Best Practices for Legal Education

I am at LegalED’s Igniting Law Teaching conference at American University Washington College of Law hearing from Prof Syd Beckman about Tips for Using Interactive Technology for Assessment.

Here are his 5 Tips for Assessment:

1. Plan and tie learning outcomes to assessment

2. Execute it — use interactive technology that can help with assessment; clickers, smart devices, online quizzes — these devices can

3. Evaluate the results of your assessments — final exam comes too late (no way of fixing it) but by providing formative assessment over semester the students and the professor can both make course corrections.  Profs can go back and reteach things that students are not understanding.  Everybody learns through formative assessment and let’s you provide meaningful feedback to students.

4. Document — important for everything, including compliance and tie courses to outcomes

5.  Revise — use what we learn to make improvements, iterate, alter lesson plans, add some assignments, compensate for excellent performance, change benchmarks.

This is the circle of assessment.  Because as you revise you can use that to plan and around you go in a circle.

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Today, I am at the Igniting Law Teaching conference at American University Washington College of Law.  We are now hearing from Professor Michael Colatrella from McGeorge Pacific School of Law.  He is telling us what he learned about law teaching from being an art student.

Great ideas about how learning takes place over months and even years.  He wanted to become an artist — had given it up as a child. His grandmother had set him up to paint as a kid, but he gave it up.  Then he found an art studio in San Francisco with an atelier system for training people how to paint and draw.  The first class, 8 weeks for 4 hours/day, all you do is make sphere.  Then they given you one color.  Then black and white.

These are his take aways for law professors —

1.  it is great to put yourself back in a position of being a novice, a position of vulnerability and having lots of new information.  You get good dose of empathy from making yourself a student.

2. teach foundational skills before moving on.  Master one skill before moving on to the next.  Even if seems like you’re covering less, because doing it slowly, really doing it better and covering more.

3.  by having foundational skills, your students will go forth and be able to use them for advanced projects.

So the big secret — set clear learning objectives and provide frequent assessment and individualized feedback.  But we know that!  Research finds that there is a 400% increase in learning achievement when giving assessments and feedback throughout.  There are tools for assessment out there — use them!

You can watch the #ILT2015 conference live today, http://legaledweb.com/

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Live from LegalED’s Igniting Law Teaching Conference, sponsored by CALI, and hosted by American University Washington College of Law.

Now up is Professor Emmy Reeves from University of Richmond Law School

Here are tips on how to flip a law school classroom:

1.  Start small — flip a narrow discrete part, parts that don’t lend themselves to high level socratic dialogue

2.  Low tech beats no tech — don’t need to be tech guru, start will narrated powerpoint slides, crete podcasts, record yourself on your computer

3.  keep it short and engaging — 10 minutes is outside limit, try to be as engaging as possible, use inflection in voice

4.  accountability — if use LMS, or even better, use quizzes at beginning of class to ensure watched and internalized material.

You can watch it live today at http://legaledweb.com/

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LegalED’s Igniting Law Teaching 2015 is taking place now at American University Washington College of Law. Watch it live today.

The conference features talks by 30 law school academics and practitioners from the US, Canada and England in a TEDx-styled conference to share ideas on teaching methodologies. LegalED’s Teaching Pedagogy video collection includes many of the talks from last year’s conference, which have been viewed collectively more than 5000 times.

The panels for this year include: Law Teaching for the 21^st Century, Applying Learning Theory to Legal Education, The Art and Craft of Law Teaching, Using Technological Tools for Legal Education, and Pathways to Practice. Here is a link to the topics, speakers and schedule.

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Researchers conclude that having a law degree over a bachelors degree alone is advantageous in the end.  The salary differential between a graduate with a law degree and one without, is favorable to the former, even in a bad economy.  The research also tells us not to worry about “timing” when going to law school.  Even during hard economic times, the value of a degree only decreases by $30,000 while the overall worth in the long run is $1 million.

