With a pandemic, a war, structural racism, and the fragility of democracy crowding the headlines, Michael R. Koval has have been reexamining his role as professor and the objectives, procedures, and assessment mechanisms of his classroom activities and assignments. For reasons described in the article, the assignments that resonate with him today,…

Students love to hate group projects. Not surprisingly, one of the most ubiquitous complaints about college on social media often centers on group projects. Despite the seemingly deep-rooted distaste for group projects, instructors and employers alike agree that students must be equipped with the skills of communication, teamwork, and critical…

The forbidden-laptop zone is territory into which few professors dare tread. Students have been known to protest when laptops are banned from a classroom, and even claim that they are being denied a proper education. Professors who have taken the bold step, though, sound like they've experienced an epiphany. A professor at the University, Don…

It is proposed that the most interesting ethical problems arise from the use of legal skills within the system, and a curriculum for teaching ethics in a contracts course is outlined. The approach uses personal morality to resolve ethical issues that are unresolvable by application of the Code or Rules. (MSE)

An approach to teaching legislative drafting uses limited traditional classroom instruction and intensive exposure to the process of legislative drafting through a classroom simulation in which students revise the Massachusetts criminal code. (MSE)

Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations" does not simply tell about instruction, it shows instruction in action. However, the instruction is indirect, or latent, and often uses stories. This method of teaching places substantial responsibility on the student and creates an equality between teacher and student. (MSE)

In law school, focusing on legal storytelling might relieve student boredom and alienation, teach lawyers to tell better stories on clients' behalf, draft fairer imagined worlds in legislation, and shape thoughtful master narratives from the bench, and promote livelier legal scholarship and interdisciplinary collaboration. (MSE)

A year-long simulation of a single case supplements a traditional civil procedure course at Georgetown University. Experience with the approach suggests that design features can reduce the burdens on the instructor without reducing course effectiveness, making the approach feasible even with larger classes. (MSE)

Although statutes, not common law, have become the dominant source of law in the United States, the time and intellectual energy most law schools devote to legislation and interpretation is inadequate. Teachers of evidence courses are uniquely positioned to change this through creative instructional use of the Federal Rules of Evidence. (MSE)

An experimental first-year course in administrative law integrated several instructional approaches: text, lectures, research, in-depth study of a specific agency, appearances by agency representatives, and in-depth study of a case handled by the school's clinic, including classroom visits by key figures in the case. (MSE)

Criticisms of legal education are examined, and the use of more systematic instructional design to improve legal instruction is proposed. The instructional design process is outlined, including performance analysis, task analysis, skills analysis, and the writing of performance objectives. Potential problems are also discussed. (MSE)

Despite student preconceptions, basic antitrust doctrine is easy to convey in a health law course. In either a survey course or one specifically devoted to the application of antitrust principles to the health industry, medical peer review provides an excellent case study. (MSE)

A law school professor describes her approach to teaching Contracts through the analysis of actual contracts instead of through case briefings. Considered are educational objectives of the Contracts course; the five discrete methods commonly used to teach Contracts; why the author's approach is more successful in integrating theory doctrine, and…

A course focusing on bankruptcy reorganization uses simulation and role-playing to increase the depth and speed of students' comprehension of the substantive concepts inherent in reorganization proceedings and their place in the process. (MSE)

It is proposed that simulations outside an overtly legal context are valuable for law students, permitting them to understand the extent to which their everyday social behavior constitutes desirable professional behavior. Eight specific simulation topics are suggested. (MSE)