Category: Uncategorized

  • SLS Conference, session 2

    The second session started with Amanda Zacharopoulou, describing the experience of pre-arrival activities at the University of Ulster Law School She described the process of developing induction activities for students, and particularly pre-arrival activities.  Through evaluation they found: the majority of students felt confident to study law; students felt studies advisers were encouraging and supportive;…

  • Indyref 2

    Well, I’ve spent the nine hours or so of this day’s morning here in Glasgow watching Europe beginning to unravel.  Desperately sad. Huge implications for Scotland.  I voted remain, along with the rest of Scotland, and in 2014 voted yes in indyref but was in the minority then.  See this blog post and this article. …

  • Legal Education Research Network workshop

    I was asked by Pat Leighton to contribute to the LERN workshop today at IALS, ‘Effective dissemination of research findings’, so am focusing on ‘New media and digital research literacies for legal educators’, a session I gave last year and which I’ve updated.  Slides as usual at the tab above and at Slideshare.  One very…

  • Imagination and legal reasoning, session 3

    I’m chairing this (predominantly pedagogy) session so comments will be short.  Useful paper by Paul Harris on developmental psychology.  Causal thinking is often influenced by counterfactual thinking — explored by psychologists in the late eighties eg Wells & Gavinski 1989, particularly with regard to children’s development.  He cited Harris et al 1996 (cited here).  He…

  • Imagination & legal reasoning, session 2

    Firt up, Suzanne Keen.  She’s a narratologist, written on empathy and the novel, amongst much else.  She contrasted immersion with perspective-taking and role-taking, and defined various forms of empathy.  Machiavellian empathy — evolved behaviour, eg psychopaths demonstrate it a lot; self-empathy, where you deal with threats by imagining what they will do to you; fantasy…

  • Imagination and Legal Reasoning: History, Theory, Pedagogy

    Maks Del Mar, Simon Stern and I had the idea, quite a while back now, to hold a series of workshops, internationally, on the subject of legal reasoning.  But not only legal reasoning, but the concept as within the context of other disciplines, other bodies of knowledges and practices.  The workshops and background information are…

  • Third National Symposium, day 3: plenary panel: assessment tools for practice skills and final thoughts

    First session today, David Thomson and me talking about ‘Assessment tools for practice skills’. First up, David, second me.  My slides are up in the usual place, under the Slides tab, and at Slideshare.

  • Third national symposium: small group session: Assessment of reflective papers

    This session was facilitated by Jodi Balsam and Susan Brooks.  After general introduction, we then identified contexts and goals for reflection practice and assessment.  We then discussed criteria for assessing — being specific, detailed, examples, insights, implications for future action, etc.  We then discussed two pieces of reflective writing from reflective papers.  The facilitators then…

  • Third National Symposium: Interdisciplinary approaches to assessment

    Next up we have a plenary session, this time exploring interdisciplinary approaches to assessment.  There’s Colleen Gillespie, Director of Evaluation in the Program for Medical Innovations and Research.  And Adina Kalet, Co-director of the same program, and Sondra Zabar, also from that program.  Their title slide has a wonderful nineteenth-century title-page prolixity about it: Assessment…

  • Third National Symposium: Remembering Robert MacCrate — Randy Hertz

    Stephen Ellmann introduced this lunch session, with Randy Hertz describing Robert MacCrate, who died earlier this year, and his legal educational achievement, largely but by no means only the MacCrate Report.  How did he accomplish what he did on the famous Task Force?  He built the group, drawing together the academy and practice worlds.  He also gathered…

  • Third National Symposium on Experiential Learning in Law, Saturday am: small group sessions

    Just spent a fascinating two days at Osgoode Hall, talking to staff there about many aspects of legal education.  More of that later.  But it’s Saturday, New York Law School, and day 2 of the above Symposium.  David Thomson invited me along to a panel on assessment tools for practice skills, which we’re doing tomorrow.…

  • Directions conference, final thoughts

    At the conference dinner Dean Chris Gane offered his closing remarks.  Legal education was fast-changing; the pace of change increasing.  Having said that, he observed that he hadn’t expected to see the glossators (who put in an appearance on my slides as an early example of knowledge disintermediation).  He noted that the conference had introduced…