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Workshop for New Law Teachers

June 21–23, 2001
Alexandria, Virginia

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  Teaching Nuts and Bolts

Jennifer Rosato, Brooklyn Law School and Charles Calleros, Arizona State University

  1. Getting Started
    1. Choosing a Theme/Focus
      1. Beyond teaching general principles in the subject matter of your course, consider whether you will use that subject matter as a vehicle for exploring a legal theme or jurisprudential approach. If so, this focus may influence your casebook selection, the content of any supplementary materials, and the nature of your assignments.
      2. Examples:
      • using a first-year course to examine common-law legal method, or an upper-division course to explore statutory analysis or law and economics;
      • using a Civil Rights course to examine issues of federalism, from the Reconstruction-era shift in power to the federal government to current trends favoring a shift back to the states;
      • using a course or seminar as a vehicle for examining or critiquing the law from the perspective of feminist or critical race theory; or
      • designing assignments in an advanced writing seminar so that they develop sensitivity to audience, purpose, and the demands of rules of procedure and local court rules.
    2. Choosing a Casebook and Other Materials
      1. Check for any possible constraints in your casebook selection based on materials in companion or sequential courses.
      2. Choose a casebook on the basis of quality of case selection, notes, and problems and on consistency with the theme or focus of your course. Don't worry about excessive length; you can feel free to omit parts of the book from your assignments.
      3. Consider supplementing your casebook with original handouts, which might include such things as
      • excerpts from journal articles on selected topics,
      • news reports about recent cases or events that keep the course abreast of current events and that help underscore the "relevance" of the course, and
      • questions or problems that you want to the students to ponder, either before class discussion, or as a means of reviewing previously studied material.
    3. Creating a Syllabus
      1. Students appreciate order, certainty, and predictability in their lives. They won't get those things in legal doctrine, but you can provide it in your course assignments.
      2. Two models of syllabi:
        1. Weekly Assignments - This popular approach may be best for beginning teachers, because it allows maximum flexibility. Perhaps after providing an initial thumbnail sketch of the course and the sections of the casebook that will be assigned, you can provide a more detailed weekly assignment at least one week in advance. This allows you to spend as much time on a topic as the discussion seems to warrant and to adjust total coverage accordingly.
        2. Full-course Syllabus - Once you have gained some experience with a course, with a casebook, and with student facility for digesting various issues, you may be able to develop a comprehensive syllabus at the beginning of the semester that at least tentatively maps out the assignment for every class during the semester. Even if subject to change, this provides maximum guidance for students and helps keep the course on track and on schedule.
      3. Supplements to Assigned Readings - If possible, include in your syllabus themes or questions that you want students to keep in mind when performing the assignment. For example, you might ask them to take care to synthesize two assigned cases, to critique the analysis in an opinion from a certain perspective, or to think about how the principle of a case would apply to hypothetical facts.
      4. Tool for Planning Future Classes - When you assess the progress of your classes (see section II.G below), revise the electronic file of your syllabus to improve it for teaching the same course in future years. For example, you might make a notation to add some background reading for an assignment, to cut a case that you have decided is not a fruitful part of the assignment, or to provide students in advance of class with a question that they should ponder while reading an assignment.
  2. Preparing for Class
    1. Thinking About Your Teaching Style
      1. Choose a teaching style that suits your personality. Regardless of your style, you should always demonstrate your credibility and control over the classroom.
      2. Your teaching style is evidenced in a variety of ways, including:
      -whether the students call you by your first name or Professor “X” (and how you call them)
      -how you dress
      -whether you call on students randomly, in advance, or depend on volunteers
      -how you respond to students who are unprepared (e.g., do you care at all? do you make the student look bad?)
      -whether you stand, sit, or walk around the room
      -the extent to which you engage students after and outside of class

    2. Developing Teaching Objectives

      After you have learned the law that will be covered for each class, you should create teaching objectives (which you can keep to yourself or occasionally share with your students). You should not feel the need to cover more than a few objectives during a single class, and you should vary the objectives throughout the semester. Objectives include:

