This week’s teaching suggestions are simple ones, but both have worked to great effect for me and both are grounded in educational research. 

Reviews 

We know that human beings learn by making connections between what they already know and what they are learning, and the stronger and deeper those connections are, the better we learn. A review of the prior class or classes therefore can provide fertile possibilities for such connections. I also know that most of the people we studied for What the Best Law Teachers Do began each class with a review. I have often provided such reviews myself, but, increasingly, I have selected a student at the end of the prior class to do the review of that session for the following class session. (I make sure I look over the student’s review presentation before the next class to make sure the presentation is clear and accurate and less than five minutes long.) If you would like to see the criteria I provide students for their reviews, email me.

Warmups

This idea, which I borrowed from one of the faculty I studied for What the Best Law Teachers Do (I cannot recall which one), involves beginning a class by asking students to work in pairs and discuss their key “takeaways” from the assigned readings. I give them three to five minutes. As a result, every student in every class session has the experience of actively discussing the readings with a peer. Moreover, these “warmup” conversations help students feel more comfortable speaking about the readings.