Laboratory for Advancing Dispute Resolution Skills Teaching

Laboratory for Advancing Dispute Resolution Skills Teaching

Adult learners do best when they are actively engaged in their academic work. Dispute resolution educators have traditionally been among the most collaborative and innovative in developing skill-based pedagogy. Fostering these innovations is an ongoing need and is even more important as we look toward a future which includes the NextGen bar exam. The necessity to prepare law students for success on this new path to law licensure demands increased emphasis on skill-based testing overall and in particular a new focus on negotiation, client-counseling, and ADR process choice throughout the law curriculum. To help meet this challenge, dispute resolution educators, in collaboration with their doctrinal colleagues, need to systematically and efficiently share their existing resources and expertise in developing next generation skills pedagogy.

DRI created the Laboratory for Advancing Dispute Resolution Skills Teaching (DRI Skills Lab) in response to the challenge and opportunity to develop and share skills-based pedagogy and resources to support the teaching of dispute resolution and more.

DRI has a long history of advancing skills-related pedagogy and sharing it at no cost for classroom use. Several examples include:

• the international, multi-disciplinary Rethinking Negotiation Teaching project, that included three international conferences and resulted in a four-volume series published by DRI Press;
• mediation case law videos which educators can use to teach the lessons of failed mediations, specifically those that resulted in litigation or issuance of ethics opinions; and
• an annual collection of skills-based resources contributed by dispute resolution educators.

The DRI Skills Lab includes a searchable database of skills-based resources, with a mechanism for you to continue to contribute your favorites. The Lab also provides quick access to DRI Press publications on pedagogy, which will include a new series of simulation publications; and new videos and simulations that will assist in preparing students for the NextGen Bar Exam.

Through the DRI Skills Lab, we will continue the strong spirit of collaboration that has been such a large part of the dispute resolution educator community. Together, we will continue to advance the teaching of skills and take on the new challenge and opportunity presented by the NextGen bar exam, and other changes to dispute resolution education that the future will no doubt present.