Posted on March 6, 2008 by Kevin Ramakrishna
Maybe this is already well-known, but (without conceding that paper-and-pencil exams of any sort necessarily constitute useful assessment of integrated legal skills and knowledge), I thought it was a slightly encouraging example of movement on the assessment front.
I’ve learned from postings on other list-servs that both Loyola L.A. and University of St. Thomas have started to require midterms in certain sections of required first year courses (e.g., Property, Contracts, Civil Procedure, Torts). Continue reading →
Filed under: Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques, First Year Law School Innovations | 2 Comments »
Posted on February 20, 2008 by Steven Friedland
I was asked in a comment to my last post on formative feedback, How are we going to motivate teachers to do the extra work required to give such feedback? The answer is to show how learning increases if formative feedback is a regular part of the educational process. Change often is incremental. While institutions won’t simply give credit for such feedback, grass roots changes are possible. Why not have a formative feedback day, where across America, law teachers everywhere can incorporate some form of formative feedback (even a single multiple choice question) in their classes? How about March 4th? We have to start somewhere.
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Posted on February 19, 2008 by Steven Friedland
Imagine taking a piano lesson with a teacher who asks questions, but gives little on-the-spot feedback. Imagine the teacher returning week after week, stating after each lesson, “I will give you feedback after our big, end of the session recital.” Imagine the recital occurring and the teacher taking notes and walking away. One month later, in the mail, you receive your feedback, a single letter grade, B.
That is the way we traditionally do feedback in legal education, including only a single summative final examination as the sole evaluation and feedback mechanism. Is it not time to formally include formative feedback measures within our educational process? Why not include in each course: 1. a single multiple choice question, once a week; 2. an “all-write” after a question, (asking all students to write out brief answers to a question posed in class), so everyone is participating and can evaluate their responses against what the teacher says; 3. a note break during class to allow all students to check with others and see if they are answering correctly; 4. posting a sample old exam question followed by a “model” answer or answers; or 5. a threaded discussion problem to allow students to apply their knowledge. Other academic fora understand the importance of formative feedback. Somehow, we in legal education need to get the message.
Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques | 4 Comments »
Posted on February 15, 2008 by ssparrow
As others have noted, identifying student learning outcomes is hard work.
First, you have to identify student learning outcomes. Then you have to figure out how to measure them. Then you have to go back and revise … few of us get it “right” the first time.
Take, for example, the following direction often given on an exam: Using law, facts and policy, identify the strongest arguments for the plaintiff and defendant. This looks like basic analysis. But what do the students actually need to do?
– Identify the fundamental and relevant legal principles
– Identify the more sophisticated and nuanced legal issues
– Identify and show how the legal principles apply to facts
– Show how policy arguments support the arguments. Continue reading →
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Posted on February 15, 2008 by Antoinette Sedillo Lopez
Formative feedback is giving students information about their performance to help them improve. Summative assessment is an evaluation of the student’s performance. It is useful in determining whether the student as achieved the skill or level of knowledge. Criteria referenced assessment measures whether a student as achieved a certain level of knowledge or skill. Norm referenced assessment compares students performance to each other. An example of this is when a teacher ranks student’s performance and then “curve” the grades. Outcome based assessment focuses on ensuring that students acquire and demonstrated a set of core skills and knowledge. All of this is very well explained and developed in the Carnegie Report and Best Practices. So, what does this mean in practice? Continue reading →
Filed under: Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques, Catalysts For Change | 2 Comments »
Posted on February 11, 2008 by Antoinette Sedillo Lopez
As part of the collaborative project on joint training for medical residents and law students about domestic violence, the group had decided to use standardized patients to “pre-test” skills. The idea is that the pre-test would help us determine the effectiveness of the training. The group designed two problems for the pretest, one involving a woman living in her car with her two kids because she had left an abusive relationship and her apartment. The other involved a pregnant undocumented woman living with a U.S. citizen boyfriend who had hit her in the abdomen. They were difficult problems, legally and emotionally. The standardized patient/clients were trained by the excellent staff of the Assessment and Learning Department. I skipped the material on domestic violence in the textbook. The staff from Assessment and Learning Department of the Medical School set everything up for the students to be videotaped while conducting the ½ hour interviews. As a clinical teacher, it felt REALLY strange to send students to an appointment without any training at all (even if the person they would interact with was an actor and not a real client.) However, I had decided to go with the flow in this medical/ collaboration. The design of our collaboration included a pre-test. Continue reading →
Filed under: Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques, Teaching Methodology | 1 Comment »
Posted on February 8, 2008 by Antoinette Sedillo Lopez
Ever since I got involved a few years ago with the Best Practices project, I started putting educational objectives on my syllabi. These are the objectives I had on my Fall 2007 Family Law syllabus which incorporated a joint Medical Legal training project on Domestic Violence using standardized clients.
