ILTL

By Olympia Duhart There is a popular adage about teachers that I think of almost every single time I attend a teaching conference or workshop:  “Teachers make terrible students.” And, often, my attendance at conferences aimed at improving legal education proves that aphorisms have staying power for a reason. I confess that at times I have been less than stellar in my approach to conference participation. And I’m not alone. Look around the room at most conferences and some of the law professors and instructors who make up the audience for any given session are just as “off-task” as the students are in their own classrooms. We are surfing the web.  Doodling. Whispering to the person in the next seat.  Or just plain spacing out. But a funny thing happened last week in New York. I attended a teaching conference, and I was overwhelmed by the level of engagement and energy that both the presenters and the attendees displayed. The conference was jam-packed with innovative teaching ideas. People were taking notes and asking questions.  Volunteers were eager to share their own ideas to help their colleagues. Law professors spending the day as students were paying attention. Kudos to the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning and to New York Law School for sponsoring such a successful conference June 1-3. The theme for the 2011 ILTL Summer Conference was “Engaging and Assessing Our Students,” and the session leaders breathed life into the theme.