I'm about to teach Survey Law for the first time. The textbook will be "Land Surveying Law, 4th edition, by Keen." Any tips?
Tons of Tips with knowing some more details.
Who is your audience? Surveyors, LSIT's SIT's, College students (Surveying, engineering, GIS), Realtors, General public, High School, Title officers.
Have you taught before?
Do you want to use visual displays, examples and or props, or is this just theory, general practice and case law?
How long is the class, series of classes, College semester, one day, two day????
Make sure you know your target audience and know if you are going to have to explain little details, general terms and or convert your talk to layman's terms.
Have an outline and try to stick too it, or have a list of topics that NEED to be covered and make sure they get discussed. Try to steer the off-topic, wandering tangent discussions back to the goals of the class.
Take breaks.
Have a glass of water.
Ask questions that engage your audience and make them think of a solution to a problem.
I think you may see where Im going. Good luck and thanks for taking time to teach.
Who Are You And Where Are You?
Are you an LS?
Are you a lawyer?
Are you more?
Where are you teaching this? State? Institution?
I consider the law more state specific than surveying is.
IMO, maybe only 10% of those capable of teaching surveying or 2% of those capable of teaching law are capable of teaching survey law.
Paul in PA
I teach surveying classes at a two-year community college in Kansas to promote surveying as a viable career choice. To keep thee classes from conflicting with my company, I teach evening/night classes. I have repeatedly taught "Legal Descriptions" with Wattles and Cuomo/Minnick textbooks, and "Boundary Control" with Brown's Boundary Control and Legal Principals, with Cogo calcs thrown in too "for good measure." I hear that my classes are good ones, so I'm not really looking for tips on public speaking (but advice is always welcome). I'm about to teach a semester of Survey Law for the first time. I haven't seen the textbook yet. It's in the mail enroute to my house. The college hasn't even asked me to teach it yet. The way it usually goes is, they wait until they get a good number of students enroolled in the class; then they ask me within a week of the start of classes. Not a good system, but I expect it from them. I know from the State Surveying Society that it will be my name that will be given to the college when they go into panic mode looking for an instructor. The students will be from various backgrounds, some surveying related, some not (not yet). None will be licensed that I know of. My inquiry is in the Survey Law part. As soon as I get this textbook, I will read it all and build a syllabus as soon as possible. My initial guess is that the focus will be on the case law behind the survey methods of the previous Boundary Control class.
#1 - On a regular basis remind the class that knowing the law, applying the law and following the law is not the same as being a lawyer. In some ways it may be better.
B-)
It was used at my school and I think it provides a good overall view with some simple examples.
:good:
Call me when you have a bit of time to discuss.
My cell phone is 919-722-9643. After noon eastern tomorrow would be best for me.
Larry P
The Only KS Info I Have Is For Butler Community College
And they need to seriously update their general Surveying website.
I see 3 students with 9 open seats. What is the minimum? Even at 3 those students may be on course to soon receive their degree, so it may get done to maintain credibility.
Are you Mr. STAFF? 🙂 😉
If so, the question still is who?
BTW, that is Keene with 3 "e"s.
Paul in PA
I Also See Pittsburg State Univ. With 6 Surveying Credits
What can 6 credits get you in Kansas?
I see Kansas State University has 3 surveying engineering credits.
Paul in PA
Something that one of my former profs. did that I thought was interesting was to create, in the form of an information package, scenarios that represent real life surveying problems. For example, they'd provide a subdivision plat that contains a known error, a sketch of the existing conditions of a fictional lot in the sub that may contain some questionable surveying (blunders, bad judgement, etc.), and a summary of the problem. It was the student's project to "solve" the problem using the given information and sound reasoning backed with legal and surveying principles, and create a survey drawing and report that explain the reasoning behind your decisions. We probably had about six of those projects.
We also were given a current deed and had to research it back to the original deed grant. The Prof. made sure it wasn't an easy one with lots of easements, divisions, etc., and would deduct if you missed anything.
