Author: Michael Hunter Schwartz
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Teaching Tidbit of the Week: How to Own Your Mistakes
This posting focuses on best practices when, inevitably, we make mistakes when we are teaching. In the category of mistakes, I include: allowing typos to go uncorrected on exams and other assessment-related errors, misstating the law or the analysis of a hypothetical, forgetting or mispronouncing a student’s name, implementing a new (or even time-tested) teaching…
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AALS Webinar: AI Tools for Law Faculty
On April 15, 2026, from 2 PM – 3:30 PM Eastern/11 AM – 12:30 PM Pacific, the AALS will host AI Tools for Law Faculty, the second installment of its recently-launched “AALS/West Academic AI in Legal Education Webinar Series.” The webinar will feature an all-star team of expert panelists, Alexandria Serra of UMKC, Tracy Norton…
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The Learning Curve: The Winter/Spring Issue
AALS Section on Academic Support, The Learning Curve (Winter/Spring 2026). The newest issue of The Learning Curve is out this week, and it is filled with helpful and inspirational ideas for reaching students (articles by Dayna Smith of Vermont Law and Andrew Realon of George Washington), being student-centered as a model for teaching client-centered lawyering…
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Teaching Tidbit of the Week: Collaborate with Your Students in Course Design
This post takes a deep dive into ways professors can collaborate with their students in designing their courses topic, explaining the benefits to students and professors from giving students a greater role and offering guidance to professors inclined to invite their students to be collaborators in the design and teaching of their classes. Why Involve…
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EducationWeek: Seven Things Teachers Want Administrators to Know
Madeline Will (EducationWeek), Dear Administrators: Here Are 7 Things Teachers Want You to Know (May 24, 2023). While this short essay was meant for k-12 educational leaders, I was struck by the fact that law school faculty might wish to share similar thoughts with their deans. I have excerpted a few paragraphs to give you…
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Teaching Tidbit: Tweak Your Socratic Style
In the archetypal model of Socratic-style questioning, the professor calls on a student, asks the student to recite a case, and then proceeds to ask increasingly challenging questions until the student is no longer able to coherently explain their thinking and reasoning, thereby revealing the indeterminacy of doctrine. There are plenty of reasons to be…
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Edmentum: 15 Last-Minute Test Review Ideas That Work
Edmentum, 15 Last-Minute Test Review Ideas That Work (April 12, 2024) Finals are not really that far off. Many of those of us who choose to hold review sessions have been frustrated by how passive (aside from asking questions) the experience is for most students. This article details strategies we can use to make these…
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Edutopia: Cues to Boost Student Classroom Work
Cathleen Beachboard (Edutopia), 12 Ways to Use Cues to Boost Students’ Effort in the Classroom: Teachers can use these research-based cognitive and behavioral cues to help students feel capable, focused, and ready to work, even when tasks are challenging (March 11, 2026). . . . Research shows that the cues teachers use can either lower cognitive…
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Teaching Tidbit of the Week: “Writing Is Learning”
Many years ago, I was teaching a Remedies class to students enrolled in my then-law school’s evening program. One night, a student let me know in advance that her childcare for the evening had fallen through and asked for permission to bring her 10-year-old son to class. She assured me he was well behaved, and,…
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Edutopia: Four Ways to Use the “Fresh Start Effect” to Motivate Your Students
Cathleen Beachboard, 4 Ways to Use the Fresh Start Effect to Motivate Students: Research has shown that people put in extra effort on their goals after meaningful time markers like the start of a new year. The good news is, teachers can engineer these markers for students (October 17, 2025). . . . Research shows…
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Ten Principles of Instruction
Barak Rosenshine (Education Professor, University of Illinois), Principles of Instruction: Research-Based Strategies that All Teachers Should Know (Spring 2012). Following up on last week’s Element of Effective Teaching , which mostly drew on the teaching and learning literature, this week’s post details principles of instruction drawing on research from cognitive science and the classrooms of…
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Cult of Pedagogy: The Case for Warm Demanders
Wendy Amato and Marcee Harris, The Case for Warm Demanders in Today’s Schools (March 1, 2026). Amato and Harris effectively make the case for warm demanders, explaining what make someone a warm demander, someone who connects with students and has very high expectations, and what does not fit within the paradigm, e.g., someone who is…
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Teaching Tidbit of the Week: Elements of Effective Teaching
In Teaching Law by Design: Engaging Students from the Syllabus to the Final Exam (new edition forthcoming 2026—any day now), my co-authors, Gerry Hess, Sophie Sparrow, Olympia Duhart and I identify eleven elements of effective teaching. Below, I identify each of the eleven and offer a short explanation of each. I have addressed some of these topics…