As a result of taking the class, I expect students to:
- Prepare to take and pass the domestic relations section of the New Mexico Bar examination.
- Develop familiarity with the processes for resolving family law disputes.
- Develop pleading drafting skills in the area of family law.
- Improve interviewing and counseling skills, specifically in the context of domestic violence.
- Better understand medical perspectives on domestic violence.
- Enhance research and writing skills in area of family law. (If paper option chosen.) Continue reading →
Filed under: Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques | 4 Comments »
Posted on February 6, 2008 by Antoinette Sedillo Lopez
In summer, 2007 Dr. Cameron Crandall approached the Law School (University of New Mexico) about collaborating on a joint training program for domestic violence. Since I teach Family Law, I was very interested in new approaches to addressing the issue of Domestic Violence. Professors and staff from the medical school and a legal aid attorney who specializes in domestic violence collaborated with me and my teaching assistant to design four problems using actors posing as individuals with health issues and legal concerns related to domestic violence. These problems involved standardized patients and clients with various types of domestic violence issues. We used the problems in a pre-test and a post-test for our training sessions.
While I agreed to participate in this unique collaboration because of my interest in domestic violence, I received a totally unexpected benefit from the collaboration: I learned a great deal about assessment. Even though I actually participated in the Best Practices Project, had read the Carnegie Report, and had a strong intellectual interest in outcome-based assessment, this experience was extremely enlightening. I feel like I have a much better understanding of what it means to assess student’s performance by developing goals and criteria and evaluating it. Next post I will tell more of the story….
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Posted on January 21, 2008 by Steven Friedland
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 »
Posted on January 18, 2008 by michaelhunterschwartz
The University of Washington School of Law has agreed to host a Conference addressing efforts to implement the insights from Best Practices and Educating Lawyers: Legal Education at the Crossroads: Ideas to Accomplishments to be held September 5-7, 2008. Continue reading →
Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Best Practices & Setting Goals, Best Practices for Institutional Effectiveness, Best Practices, Diversity & Social Justice, Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques, Who is Using the Best Practices Book? | Comments Off on Save the Date: Best Practices Conference at U of Washington
Posted on December 20, 2007 by joanhowarth
The Bar Exam Committee of SALT (Society of American Law Teachers) is working to address many of the problems with current licensing practices that are described and decried in Chapter One of Best Practices (“The Licensing Process is Not Protecting the Public” at pp. 11-15). SALT’s perspective is that access to the profession has been captured by an interlocking system of the LSAT, conventional law school grading, and bar exams. These mutually reinforcing assessment tools operate as a terrible bar to the profession, disproportionately keeping out people of color, while failing to adequately test minimal competency to practice law. Inspired to action by this critique, SALT’s Bar Exam Committee has engaged in many projects in the past few years, including: Continue reading →
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Posted on December 20, 2007 by ghess
If law schools are to assess outcomes, an early step is to answer the question, “What outcomes?” The prospect of articulating outcomes for a law school may seem overwhelming for many deans and faculty members. But existing resources give law schools a well developed starting point. In the 1990s, the MacCrate Report set out a list of professional skills and values. In Outcomes Assessment for Law Schools (Institute for Law School Teaching, 2000), Greg Munro gave detailed examples of outcomes appropriate for law schools and for Continue reading →
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Posted on December 19, 2007 by ssparrow
As I grade this semester’s torts exams I am again struck by how critical it is to give students practice in applying concepts. I am noticing that all students are more effective writing about an issue when they have had two or three chances to practice writing about it before the final exam. This semester students had an ungraded writing assignment which asked them to analyze 2 elements of a negligence claim – duty and breach of duty. Then they wrote a practice midterm and a midterm which asked them to analyze duty and Continue reading →
Filed under: Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques | 1 Comment »
Posted on December 17, 2007 by Roy Stuckey
The ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has created a Special Committee on Outcome Measures. The charge to the Committee is:
“This Committee will determine whether and how we can use output measures, rather than bar passage and job placement, in the accreditation process.” Continue reading →
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Best Practices for Legal Education 