Law School Faculty Support: Faculty Support

Designed for law teachers who want to improve their teaching and students' learning, this book offers general teaching principles and dozens of concrete ideas.  The first two chapters present foundational principles of learning and instruction as well as insights from students.  The next 12 chapters address classroom dynamics, technology, questioning, discussion, collaborative learning, experiential learning, feedback, assessment, and continued development for teachers.  Each of these 12 chapters introduces the topic based on educational research and then offers classroom-tested exercises, approaches, material, and methods contributed by veteran teachers. The co-authors/editors, Gerald Hess (Gonzaga), Steven Friedland (Elon), Michael Hunter Schwartz (Washburn), and Sophie Sparrow (New Hampshire) are experts in legal education pedagogy.  Techniques for Teaching Law 2 retains the format of the first volume, but introduces new content and new ideas that instructors of any level and background will find useful.

Strategies and Techniques of Law School Teaching is intended to help you, as a new law teacher, prepare for your first semesters in the classroom. It begins at the preliminary stages of planning a new course and takes you all the way to writing and grading your final exam. Authors Katz and O'Neill offer experience and insight to the tasks of coming up with teaching objectives, choosing your book, crafting your syllabus, and creating a classroom atmosphere that is conducive to learning. The day-to-day teaching techniques in this primer for new (and not so new) professors will prepare you to successfully field students' questions, teach legal analysis to first-year students, and make the most of today's pedagogy and technology to support your teaching.

A Legal Education Renaissance suggests a model for change and provides answers to criticism of the current system by addressing curriculum, teaching, faculty, and costs.

Professors Michael Hunter Schwartz, Sophie Sparrow, and Gerry Hess, three leaders in the teaching and learning movement in legal education, have collaborated to offer a new book designed to synthesize the latest research on teaching and learning for new and experienced law teachers. The book begins with basic principles of teaching and learning theory, provides insights into how law students experience traditional law teaching, and then guides law teachers through the entire process of teaching a course. The topics addressed include: how to plan a course; how to design a syllabus and select a text; how to plan individual class sessions; how to engage and motivate students, even those tough-to-crack second- and third-year students; how to use a wide variety of teaching techniques; how to evaluate student learning, both for the purposes of assigning grades and of improving student learning; and how to be a lifelong learner as a teacher. "Teaching Law by Design should be mandatory reading for new law professors regardless of their subject matter and whether they teach casebook or skills courses. The book provides suggestions that will be helpful even to the more experienced professor... For the new teacher, the book provides teaching exercises, such as think-pair-share, that one would otherwise need to attend a teaching conference to learn about. For the experienced teacher, the book provides not only some fresh teaching tips, but also helpful reminders of sage advice, such as the value of including real life experiences (videos, field trips) into law courses... Deans would be wise to distribute Teaching Law by Design to assist their faculty in honing their law skills." -- Robin A. Boyle, Professor of Legal Writing and Director of Academic Support, St. Johns University School of Law

While there are many good books to aid those seeking a career in teaching, Miller's work seeks to fill the vacuum that currently exists in law teaching specifically. The 14 chapters, which follow a typical 14-week law school term, include the following topics: Course Objectives, Syllabi, Lectures, Socratic Method, Differentiating Instruction, Integrating Instruction, Assessment, Multiple Choice Questions, Essay Questions, and Scoring and Grading. There is also a beginning chapter on Pedagogy to help law professors appreciate the various theoretical schools on education and the history of law teaching, and a concluding chapter on Teaching Vision. The book also includes "Reflections"; short outtakes throughout the work which encourage the reader to pause and reflect on what he or she just read, as well as "Exercises" at the end of each chapter to help reinforce what one has just read. Finally, but just as importantly, Vickie Eggers has created a CD that accompanies this book. In it, she uses a Powerpoint presentation to illustrate each chapter of the book in a way that further enhances the reader's comprehension of the overall work.

Whether a lawyer considering entry into the field of teaching law or a seasoned law professor, Miller's work provides exceptional guidance, advice, and tips to help one reach his or her potential as a legal instructor.

This multimedia collection includes a paperback book plus CD. Use of the CD requires Microsoft Powerpoint on the end-user's computer (Powerpoint is NOT included as a part of this CD). Contents of the CD are for individual use and may not be added to a network that allows simultaneous access to the CD's contents.