See http://www.abajournal.com/mobile/article/the_lifetime_value_of_a_law_degree_drops_only_about_30k_in_a_bad_economy_st/

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38th Annual Conference on Clinical Legal Education:

Leading the New Normal: Clinical Education at the Forefront of Change

May 4-7, 2015

Rancho Mirage, CA

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: VIDEO SERIES

The Planning Committee for the 2015 AALS Clinical Conference issues this call for professors to participate in a video series designed to capture the creativity and innovation that is a hallmark of our community. The video collection will feature ideas about teaching methodology for an audience of law professors. Participants will work with the Committee to develop their topics and videotape their talk on Monday, May 4, the day before the Clinical Conference.[1] The AALS has expressed a strong interest in embedding these videos on its website as part of an effort to convey more effectively the value of a legal education.

The new normal in legal education asks law teachers of all kinds to integrate practical lawyering skills and professional values into their teaching. These are topics central to our clinical teaching, and our community has the knowledge and experience to address them in interesting ways. We seek teachers who have developed thoughtful ideas about law school teaching and who want to spread those ideas to the broader community. We envision this project as a way to showcase you and the clinical community as leaders in teaching innovation and to inspire innovation by others. Starting this year, we mean to create a collection of short videos on law school pedagogy that can continue to develop over time and to foster further integration of active learning and practical skills in the law school curriculum. Topics could include:

• 5 things every law professor should know about learning theory
• the value of reflection in learning
• beyond finals: 5 formative assessment tools for legal education
• faculty teaching rounds: how they work and why you should host them
• teaching collaboration
• how to add a negotiation/mediation/interviewing/oral advocacy/drafting exercise into a law school course
• how to make a simulation/role play successful
• how to bring cross-cultural lawyering into a doctrinal course
• top 5 tips for training externship field supervisors
• what I’ve learned from being a law professor for __ years
• 5 things I’ve learned about advising students

These topics are just illustrative; the value of this format is we can be open to ideas brought forth by participants.

The Clinical Conference represents an ideal time for taping. Each year, it draws us together for focused discussion of our roles and approaches as teachers and as lawyers. Taping at one time and in one location allows us to hire a professional videographer to assure a consistent look and solid production values. This year in particular, we are located in shouting distance of Hollywood, so our options are good.

Video format: We plan to produce up to 8 videos at the conference. We will consider proposals that address all kinds of teaching methods, including both clinic-specific methods and methods that integrate skills, values and professional development into other kinds of law school teaching.

The videos will each be between 5-10 minutes long, with a preference for shorter videos; studies show that shorter videos are more appropriate for an online format. The videos will be in the style of an interview, with a single person talking to the camera. You can view examples of this style, applied to substantive topics in immigration law, here.

Criteria for Selection: If you would like to take part in this project, please send a one-page summary of your video proposal to 15clinical@aals.org no later than March 16, 2015. In your proposal, please include the following information:

— your name and school affiliation.

— a working title for your video.

— a short description of the content you propose to cover.

— a short description of your goal for the video, including the impact you would like it to have and the takeaways that you will deliver to the viewer.

— a short statement of your relevant experience, including past experience with your particular topic, experience with videotaped talks and scholarship or presentations that relate to your proposal.

The Committee will review the proposals on a rolling basis with the goal of notifying the selected presenters by March 16, 2015. Participation as a presenter at the main conference does NOT disqualify you from participation in this project.

Commitment: We ask all people who we accept to make the following commitments:

— to participate in or review webinars that we will schedule before the conference on how to make an educational video.

— to develop an outline of your talk before the conference, in collaboration with members of the Planning Committee.

— to practice delivering your talk to others at your location before you attend the conference. We do not encourage speaking from a text, but instead encourage well-prepared spontaneity in your delivery. Practice can help you feel comfortable in this format.

