For this week’s post, I am rearticulating my teaching philosophy. Writing my teaching philosophy is more than an exercise for me. I am returning to the classroom full time this fall for the first time since 2013, and I am writing my teaching philosophy to center myself on my teaching values. I have been troubled by the terminology we use for deans who resume full-time teaching. I reject the idea that I am “stepping down” or “retreating to” faculty. Instead, I see myself as coming home to the work that I begged to do in 1991 and working to become a better version of my teaching self. As a result, today’s post is my most deeply personal so far. Here goes.

I believe the only measurement of whether my teaching is effective whether my students are learning. Consequently, it is more important that I do everything I can to assess, as often as possible, whether most of my students are learning. I believe in knowing my students as individuals, even in large classes. Knowing my students helps them understand that my care for their success in my class is genuine, and it allows me to better tailor my hypotheticals and support to their individual needs. I believe my investment in my students must be genuine; when they feel invested in, they will choose to invest.

More generally, I need to be genuine in every way. I believe human connections often come from sharing vulnerability, and I strive to authentically and appropriately share some failures and missteps with my students so they understand me and understand that they do not have to be perfect— neither as students nor as lawyers. 

I strive to manifest my adoption of a growth mindset as a teacher by seeking students’ feedback (anonymously for them) and making real-time changes to my teaching based on that feedback. For similar reasons, I believe in acknowledging my mistakes, how they happened, and what I will do to avoid those mistakes in the future. More generally, I seek to continuously improve as a teacher for as long as I continue to teach.

I also believe that fun, laughter (only at my expense), and play are teaching tools. They help students want to stay engaged by ensuring that the learning experience includes joy. 

On a related note, I believe in celebrating every student success I observe or learn about, including insightful student responses to questions or hypotheticals; student successes in internships, competition teams, and student government elections; and student landmarks in life, such as weddings, children, or children’s accomplishments.

I believe I need to have a very high level of expertise in my subjects, but I also need to always be cognizant of the fact that the reason I know more than my students is that I have had so much more time on that task and because it is my job to have that expertise. My students are never inferior or ignorant; they are learning and growing. And I believe that every student learns so much in law school!

I seek to use a wide variety of teaching techniques, to obtain students’ input into the teaching techniques I do use and into how I use them, to implement that feedback (as long as I believe it will enhance learning), and to try new things every time I re-teach a class I have taught before. I will always try to include any teaching technique for which a student asks, as long as I believe it will work to produce learning.

I believe that students learn by making connections between what they already know and what they are learning, which means that most class sessions should begin with a highlight review from the prior class and most classes should end with the students identifying three or so key points. At the same time, I also believe in the pre-testing effect, i.e., studies that show that asking students to contemplate questions before they have learned the topic helps them learn the topic better.

I believe in using traditional law school Socratic-style questions as a regular teaching tool, and I believe in asking challenging questions. However, my goal, whenever I ask hard questions and call on students to answer them, is to get my students to generate insightful analysis and then feel great that they did so. Consequently, I believe in using questioning flexibly, giving students time to think and write before they respond to my hardest questions, encouraging students not to give up, and communicating my certainty that each student is capable of living up to my belief in them.

I believe that short lectures, very short stories (as long as they are not self-aggrandizing), and repetition of key points are all valuable teaching tools if used in moderation.

Finally, I believe that working to make myself a better human being will help me become a better teacher.