Posted on May 23, 2008 by ssparrow
Ever hit snags when having students work in small groups? Student evaluations often tell the story:
Best thing about this class: Small group work!!!!
Worst thing about this class: Small groups!!
I’ve always felt bad for the students who hate small groups. I know the research that collaborative and active learning results in better performance; I hear employers clamor for lawyers who can work with others. I tell the students about this and they still hate small groups. Students complain that small group work is inefficient, frustrating, and burdensome. Students freeload. Others dominate and control. They have to take time to work together outside of class. I’ve worked on ways to reduce the problems, but most of them involve monitoring by me or a teaching assistant, with mixed results (aside from the fact that one of my goals is to have student groups learn to be self-monitoring).
Last semester I tried another strategy, Team Based Learning, and was blown away. Continue reading →
Filed under: Teaching Methodology | 1 Comment »
Posted on May 22, 2008 by ssparrow
When was the last time you had to read a case book in a subject you knew nothing about? If it’s been a while, I recommend you try it. Multiply that experience by four. Add to that experience the practice of daily carrying 20 pounds of dead weight. Then pay $500. I don’t know about you, but I am tired and drained already.
Consider the case book. Continue reading →
Filed under: Teaching Methodology | Comments Off on Using a text book with Best Practices in mind
Posted on May 20, 2008 by Mary A. Lynch
As one academic year winds down, plans are already being made for next year’s faculty hiring. What does that have to do with Best Practices? One could argue that to implement the vision of the Carnegie Report and Best Practices law schools should only hire applicants who have practiced law for at least a decade and have become “masters” or “experts” in their field of practice. Such applicants, it follows, can easily integrate the apprenticeships of practice, professional role identity and core knowledge emphasized in both reports.
Although I do believe the legal academy and most faculty recruitment committees currently overemphasize scholarship and undervalue teaching potential, I am not of the opinion that only expert practitioners can teach in accordance with Best Practices and Carnegie. Just as the young faculty member who was hired to fill the “Property” slot may eventually become the Administrative Law expert, so too the “faculty member theorist” with no practice experience can become an ally of Best Practices. Faculty members who care about their students and what goes on in their classroom are always learning new ways to equip themselves for better teaching. Theorists can interact with the practice world, co-teach with a practioner or clinician, bring expert practioners into the classroom and/or consult with practioners.
In terms of Best Practices in faculty hiring, it seems critical to ensure that prospective candidates are evaluated not just upon their potential for scholarly contribution, or ability to lecture, but on how much they VALUE the lessons which practicioners and the profession can offer students. In addition, candidates should demonstrate an interest in innovative and experiential teaching pedagogy, in integrating the 3 apprenticeships of Carnegie and in the honest assessment of what students have learned as outlined in Best Practices.
Fortunately for me, the recruitment committee at Albany Law School agrees. This year, during our hiring season, we intend to evaluate candidates, among other criteria, upon their demonstrated or potential ability to integrate the 3 apprenticeships of Carnegie and/or teach in accordance with Best Practices. I would be interested in knowing how other law schools plan on addressing Best Practices in faculty hiring.
Filed under: Who is Using the Best Practices Book? | 1 Comment »
Posted on May 20, 2008 by ssparrow
Identifying rules.
Analyzing and synthesizing authorities.
Applying them to facts.
Organizing coherently.
Using accurate punctuation and grammar.
Citing to authority.
We tell students that all of these are important in legal writing classes, but in all honesty, we show a different message. If a student does brilliant analysis, but butchers the writing and citation, the student can usually get a decent grade. The reverse is not true. But what if all of these had descriptive minimum competencies – students would need to show that they could write without sentence fragments to pass the course. Ditto for citation. Students would not pass the course if they didn’t reach a minimum competency. As long as we provide ample notice, practice opportunities and feedback, why not? Analysis is really important, but according to a survey conducted by two of my colleagues, when readers-judges- see grammatical errors, they don’t even get to the analysis. I think of grammatical errors as lettuce on the teeth – the kind of distraction that precludes further thought. Same with citation. If students can’t do that correctly, employers will give up pretty quickly.
So now we are in the process of defining our minimum competencies. It’s not easy. And it begs the question – if everyone is competent, what is an “A” in the course? Super-competence? Competence with flair?
Filed under: Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques | Comments Off on Meet minimum competencies to pass a course?