Paul Maharg presents a critical inquiry into the identity and possibilities of legal education, and an exploration of transformational alternatives to our current theories and practices of teaching and learning the law. His work takes the view that bodies of interdisciplinary theory and knowledge of the history of legal education are important to all stages of legal education. He also argues that new learning designs - such as transactional learning - need to be developed to help students, educators and lawyers deal with the transitions and challenges facing them now and in the foreseeable future. Throughout, discussions of theory are spliced with case studies of academic and professional legal learning, particularly in the field of technology-enhanced learning. The content of the book will be updated in a community of practice wiki at http://www.transforming.org.uk, which will also allow readers to comment and expand on the book's final chapter.

The essays included in this volume began as presentations at the March 19-20, 2010 "Vulnerable Populations and Economic Realities" teaching conference organized and hosted by Golden Gate University School of Law and co-sponsored by the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT). That conference, generously funded by a grant from The Elfenworks Foundation, brought together law faculty, practitioners, and students to reexamine how issues of race, gender, sexual identity, nationality, disability, and generally--outsider status--are linked to poverty. Contributors have transformed their presentations into essays, offering a variety of roadmaps for incorporating these issues into the law school curriculum, both inside the classroom as well as in clinical and externship settings, study abroad, and social activism. These essays provide glimpses into "teaching moments," both intentional and organic, to help trigger opportunities for students and faculty to question their own perceptions and experiences about who creates and interprets law, and who has access to power and the force of law. This book expands the parameters of law teaching so that this next generation of attorneys will be dedicated to their roles as public citizens, broadening the availability of justice. Contributors include: John Payton; Richard Delgado; Steven W. Bender; Sarah Valentine; Deborah Post and Deborah Zalesne; Gilbert Paul Carrasco; Michael L. Perlin and Deborah Dorfman; Robin R. Runge; Cynthia D. Bond; Florence Wagman Roisman; Doug Simpson; Anne Marie Harkins and Robin Clark; Douglas Colbert; Raquel Aldana and Leticia Saucedo, Marci Seville; Deirdre Bowen, Daniel Bonilla Maldonado, Kathleen Neal Cleaver, Colin Crawford, and James Forman, Jr.; Susan Rutberg; Mary B. Culbert and Sara Campos; MaryBeth Musumeci, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard, and Brutrinia D. Arellano; Libby Adler; and Paulette J. Williams. The editorial board includes Raquel Aldana, Steven Bender, Olympia Duhart, Michele Benedetto Neitz, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Hari Osofsky, and Hazel Weiser.

The central message in both BEST PRACTICES and in the contemporaneous Carnegie report is that law schools should broaden the range of lessons they teach, reducing doctrinal
instruction that uses the Socratic dialogue and the case method; integrate the teaching of knowledge, skills and values, and not treat them as separate subjects addressed in separate courses; and give much greater attention to instruction in professionalism.

This workbook guides both new and experienced teachers in the steps of course design and through a process of self-reflection and decision-making so that they can be more effective teachers. It begins by helping teachers identify the primary goals and missions of their law schools, their beliefs about legal education, and their beliefs about teaching the law. Randall then helps teachers explore the factors that influence the decisions they will make during course planning, the sources they will use for teaching advice, and their overall approaches to their courses. The book ushers teachers through the various decision points in course planning: establishing course goals and objectives; selecting and arranging the content and skills to be taught; determining students' learning characteristics; selecting materials and resources, including caselaw; identifying appropriate teaching methods, including collaborative methods and online technology; and revising the course.

The Challenge of Educating Lawyers "This volume, under the presidency of Lee Shulman, is intended primarily to foster appreciation for what legal education does at its best. We want to encourage more informed scholarship and imaginative dialogue about teaching and learning for the law at all organizational levels: in individual law schools, in the academic associations, in the profession itself. We also believe our findings will be of interest within the academy beyond the professional schools, as well as among that public concerned with higher education and the promotion of professional excellence." --From the Introduction "Educating Lawyers is no doubt the best work on the analysis and reform of legal education that I have ever read. There is a call for deep changes in the way law is taught, and I believe that it will be a landmark in the history of legal education." --Bryant G. Garth, dean and professor of law, Southwestern Law School and former director of the American Bar Foundation "Educating Lawyers succeeds admirably in describing the educational programs at virtually every American law school. The call for the integration of the three apprenticeships seems to me exactly what is needed to make legal education more 'professional,' to prepare law students better for the practice of law, and to address societal expectations of lawyers." --Stephen Wizner, dean of faculty, William O. Douglas Clinical Professor of Law, Yale Law School