David,
I’m a big advocate (no lawyer joke intended) of having people work outside their discipline in these kinds of demos. If you give them something legal-specific,
they are likely to get distracted by some detail of law, and miss the pedagogical point. Give them a short one-pager on some teaching issue (or better yet, on TBL itself), give them 5 minutes to read, and then administer the RAT and a task on that topic.
I’m linking to a two-page newsletter version of a TBL description from our web site:
http://itlal.org/sites/default/files/forms/NFIU%20Team-Based%20Learning%20Final.pdf
I can also share with you the RAT questions, too, if you like. Just contact me directly, off list
Bill Roberson
University at Albany
From: Team-Based Learning [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of David Raeker-Jordan
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2014 9:45 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Intro to TBL for Law Professors -- Should We Use Familiar or Unfamiliar Material?
At the end of June, a colleague and I are presenting at a conference for law professors who teach legal writing and analysis. We have 45 minutes to introduce them to TBL. (I wish we had more time, but that's all we could get.) We plan
to introduce TBL using the RAP and application exercises.
Our first major decision is whether or not to use law-related material for the RAP and applications. Although the conferees will be familiar with the concepts and principles involved in legal writing, I wonder whether it would be better
to use material that is not familiar.
For those of you who have done one of these insanely short presentations, what works best? Do you assign a reading assignment before the presentation or do you use the first few minutes to allow participants to read the material that will
be on the RAP?
For a lot of these conferees, this will be their first exposure to TBL and I want to make sure we give them something inspiring and thought-provoking. Thanks for any insights you can offer.
-----------------
David Raeker-Jordan
Legal Methods Professor
Widener University School of Law
3800 Vartan Way
P.O. Box 69380
Harrisburg, PA 17106-9380
717.541.1996