Team-Based Learning in Law

Used for over thirty years in a wide variety of fields, Team-Based Learning is a powerful teaching strategy that improves student learning. Used effectively, it enables students to actively engage in applying legal concepts in every class -- without sacrificing coverage. Because this teaching strategy has been used in classes with over 200 students, it also provides an efficient and affordable way to provide significant learning. Based on the principles of instructional design, Team-Based Learning has built-in student accountability, promotes independent student preparation, and fosters professional skills. This article provides an overview of Team-Based Learning, reasons to adopt this teaching strategy in light of Best Practices for Legal Education and the Carnegie and MacCrate reports, concrete methods to use Team-Based Learning in Law School, and ways to address challenges to this teaching strategy. Co-authors Sophie M. Sparrow and Margaret Sova McCabe provide examples from their years of teaching a variety of courses using Team-Based Learning

Private Creeds and their Troubled Authors

This article defends the disputed label “private creeds” as a useful one for describing a number of fourth century texts. Offering such a confession was the normal method for clearing one’s name on charges of heterodoxy in fourth-century Greek Christianity, though writing such a creed made the author susceptible to charges of innovation. A number of letters on Trinitarian doctrine by Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa should be read in light of the tradition of private creeds. Indeed, the writings of Basil and Gregory provide unparalleled evidence for the roles such creeds played in Christian disputes of the fourth century