Daily Pedagogy: Maintaining Scholarship While Teaching

Professor Ruthann Robson, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law

It's August and ConLawProfs in the North America are thinking about classes for the Fall semester.  So, it's a good time to focus on pedagogy, as we'll be doing this month.

Yet if August brings the joys of contemplating going back in the classroom, it also brings the panic of impending deadlines, even if those deadlines are self-imposed.  The legal academy has a tradition - - - and often incentives  of "summer scholarship," although these may be fading given other pressures. 

One way to address the annual August anxieties is to reject the idea of a stark separation between "summer" and the "academic year," and look for synergies between scholarship and teaching that enliven both. I've tried to do this in an essay, Enhancing Reciprocal Synergies Between Teaching and Scholarship, published in the Journal of Legal Education last year and available - - - for now - - - on the once-open source ssrn. 

The article discusses the types of synergies that exist between teaching and scholarship for the legal academic  - - - the professional, methodological, theoretical and doctrinal - - - which are easily adaptable to other academics.  As is the overall suggestion that we should try to "pay attention" to the synergies between teaching and scholarship rather than viewing them as discrete, or even conflicting.

The article closes with a discussion of three "habits" of paying attention aimed at enhancing the reciprocal synergies between teaching and scholarship:  letting the subconscious work, commemorating one's thoughts & ideas, and engaging  - - - or not - - - in "daily practice."