Think about island hopping. Leave the comfort and safety of the law school island and head out to the nearest undergrad institution.
Washburn University's main campus has a Center for Teaching Excellence and Learning, and I've been fortunate enough, given my role as ILTL Co-Director, to get to know the woman in charge of the Center. Last month, I joined her and four other professors from the undergrad campus for The Teaching Professor annual conference in Boston.
The target audience members, and I would guess that nearly all of the 500+ attendees, were undergraduate professors. But the resources I found there were amazing. Apparently, undergrad professors are thinking about teaching and learning issues too!
To the extent this is eye-opening for you in the same way it was for me, I offer some ways this bit of information can help you:
•If you're doing teaching and learning research, consider expanding your search to publications outside the legal field. Many disciplines have a Law and _______ Teaching journal with great scholarly work on all aspects of teaching.
•If you're looking for conferences with some fresh (to you) ideas, consider checking out the conference schedule at your undergrad campus. [Shameless plug: Definitely keep ILTL conferences on your travel agenda, though. The upcoming conference at Northwestern is shaping up to be tremendous! And we're busy planning two more great events for next year! Stay tuned...]
•If you go to an undergrad conference, spend some time at the publishers' tables to see what kind of books and resources they have available. I saw tons of books on online learning, student engagement, creating teaching and learning scholarship, mindful teaching, learner-centered classrooms, technology, and more. (It might be the case that I bought so many books that American Express called my house with a fraud alert check.)
•If you're interested in more collaboration, reach out across campus (or to the nearest undergrad institution) to see what the teaching and learning folks there are doing. Join in their faculty development seminars, host a campus-wide teaching event at the law school, pick a teaching-related book and start a cross-campus book club. There's energy in finding kindred spirits, even if they're not lawyers.
I'll leave you with one specific classroom technique I learned at the conference in a session by Leslie Myers of Chestnut Hill College. It's called Pick the Expert. (Have you ever played the board game Balderdash? It's sort of like that.) Divide your students into five or six groups and give each group a sheet of paper from a flip chart. Have each group write on the paper something related to a key concept you've been working on. Maybe you have them create a point-heading or a Question Presented. Maybe you have them outline the elements of a particular cause of action. Or you could have them write the main points of the court's reasoning in a particular opinion. Unbeknownst to the students, you also complete the task (ahead of time) on the same kind of paper.
Gather all of the student papers, secretly mix yours into the pile, and then post them all on the walls for everyone to see. Have students evaluate each submission and vote for the one they believe best illustrates the concept or topic.
Then discuss. Why is this your favorite? What does it do better or differently than the others? What about the second-highest vote getter? What about this one that I made? I like that the exercise gets students thinking about the concept on their own as they create their answer and that it facilitates discussion beyond just "can someone tell me.... what do the rest of you think...."
Set aside a bit of time this summer to see what's happening on islands other than the law school. Good teaching is good teaching, and law professors can find great ideas and resources and energy from our colleagues in the undergraduate schools. Grab a drink with a tiny umbrella and see what you can learn from the others down the beach.
Submitted by: Emily Grant
Washburn University School of Law
More information is available at http://lawteaching.org/conferences/