This book for law professors has fourteen chapters following a typical law school term. Chapter topics include Course Objectives, Syllabi, Lectures, Socratic Method, Differentiating Instruction, Integrating Instruction, Assessment, Multiple Choice Questions, Essay Questions, and Scoring and Grading. The book includes a beginning chapter on Pedagogy to help professors appreciate theoretical schools on education and the history of law teaching, and a concluding chapter on Teaching Vision.
The book offers useful insights for anyone who teaches law and wants to improve at it. Reflection questions and exercises frame each chapter, engaging readers to implement suggestions and designs. Exhaustively researched, the book trains readers to articulate proper learning objectives, use syllabi more productively, adopt best practices when they lecture and use Socratic questioning, make learning more visual, and create better assessment instruments, among other reforms.
Author Biography:
Nelson P. Miller is a law professor and dean who has published 39 books and many more book chapters and articles on legal education, law practice, tort law, civil procedure, damages, international law, constitutional law, university law, professional responsibility, bioethics, and legal history and philosophy. He is one of 20 law professors selected for study in the Harvard University Press project What the Best Law Professors Do. Dean Miller practiced civil litigation for over a decade and a half before joining the Western Michigan University Cooley Law School faculty in 2004. While in law practice, he argued cases before the Michigan Supreme Court, Michigan Court of Appeals, and United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and filed petitions, responses, and briefs in the United States Supreme Court, representing individuals, private corporations, non-profit corporations, government agencies, public schools, and public and private universities in his state and federal court practice, winning and defending multi-million dollar jury trials while handling civil cases in products liability, personal injury, airliner and helicopter crashes, civil rights, securities, employment, real estate, and business disputes. Dean Miller served the State Bar of Michigan on its Representative Assembly and as a member of its Law-Related Education Committee, Equal Access Initiative Committee, Criminal Issues Initiative, and Publications and Websites Advisory Committee. His public service includes writing United States Supreme Court amicus briefs for public-interest organizations, providing pro-bono legal services to individuals, and forming and advising non-profit organizations. He has also served as president and treasurer of a public charter school academy, president and board member of the Kent County Legal Assistance Center, and board member of the Heart of West Michigan United Way. Dean Miller's scholarly publications have been in the areas of torts, civil procedure, international law, constitutional law, university law, professional responsibility, bioethics, and legal history, philosophy, and education. He has published articles, essays, or book reviews in the Journal of Legal Education, Journal of the Legal Profession, Michigan Law Review, Penn State Law Review, Louisiana Law Review, New England Law Review, Whittier Law Review, University of Detroit-Mercy Law Review, Regent Journal of International Law, Journal of College and University Law, Scribes Journal of Legal Writing, Southern Methodist University Science & Technology Law Review, Cooley Law Review, Thomas M. Cooley Journal of Practical & Clinical Law, and Journal of Markets & Morality. The State Bar of Michigan recognized Dean Miller as a Citizen Lawyer and recognized him with the John W. Cummiskey Award for pro-bono service. At WMU-Cooley, Dean Miller teaches Torts I and II, Civil Procedure II, Professional Responsibility, No-Fault Insurance Law, Advanced Professional Ethics, Tax-Exempt Organizations, Health Law, and Employment and Workplace Discrimination Law. He is the Associate Dean of WMU-Cooley's Grand Rapids campus.