— to be prepared to videotape your session on Monday, May 4. For many, this will require arrival at the conference location on Sunday, May 3. Please hold yourself available for that entire Monday. We will develop a schedule before the conference that gives each presenter a reserved time slot.

Taping: The talks will be videotaped at the conference hotel in 45 minute intervals from 9am-5pm on Monday, May 4, 2015. While the end-product will be roughly 10 minutes, you should expect to engage in multiple takes during your taping session.

This is a great opportunity to showcase your innovations to the legal academy. We hope you will consider putting in a proposal for the video project at the 2015 AALS Clinical Conference. If you have any questions, please feel free to email Michele Pistone, pistone@law.villanova.edu, or Alex Scherr, scherr@uga.edu.[1] The talks in this series will be videotaped during the first day of the Clinical Conference. They complement a growing collection of material about teaching methodology, including webinars organized by the Teaching Methodologies Committee of the AALS Section on Clinical Legal Education.

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Registration is now open for LegalED’s Igniting Law Teaching 2015. The conference is March 20, 2015 at American University Washington College of Law. It is also available for live viewing by webcast.  Here is the list of speakers, topics and schedule.

The conference will feature talks by 35 law school academics and practitioners from the US, Canada and England in a TEDx-styled conference to share ideas on teaching methodologies. LegalED’s Teaching Pedagogy video collection includes many of the talks from last year’s conference, which have been viewed collectively more than 5000 times.

The panels for this year include: Law Teaching for the 21^st Century, Applying Learning Theory to Legal Education, The Art and Craft of Law Teaching, Using Technological Tools for Legal Education, and Pathways to Practice.

The Igniting Law Teaching conference is unlike other gatherings of law professors. Here, talks will be styled as TEDx Talks, with each speaker on stage alone, giving a well scripted and performed talk about an aspect of law school pedagogy. In the end, we will create a collection of short videos on law school-related pedagogy that will inspire innovation and experimentation by law professors around the country, and the world, to bring more active learning and practical skills training into the law school curriculum. The videos will be available for viewing by the larger academic community on LegalED, a website developed by a community of law professors interested in using online technologies to facilitate more active, problem-based learning in the classroom, in addition to better assessment and feedback.

We hope you can join us on March 20^th, either live or virtually.

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The Clinical Law Review will hold its next Clinical Writers’ Workshop on Saturday, September 26, 2015, at NYU Law School.

The Workshop will provide an opportunity for clinical teachers who are writing about any subject (clinical pedagogy, substantive law, interdisciplinary analysis, empirical work, etc.) to meet with other clinicians writing on related topics to discuss their works-in-progress and brainstorm ideas for further development of their articles. Attendees will meet in small groups organized, to the extent possible, by the subject matter in which they are writing. Each group will “workshop” the draft of each member of the group.

Participation in the Workshop requires the submission of a paper because the workshop takes the form of small group sessions in which all members of the group comment on each other’s manuscripts. By June 30, all applicants will need to submit a mini-draft or prospectus, 3-5 pages in length, of the article they intend to present at the workshop. Full drafts of the articles will be due by September 1, 2015.

As in the previous Clinical Law Review Workshops, participants will not have to pay an admission or registration fee but participants will have to arrange and pay for their own travel and lodging. To assist those who wish to participate but who need assistance for travel and lodging, NYU Law School has created a fund for scholarships to help pay for travel and lodging. The scholarships are designed for those clinical faculty who receive little or no travel support from their law schools and who otherwise would not be able to attend this conference without scholarship support. Applicants for scholarships will be asked to submit, with their 3-5 page prospectus, by June 30, a proposed budget for travel and lodging and a brief statement of why the scholarship would be helpful in supporting their attendance at this conference. The Board will review all scholarship applications and issue decisions about scholarships in early July. The scholarships are conditioned upon recipients’ meeting all requirements for workshop participation, including timely submission of drafts, and will be capped at a maximum of $750 per person.

