Professor Schwartz Recognized for Exemplary Innovative Teaching
Professor Michael Hunter Schwartz and his Contracts I and II courses have been selected by the Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers initiative (ETL) as "Innovative Courses" that serve as a model of exemplary innovative teaching. An in-depth profile of the courses, including a full description, information about course design, an outline of teaching methods, and handouts and related materials, is available on the ETL website. The website also has video interviews with Professor Schwartz.
Professor Schwartz has been teaching law for 20 years. His Contracts courses look like very traditional Contracts courses in their subject matter. However, the subjects he teaches in the courses are introduced with a law practice problem that students will be able to solve once they have mastered that subject. He attempts to get students to invest in learning the doctrine so they can do what a practitioner will do-- analyze legal problems that a client might have. Professor Schwartz uses a wide variety of teaching techniques. As a multi-modal teacher, he may use Socratic method, short lectures, small group exercises, and put students in the role of teaching each other in any given class session. Professor Schwartz continually makes small change in the way he teaches courses with the goal of making them better so that students improve their learning. "If students don't learn from the things I try, I need to make them better or abandon them," says Professor Schwartz.
Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers is an initiative of the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System's (IAALS) at the University of Denver. ETL utilizes the Carnegie Model's three sets of values - knowledge, practice, and professional identity - and seeks to encourage and facilitate innovation in legal education in order to train new lawyers to the highest standards of competence and professionalism as well as align legal education with the needs of the evolving legal profession.
Posted November 5, 2011.