We also were given various surveying principles and had to find state court cases that backed, or used, these principles at the law library.
The Only KS Info I Have Is For Butler Community College
Yes. You found me. (Sorry for any double letters, typing from my phone and using the backspace button 20% of the time.) My name is Ernie Cantu, licensed in Kansas for seven or eight years, and currently a member of the Board of Directors for the Kansas Society of Land Surveyors. I am not an attorney (and I locate boundary lines, not property lines). I teach survey classes tto further the field of land surveying. I teeach at Butler Community Colleege because they agreed to offer an Associates Degree in Surveying instead of just offering some survey classes for a Civil Engineering program. Another goal is to get all the classees online so that people can take them from ANYWHERE with the option of using the online material for classes in multiple colleges. That's who I am, what I'm doing, aand where the Survey Law class fits in.
The Only KS Info I Have Is For Butler Community College
No it's not with 3 e's. John Keen is the way he signs his name.
With 3 Of 12 Spaces Filled, Online Is The Way To Go
At $145 per credit hour the cost of the course could fill you up with out of staters.
A smaller class size makes it easier to work in online student questions.
What is your email address.
Paul in PA
Apologies To Mr. Keen
His name was spelled wrong on the college web site.
Having checked on the publisher's website I recognized the cover and believe I have a copy of it around the house or in another office. Surveying books tend to wander. At least 2 of mine are floating around with some test takers.
Paul in PA
> #1 - On a regular basis remind the class that knowing the law, applying the law and following the law is not the same as being a lawyer. In some ways it may be better.
>
> B-)
I like John Keen, if you get past the heavy Southern accent (he probably thought the same thing about my accent:-)) he's a pretty bright fellow and a hell of a nice man. He's got a Masters in Math from UMASS I believe. I wonder what it was like for him trying to communicate with Bostonians. I highly recommend his exam prep seminars.
Ralph
How about an apology to Mr Cantu, Mr Paul in PA?
Seems like your comments on this thread have been somewhat contentious. Maybe I don't get it but that's what it looks like to me.
With 3 Of 12 Spaces Filled, Online Is The Way To Go
cantuland at yahoo dotcom
How about an apology to Mr Cantu, Mr Paul in PA?
cantuland's first post left a lot open:
"I'm about to teach Survey Law for the first time. The textbook will be "Land Surveying Law, 4th edition, by Keen." Any tips?"
No name, no college, no contact information and no statement of previous experience.
Had more information been initially provided, early advice could have been more effective. In subsequent replies Mr. Cantu still seemed reluctant to flesh it out. Since he was on a remote device, not using a lot of words, is now explainable.
I have compiled a list of as many active survey education programs as I can and was curious if I somehow missed one. I was on the Butler website several times and did not initially come up with Mr. Cantu's name for teaching faculty. I have since found there faculty list, but no contact information. Larry P's reply indicates he either knew who Mr. Cantu was or is just more outgoing than I.
Paul in PA
i had the privilege to take both survey law sections one and two at catonsville community college, aka CCBCMD.EDU several years ago. instructor was james j demma, a very well respected land surveyor, real estate agent, and real property attorney. possibly title attorney as well.
his class discussions targeted case law for the most part. in md, as well as other states, judicial precedent shapes future decisions and codes/statutes. he would introduce the case, we read it, and he would instigate discussion based on the circumstances.
most importantly, in my opinion, the most useful parts of the class dialog were; there could be several 'right' mentalities about a case. he did not shoot them down, as long as they were defensible. second, he stressed how a surveyor called to court could have as solid a case as they may think they need. sometimes, though, the court favors the surveyor with the simplest approach, or the graphically/visually most attractive displays. in other words, you may lose even when you think it's a sure win.
he also had us learning the law outright, reading the real property code section for section. fortunately for us, that was limited, as it is a quite dry approach.
having said that, try to introduce your state's real property code and/or the new BLM into required reading, maybe email specific pdf's to your students to defray costs and maximize usage and accessibility
my 0.02'