CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF LAW TEACHERS
L’ASSOCIATION CANADIENNE DES PROFESSEURS DE DROIT

Teaching Wellbeing in Law: June 1, 1-335PM online.

Brandon Stewart (Dalhousie) and Lynda Collins (Ottawa) are inviting people to join in on June 1, 2021 from 1:00-3:35pm EST for an online symposium on Teaching Wellbeing in the Law. 

Speakers will include:

  • Professor Marilyn Poitras (University of Saskatchewan), who created Canada’s first law school course in “Happiness and the Law” and now directs the Indigenous Law Centre at the University of Saskatchewan
  • Professor Rhonda Magee (University of San Francisco), author of The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming our Communities through Mindfulness
  • Professor Thomas Telfer (Western University), who teaches “Mindfulness and the Legal Profession”
  • Daniel Lussier-Meek (University of Ottawa), Director of Indigenous and Community Relations
  • Professor Brandon Stewart (Dalhousie University), co-author of “Engendering Hope in Environmental Law Students”
  • Professor Jordana Confino (Fordham University), who teaches a course on Positive Lawyering
  • Professor Karen Ragoonaden (University of British Columbia), who is an expert in Mindful Approaches to Anti-Oppression Pedagogy
  • Professor Lynda Collins (University of Ottawa), who teaches “Happiness and the Law”
  • Heather Cross, Appellate lawyer and teacher of “Mindfulness in the Law”

Below you can find both connection information and a working program. Please direct any questions related to the symposium to [email protected].

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ANNOUNCING -- CALT conference 2021 Program in Brief

We are delighted to confirm that the virtual conference will take place over four days, from Monday 7 June to Thursday 11 June.   Two sessions will be offered on each day, as well as the CALT AGM on Tuesday 8 June.  A ‘program-in-brief’ is now available on our website here.

Sessions will be conducted via Zoom, hosted by Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University. Registration will be required, but there will be no registration fee.  An Eventbrite registration page is coming soon and will be the source for further program information.  For any questions, please contact us at [email protected]

Please SAVE THE DATES and STAY TUNED.


CALT Conference 2021 Program in Brief

CALT conference 2021: SAVE THE DATES!

 

We are delighted to confirm that the virtual conference will take place over four days, from Monday 7 June to Thursday 11 June.   Two sessions will be offered on each day, as well as the CALT AGM on Tuesday 8 June.  A ‘program-in-brief’ is now available on our website here.

 

Sessions will be conducted via Zoom, hosted by Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University. Registration will be required, but there will be no registration fee.  An Eventbrite registration page is coming soon and will be the source for further program information.  For any questions, please contact us at [email protected]

 

Please SAVE THE DATES and STAY TUNED.


Announcing -- Call for Proposals CALT conference 2021

We are pleased to release the Call for Proposals for the 2021 annual conference of the Canadian Association of Law Teachers (CALT).   The conference will be held in a virtual online format throughout the week of 7 to 11 June (which is the week following the virtual gathering of the Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities). 


Call for Proposals CALT Conference 2021

Call for Proposals 

CALT annual conference 2021

7-11 June, 2021

Virtually Hosted by:

 Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia

 

We are pleased to release this Call for Proposals for the 2021 annual conference of the Canadian Association of Law Teachers (CALT).   The conference will be held in a virtual online format throughout the week of 7 to 11 June (which is the week following the virtual gathering of the Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities). 

The virtual platform for the conference will be provided by the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia.  We gratefully acknowledge their participation and support.

Subject to the level of response to the Call for Proposals, and logistical factors, our tentative plan is to schedule 6 plenary sessions over the course of the week, with no more than two sessions of up to two hours duration on any one day. 

The general focus of the conference will remain on legal education and pedagogy.  We primarily invite proposals on two specific themes:

  1. “Building Back Better: Lessons from Adapting to Teaching in the Pandemic”;
  2. “Bridging Divides: Confronting Colonialism & Anti-Black Racism” – the theme of the cancelled 2020 conference.

We will also consider proposals that address non-theme topics and issues of current interest in legal education and law, but preference may be given to theme-related proposals and proposals that address teaching and learning.