Posted on May 20, 2008 by Antoinette Sedillo Lopez
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 →
Filed under: Best Practices for Institutional Effectiveness, Catalysts For Change | Tagged: higher education accreditation | Comments Off on University-wide Re-accreditation as a Catalyst for Best Practices
Posted on May 9, 2008 by Antoinette Sedillo Lopez
Several of the sessions at the recent AALS clinical conference in Tucson raised issues that involve what many call cultural competence. (EXCELLENT CONFERENCE, by the way). All agreed that these issues are very difficult to address. I have an article coming out in the Wash. U. Journal of Law and Policy this fall that grows out of the many years we have tried to teach about these issues at the University of New Mexico. Because our faculty, student body and client base in the clinic is so diverse, our differences become very obvious. Continue reading →
Filed under: Best Practices, Diversity & Social Justice, Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques, Who is Using the Best Practices Book? | Tagged: Add new tag, cultural competence; intercultural communication | 2 Comments »
Posted on April 30, 2008 by Antoinette Sedillo Lopez
As part of the joint project with the UNM medical school that I described in earlier blogs, we used standardized clients in my Family Law course the same way standardized patients were used at the Medical School, as a potential tool of assessment. I am now thinking about using them again next year in my Family Law class and now with one semester experience under my belt, I am thinking about the potential of using them more effectively as part of the training. I saw that student interest and engagement in the topic was definitely improved because of their need to prepare for and conduct an initial interview with an actor. And, the actors filled out their evaluation of the student’s performance, so the students received feedback. I am wondering whether it might be more effective for the actors to discuss the interview with the student out of role. That is, the actor would go over the evaluation sheet and give an honest appraisal about the student’s strengths and weaknesses in the interview and also answer the student’s questions. I think such a direct communication would help the students develop more self awareness and also be a very effective formative tool to help students improve their skills. Of course, this would require that the actors be trained in effective interview techniques. I found that it was simply not practical for me to go over them with the students one by one. Too many students, not enough time! Another thought is to have the student’s go over the interviews with each other.—perhaps in pairs. Of course, this would be after training too! As I prepare to use standardized clients again this fall, I welcome your ideas about this. It would also be great to hear from others who are using standardized clients. If you don’t want to blog about this, please email me lopez@law.unm.edu with your ideas and suggestions. Thanks!
Filed under: Teaching Methodology, Who is Using the Best Practices Book? | 2 Comments »
Posted on April 25, 2008 by Mary A. Lynch
I got the idea for this blog post from Chuck Weisselberg. We all feel unworthy sometimes to tout what we do as BEST Practices. It’s probably easier to name the poor practices of legal education. So here’s the beginning of my pet peeves :
1) Acceptance of law professors who disparage and show immense disdain for the VERY profession in which their students are preparing to join
2) Allowing the book to define how and what you choose to teach
3) Regurgitating in class what students should have read to prepare for class
4) Creating and supporting false dichotomies between theory and practice, ethics and “thinking like a lawyer,” and professional and personal values.
Please join me in commenting on the WORST PRACTICE scenarios you see in legal education…
Filed under: Teaching Methodology | 5 Comments »
Posted on April 23, 2008 by Antoinette Sedillo Lopez
As I was frantically trying to clear out my emails to stay under my disk quota, I ran across an email sent to the faculty by Barbara Blumenfeld, our Legal Research and Writing Director. I had saved it because I liked it. I thought it could use a broader audience so I asked her if I could post it. She graciously gave her permission. Here it is:
This past summer the Legal Writing Director’s conference focused on “Best Practices in Teaching, Management, and Scholarship.” We had several speakers and workshops on both the Best Practices and Educating Lawyers books. This reflects the fact that legal writing has been concerned with and teaching using many of what are the “best practices” for twenty years or more.
One of our plenary speakers was Judith Wegner, one of the authors of Educating Lawyers. Some of her comments reflect what you already know if you have explored the legal writing literature or talked with legal writing professionals: that legal writing is not an English class but is about reasoning and argumentation and that its pedagogy can lend insight to legal education generally. That is, it teaches legal communication and problem solving. Professor Wegner noted many of the special virtues of legal writing pedagogy, including:
* Bringing together content knowledge and practical skills in close interaction
* Allowing “time out” to observe/analyze thinking
* Fostering of the development of metacognition
* Tacit structure that models professional practice and self-awareness
* Integration of “practice” and professional identity with theory/cognition
Since lawyers are generally communicating a legal proof to a variety of audiences, legal writing must teach the skills necessary to develop that proof as well as to communicate it. Those skills are many of the skills noted as essential to training lawyers. Legal writing professionals have been studying learning theory and applying it to this teaching task for many years. Your UNM legal writing faculty would be delighted to discuss these thoughts and legal writing pedagogy with you more, either individually or perhaps as a panel at a dean’s hour or something similar.
Filed under: Teaching Methodology, Who is Using the Best Practices Book? | Tagged: Add new tag, legal writing | Comments Off on Insights From Legal Writing Prof
Posted on April 21, 2008 by Steven Friedland
Lately, I find myself asking myself a question right before teaching some material, “What does competency look like in this subject area?” I ask this in part because of student statements about the opaqueness of legal ed — that they do not know what we want them to be learning, exactly. I also ask this question in part from recent realizations that teaching from a case book and being attentive to case law (or statutes or even problems) does not indicate what I really want students to learn about that material — namely the frameworks for analysis, the depth of knowledge and the application of that material to other fact patterns. By covering material, I still am teaching law students as law students — not as test-takers or attorneys. So I have tried to shift my approach sometimes and be more explicit about what competency looks like. I may suggest a court’s or student’s analysis merits competency in an area or announce in class, “Here’s what a competent statement of a rule might look like,” or “Here’s how a defense lawyer might argue this issue.” I know that this might be construed as spoon-feeding, but I want students to understand the general framework of a competent answer before I ask them many more hypothetical fact patterns. (After all, piano teachers demonstrate competency before asking their charges to practice toward that goal.) Has this express use of competency been successful? I don’t know. I do know it feels right to treat students not always as students, but also as future test-takers and lawyers — as “doers” and not just as note-takers or listeners.
