Wish you all could have been there for the 11th Annual Northwest Clinical Conference at the beautiful Sleeping Lady Conference Center outside Leavenworth in Washington’s Cascade Mountains. Our topic? A central Best Practices issue: Assessment. Continue reading
Filed under: Best Practices for Institutional Effectiveness, Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques, Catalysts For Change | 1 Comment »
I hesitated to post this now because I really want to see some creative feedback on the previous post from Carolyn Grose! Please DO RESPOND to Carolyn’s excellent post.
However, this was simply TOO good to wait to share – here’s some news from the TAXLAW BLOG that confirms what Best Practices has been “preaching”! Continue reading
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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:
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 | Comments Off on Queries from the Best Practices Implementation Committee
New Mexico’s clinical model is quite unusual as far as clinic models go. All of us who teach in the clinic also teach in the classroom and many faculty members rotate through the clinic. While the model has its challenges, we think the benefits far outweigh those challenges. One huge benefit is that faculty members are in touch with how the law actually affects people’s lives, particularly the lives of poor people. In Best Practices, this is called “context-based education”, ( p. 141.)
My colleague, Nathalie Martin, has blogged about some of her clinical experiences on the Credit Slips blog. You will notice that the cases and situations she describes involve clients of the clinic and the way the credit industry seems to target poor, uneducated people. Professor Martin does not just read about these issues. She lives them! Here are links to some of her blogs:
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The ABA holds an associate deans conference every other year. In the past, as associate dean for clinical affairs, I looked at it, and thought it was not as relevant to my work as the clinical director’s conferences put on by the AALS. So, I had never attended the conference. However, I must say that this conference was marvelous. And, many of the sessions were really applicable to the big picture of running a law school and many issues in which clinical teachers are interested. Continue reading
Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Best Practices for Institutional Effectiveness, Catalysts For Change, Who is Using the Best Practices Book? | Tagged: associate deans | Comments Off on 2008 ABA Associate Dean’s Conference: Changing Role of the Associate Dean
Law schools that are units within a larger university structure will be a part of the university-wide re-accreditation process. It is not unlike the ABA re-accreditation process. It involves a self-study, standards, a site visit and a report. The academic enterprise of a university is so complex that the process may involve multiple years to prepare and draft the self-study report. In an interesting synchronicity, a major criterion that the re-accreditation process focuses on is assessment. The idea is that the units should have some independent method for assessing the success of the education program. Of course, like all good bureaucracies, the university bureaucracy requested that each unit report on progress toward meeting this criterion as part of our re-accreditation process.
Because of the law school’s engagement with Carnegie and Best Practices, we were actually able to present a fairly sophisticated response to the request for evidence of meeting this criterion.
Since most law schools do not currently have an assessment plan, here is a suggestion for using the accreditation process as a catalyst to consider Best Practices for your law school. Continue reading
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Warren Binford, Annette Appel and I are leading a concurrent session at the AALS Clinical Conference in Tucson this May. Our session is entitled “Strategic Planning: Learning From Our Mistakes and Growing From Our Experiments.” We are planning to engage the audience in some strategic planning techniques. In thinking about our upcoming session, I reflected on Best Practices and curricular planning because I think that a law school’s curriculum is foundational to its identity and its aspirations.
The Best Practices book suggests that a law school’s curriculum should “achieve congruence in its program of instruction”. Congruence requires that law schools harmonize educational programs with their mission, their curricula with educational outcomes, and instructional objectives with their curricula (p.93). The ideas derive from educational theory and research, but also make a lot of common sense. It makes sense that a law school should connect its program of instruction to its mission. For example, if a law school has a social justice mission, its curriculum would not make sense it if was primarily a business focused curriculum–and vice versa. If a law school touts its strengths in an area, its program of instruction as well as the research agenda for the institution should reflect that strength. Continue reading
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Here are a few observations after participating in the second annual UK Conference on Legal Education on January 3rd and 4th of 2008:
1. In Sync…. Continue reading
Filed under: Best Practices for Institutional Effectiveness, Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques, International Initiatives and Models | 5 Comments »
Some thoughtful reflection from a colleague on the Feminist Law Professors blog:
http://feministlawprofs.law.sc.edu/?p=2646
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Best Practices for Legal Education 