 

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Announcing -- CALT 2021 Conference & AGM

We are pleased to announce that the Canadian Association of Law Teacher’s annual conference is resuming in 2021. The conference will be held in a virtual online format throughout the week of 7 to 11 June (which is the week following the virtual gathering of the Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities).  A Call for Proposals will be issued soon.  The CALT AGM will also be held during that week.  See the Conference page for more information.

 

 


CALT 2021 Conference & AGM

We are pleased to announce that the Canadian Association of Law Teacher’s annual conference is resuming in 2021. The conference will be held in a virtual online format throughout the week of 7 to 11 June (which is the week following the virtual gathering of the Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities).  A Call for Proposals will be issued soon.  The CALT AGM will also be held during that week.

Subject to the level of response to the Call for Proposals, and logistical factors, our tentative plan is to schedule 6 plenary sessions over the course of the week, with no more than two sessions of up to two hours duration on any one day.  The general focus of the conference will remain on legal education and pedagogy.  We anticipate inviting general proposals with that focus, as well as inviting proposals engaging two specific themes: one theme focusing on lessons from adapting to teaching in the pandemic; the other reaching back to the theme of the cancelled 2020 conference, “Bridging Divides: Confronting Colonialism & Anti-Black Racism.”


Queens' Law

David Sharpe Professorship of Indigenous Law at Queen’s University.  The Faculty encourages applications from established academics with a view to an appointment to a tenured position at the rank of Professor or Associate Professor. The Faculty will also consider applications from early career academics with a view to an appointment to a tenure track position at the rank of Assistant Professor. Consideration of files begins on February 1, 2021. For more information see:

https://law.queensu.ca/faculty-recruitment


Update: Lakehead

In Fall 2020, the Lakehead Faculty of Law moved most classes online. Generally, the online instruction has gone well. The experience of switching to online in March provided useful lessons in how to adapt. So too did teaching two Spring courses, a new option that was over-subscribed.

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Update: Queen's

Queen’s Law has adopted a hybrid model for the 2020-21 academic year. All large upper-year lecture classes are online. Many 1L classes and a select number of upper-year seminars and clinical courses meet partly in-person and partly remote. This model provides students, especially 1Ls, some opportunity for in-person classes. All students have the option to take classes fully remotely.

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Update: Montréal

When the Faculty of Law at the Université de Montréal resumed classes this fall, most classes were online. However, a small number of classes were taught in person. In addition, several first-year courses used a hybrid format, with some proportion of students attending in person, on a rotating basis. Professors who adopted this hybrid format reported that in-person attendance was below capacity, raising questions about whether the effort to offer such a format had been worthwhile.

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Update: Windsor

In Fall 2020, the Faculty of Law at the University of Windsor moved online for all but select clinical and experiential learning opportunities. This will remain essentially the same in Winter 2021, with some important smaller group work occurring in person with a priority on the first-year experience. 

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Update: Osgoode

Classes this fall are online. Instructors were told in May to prepare for online teaching although there were still questions about whether some in person teaching would be encouraged/allowed. There were some efforts to hold some in person classes earlier in the term, mainly to give our 1L students at least one chance to meet with some classmates. All in person meets had to have options for those students who are attending from elsewhere or who preferred not to attend in person.

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Update: Alberta

In the fall of 2020, the CALT website is featuring updates from law professors about how their institutions are responding to the challenge of teaching during a pandemic.

The University of Alberta Faculty of Law has moved to largely online delivery of the curriculum, with some exceptions for approved seminars, clinic courses, and a handful of lecture classes which could be taught in a safe environment or with rotating small group sessions. 

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Update: Ottawa (Common Law)

In the fall of 2020, the CALT website is featuring updates from law professors about how their institutions are responding to the challenge of teaching during a pandemic.

At the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Common Law, planning for the move to fully remote learning started last spring. The Faculty convened a team of staff and professors with experience and expertise in online pedagogy to “lead the charge” to online learning, and support professors transitioning to online teaching. That team put out a survey to assess the needs and concerns of faculty and help establish priorities.

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Update: Schulich

In the fall of 2020, the CALT website is featuring updates from law professors about how their institutions are responding to the challenge of teaching during a pandemic.

The Schulich School of Law is offering primarily online courses, with very limited exceptions for some clinical courses. The first-year curriculum includes some large group classes and some as small group seminar-style classes.  The small group format is a unique feature of Schulich’s first-year law program and it was important to us to retain it even in the online environment.  