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Teaching Tidbit of the Week: A Favorite Radical Law Reaching Idea
This post focuses on a brilliant, inspiring, and original law teaching practice used by Professor Roberto Corrada of the University of Denver Sturm School of Law. Professor Corrada structures entire courses as “whole-class simulations.” Many of us, of course, use simulations in our teaching; we have students act in role as lawyers and argue hypotheticals,…
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Edutopia: Retrieval Practice Strategies
Benjamin Barbour, Easy Ways to Have Students Review Material Frequently: Students retain information better when they have consistent opportunities to engage with previously taught content (February 17, 2026). In my first posting for today, I link to an article in Inside Higher Ed that details ten, excellent, evidence-based books on teaching for law professors. The…
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Inside Higher Ed: 10 Books for the Evidence-Based Professor
Benjamin Pacini (BYU Idaho), 10 Books for the Evidence-Based Professor (February 25, 2026) . . . I think that you can read just 10 books about teaching—and if they are the right 10 books and you read them deeply, and you deliberately apply a little of what you learn—I am willing to guarantee that you…
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The Impact of Grades on Student Motivation
Kelsey Chamberlin, Maï Yasué (Quest University Canada), and I-Chant A Chiang, The impact of grades on student motivation, 24.2 Active Learning in Higher Education (2023). Many commentators have noted that legal education, more so than our peers in medical and dental education, have designed grading systems that primarily serve legal employers, particularly private legal employers, rather than our…
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Edutopia: Frequent Review Strategies Promote Retention
Benjamin Barbour (Edutopia), Easy Ways to Have Students Review Material Frequently: Students retain information better when they have consistent opportunities to engage with previously taught content (February 17, 2026). The science of learning is clear: Students need to review material continuously. This includes material from prior lessons and chapters. All too often, teachers wait until…
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Teaching Tidbit: Harsh, Authentic, and Caring
This post focuses on two professors who teach at law schools almost 1,700 miles apart. For many years, on the very first day of one of the two professor’s first semester course, he would tell students to clear their desks, inform them that they have an examination that counts that day, and distribute bluebooks and…
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Edutopia: The Value of Soliciting Student Feedback
Crystal Frommert (Edutopia), The Value of Soliciting Student Feedback : After explicit instruction on giving feedback, students can give teachers valuable data on the effectiveness of classroom practices. (August 17, 2023) This short article is full of great suggestions for gathering actionable data and feedback on your teaching.
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Vaughan-Thomas: Using AI to Create Video Hypotheticals
Amy Vaughan-Thomas (University of Massachusetts School of Law), My Favorite Movie: Using AI to generate hypothetical short films for student analysis, Academic Support Blog (February 10, 2026). Professor Vaughan-Thomas walks her readers through a simple process (and her own journey) in using AI to create video hypotheticals. . . . Inserting a few cinematic clips…
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Teaching Tidbit of the Week: The Value of Variety in Law Teaching
Varying teaching techniques throughout a class session and course can foster greater student learning and engagement. This post develops two hypotheses as to why variety enhances learning and engagement and offers a short list of teaching techniques to supplement your Socratic-style questioning. Why Varying Teaching Methods Enhances Learning and Engagement Reason 1: Keeping Students’ Attention…
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Robbins: Reflections After Fifty Years of Teaching Law
Ira Robbins (American), Still Here: Reflections After Fifty Years of Teaching Law, 75 Am. U. L. Rev. 1 (2025). After half a century as a law professor, is it time for me to retire? Notif I can help it. I know that may sound stubborn—maybe even delusional—but I stilllove what I do. I love the…
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The Importance of “Seeing” Students
“Why Strong Teacher-Student Relationships Matter,” Credits for Teachers, September 28, 2025 This article would ideally be read in tandem with my Teaching Tidbit for this week, which also addresses student-teacher connections. Both address a critical factor in learning, giving students a sense that we see them as individuals and value them. In the complex ecosystem…
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Teaching Tidbit of the Week: If You “See” Your Students, They Will Learn
It is quite clear, as one of my other postings this week explains, that connected teacher-student relationships enhance learning. In this article published by Harvard Business Impact, the author, focusing on college students, argues that “Great Teachers Make Students Feel noticed.” Relationship is actually more important to learning than any particular teaching technique or curriculum initiative. That principle applies with…