Professors must involve students at a level sufficient to provide feedback and reinforcement until each pupil has acquired the intended skill or knowledge. Frequent written assignments, quizzes, labs, and client projects all serve this function. The form of the activity is less important than the quality of the interaction it generates. The key to successful instruction, then, is effective feedback and reinforcement. Feedback provides students with the information about their performance they can then use to improve their skills.
Reinforcement provides positive or negative rewards to promote student response.
Students often read only those portions of assignments covered because there is no positive reinforcement to do more. In this way, reinforcement can interfere with feedback. Students are given the best opportunity to meet the instructor's objectives when the instructor provides both good information, upon which the students can reflect on their learning, and explicit, positive reinforcement for demonstration of the skills the instructor is attempting to instill. I have identified seven principles for effective feedback in legal education. While these techniques are most frequently present in legal writing and professional skills courses, they apply equally to all law school subjects.