Preparation for practice: Incorporating collaborative learning into public health law education

By its nature, public health law is an interdisciplinary practice, yet public health law is often taught in disciplinary silos, with law and public health students taking separate courses at their respective schools. The Carnegie Report outlines a framework for enhancing legal education and preparing students for practice that includes core competencies in the areas of knowledge, skills, and values. Using the Carnegie framework, this panel is targeted to an audience of faculty who teach public health law in different disciplinary schools, practitioners who supervise students, and others involved with public health and legal education. It will examine innovative methods, benefits, and challenges of teaching public health law in an interdisciplinary manner. Professor Berman, Assistant Professor at Ohio State University's College of Public Health and Moritz College of Law, will discuss an innovative public health law course that he co-taught. The course connected students from law schools in Massachusetts and Minnesota. Over the course of the semester, the students engaged in collaborative learning across three different dimensions. First, students worked with others students in their own classes to research and prepare presentations about specific public health laws. Second, students collaborated (via teleconference) across the law schools to teach each other about the public health laws they had studied. Finally, the students presented their findings to public health practitioners and advocates in their own communities. This presentation will discuss how this course could serve as a promising template for courses in law schools or schools of public health.