OJEN Teaching Resources
OJEN’s teaching resources are designed to support Ontario curriculum expectations and are reviewed by lawyers and educators. Below you will find a selection of teaching resources that support law classes, as well as classes like civics, careers and social sciences that engage with law, justice and society. We have chosen these resources from our full library because they contain content and are structured in a way that is appropriate for remote learning. If you are looking for more teaching material, you can also search the complete OJEN resource hub.
Steps to Justice Workshops
Students learn to navigate Community Legal Education Ontario’s excellent Steps to Justice website while finding answers to common legal questions raised by realistic scenarios.
- Criminal Law – From Arrest to Initial Hearings
- Debt and Consumer Rights
- Employment Law
- Family Law
- Going to Criminal Court
- Health and Disability Law
- Housing Law
- Housing Law Online Workshop
- Human Rights Law
- Immigration Law
- Income Assistance
- Refugee Law
- Tribunals and Courts
- Youth Criminal Justice
- Education Law
- Provincial Offences
Steps to Justice Online Workshop
We are in the process of developing special instructions designed to support educators delivering Steps to Justice workshops virtually. The adaptations below are for the Housing Law workshop, but they can be incorporated into any of the topical workshops.
The Top Five
Each year we select five of the most significant Canadian legal decisions, summarize them, and provide discussion questions. This collection of teaching resources is a fantastic record of how the law as a “living tree” interacts with society to help shape social life over time. These cases can provoke discussion and critical thinking to broaden the perspectives of young people.
Access to Justice Online Game
The Access to Justice Game is a class activity that introduces high school students to access to justice in Ontario. The curriculum-linked Access to Justice game increases students’ understanding of the challenges faced by individuals accessing the justice system to resolve a variety of common legal difficulties, from landlord tenant disputes to family law issues. Developed with the financial support of the Law Foundation of Ontario, the digital version of the game allows online play for an unlimited number of students to explore civil justice with a click of the mouse!
Art and the Courts
The Art and the Courts website is presented by the Ontario Justice Education Network and supported by the Law Foundation of Ontario. It provides a digital home for projects that bring together the legal system and the arts. The McMurtry Gardens of Justice tour will guide you through the statues and other works of public art that decorate the lane between Osgoode Hall and the 361 University Avenue Courthouse in Toronto. Soon, you will also be able to tour Osgoode Hall, home of the Court of Appeal for Ontario and the Law Society of Ontario, and a beautiful heritage building in downtown Toronto.
Other OJEN Resources
- Cases That Have Changed Society – brief summaries of precedent-setting cases, suitable for jigsaw-type activities.
- In Brief: Careers in Justice – three progressively more sophisticated learning tasks in which students use the web and work independently to explore the everyday work and educational pathways associated with a wide variety of careers within the justice system.
- Workshops and Webinars – OJEN provides workshops and webinars for educators on various legal topics to bring into the classroom and on the use of our resources.