Barbara Glesner Fines
*UMKC* *School* *of Law*

Teaching and Learning Law Resources for Legal Education
AALS Teaching Methods Section Newsletters 2000 2006 2008 2009 2010 2011 (pdf)
UMKC Law Teaching Development Program

Teaching Law:
For Peer Teachers

Teaching Law:
For Faculty

Learning Law:
for Law Students

TEACHING LAW

Organizations, Blogs, Projects & Conferences

AALS Section on Academic Support

AALS Section on Balance in Legal Education

AALS Section on Teaching Methods

Best Practices for Legal Education Blog

Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

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)

Articles on Legal Education
by Barbara Glesner Fines

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.

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.

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

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

Observation of Classroom Teaching Form

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

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.)

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)

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).

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)

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)