Filed under: Teaching Methodology | 2 Comments »
Posted on April 20, 2008 by Antoinette Sedillo Lopez
As we have been working on curricular planning, one of my colleagues, Laura Gomez could not attend an early meeting (I think she was at a book signing or her son’s field trip or something). With her permission, I am posting her thoughts:
Initially I’d like to thank Suellyn for turning our attention to the Carnegie report and to the Best Practices for Legal Education report. Together, the books point to deeply entrenched problems with how law schools teach and prepare students for the legal profession; they also suggest strategies for improvement. I share Suellyn’s assessment that we at the Universityof New Mexico are poised to take advantage of the cumulative wisdom presented in these studies. We are well-suited to do so for three reasons: (1) we are a highly collegial group (those of us who have come from other institutions might see this more clearly, but I think we all know it at the gut level); (2) we have a tradition of valuing teaching and truly caring about students; and (3) we have an enviable student-faculty ratio.
Reading these two books helped… Continue reading →
Filed under: Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques, Catalysts For Change, Teaching Methodology, Who is Using the Best Practices Book? | Comments Off on A Colleague’s Thoughts on Curricular Planning
Posted on April 12, 2008 by Antoinette Sedillo Lopez
As I said in my last post, 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 mission; curriculum with educational outcomes, and instructional objectives with curriculum (p.93). My last post focused on mission, this one will focus a bit on educational outcomes. At first blush, this can seem a bit intimidating, after all, the range of skills that a lawyer should have can be daunting. However, we do have some guidance in the MacCrate report published by the American Bar Association in 1992, the plethora of literature that as written before that report came out (and the many pieces that have been written since ) our own experiences, and our knowledge about the communities our graduates will serve. Continue reading →
Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Who is Using the Best Practices Book? | Comments Off on Curricular Planning and Educational Outcomes
Posted on March 31, 2008 by Justin Myers
As a recent graduate (< 1 year) of Albany Law School, and a current Graduate Fellow in the Albany Law School Clinic, I’ve had the unique opportunity to be on both sides of the legal education fence. Recent conversations with both doctrinal and clinical professors regarding the student experience in law school has made it clear that students and faculty/administration have very different perspectives on who the “good professors” are. In almost every instance the students’ opinion (based on my understanding of the most pervasive complaints overheard in school corridors) was in direct opposition to the professors’ perspective. Those professors who perennially fall within student disfavor seemed to be the ones that were most highly regarded by their colleagues for their teaching skills, and vice versa.
So, prompted by Professor Schwartz’s project (see prior post), and my unique position, I ask what makes a good law professor? Continue reading →
Filed under: Teaching Methodology | 6 Comments »
Posted on March 26, 2008 by Mary A. Lynch
Recently, Professor Michael Hunter Schwartz from Washburn University School of Law, and a contributor to this blog, sent me the following email:
Dear Colleagues,
I am in search of the best law teachers in this country, and I could use your help. I have the extraordinary opportunity to conduct a law professor-focused, follow-up study to Ken Bain’s wonderful What the Best College Teachers Do (Harvard University Press, 2004).
Thus, I am writing to solicit your nominations. In particular, I am looking for teachers who consistently produce extraordinary learning, who change their students’ lives and whose instruction stays with students long after they graduate from law school. I hope what I produce inspires you as much as Professor Bain’s work has inspired me.
Over the next three years, I will be:
- soliciting nominations;
- gathering evidence of nominees’ excellence;
- paring the list of nominees to the most extraordinary law teachers;
- visiting law schools around the country, sitting in on classes, interviewing the nominees, and talking to focus groups of students and alumni;
- and then publishing what I have found in a book: What the Best Law Teachers Do (Harvard University Press, forthcoming 2011).
I have set up a web nomination process (although I will also accept nominations by phone, by e-mail, by regular mail, or in person).
To nominate a candidate or learn more about this project, please go to http://washburnlaw.edu/bestlawteachers Click on the link on the right side of the page to get to the nomination form.
To honor those who have been nominated, I have set up a website on which I will report the name of each nominee, the nominee’s institutional affiliation, and a few comments from the nominator.
Here’s a link to that website: http://washburnlaw.edu/bestlawteachers/nominees/index.php
Feel free to e-mail me at michael.schwartz@washburn.edu if you have any questions. The names of nominators and nominees will be withheld upon request.
Sincerely,
Professor Michael Hunter Schwartz
Washburn University School of Law
Filed under: Teaching Methodology | Comments Off on What Do the Best Law Teachers Do?
Posted on March 21, 2008 by Antoinette Sedillo Lopez
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 →
Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Best Practices & Setting Goals, Best Practices for Institutional Effectiveness | Comments Off on Curricular Planning and Mission
Best Practices for Legal Education 