Recently, Professor Michael Hunter Schwartz from Washburn University School of Law, and a contributor to this blog, sent me the following email:
Dear Colleagues,
I am in search of the best law teachers in this country, and I could use your help. I have the extraordinary opportunity to conduct a law professor-focused, follow-up study to Ken Bain’s wonderful What the Best College Teachers Do (Harvard University Press, 2004).Thus, I am writing to solicit your nominations. In particular, I am looking for teachers who consistently produce extraordinary learning, who change their students’ lives and whose instruction stays with students long after they graduate from law school. I hope what I produce inspires you as much as Professor Bain’s work has inspired me.
Over the next three years, I will be:
- soliciting nominations;
- gathering evidence of nominees’ excellence;
- paring the list of nominees to the most extraordinary law teachers;
- visiting law schools around the country, sitting in on classes, interviewing the nominees, and talking to focus groups of students and alumni;
- and then publishing what I have found in a book: What the Best Law Teachers Do (Harvard University Press, forthcoming 2011).
I have set up a web nomination process (although I will also accept nominations by phone, by e-mail, by regular mail, or in person).
To nominate a candidate or learn more about this project, please go to http://washburnlaw.edu/bestlawteachers Click on the link on the right side of the page to get to the nomination form.
To honor those who have been nominated, I have set up a website on which I will report the name of each nominee, the nominee’s institutional affiliation, and a few comments from the nominator.
Here’s a link to that website: http://washburnlaw.edu/bestlawteachers/nominees/index.php
Feel free to e-mail me at michael.schwartz@washburn.edu if you have any questions. The names of nominators and nominees will be withheld upon request.
Sincerely,
Professor Michael Hunter Schwartz
Washburn University School of Law
Filed under: Teaching Methodology |
Best Practices for Legal Education 