2006 Mid-Year Meeting

Conference on New Ideas for Law School Teachers: Teaching Intentionally
June 10-14, 2006
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Why Attend?
Experienced teachers face challenges that new teachers do not. After years of deepening our expertise, creating materials and lectures, and working with students, we may find that we have stopped taking risks in our teaching—indeed, that we have stopped teaching intentionally, and now teach by habit. This Conference is designed to help us reexamine all aspects of our teaching and to provide many opportunities to look with fresh eyes at familiar classes.

The scholarship of teaching and learning has blossomed in recent years, and we begin by asking what it can tell us about how learning actually occurs. We then work through the steps involved in identifying learning goals; in creating a classroom where deep learning occurs; and in assessing our students’ learning. Along the way, we will examine some of the barriers to deep learning, as well as talk about using technology effectively; how to get useful feedback from students; and perhaps most importantly, how to bring the information from the conference back to your home institution effectively.

The conference goal is to provide all participants with not only new ideas, but also new knowledge, and to do so in a supportive and collegial environment.

~Planning Committee for AALS Conference on New Ideas for Law School Teachers
Arthur Best, University of Denver
Dorothy Andrea Brown, Washington and Lee University
Marjorie L. Girth, Georgia State University
Gerald F. Hess, Gonzaga University
Lauren K. Robel, Indiana University-Bloomington, Chair

Who Should Attend?
This Conference will be of interest to all experienced law school teachers.

When is this Conference?
The conference will begin on Saturday, June 10, with registration at 5:00 p.m., followed by three and a half days of plenary sessions, concurrent sessions and small group discussions. The conference will conclude at 12:15 p.m. on Wednesday, June 14. In addition to the program sessions, a reception will be held on Saturday and Sunday evenings and luncheons will be held on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

Proposals
Over 75 proposals for presentation were submitted for the Conference on New Ideas for Law School Teachers. Because the submitted proposals were so diverse and interesting, AALS would like to facilitate their wider distribution. This document contains all of the submitted proposals, except those whose authors did not wish them to be posted on the Web site.