From Professor Michael Hunter Schwartz (Washburn), this notice and call for participation in his study of “extraordinary law teachers”:
Having signed a contract with Harvard University Press to publish What the Best Law Teachers Do in 2011, I have the extraordinary opportunity to conduct a law professor-focused, follow-up study to Ken Bain’s wonderful What the Best College Teachers Do (Harvard University Press, 2004).
I have three goals:
- to find the best law teachers in America,
- to synthesize the principles by which they teach as an ethic to which I (and my colleagues in legal education) can aspire, and
- to share these principles and stories of these brilliant teachers.
I hope what I produce inspires you as much as Bain’s work has inspired me. I have adopted Bain’s qualitative methodology. I will
- solicit nominations,
- gather evidence of nominees’ excellence,
- pare the list to the most extraordinary law teachers, and then
- visit law schools around the country, sitting in on classes, interviewing the nominees, and
- talking to focus groups of students and alumni.
I hope to complete my research over the next two and a half years, producing What the Best Law Teachers Do by January 2011.
On this web site, you will find
- a more detailed description of my project,
- an online form for submitting nominations,
- a list of nominees and what their nominators had to say about them,
- information about the teaching and learning resources that influenced this project,
- some information about my interest in teaching and learning, and
- additional information about this project.
