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 8, 2008 by Robert Dinerstein
As someone who has been involved in the Best Practices project and its predecessors more or less from the beginning (though my longevity is more impressive than my substantive contributions), I am extraordinarily pleased by the publication of the book and the buzz that is creating. The essentially contemporaneous publication of Best Practices with the Carnegie Foundation report, along with the recently publicized efforts of schools such as Harvard, Stanford, Georgetown and Vanderbilt (to name but a few) to address curricular issues, and the proliferation of conferences (the Crossroads conference at University of South Carolina in November; the Stanford Carnegie conference in December; the AALS meeting in January; and the upcoming conference at Georgia State), has created an environment in which it is more possible to think about thorough-going changes in law school curriculum and pedagogy than ever before. Continue reading →
Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Catalysts For Change, Who is Using the Best Practices Book? | 3 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….
Filed under: Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques | 1 Comment »
Posted on January 28, 2008 by Margaret Moore Jackson
Two recent articles by Katherine Mangan promote Best Practices and some of the law schools that are working to implement reform. Her January 11th story, “All Rise. Welcome Law School,” describes Touro Law Center as creating change in legal education by “emphasizing practical skills from Day 1.” Requiring all first-year students to observe courtroom sessions and promoting opportunities for students to watch trials at the nearby courthouses are small steps, but potentially meaningful ones. The article also recognizes Continue reading →
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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 Peter Joy
Possible changes are afoot with the ABA, and anyone interested in legal education will want to take note. These changes are important because of the ABA’s influence on U.S. law schools. Continue reading →
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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 January 14, 2008 by michaelhunterschwartz
Integrated into one of each entering students’ regular courses, Washburn’s First Week Curriculum consists of one full week of instruction (twelve hours of classroom instruction plus another ten hours working in small, carefully-constructed, and closely-supervised small groups) aimed at several of the goals addressed in Best Practices.
The students work on Continue reading →
Filed under: First Year Law School Innovations | 3 Comments »
Posted on January 13, 2008 by Antoinette Sedillo Lopez
Filed under: Best Practices, Diversity & Social Justice | Comments Off on Protected: Draft for Seattle Law Review
Posted on January 8, 2008 by Darlene
John Mayer on his CALIopolis Blog has posted the audio of the AALS Session: Rethinking Legal Education For The 21st Century. The speakers included…
- Moderator: Edward L. Rubin, Vanderbilt University Law School
- Speakers: Vicki C. Jackson, Georgetown University Law Center
- Robert Mac Crate, Esq., Senior Counsel, Sullivan and Cromwell, New York, New York
- Martha L. Minow, Harvard Law School
- Suellyn Scarnecchia, University of New Mexico School of Law
- William M. Sullivan, Senior Scholar The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Palo Alto, California
- Judith W. Wegner, University of North Carolina School of Law
If you did not attend and want to listen, click here: http://caliopolis.classcaster.org/blog/legal_education/2008/01/07/aals_carnegie
John also recorded his talk on CALI and Carnegie and included the ppt slides. To access them, click here: http://caliopolis.classcaster.org/blog/legal_education/2008/01/06/aals2008
Filed under: Catalysts For Change, Technology | 1 Comment »
Posted on January 7, 2008 by Mary A. Lynch
Many of you probably saw and read the cover of the Sunday Styles section of January 6th’s New York Times entitled: “The Falling Down Professions.” The article outlines the decrease in “happiness” of lawyers and doctors. Notably, with respect to the legal profession the article stresses that large law firms are losing associates and notes that Sullivan & Cromwell had been “hemorrhaging” associates. According to the article, attempts are being made to begin “groundbreaking” programs such as having partners say “thank you” and “good work.” WOW – what progress! Continue reading →
Filed under: Catalysts For Change | 1 Comment »
Posted on January 7, 2008 by vmerton
Yet another connection that might be made to another blog, to TaxProfBlog in fact : http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2007/12/why-are-law-pro.html#comments
“Why Are Law Professors So Unhappy?” asks renowned tax law professor and scholar of pedagogy Paul Caron. He cites a recent book,The Three Signs of a Miserable Job (2007), for the proposition that the key characteristics of an unhappiness-making job are: 1) anonymity; 2) irrelevance, when employees cannot see how their job makes a difference in the lives of others; and 3) “immeasurement,” which is the inability of employees to assess for themselves their contribution or success. He then suggests that law professors are surprisingly prone to these ills.
Caron’s post has elicited much commentary and controversy, not only on his blog but on several others. Maybe someone ought to respond along the lines that law professors might suffer far less from these misery indices if they made more of a commitment to teaching, or rather to the actual perceptible learning of their students. I don’t trust my own ability to write the post in a way that would easily be heard by its intended audience, but somebody should. Great opportunity to link to BPBlog from one of the best-known blogs in legal academe.
Filed under: Catalysts For Change | Comments Off on A Call for a Response: “Why are Law Professors So Unhappy?”
Posted on January 6, 2008 by vmerton
Some thoughtful reflection from a colleague on the Feminist Law Professors blog:
http://feministlawprofs.law.sc.edu/?p=2646
Filed under: Best Practices for Institutional Effectiveness | Comments Off on Feminist Law Profs Blog
Best Practices for Legal Education 