      -legal rules/principles (e.g., the elements of intentional infliction of emotional distress)
      -policies/perspectives you want them to integrate (e.g., the effect of the law on fundamental values, law and economics)
      -skills that you want them to develop (e.g., factual investigation, problem-solving)
      -values/ethics that you want them to think about (e.g., conflicts of interest, confidentiality, limits of zealous advocacy)
      -critical reading of material (e.g., statutory language, synthesis of a series of cases)

    3. Using the Most Effective Teaching Methods

      Once you have determined what teaching objective(s) you want to accomplish, you need to think about the most effective teaching methods for accomplishing these objectives. Consider the following teaching methods, which can be varied from class to class. It is important not to settle on a single teaching method because your students learn differently and will respond better to some teaching methods over others.

      -Socratic Dialogue: the series of questions you create should be designed to develop analytical skills, not humiliate the students. Professor Kingsfield should not be considered a role model.

      -Problems: they allow students to apply legal principles derived from the assigned reading. Inspiration for problems can be taken from a variety of sources, including the casebook and current events.

      -Role Plays/Simulations: role plays allow students to move outside their own personal views and develop positions based on the facts, law, and other perspectives presented to them. Role plays can be done in class on an impromptu basis, or roles can be assigned to them in advance. Allow yourself to be creative with the underlying facts, the context for the role play, and the roles assigned to the students. For example, students can act as attorneys for a party, judges, law clerks, legislators, or professors. Simulations, which take more time to develop, may allow the students to stay with a fact pattern through a variety of exercises.

      -Student Presentations: these often work well in a seminar class, where students can present their own work or make presentations within the context of a role play or simulation. They allow students to take responsibility for their own learning and the learning of their classmates. To ensure quality, you may want to meet with student presenters before class and designate a role for the nonpresenters as well.

      -Collaborative Work: students in law school need to be given opportunities to work together more often. This goal can be accomplished in a variety of ways. You can pose a question or present a hypothetical during class, then ask students to talk with one another to reach an answer. Also, you can ask student experts to work together to prepare a role play, presentation, or simulation. Students even can be asked to collaborate on writing projects.

      -Mini-Papers: legal education relies too heavily on final exams, but it is often impractical to grade a midterm exam or paper for each student. One compromise is to assign a mini-paper (no longer than 5 pages) on a legal problem covered in class. You can assign the mini-paper to all students, or assign certain students to write mini-papers on different subjects covered during the course. Also, you can assign a mini-paper as a follow-up to a role play or student presentation.

      -Games: developing lessons based on familiar games such as “Jeopardy” and “Family Feud” can be effective to help students learn rule-oriented material. Games also lend themselves well to collaborative learning, as you can assign student teams to play against each other. Prizes are optional.

      -Participatory Theater: this method can be used occasionally to “act out” a case in front of the class. You or a student can act as narrator, and other students can be assigned their roles during class. It is a much more effective way to tell the story of a case than simply reciting facts, and enhances understanding because the story is told in context.

      -Audiovisual Materials: a variety of materials are available, ranging from overheads, to videos and video clips, to computer-generated lessons/presentations. Avoid too much of a good thing, however, as visual materials generally involve more passive learning. If you are using a certain type of equipment for the first time, make sure you try it out yourself in the classroom before trying it out on the students.

    4. Preparing Class Notes and Other Materials for Class

      Your lecture notes should reflect your pedagogic strategy, such as your decisions about which premises to convey through lecture and which matters are best brought out through questions and discussion. Notes can range from a skeleton outline to tentative verbatim statements and questions. Copious notes are fine as a fall-back, so long as you do not rely on them excessively but instead leave plenty of room for spontaneous give-and-take.

    5. Anticipating the Students’ Questions, but Realizing That You Cannot Anticipate All of Them

    6. Teaching the Class

      Once you have completed your preparation, it is time to teach the class. Enjoy yourself (students can sense if you like what you are doing), and make sure to give positive feedback to students where appropriate. Allow some time for questions and for reviewing main ideas at the beginning or end of class.

