first-day

My Teaching Philosophy

I have been teaching now for 18 years. Here are some of the principles which form my Teaching Philosophy

• I try to be fair but firm. I believe that students need to learn to take deadlines seriously since Courts and the legal justice system abhors late work.
  
  
• I enjoy challenging students to expand their skills in critical legal reasoning, writing, and understanding the law, and in developing a students craft in legal writing and drafting of legal documents
  
  
• I believe students should become sensitive to the their and others' legal rights, obligations, and duties 
  
  
• I emphasize the importance of caring about the principles of justice, fairness, equality and the rule of law
  
  
• To me, teaching the law is like teaching a person to read a foreign language. It is often the first time a student is required to support their opinions with evidence, and rules of the law
  
  
• Teaching law is like teaching someone to read, first moving from knowing letters, to sounds, to phrases, to paragraphs, to ideas, to concepts, and finally, to principles
• Teaching law is filled with numerous challenges and abundant awards
  
  
• I personally get a rush when I see the "light bulb" start to beam brightly above each student's head at different times during the semester, demonstrating understanding and appreciation of the law
  
  
• I get immense satisfaction in seeing students' confidence grow in leaps and bounds and their ability to "think like a law student/paralegal/lawyer" 
  
  
• It is invigorating to see and observe when students understand the importance of understanding the law
  
  
• Students are often frustrated with the seeming vagueness, and uncertainty of the law. For this reason, I believe case based learning is the hallmark of my teaching style, along with on campus argumentation over weekly quiz questions and answers, and the student dialogues which take place weekly through the discussion forums where students become increasingly confident in expressing their opinions based upon a careful reading and understanding of the law
  
  
• I love seeing students integrate legal principles and moving to a more detailed and complex analysis of facts, the law and legal issues. I love hearing how students, having learned certain legal principles, are able to apply them in their daily lives to obtain just and fair results. 
  
  
• To be a good teacher, I must excel in what I love, and share that love with my students.
  
  
• Teaching students about the law for me is an exciting adventure and approaches a spiritual experience since it moves us all closer to justice and equality for everyone  
  
  
• I have high expectations for students. I believe that they are capable of enormous feats and have great energy, resilience, and capacity to learn and transform themselves.
  
  
• Nothing is more uniformly transformative than education, becoming educated, and learning a new skill or piece of knowledge
  
  
• Teaching and Learning is a partnership between teacher and student with both taking responsibility. I will furnish 1/2 the effort, but you, as a student must furnish the other 1/2 of the effort.
  
  
  * portions of the above teaching philosophy were adopted and incorporated from Melinda Camus, Clinical Pathology, University of Georgia and Joe Hoyle, Univ. Richmond
  
  updated: 12/25/14