UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Theresa Tarves, interim associate dean for library and information services and professor of legal research, and Rebecca Mattson, interim director of the Law Library and professor of legal research, were invited to speak at the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Annual Meeting held in Chicago, Illinois, from July 21 through July 23.
Tarves and Mattson both spoke at the session “Experience Active Learning Implementation.” Law librarians from five different law schools — Penn State Law, Brigham Young University's J. Reuben Clark Law School, University of Houston Law Center, SMU Dedman School of Law and University of Georgia Law — presented learning activities that they use in the legal research classroom.
“Research has shown that law students who engage in active learning do better in law school,” Mattson said. “The activities that we showcased are some that we have done with our students here at Penn State Law to keep them engaged during class and to reinforce the skills that they are learning.”
Tarves also presented at the session “Best Practices for Creating Hypotheticals for Legal Research,” which provided attendees with tools to create research hypotheticals that help professors generate exercises to assess students’ legal research competencies. This session resulted in an invitation for Tarves and her fellow panelists to write an article on this topic for an upcoming issue of a legal research and writing journal.
“Creating hypotheticals involves considering whether the exercises assess research competencies in ways that will meet learning objectives and solidify the concepts for the students,” Tarves said. “It’s also important to consider student cognitive load and incorporate trauma informed teaching. It can be both a science and an art to create an effective assessment hypothetical.”
The AALL Annual Meeting is a national conference attended by almost 1,800 law librarians and other legal professionals from academic, law firm, government and other types of law libraries.