Barbara Glesner Fines
*UMKC School of Law*

Teaching and Learning Law
Resources for Legal Education

ü Group and Team-Based Learning

ü Assessment in Law School

ü Archive of Legal Education Articles

ü Links to Helpful Organizations, Blogs, Projects & Conferences

ü Links for General Teaching Resources

ü Learning Law- Materials for Law Students

On Team-Based Learning and Using Groups

Using Team Based Learning to Teach Professional Responsibility (pdf)

Easing into Team-Based Learning
Ideas for incorporating group work into classes in order to build toward a team-based learning course

Teaching with Small Groups How to use small groups for collaborative learning in teaching law classes.

Peer Teaching: Roles, Relationships and Responsibilities
(For UMKC Structured Study Group Leaders)

Study Groups: The Basics of Planning and Conducting a Study Session
(For UMKC Structured Study Group Leaders)

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On Assessment in Law School

Twenty Questions for Identifying Learning Outcomes in Law School A conversation menu for identifying learning outcomes for a single class, an entire course, or even an entire curriculum.

Classroom Assessment Techniques in Legal Education How to know what (and whether) students are learning in the classroom.

Questions and Answers in Law School Teaching Asking questions to generate effective learning.

Observation of Classroom Teaching Form

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On Legal Education Generally

Competition and the Curve, (65 UMKC L. Rev. 879 (1997)) Discussing the trade offs in education and professionalism terms of competitive grading structures.

The Impact of Expectations on Teaching and Learning Law (38 Gonzaga L. Rev. 89 (2002/03) Discussing the importance of high expectations and how to avoid excessive demands while maintaining rigor.

Fear and Loathing in the Law Schools (23 Connecticut L. Rev. (1991)) Discussing the impact of high stress demands of law school on learning and professional development.

Fundamental Principles and Challenges of Humanizing Legal Education, (47 Washburn L.J. 313 2008) Overview of the basic tenets found in literature regarding balance in legal education.

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Organizations, Blogs, Projects & Conferences

AALS Section on Academic Support

AALS Section on Balance in Legal Education

AALS Section on Teaching Methods Newsletters 2000 2006 2008 2009 2010 2011 (pdf)

Best Practices for Legal Education Blog

Legal Education, ADR, & Practical Problem Solving (LEAPS) Project (ABA Section on Dispute Resolution)

Center for Computer Assisted Legal Instruction

Family Law Education Reform Project

Humanizing Ideas Forum

Institute for Law School Teaching & Learning

Law School Academic Support Blog

Legal Education at the Crossroads Part I—Ideas to Action (S. Car. November 2007)

Legal Education at the Crossroads Part II—Ideas to Implementation (Univ. Wash. September 2008)

Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

International Forum on Teaching Legal Ethics and Professionalism

The Association of Law Teachers ( an International association of law teachers, publishes The Law Teacher and hosts research on legal pedagogy)

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External Links for General Teaching Resources

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.)

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

Teaching Tolerance (Southern Poverty Law Center)

Richard Felder’s Learning Styles Inventory

VARK Learning Styles Inventory

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

Instructional Design.Org (Contains the 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)(This was the text used for the 2001 AALS New Ideas for Experienced Teachers Conference)

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