Information about the Workshop – including the Registration form, scholarship application form, and information for reserving hotel rooms – is available on-line at:

http://www.law.nyu.edu/journals/clinicallawreview/clinical-writers-workshop

If you have any comments or suggestions you would like to send us, we would be very happy to hear from you. Comments and suggestions should be sent to Randy Hertz at randy.hertz@nyu.edu.

— The Board of Editors of the Clinical Law Review

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Registration is now open for the AALS Midyear Workshop of Measuring Learning Gains. The Workshop will address assessment of learning and evaluation of programs.  The workshop promises to be a hands-on program for legal educators to develop assessment plans and the tools and techniques to make those plans a success.
Register at the AALS website.

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A few years ago my clinical colleagues and I started to jointly teach Orientation for all our clinic students. The Orientation is typically 3 days long (this semester it was only 3 half days) and is a mixture of joint classes and smaller individual clinic-focused sessions. The joint classes focus on topics that are relevant to all clinic students, such as Introduction to Client Interviewing, Cross-Cultural Lawyering, Clinic Procedures, Acting for Lawyers, Persuasion for Lawyers, Factfinding, Legal Research for Clinic and a class devoted to team-building. We also set aside time for each clinic to meet individually to discuss clinic-specific topics.

Now, we’re thinking about whether to convert the Clinic Orientation into a stand-alone, 2-credit module. To me, the process of developing a curriculum and course proposal for this new class provides an opportunity to start backwards – to incorporate some backward design techniques into the course structure and design. Backward design theory explains that while a syllabus can offer a roadmap to the schedule and assignments for a semester, it is far less useful for setting goals and assessing student outcomes. By contrast, articulating learning outcomes at the beginning of the semester enables us as educators to more effectively measure student progress and provides us with a basis of comparison. So, I decided to start this semester with an eye toward the desired outcomes. What did we want our clinic students to know and be able to do at the end of Orientation?

So, as I sat through the Orientation classes this semester, I focused on crafting a series of learning outcomes for our students. Shortly into it, I found that the most challenging part of creating learning objectives is finding the best wording. I wanted to say “understand” for each topic – students would understand the value of client-centered lawyering, for example. But I recalled an earlier post on this blog, by Barbara Glesner-Fines, in which she recommended avoiding vague verbs, such as “understand,” because they do not effectively measure achievement. Instead, we should focus on “action verbs” that clearly define our expectations for our students.

What were the right verbs for my list of learning outcomes? As students go through the curriculum, we expect them to improve and gain new skills. According to Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (1956), there are six categories of cognitive skills that students pass through as they learn. At the basic level, students begin with knowledge skills and gradually acquire skills of comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. The language we use for learning objectives should reflect students’ increased cognitive skills throughout the semester. For example, students at the beginning of the semester may be expected to “define,” “recognize,” or “state” the significance of a legal concept, showing their developing skills. By the end of the semester, they should be able to “evaluate,” “interpret,” and “investigate” the proceedings of the courtroom trial, moving into more advanced skills and knowledge.

Here are some more verbs to include based on Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives:

Knowledge level:

• Define
• Describe
• Recall
• Record
• State

Comprehension level:

• Classify
• Compare
• Explain
• Identify
• Report

Application level:

• Apply
• Construct
• Summarize
• Demonstrate
• Solve
• Execute

Analysis level:

• Analyze
• Distinguish
• Critique
• Diagnose
• Debate

Synthesis level:

• Develop
• Plan
• Manage
• Organize
• Propose

Evaluation level:

• Appraise
• Argue
• Conclude
• Measure
• Defend
• Integrate

Knowing that this was a set of outcomes from Orientation and that our students were at the beginning of the learning process, many of the verbs I used are closer to the top of this list than they are to the bottom. At the end of the semester, I might expect to seek outcomes toward the bottom of the Taxonomy.

Here is my draft list of learning objectives for the Villanova Law Clinic Orientation. The process of crafting learning outcomes is still relatively new to me, so I’d love to benefit from the community and hear your comments/feedback on how this list could be improved upon.

