The new term begins soon, so I must plan this class. There is only one.. maybe 2 glitches. (note- because of the issues raised in this post, I rewrote how the course would be taught. Instead of the legal disasters arising from clients, they will now arise from disasters that befall a newly formed corporation).
- #1 I won’t be there for class 1 (because my brother is getting married in a far far away state). So, I must share all my crazy ideas with a colleague so he can teach my first class.
- #2 The second glitch is that class 2 is a holiday and classes won’t meet. So, I think I am going to make lots of video prompts and maybe use Skype to answer questions. I really need to figure this out so I don’t stress the students out with my crazy ideas about teaching and learning.
My plan is to step the students through what I would expect of them each week by doing each part (in a truncated form) in class the first week. What does that look like you ask?
Well, here you go:
- Intro: Introduce students to the class through both my colleague and my video montage- 30 minutes (b/c they need to get their book, library orientation, Moodle sign on, class overview)
- Legal Disaster: Make a video of a client (I will probably recruit my husband in the above picture) coming in disheveled and worried about his business law issue (I have to figure out a good introductory case)- 10 minutes
- Info Gathering: Send the students off to get all the information they need to solve the case (this would be done outside of class usually- AKA flipping the classroom)- 1hour
- Discussion: Bring the students back together and discuss what they think the course of action should be (usually done outside of class)
- Individual quiz: (usually done in the beginning of each class)
- Group Quiz: (usually done in the beginning of each class)
- Boardroom: Students come up with a plan (in their group) to present to the Attorney
- Meeting with Atty where the group offers their advice and whether they think the firm should take the case.
- Take the case: if the students decide to take the case, we will file motions, argue the case, ADR the case, or take any other action needed to follow through (not doing this the first day) with the client.
- Legal Disaster #2 introduced (another video of my husband, I guess)
Wow, I have a lot of work to do… better run!
*side note: each class meets for 4 hours for 10 weeks (since this is a hybrid course, week 10 is made up trhough online discussions throughout the course). Also, I do require substantial out of class time spent learning the legal themes so when they come to class we can have fun being lawyers and paralegals!
An Ethical Island 