Teaching and Learning Law Resources for Legal Education Professor Barbara Glesner Fines University of Missouri - Kansas City School of Law

Teaching Law: For Peer Teachers

Teaching Law: For Faculty

Learning Law: for Law Students

Updated August 1, 2007

   PEER TEACHING --

RESOURCES FOR TEACHING ASSISTANTS AND STUDY GROUP LEADERS

Professor Barbara Glesner Fines
University of Missouri _- Kansas City School of Law

• BEING A PEER TEACHER: ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES
• Peer Teaching: Roles, Relationships and Responsibilities
  (UMKC Seminar in Legal Education)
• Study Groups: The Basics of Planning and Conducting a Study Session
  (UMKC Seminar in Legal Education)
• Guide for Graduate and Teaching Assistants (University of Missouri)

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    TEACHING LAW
-- GENERAL RESOURCES FOR THE TEACHING OF LAW

• Academic Support

• Handbooks for Teaching and Teaching and Learning Centers

• Teaching for Diversity (Includes Learning Styles Information)

• Teaching Techniques for Active Learning

• Back to School: Courses & Materials in Learning Theory

• Technology and Teaching

• Teaching & Faculty Development

• To Read More About It: Teaching Resources & Newsletters

ACADEMIC SUPPORT WEBSITES

· AALS Section on Academic Support

· LSAC:  the Law School Admission Council

o Materials available from 1996 LSAC Northeast Regional Academic Support Workshop

· Law School Academic Support Blog

TEACHING HANDBOOKS AND CENTERS FOR TEACHING & LEARNING

• A Compendium of Suggestions for Teaching with Excellence (by Barbara Gross Davis, Lynn Wood, Robert C. Wilson, U. Cal. – Berkeley. The compendium is broken into twenty-five basic guidelines for effective teaching, each of which contains very specific examples and suggestions.)
• Teaching Handbook
  (University of North Carolina Center for Teaching & Learning. The handbook includes chapters on course planning and teaching and on evaluation.)
• Teaching Tips
  (University of Nebraska – Lincoln. A fine collection of tips for planning, teaching and evaluating college courses, including such items as “learning students names” and “101 Things You Can Do the First Three Weeks of Class”)
• Teaching Tips
  (Another outstanding compendium of teaching tips from the Illinois State Center for the Advancement of Teaching)
• IDEA Papers

From the Individual Development and Educational Assessment Center (IDEA), research papers on a variety of teaching subjects

TEACHING FOR DIVERSITY

• Diversity and Complexity in the Classroom: Considerations of Race, Ethnicity & Gender
  (Barbara Gross Davis, Univ. Calif. Berkeley, part of the Jossey-Bass Tools for Teaching Series).
• The Impact of Expectations on Teaching and Learning Law
  (Professor Barbara Glesner Fines, 38 Gonzaga L. Rev. 89 (2002/03)
• Teaching for Inclusion
  (University of North Carolina)
• Teaching Tolerance
  (Southern Poverty Law Center)
• Richard Felder's Learning Styles Page
• VARK Learning Styles Inventory
• Go Back to Faculty Resources Menu

TECHNIQUES FOR ACTIVE LEARNING: CLASSROOM ASSESSMENT, SMALL GROUP LEARNING, & DIALOGUE

• Classroom Assessment Techniques in Legal Education
  (B. Glesner Fines, UMKC, How to know what (and whether) students are learning in the classroom.)
• Law School Exams and Other Methods of Assessment
  (Prof. Gerry Hess, AALS New Law Teachers Workshop, 2001)
• Competition and the Curve,
  (Prof. Barbara Glesner Fines, 65 UMKC L. Rev. 879 (1997).Discussing the trade offs in educational terms of competitive grading structures)
• Classroom Assessment Techniques
  Compendium from Southern Illinois University

· Teaching with Small Groups
(Prof. Glesner Fines, Essay on using small groups in teaching law classes)

· Team Based Learning
(Interactive website introducing team learning methods developed by Larry K. Michaelsen, David Ross Boyd Professor of Management, Univ. Oklahoma)

· The Cooperative Learning Center
(University of Minnesota, includes cooperative learning newsletter)

• Questions and Answers in Law School Teaching
  (B. Glesner Fines, UMKC, Asking questions to generate effective learning)
• Active Learning Site Research Summaries

BACK TO SCHOOL -- ON-LINE COURSES IN EDUCATION & BASICS OF LEARNING THEORY

• Explorations in Learning & Instruction: The Theory into Practice Database
  (My favorite site for quick references on learning theory. Provides a summary of most major theories of learning and instruction created by Greg Kearsley, an adjunct professor in the School of Education and Human Development at the George Washington University))
• How People Learn - Brain, Mind, Experience, School
  (John D. Bransford, Ann L. Brown, and Rodney R. Cocking, editors)
• How People Learn:  Bridging Research and Practice
  (M. Suzanne Donovan, John D. Bransford, and James W. Pellegrino, editors)

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TECHNOLOGY IN TEACHING

· CALI - The Center for Computer Assisted Legal Instruction

· EDUCAUSEThe association for managing and using information resources in higher education. A nonprofit consortium of higher education institutions that facilitates the introduction, use, and access to and management of information resources in teaching, learning, scholarship, and research.

· Teaching Learning and Technology Group
(An affiliate of the American Association for Higher Education)

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To Read More About It: RESOURCES & NEWSLETTERS

• The Institute for Law School Teaching  at Gonzaga University School of Law
• The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
• Preparations for the Professions Program – Study of Legal Education (Senior Scholar Judith Wegner). Read about this ongoing project to study legal education.
• ASK ERIC
  The Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) is a federally-funded national information system that provides a variety of services and products on a broad range of education-related issues; ASK ERIC is the Internet-based education information service of the ERIC System, headquartered at the ERIC Clearinghouse on Information & Technology at Syracuse University.
• Humanizing Legal Education Website prepared by Professor Larry Krieger of Florida State

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   LEARNING LAW
-- GENERAL RESOURCES FOR THE STUDY OF LAW

Study Strategies

• Law School Materials for Success
  (Prof. Glesner Fines - UMKC Law School Summer Academic Enrichment Program Materials)
• How to Study for and Take a Multiple Choice Exam
  (University of Victoria)
• Procrastination Research Group
  (Carleton College, Ideas on How to Avoid Procrastination in Study)

General Study Skills Sites

• Stress & Anxiety
  Counseling Center, University at Buffalo
• Study Strategies Homepage
  (University of Minnesota Duluth)
• Study Skills
  (Virginia Polytechnic University)

General Law Student Sites & Articles

• Perspectives on Law School Education : Why It’s So Hard and What to Do About It
  by Professor Glesner Fines (UMKC)

• Letter to a Young Law Student
  by Emeritus Professor Corinne Cooper (UMKC)
  
• Ten Instructions for Briefing Cases
  by Professor Paul Bateman (Southwestern Law School )
• The 'Lectric Law Library Study of Law Study

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