback was generally one of surprised positivity. Reflecting on this it appears vital to further develop and integrate more collective effort reading into the module and to encourage students to meet outside of the classroom. Conclusion: Finding a Common Ground We find that by maintaining the traditional model of teaching law we are asking students to betray the world they were born into. It seems that for many students the gap between the experiences of hypertext reading to academic reading on screen or on paper is too big to cross unsupported. Our reflections of our own reading practices have shown that we adapt to particular reading environments: we are fragmentary, easily distracted and superficial readers when swiping, scanning and filtering web-based texts; yet, we work with, annotate, mark, place spatial memory markers on paper texts. We take ownership of the paper copy.