idealawg

One teacher: 2,670 students

Technology is creating a world many of us could barely have imagined when we were in college. Read this article from Chronicle of Higher Education to see some uses of high tech. I started to describe the uses as innovative but, although probably still cutting-edge, they are slowly becoming more widely used. Will they soon be status quo?

From "'Supersizing' the College Classroom: How One Instructor Teaches 2,670 Students":

...Conventional wisdom deems smaller classes superior. Mr. Boyer, a self-described "Podunk instructor," calls that "poppycock." He's exploring how technology can help engage students in face-to-face courses that enroll from 600 to nearly 3,000 students.

...

Boyer describes his course as an "Intro to the Planet" that brings "the average completely uninformed American" up to speed on world issues. His approach? Decentralize the rigid class format by recreating assessment as a gamelike system in which students earn points for completing assignments of their choosing from many options (1,050 points earns an A, and no tasks, not even exams, are required). Saturate students with Facebook and Twitter updates (some online pop quizzes are announced only on social media). Keep the conversation going with online office hours.

And snag big-name visitors by turning the enormous class into a digital hive that swarms them with requests. ...

Click to read the rest.

Download chapters from two books on the teaching of negotiation

Hamline University School of Law has made available (in pdf) chapters from

• Rethinking Negotiation Teaching: Innovations for Context and Culture
• Venturing Beyond the Classroom

The copyright notice from the site:

Feel free to use the chapters in your teaching and training. There is no charge for use in your teaching or training provided that copies are distributed at or below cost, you notify us ([email protected]) that you are using the material and describe the context, and you provide attribution as follows: Copyright 2009 DRI Press, Hamline University School of Law, Author and Chapter Title.

Transformative Mediation: An Annotated Bibliography

Click to read the bibliography [pdf] compiled by the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation.

"The Millennial Juror"

Excerpt:

In November 2008, the Lord Chief Justice of Great Britain, Sir Igor Judge, sounded a warning about the generational shift occurring as web-savvy citizens accustomed to getting their information online entered the jury box. Noting the consequences of this shift for the system of trial by jury, the Lord Chief Justice observed, “If a generation is going to arrive in the jury box that is totally unused to sitting and listening but is using technology to gain the information it needs to form a judgment, that changes the whole orality tradition with which we are familiar.”

Indeed, the impact that the so-called “Generation Y” or “Millennial” population is having on society at large makes it more important than ever for lawyers to understand the effect that they are having on how they communicate to jurors. Along with “Generation X” (those born between 1965 and 1981), the members of Gen Y (those born between 1982 and 1995) comprise more than half the adult population of the United States and nearly 60 percent of the nationwide jury pool.

Click to read the rest of "The Millennial Juror" (Texas Bar Journal).

You may attend my teleseminar next week if you acquire a guest PIN in advance

I am pleased to be giving a teleseminar for the membership of the Purposeful Planning Institute on May 1. The organization has been kind enough to let me invite you to attend. However, you must get a guest PIN in advance by e-mailing Julie Dorosz. There are still spaces available.

A description of the program:

Title: When Somebody Loves You, It's No Good Unless S/he Loves You ALL the Way

Date: Tuesday, May 1st

Time: Noon ET (90 Minutes)

Guest Speaker: Stephanie West Allen, JD

Description: Everything from a thought to a business to a conflict has an ALL: Ancestry, Life, Legacy. If we don't pay attention to ALL three chapters of time, we may make some misguided decisions. A chALLenge in telling the ALL stories is that they change with each retelling. So what's "true"? Perhaps the truth doesn't matter. How we relate to the stories as they are modified with time and remolded in our brains is the key.

Using conflict as an example, we will look at:

• How malleable our memories are
• How to apply CARVE to disputes (Curiosity, Attention, Reflection, Values, Emergence)
• How our relationship with our stories and thus our ability to resolve disputes can be improved by some basic knowledge of how the brain works and a higher level of self-awareness

Introduction to our Guest Speaker

Stephanie West Allen, JD, practiced law in California for several years, held offices in local bar associations, and wrote chapters for California Continuing Education of the Bar. While in CA, Stephanie completed a number of five-day mediation training programs, including several with the Center for Mediation in Law, and a two-year intensive with Center co-founder Gary Friedman. She has been a mediator for over two and one-half decades.

While in law school, she took many courses in Santa Clara University's School of Counseling Psychology.

Stephanie has consulted with lawyers and law firms for many years, and spent a number of years as lawyer training director at a large firm. ...

Click to read the rest of the description.

Videos of GLAMOROUS LAW SCHOOL: THE MUSICAL

Click to watch numbers from the musical created by students at University of Colorado Law:

• Tex's Commercial
• Opening Number
• The Library Scene
• Dating in Law School's a Mistake
• The Finale
• The whole musical

Weekend mindfulness: Make it new and hued

To be mindful and aware, you don't have to meditate. If you've attended one of my programs in which we look at attention and self-observation, you know that I show you over a dozen ways to strengthen those muscles. Here are two more ways to shift into mindfulness.

The first comes from Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer. Her definition of mindfulness is simple, but not always easy to do for any length of time more than a couple of minutes (sometimes for even a few seconds). Dr. Langer says the essence of mindfulness is: Actively noticing new things.

Another practice comes from the fun, creative, sometimes whimsical Draw It with Your Eyes Closed (excerpt from Pattern Pulp).

Color Walk

Take a color walk. Give yourself at least one hour of uninterrupted time. Do not plan your walk in advance or combine it with other activities (commuting, shopping, etc.). Try not to talk or interact with other people during this time. You will not need to bring a cell phone, journal, camera, or iPod. You will not be graded or evaluated on your color walk.

