My clinical colleagues and I are planning to convert an Orientation that we currently jointly teach into a 2-credit Clinic Orientation module. The Orientation typically includes a mixture of joint classes and smaller individual clinic-focused sessions.
Since we are developing this new course from scratch, it provides an opportunity to think deliberatively about how we design the course and to clarify our objectives and learning outcomes. In light of the changes in ABA accreditation standards, including the need to define learning outcomes and to assess according to our stated objectives, I thought it could be helpful to document the process we are taking as we develop the course.
My faculty colleagues and I met for the first time this week to start brainstorming for development of this new Clinic Orientation course. We started by brainstorming about WHY we want to develop the course. (I was inspired to Start with Why by Simon Sinek. Here is his inspiring TED talk on that topic).
Here is what we came up with as to WHY we want to develop a new jointly-taught, credit-bearing, Orientation module:
- Students need to be able to do certain activities early in the semester/hit the ground running:
- Interviewing
- Office procedures
- Reflection/self-critique
- Professional responsibility 101 (when working with clients)
- Research
- Fact investigation (including reading/maintaining files)
- Working with interpreters
- Persuasion
- Attention to cultural difference/ competency/empathy
- Explain the WHY of our pedagogy (explain clinical pedagogy to students)
- Active and engaged learning
- Direct responsibility – WHY? Autonomy, mastery, purpose
- Collaboration – across the board, with team, fellow clinic students, students in other clinics, support staff, faculty
- Acting for Lawyers
- Reinforce “one firm” culture – clinical courses are different, collegial, work together, spaces where you can learn while having fun!
- Service Mission of Clinics
- Set our expectations for students
- Efficiency of teaching resources
As we developed this list, our goal was to brainstorm and include as wide a scope of objectives as possible. We decided to leave for another set of meetings the tasks of thinking about how to achieve these goals and what the classes designed to achieve them would look like. Keeping the conversation on task was a challenge; the temptation was to move onto thinking about how or what. We found it easiest when we designated a person to draw us back to the WHY task when the conversation started to branch off into thinking about HOW or WHAT.
Our next step is drawn from the IDEO Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit. IDEO is a design firm. It looks at systems from a design perspective. I am excited to start applying their theories and practices to legal education. I’ll keep you posted as that project develops.
Filed under: Teaching Methodology | Tagged: #reformlegaled, ABA, aba standards, ABA STANDARDS REVIEW, Assessment |
Best Practices for Legal Education 