Welcome to Berkeley Law’s first-ever Teaching Institute!
We want to involve everyone, regardless of subject area, level of experience, or pedagogical approach. We hope to energize folks about the enterprise of teaching, and jump-start a sustained effort to increase our support for and attention to teaching. We plan to follow the Institute with two lunch time programs each semester on topics that you’d like the most. And we would like to provoke a much longer conversation about strategies to improve and innovate our teaching, including mentoring, building supportive networks, using technology, and other topics.
We’ll begin the Institute with a session on identifying learning goals for our students. Whether you teach a large class, a seminar, a skills or legal writing course, or a clinic, it is important to define goals for the course and objectives for each class session. Next we will turn to strategies to reach all of our students. After lunch, we will have two 45-minute periods with concurrent sessions focused on teaching methods—you can attend the sessions that most interest you. We’ll then turn to evaluating students and assessing their progress towards our identified learning goals. We will end with a discussion of future programs and the support you’d most like to see for teaching, followed by a reception.
We really do hope you’ll participate in the Institute. We look forward to seeing you on August 23.
The Planning Committee:
Eric Biber
Kristen Holmquist
Peter Menell
David Oppenheimer
Chuck Weisselberg
The Committee received very helpful suggestions and feedback from a group of students devoted to teaching.