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Update: Ryerson

In the fall of 2020, the CALT website is featuring updates from law professors about how their institutions are responding to the challenge of teaching during a pandemic.

Ryerson has moved to a fully online 1L curriculum (with some small, optional exceptions for integrated practice curriculum components). Intensive sharing of teaching and pedagogical ideas during the summer has led to a fairly consistent model: a mix of synchronous and asynchronous teaching. The balance varies, with some teaching predominantly through synchronous sessions, while others use more of a flipped classroom model. All faculty co-teach 1L courses with practitioners, who provide weekly one-hour synchronous sessions for each course.

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Update: McGill

In the fall of 2020, the CALT website is featuring updates from law professors about how their institutions are responding to the challenge of teaching during a pandemic.

The McGill Law community has been resilient and hopeful in the face of our uncertain times. Onboarding the incoming class began much earlier than usual, with Zoom Town Halls in June and contact with incoming students continued throughout the summer. Professors have adapted to teaching remotely, drawing on lessons learned from the last two weeks of the Winter 2020 term when we began teaching online as COVID-19 emerged in Montreal.

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Update: Manitoba

In the fall of 2020, the CALT website is featuring updates from law professors about how their institutions are responding to the challenge of teaching during a pandemic.

 

The Faculty of Law (Robson Hall), University of Manitoba has moved to a fully online curriculum for JD, LLM and MHR (Master of Human Rights) students for the autumn 2020 term. A final decision has yet to be made as to whether the winter 2021 term will be entirely online or involve some in-person components.

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Update: Calgary

In the fall of 2020, the CALT website is featuring updates from law professors about how their institutions are responding to the challenge of teaching during a pandemic.

 

Classes are almost entirely online this fall for all students, except students in two of our clinical courses who have the option of in person classes. Some of our graduate students are joining their programs from outside Canada and graduate program deadlines were extended due to the pandemic. December exams will be online and students will have a 24-hour period in which they can decide when to write their exam, which they will have 1.5 times the usual period to complete. We are not using any proctoring service for online exams.

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Update: Moncton

This blog post is contributed by Professors Adrien Habermacher & Yves Goguen

In the fall of 2020, the CALT website is featuring updates from law professors about how their institutions are responding to the challenge of teaching during a pandemic.

 

The Faculty of Law of the Université de Moncton is not offering any in-person activities this fall. All the courses planned, in the first year and in upper years, are taking place online. It was determined that advocacy courses, including the appellate advocacy course which is mandatory in the J.D. program, could not be delivered this year, either online or in person.

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Update: Allard Law (UBC)

During the fall of 2020, the CALT website is featuring updates from law professors about how their institutions are responding to the challenge of teaching during a pandemic.

 

This autumn term, the Peter A. Allard School of Law (Allard Law) is offering an in-person option for 1L instruction (as long as public health regulations permit). Each of our four 1L sections has been divided into three sub-sections. These groups of approximately 16 students will have access to a law school classroom on a rotating basis, and in a manner consistent with public health regulations including social distancing, masks, and daily check-in safeguards.

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Update: Western Law

In the fall of 2020, the CALT website is featuring updates from law professors about how their institutions are responding to the challenge of teaching during a pandemic.

 

Western Law has moved to a fully online 2L and 3L curriculum (with some exceptions for clinic courses) but is offering an in-person curriculum for 1L students. Thus, with the exception of one small group (~15 students) every 1L student will take their courses in person. They will have the option of “Zooming in” should they feel ill or be otherwise unable to attend class in person but the expectation is that if they can come to class in person they will do so. 

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CALT Webinar Series

We are pleased to announce the following events for the CALT webinar series. Please click on each link for more details:

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Civil procedure and racism : a virtual coffee hour

CALT is honoured to host this event as part of its ongoing webinar series, on Monday, July 13, 2020, from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m., EDST, via Zoom:

This session will bring together individuals teaching civil procedure and related subjects to discuss how they might address issues of anti-black and other racism during the 2020-2021 school year. The session aims to enable self-reflection and collaborative thinking. The listed contributors will not try to offer definitive answers. Instead, they will prepare a list of questions to guide the discussion, will seek to elicit ideas from the participants, and will offer some of their own ideas for how they plan to address these subjects. The session aims to foster a community of civil procedure teachers across Canada who are committed to race-conscious teaching and learning and who will continue to learn from one another.

 

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