You can begin your color walk anywhere. Let color be your guide. Allow yourself to become sensitized to the color in your surroundings. As you walk try to construct a color story or a narrative based on color you observe. What are the colors that you become aware of first? What are the colors that reveal themselves more slowly? What colors do you observe that you did not expect? What color relationships do you notice? Do colors appear to change over time? We will discuss the color walks in our next class.

—Munro Galloway

Just doing these two practices will make your weekend colorful, fun, novel. And, of course, mindful.

6 short videos on Motivational Interviewing: Do you want to elicit the "MI spirit"?

Click to watch Kathleen Sciacca talk about Motivational Interviewing and the 5 skills it includes. She is addressing MI in the health field but what she says can apply to conflict professionals, too. The 5 skills are:

• open-ended questions
• affirmations
• reflective listening
• summarizing
• change talk

What's the MI spirit? A definition of MI which mentions that spirit is found in a fascinating article published in Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy (link here) comparing MI with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) :

MI is a “client-centered directive method for enhancing intrinsic motivation to change by exploring and resolving ambivalence”. As a therapeutic style, MI does not follow a protocol for teaching clients skills to change but instead provides a way of interacting with clients so that their self-expertise can be utilized in order to facilitate change. In this sense, MI is not a stand-alone therapy delivered with the intention to accomplish behavior change. Instead, it prepares an individual for change by increasing contemplation and commitment to change. The fact that MI is a therapeutic style has made it possible for it to be readily used in conjunction with other therapies to increase motivation to change.

Derived from Carl Rogers’s client-centered therapy approach, MI combines a supportive and empathic counseling style with a method of intentionally directing clients toward changing dysfunctional behavior. MI emphasizes creating a collaborative relationship and affirming the client’s autonomy to change. Indeed, Miller has proposed that these aspects of MI may be the most important to the change process because they allow for the expression of love in the form of understanding and unconditional positive regard. Therapists elicit motivation for change by drawing on the client’s goals and values. The foundation of MI is the context of a working alliance between client and counselor, what is known as “MI spirit". This spirit (1) is collaborative rather than authoritarian, (2) evokes the client’s own motivation rather than trying to install it, and (3) honors the client’s autonomy.

 [Footnotes removed.]

Click for the Web site of Dr. William Miller, one of the founders of MI.

Note (added April 20, 2012): Interview of Ken Kraybill on Motivational Interviewing conducted by Mark Horvath.

Accidental brain or brain on purpose? The choice is yours

The last sentence of this article describing a new research paper is a good definition of "brains on purpose," the name of my other blog. From "Changing brains for the better; article documents benefits of multiple practices" (University of Wisconsin news release):

"Rather than think of the brain as a static organ, or one that just degenerates with age, it's better understood as an organ that is constantly reshaping itself, is being continuously influenced, wittingly or not, by the forces around us," says Davidson, author of the new book "The Emotional Life of Your Brain." "We can take responsibility for our own brains. They are not pawns to external influences; we can be more pro-active in shaping the positive influences on the brain." [color added, of course]

Here's the abstract of "Social influences on neuroplasticity: stress and interventions to promote well-being" (Nature Neuroscience), the article described in the press release:

Experiential factors shape the neural circuits underlying social and emotional behavior from the prenatal period to the end of life. These factors include both incidental influences, such as early adversity, and intentional influences that can be produced in humans through specific interventions designed to promote prosocial behavior and well-being. Here we review important extant evidence in animal models and humans. Although the precise mechanisms of plasticity are still not fully understood, moderate to severe stress appears to increase the growth of several sectors of the amygdala, whereas the effects in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex tend to be opposite. Structural and functional changes in the brain have been observed with cognitive therapy and certain forms of meditation and lead to the suggestion that well-being and other prosocial characteristics might be enhanced through training.

I've climbed some strange trees: Here is the fruit of one of them

I have had many careers, ranging from lawyer to candymaker to cocktail waitress to probation officer, and several jobs in between. During one or two of those roles, I was somewhat New Agey. For the most part, I try to minimize the memories of those fluffier days. Around my most staid friends, those memories are primly hidden, the hippie is fully stashed, the fluff is sharply amputated.

But there are some shimmering images that persist. The lighthearted, improvisational freedom that accompanied those hippy-dippy days occasionally calls my name. Especially when I think of Snoopy.

And when I get tired of the dull and constrained way conflict resolution often continues to be practiced, I feel grey and weary, and miss most my bright Snoopiness.

Today I was missing Snoopy more than usual so I looked for something I had written about him. Here's an ode to the wonderful beagle that I wrote many, many, many years ago. Scoff, stare, point, if you want (especially my lawyers pals), but maybe just for a minute do as I suggest below.

Be Like That Beagle

Snoopy delights us as he becomes a pilot, a dancer, a writer, a scout leader, a vulture. You can delight yourself by becoming whatever you want. A trusty and certain way to Loosen Up, Lighten Up (LULU) is to have a Snoopy Day.

We get so stuck in our roles that we may go through life as if in a trance, or a string of trances. There’s the wake-up-ritual trance — make the coffee, get the paper, read it, make breakfast, brush your teeth. Then you shift into the go-to-work trance.

Break out in a major way. Have a Snoopy day. Follow the lead of that imaginative beagle and be anything you choose. Become an artist, or a cowperson, or a poet, or a vulture, or whatever else you want most. Fill with your whole being a role of which you have only dreamed before.

A Ballerina In My Workplace?

You knew how to do this quite well as a child, remember? Think of all the things you became when you were young. Think of the absolute freedom “make believe” gave you. Snoopy days are “make believe” days and are not just for children. You can be anything we want to be — no matter what that is.

Are we saying that you should go to work acting as a ballerina? If a ballerina is what you choose to be on a Snoopy Day, it would be ideal if you could go to work as one as long as it did not interfere with your