The 2024 Teaching the Teachers Conference for Law Librarians took place May 30th and 31st at Penn Carey Law. I was part of the planning team (see below for a list of all the amazing members of the team) and attended the conference. An overarching theme throughout the planning process and the conference was the importance of setting students up for success. Whether we’re teaching a semester-long course or presenting a one-off session our goal as an instructor is student success, but setting all students up for success can be daunting. Every student enters law school with unique educational, socio-cultural, and other experiences that influence how they learn. Our approaches to teaching need to account for these unique experiences and how they impact learning.
Below are just a few things I learned during the conference that can help create learning environments to help all students succeed.
Trauma-Informed Teaching is Simply Good Teaching
Brian Flaherty of Boston University School of Law opened the conference with a presentation on trauma-informed teaching. He discussed how trauma causes physiological changes to the brain that can negatively impact how people learn and framed trauma-informed teaching as an equity issue. He also provided classroom adaptations we can make to better meet the needs of all our students. For more information, see Brian’s helpful research guide, Trauma-Informed Practices in Law Libraries and Classroom Instruction.
Discussion Boards Can Expand Student Engagement
Julie Tedjeske Crane of Penn State Dickinson Law presented on best practices for discussion boards. I was looking forward to this presentation because I struggle with using discussion boards effectively. Julie’s presentation highlighted ways to make discussion boards a place to engage students, help students develop skills, and feel less like busy work. I’m particularly interested in possibly using an initial engagement type of discussion board for my Introduction to Legal Research class. An initial engagement type board is a pre-class discussion board where students engage with materials before class and is a way to ensure students are reviewing pre-class content.
Creating a More Inclusive Classroom Benefits All Students
The final presentation was with Mari Cheney of Perkins Coie, LLP and Annalee Hickman Pierson of BYU Law. They discussed how to create a more inclusive classroom for neurodivergent students and provided concrete ways to structure courses to ensure all students have opportunities to succeed. For example, when planning in-class assessments provide clear instructions, use step-by-step questions, and be aware of the noise levels in your classroom. They also recommended using a timer – such as EasyTimer for PowerPoint – so students can see how much time remains to complete the in-class work. For PowerPoint slides or other presentation software, they recommend using visuals that correspond to the content discussed. So, as much as I might want to include a picture of a cute kitten wearing a beret on my slide about the Maryland Code, the incongruency may cause cognitive confusion and impair learning.
These are just a few highlights from the 2024 Teaching the Teachers Conference. There’s no way to capture every important insight, but, fortunately, there are other opportunities to learn ways to help students succeed through webinars, articles, presentations at the AALL Annual Meeting (many of the presenters from this year’s Conference are also presenting at the upcoming Annual Meeting), and – of course – the 2025 Teaching the Teachers Conference. The 2025 Teaching the Teachers Conference will be the Beginners’ Bootcamp format for newer or returning law librarian instructors. It will be hosted at my library – the Thurgood Marshall Law Library, University of Maryland Carey School of Law – in beautiful Baltimore, Maryland.
2024 Conference Team
Laura Ax-Fultz
Jennifer Chapman
Alyson Drake
Becky Mattson, Chair
Kerri-Ann Rowe
Olivia Smith Schlink
Teresa Tarves
Genevieve Tung
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