    7. Debriefing the Class

      Debriefing the class (either in private or in person) encourages self-reflection and allows you to improve the course from year-to-year. Debriefing is essentially an informal way to evaluate whether the class has met its educational objectives. Ways to debrief include:

      1. Writing comments in the margins of your class notes as to what worked and what did not work for you.
      2. Writing in a class journal, in which you can comment on the effectiveness of the class as well as monitor class participation.
      3. Discussing with the students what happened during class and whether the educational objectives were satisfied. It is important to demystify the learning process as much as possible. Certain techniques such as “one-minute papers” are effective for this purpose. In general, students learn from understanding why you asked particular questions or took the discussion in a particular direction, and why some answers were perceived better than others.
      4. As appropriate, discussing classroom issues with colleagues inside and outside of your institution.
      5. Revising the electronic file of your syllabus if your experience in class suggests ways to improve the assignment for future years.
  3. Engaging Students Inside and Outside of the Classroom
    1. Engaging Students Outside of Class
      1. Traditional Office Hours - Be accessible at convenient times for your students. Don't hesitate to reschedule if they appear at an inconvenient time with a non-urgent matter, but give them your full, undivided attention when they seek you out at the appropriate time and place.
      2. Electronic Communication - Through e-mail or an Internet discussion forum, you can respond to student questions, or invite them to respond to one another, at times that may be helpful to them but inconvenient for traditional office hours, such as the night before class, when questions arise during their class preparation.
      3. Beyond the Casebook - To make a class come to life, consider occasionally assigning a hands-on task that your students must perform individually or in small groups outside of class, either with your supervision or on their own. Examples:
      • finding a contract and rewriting a passage in plain English, or identifying an ambiguity in a contract and redrafting it to avoid the ambiguity, or finding a warning label on a product and critiquing it for force and clarity under products liability standards;
      • assuming the roles of judge, attorneys, and witnesses in the school moot courtroom, and videotaping a demonstration of the manner in which the facts of an assigned case may have been elicited at trial;
      • riding with a police officer to observe procedure in stops and searches; or
      • finding and photographing an example of some facet of real property assigned for study in property law.
    2. Leading Discussion of Difficult Issues
      1. Raising issues dealing with emotionally-charged matters in our society, such as race, gender, or other personal characteristics or other deeply-held values can be among the best ways to develop skills of critical analysis and to provide an opportunity for students to learn from one another. Such discussions, however, often require special leadership from the instructor. See Charles Calleros, Training a Diverse Student Body for a Multicultural Society, 8 U.C. Berkeley La Raza L.J. 140 (1995).
      2. Tips for leading discussion on difficult issues:
      • At the beginning of the course, outside the context of a particular issue, lay down ground rules of civility and mutual respect for class discussion.
      • During class debate and discussion, remind students to direct comments to you rather than to each other, so that you can act as a buffer.
      • If expressed in a civil manner, invite all views without engaging in political censorship; if students are reluctant to express a view that is important to the discussion, play Devil's Advocate and present the view for class response.
      • If a student, who violates no class civility rules, expresses a view that is obviously offensive to other students in its substance, avoid rebuking the student for holding a sincere but unpopular view; instead, ask questions that invite the student to critique the view, or ask other students to respond to explain why they disagree. Expressing your own view is appropriate, particularly when you have invited a full range of views from others.
      • Remind students to exercise particular care to communicate with civility in electronic formats; without such reminders, the separation between speakers in an e-mail format or Internet discussion forum can sometimes reduce inhibitions and lead to harsh or sarcastic messages.
    3. Dealing with Difficult or Disruptive Students
      1. Well-Intentioned Students Who Have Difficulty Coping - If a student seems to be losing the benefits of the educational program because of such things as emotional difficulties, financial problems, excessive absenteeism, extreme fear of participating in class, or inadequate preparation for the challenges of law school study, develop a strategy of benign intervention:
      • In some cases, it might be as simple as expressing friendly concern after class and showing the student that you care.
      • In other cases, you may want to refer the student to someone on your staff with special expertise, such as a counselor, financial aid officer, dean of students, or director of an academic support program.
      • In still other cases, you may be able to help by working with the student after class or developing a plan to assist the student in participating in class, such as providing him or her with a warning and special preparation in advance, or urging the student to break the ice by volunteering on some matter that he or she has carefully prepared.
      1. Disruptive Students - Try not to be overly protective of your own ego, but act when necessary to preserve educational benefits for other students.
        1. Stay Above the Fray - When faced with a disruptive student, avoid becoming defensive, losing your temper, or allowing excessive investment of your ego to guide your actions. Instead, be guided by your judgment about what steps are necessary to keep the class on track for the benefit of all students. Display a sense of security in allowing students the space occasionally to express frustration under the stress of law school or to summon the courage to challenge authority in the hierarchical world of law school.
        2. Irremedial Disruption - If a student repeatedly engages in behavior that disrupts your educational mission, speak with him or her after class. In the exceedingly rare case of a student who continues to disrupt the educational program for other students through behavior that violates reasonable and clearly communicated class rules or school policies, consult with your administration about the possibility of removing the student from the classroom.
  4. Feedback and Professional Development
    1. Student Evaluations

