Author: Michael Hunter Schwartz
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Sparrow: Describing the Ball: Improve Teaching by Using Rubrics – Explicit Grading Criteria
Sophie Sparrow (New Hampshire), Describing the Ball: Improve Teaching by Using Rubrics – Explicit Grading Criteria, 2004 Mich. St. L. Rev. 1 (2004). This posting reaches back in time for an old favorite: Describing the Ball by Sophie Sparrow of the University of New Hampshire School of Law. It is worth the read or re-read.
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Inside Higher Ed: International Student Enrollment Down Almost 20%
Kathryn Palmer (Inside Higher Ed), Fewer International Students Came to the U.S. This Fall (November 17, 2025) One week after President Donald Trump contradicted his own policies by stressing how important international students are to sustaining university finances, there’s new evidence that his administration’s crackdown on visas and immigration is hurting international student enrollment and the American
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Teaching Tidbit of the Week: Gratitude
Gratitude is one of the significant qualities of the inspiring professors (“BLTs”) my co-authors, Gerry Hess (Gonzaga) and Sophie Sparrow (New Hampshire) and I studied for What the Best Law Teachers Do. The BLT’s gratitude takes many forms. Most significantly, they manifest their gratitude to their students for what they learn from them. The best law
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Inside Higher Ed: Listening to Military-Affiliated Students
Ashley Mowreader, Inside Higher Ed, Listening to Military-Affiliated Students (November 6, 2025):
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Short: Professional Identity Formation Courses Can Combat the Negative Effects of the Hidden Curriculum
Arik K. Short (Texas A & M University School of Law), Curative Identity Formation Themes to Counteract Law School’s Curative Identity Formation Themes to Counteract Law School’s Hidden Curriculum, 2 Journal of Law Teaching and Learning 123 (2025): Introduction . . . In important ways, the traditional U.S. law school experience—including curricular, as well as
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Teaching Tidbit of the Week: Writing Good and Fair Final Exams
Often, the teaching and writing parts of our jobs are joyous, challenging, and inspiring. Grading, however, is never joyous, and it can be painful if our students do not perform as well as we had hoped. So, this week’s tidbit offers seven suggestions for creating good and fair final exams. My next post will suggest
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Berman and Schreiner: Building Belonging and Creating Community
Sara Berman and Barrett Schreiner (USC Gould School of Law): Teaching Strategies For Building Belonging and Creating Community in Online and In-Person Legal Education Introduction Definitions of “community” abound, but according to one, “Sense of community is a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the
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Washington Post on Memory Retention
Annabell Timset: Why the brain hangs on to some memories but lets others fade Leo Chenyang Lin was on a trip to New Hampshire two years ago when he stopped to watch a group of squirrels darting through the trees. That “playful moment” stuck with him. By the end of that day, he realized he
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Teaching Tidbit of the Week: Improving Your Teaching Every Time You Re-Teach a Course
Today’s teaching tidbit focuses on my favorite, easy-to-implement tool for improving my teaching of a course each time I teach it—keeping a teaching journal. After each class session I teach, I force myself to write about the class session that just ended. Calling these post-class notes to myself a “teaching journal” probably makes too much
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ABA drops ‘minority’ requirement from law student scholarship amid lawsuit
Karen Sloan (Reuters) Nov 3 (Reuters) – The American Bar Association has altered a longstanding scholarship program aimed at boosting law student diversity by eliminating requirements that applicants must come from “ethnic minority” or “underrepresented racial” groups. Instead, applicants must now demonstrate “a strong commitment to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion,” according to revised criteria, opens
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Mitchell: Using Transformative Learning Theory to Teach Leadership
Jane Mitchell (Brigham Young University, J. Reuben Clark Law School), “That Class Changed My Life”: Using Transformative Learning Theory to Teach Leadership, 65 Santa Clara L. Rev. ____ (2025). Abstract Since the country’s founding, the legal profession has served as a springboard for some of society’s greatest leaders. But by and large, lawyers were not trained to
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Teaching Tidbit of the Week: Speedy, Frequent, and Easily Digestible Feedback on Your Students’ Learning
Today’s post focuses on in-class tools for discovering whether your students have learned what you tried to teach them that day. These tools, collectively referred to as classroom assessment techniques or CATs, are vastly superior to our normal methods for making such assessments, such as drawing inferences from body language, assuming the speaking students represent
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Katherine Kelly: The High Stakes Hypocrisy of Success in Law School
Katherine Silver Kelly, The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, The High Stakes Hypocrisy of Success in Law School, ___ Albany L. Rev. ___ (forthcoming 2026): Introduction Read for class. Pay attention. Take good notes. Stay focused. Work hard. Manage your time. These are the keys to succeeding in law school. Or so it
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Kaplan Survey: Another Fierce Law School Admissions Cycle Looms Large, Driven by Politics
The red-hot law school application boom, fueled by a nearly 20 percent surge in applicants last cycle, shows no signs of cooling, according to a new survey of law school admissions officers by global education company Kaplan.* A combined 90 percent said the 2025-2026 application cycle would be at least as competitive as the 2024-2025 cycle. Of
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Teaching Tidbit of the Week: Inspiring an Unprepared Student to Prepare for Future Class Sessions
I wish to thank the AALS for inviting me to contribute to this blog and to Paul Caron for his hundreds of hours of service writing the blog all these years. As I reflected on what I might have to contribute to a blog that has delivered so much valuable content, I decided that I