Client Interviewing:

• Students will explain the value of and be able to plan for an initial client interview; anticipate and identify how the client might feel and think about the interview; consider impediments to an effective interview; explain the value of building trust and rapport with a client at the beginning of a lawyer-client relationship; construct a set of goals for an initial client interview from the perspective of both the client and the student/lawyer.
• Students will plan for and conduct one or more simulations of an initial client interview.
• Students will be exposed to the importance of cultural sensitivity and issues of difference between themselves and their clients; be able to see the world through the eyes of another and appreciate new perspectives.

Professional Formation/Becoming a Lawyer:

• Students will be familiar with the competencies necessary to become an effective lawyer and the underlying research; consider what kind of lawyer each student would like to be; develop greater self-awareness; consider how to find happiness as a lawyer in relation to each student’s own individual strengths and virtues.
• Students will explain the value of learning about an office’s internal operations and recall procedures, such as, where and how to store files, how to maintain files, how to mail correspondence, where to find supplies, who is responsible for different functions in an office and other relevant office matters.

Teamwork and Collaboration:

• Students will appreciate the value of and complications that may arise from collaborating with others on a team; work on teams for various exercises.

Advocacy:

• Students will demonstrate principles of persuasion and explain the importance of being persuasive as a lawyer; apply the factors to consider in making a persuasive argument (ethos, pathos and logos), such as understanding one’s audience and how to influence that audience’s heart and mind, building one’s professional reputation and leveraging the reputation of others, as well as the value of building a logical case.

Reflection:

• Students will implement key understandings about learning, such as the circular process of planning, doing, reflection, with the goal of continuously reflecting upon and improving one’s work.

Diligence and Hard Work:

• Students will hear about and see models of diligent lawyers, yet also distinguish between diligence and a healthy balance between work and pleasure and the value of levity and playfulness in a workplace

What verbs do you use in assessments and learning objectives? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Thanks to Touro Law School,  a new resource for our readers is now available.  The  Touro Law Center’s Journal of Experiential Learning has been launched online.  The inaugural edition  contains a foreword by Professor David Thompson, an Introduction by Dean Patricia Salkin and concluding remarks by Professor Luke Bierman.  Articles include

The  second issue will focus on post-JD incubator programs.  A call for papers has been out and a number of articles are already committed.  If you or a colleague would like to contribute, please contact Coordinating Editor, Associate Dean Myra Berman at mberman@tourolaw.edu<mailto:mberman@tourolaw.edu>

Also, if you have thematic ideas for future issues (e.g., legal process, externships/placements, clinics, pro bono, any doctrinal subject area, etc.) please let Dean Berman know.

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The long awaited report from the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS) and it’s Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers project is available on line. Entitled “AHEAD OF THE CURVE Turning Law Students into Lawyers A Study of the Daniel Webster Scholar Honors Program at the University of New Hampshire School of Law “ the report describes the work done “with an evaluation consulting firm to conduct quantitative and qualitative analysis of existing research to evaluate outcomes of the Daniel Webster Scholar Honors Program. “ 

The report authors found:

• In focus groups, members of the profession and alumni said they believe that students who graduate from the program are a step ahead of new law school graduates;
•  When evaluated based on standardized client interviews, students in the program outperformed lawyers who had been admitted to practice within the last two years; and
• The only significant predictor of standardized client interview performance was whether or not the interviewer participated in the Daniel Webster Scholar Honors Program. Neither LSAT scores nor class rank was significantly predictive of interview performance.

This evaluation should prove extremely useful as law schools, state courts and the ABA continue to examine the best way to prepare law students for the profession.

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The Clinical Law Review seeks applications for four vacancies on the Board of Editors.  The Board urges you to think about whether you would be interested, and to think about others whom you would encourage to apply.