      You probably will not have much control over how student evaluations are administered at your law school. You probably will receive copies of them each semester, after your exam grades have been handed in. Although looking through these evaluations might be discouraging, use them as an opportunity to improve your teaching. At the same time, take them with a grain of salt. Keep in mind the following:

      -No matter how good a teacher you are, some of your students will not like you and this will be reflected in your evaluations.

      -Look for trends in the students’ answers, rather than dwelling on a student’s specific comments. Consider one or two ways you can improve the course next time, based on what most students identify as problem areas.

      -Don’t teach to get good evaluations. Sometimes the most effective teaching methods are not the most popular. Trust your own judgment as to what your students ultimately need.

    2. Peer Evaluations

      First, you should find out your institution’s culture and practices regarding observations(audits) of your classroom. Are other professors required to attend your classes? How many times per year? How are your evaluators chosen (e.g., just your tenure/status committee or any tenured member of the faculty)? Will an evaluation be written up and become part of your status review for promotion and tenure? Will you be given notice before an observation occurs? Are you expected to meet with the evaluator before and/or after the class?

      Second, be more prepared for an audited class than you are for an ordinary class. Before the class, send the reading assignment and any handouts/problems to your observer and let him or her know what your teaching objectives are. Even if you do not meet formally with your observer, find out if they have any questions for you before class begins.

      Third, take criticism graciously and talk to a trusted mentor if you think that a peer evaluation will negatively affect your status, and especially if you think the evaluation was unfair.

      Overall, be positive and proactive. If consistent with the culture of your institution, visit the class of a teacher who is respected by your colleagues and think about what makes him/her an effective teacher.

    3. Professional Development

      There are many resources available to help you become a better teacher over the course of your career. Here are some of the most helpful.

      1. Journal of Legal Education

      This quarterly publication is required reading for every law teacher. It includes articles by other law teachers discussing a variety of subjects related specifically to law teaching.

      2. Workshops and Conferences

      -AALS (Association of American Law Schools): At the AALS Annual Meeting, several programs are devoted to law teaching and you should try to attend at least one a year. The AALS also sponsors other conferences throughout the year, many of which include coverage of teaching issues.

      -SALT (Society of American Law Teachers): SALT sponsors hands-on teaching conferences around various themes, such as teaching to a diverse student body and teaching to increase student activism.

      -Institute of Law School Teaching at Gonzaga: The Institute is devoted to providing resources for law teachers. Every year the Institute sponsors a teaching conference for new and experienced teachers. Also, the Institute periodically publishes a newsletter that is full of innovative ideas.

      -Listserves: There are many listserves for law professors that allow them to share information about a variety of subjects, including teaching. Some listserves, such as “LAWPROF,” service the entire community, and others focus on certain subject areas or perspectives. Information regarding some of those listserves will be available during the conference.

  5. Keeping in Touch

    Feel free to e-mail either one of us with questions.

    charles.calleros@law.asu.edu
    jrosato@brooklaw.edu

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