Best Practices for Legal Education

We had a fantastic time in Seattle a few weeks ago, and I for one felt reinvigorated and excited about this great project we’re all involved in — you know, the one about totally reforming legal education? What we didn’t get either from the Best Practices Meets Reality workshop (see my earlier post on September 9th) was much discussion about the following questions.  So I’d be very interested in seeing if we can generate some dialogue here, and then maybe take it on the road at the next round of conferences. 

Let’s brainstorm and generate concrete ideas about the following:

• A Best Practices checklist or other instrument for implementing curricular and other law school reform;
• A Best Practices checklist or other instrument for self- and external assessment of individual courses, teaching methods and law school curricula;
• Potential obstacles to using Best Practices for change or assessment;
• How to actively engage law students (and perhaps, where feasible, graduate students in education) in selection of educational objectives, development of creative and sophisticated teaching techniques, and assessment of teaching choices and curricular reforms;
• The feasibility and desirability of a “Commitment to Best Practices for Legal Education” policy statement for potential adoption by law schools;
• The feasibility and desirability of developing “Best Practices implementation consultants” to engage with law school faculty and administrators;
• The feasibility and desirability of developing honors, recognition, and/or awards for legal educators and law schools committed to and actively engaged in implementation of Best Practices strategies and techniques (e.g. a Best Practices Certification Program);
• How to use – and teach others not at the workshop to use — the Best Practices Blog to learn about innovative legal education, including the experiences of law schools that are using elements of Best Practices;
• Other vehicles to publicize examples of successful implementation of Best Practices concepts and make available detailed information about outcomes.

What do you all think?

Carolyn Grose

Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Best Practices for Institutional Effectiveness, Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques, Catalysts For Change, Teaching Methodology |