Members of the Board of Editors serve for a term of 6 years. The term of the new Board members will commence in January 2016. Board meetings customarily are held twice a year: once at the annual Clinical Law Review Workshop at the end of September and once at the AALS Spring clinical workshop or conference. Board members are expected to attend meetings regularly. Policy matters for the Review and status of upcoming issues are discussed at these meetings. Throughout the year, Board members are asked to work with authors to edit articles. Board members also customarily serve as small group leaders in the Clinical Law Review Workshop.

Applicants should explain their interest in the position and should highlight the aspects of their experience that they believe are most relevant. The Board seeks applications from people committed to the work of the Review and strives to select people with diverse backgrounds and varying experiences in and approaches to clinical legal education. Applications and supporting resumes must be received no later than April 1, 2015. Please email them to me at mgilman@ubalt.edu with the subject line:  “Clinical Law Review application.”

The committee to select new Board members is always chaired by a current Board member whose term is expiring. I will be serving this year as the chair of the Selection Committee. The other members of the committee will be designated by the three organizations that sponsor the Clinical Law Review — AALS, CLEA, and NYU — each of which have designated two committee members.

I encourage you to contact me or other current or former Board members with any questions or for information about service on the Board or the work of a co-Editor-in-Chief. My fellow Board members and I have found it a very rewarding and informative way to continue the advancement of clinical legal education.

The other members of the Board are: Amna Akbar; Sameer Ashar, Wendy Bach; Keith Findley, Marty Guggenheim, and Kim Thomas. The current members whose terms are ending, along with mine, are: Carolyn Grose; Mae Quinn, and Brenda Smith.

The current Editors-in-Chief are Randy Hertz, Phyllis Goldfarb, and Michael Pinard.

Those who previously served on the Board are: Jane Aiken, Tony Alfieri, Bev Balos, Margaret Martin Barry, Ben Barton, Juliet Brodie, Angela Burton, Stacy Caplow, Bob Dinerstein, Jon Dubin, Cecelia Espenoza, Gay Gellhorn, Peter Toll Hoffman, Jonathan Hyman, Peter Joy, Minna Kotkin, Deborah Maranville, Bridget McCormack, Binny Miller, Kim O’Leary, Ascanio Piomelli, Paul Reingold, Jim Stark, Paul Tremblay, Nina Tarr, Rod Uphoff, and Leah Wortham. The Emeritus Editors-in-Chief are Richard Boswell, Steve Ellmann, Isabelle Gunning, and Kate Kruse.

I look forward to hearing from you. – Michele Gilman

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From a reluctant technologist:  For several reasons, this year we’ve instituted in the clinics at the law school an email security program to boot-strap onto school’s email system we’ve been using to communicate with our students. We did this for a few reasons.  First, we realized that, once the students are not longer in the clinic, if we continued using their general emails, the confidential client case information in those email accounts will remain in their possession.   So, we needed to establish a dedicated email system that would be used exclusively for students’ (and supervisors’) confidential client communications, one that would not follow the students with them when they left the clinic. In addition, these dedicated email addresses can also be used by clients, who are becoming more attuned to the internet and especially email, so they can communicate with their clinic students in a “safe” environment. Finally, these confidential emails are always available to the clinic staff, even after a student leaves the clinic, so that we are able to access this information if it is needed for a case.

I was a reluctant participant in this project, feeling that, and fearing that, I was becoming obsolete, given the myriad of technological interconnections in which we, as lawyers and clinicians, must become not just familiar, or proficient, but outstanding.  Also, “Best Practices” for legal practitioners remains open to argument, particularly as the technology, and attempts of outsiders to “invade” these systems, becomes more sophisticated.  It seems that, as soon as one advance is made, it becomes obsolete and needs updating.  This is difficult to keep abreast with, particularly difficult for law school clinical programs, which often do not have the resources to maintain the continued vigilance that seems required these days.

For now, though, we’re “all set.”  Let’s see how long that lasts …

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