Transcript FIRST ANNUAL UPSTATE/WESTERN NEW YORK & BEYOND REGIONAL CONFERENCE December 6 and 7, 2007 “Forming a Regional Community to Share and Define Best Practices”

FIRST ANNUAL
UPSTATE/WESTERN NEW
YORK & BEYOND REGIONAL
CONFERENCE
December 6 and 7, 2007
“Forming a Regional Community
to Share and Define Best
Practices”
Morning Wake Up
Session
The Impact of “Best Practices”
and “Carnegie” on clinical programs:
Evaluating Ourselves Internally &
Evaluating our place in Legal Education.
Goals of Morning Session
For all participants to:
1. Become familiar with, and understand, the
basics of the Carnegie Report and Best
Practices.
2. Gain more particularized familiarity with Best
Practices Chapter 5 (Experiential Learning),
and how it relates to many other Best Practice
recommendations.
3. Develop Experience using Best Practices to
assess ourselves, our programs, and our
law schools.
a. Begin the process of assessing whether our
clinics are using “Best Practices”. If not, how can
we address weaknesses?
b. Develop a process for the on-going use of “Best
Practices” at your law school as a tool for
design, implementations, and assessment.
c. Consider whether “Best Practices” helps us to
evaluate the place and role of experiential education
at law schools.
d. Enjoy working with faculty from the other regional
law schools !!!
CONFIDENCE SURVEY:
Learning About the Audience
How many people feel:
 Quite
Confident in discussing what Best Practices &
Carnegie advocates, and how it should be implemented at home.
 Somewhat

Confident
A little Shaky…
Methods for Reaching Goals
LECTURE AND POWERPOINT (Main Room)
9 am - 9:45



9:45-10:00

Articulate Goals and Methods/Confidence Survey
Review History, Politics, and Pillars of Best Practices and
Carnegie.
Summarize Important foundational points in Chapters 2
(Setting Goals), 3 (Organizing Instruction), 4 (Delivering
Instruction) and 7 (Assessing Student Learning) of Best
Practices.
BRIEF Q & A
Set up for small groups
5 minute paper exercise!
Distribute Small Group assignment and the Table of Contents
to Chapter 5
10 - 10:15
BREAK Get to small group room by 10:15 please!
10:15 – 11:00
Small Group EXERCISE
11:00 -11:45
REPORT BACK TO MAIN ROOM
 Small Group Reports
Confidence Survey/Assessment Survey
To create a healthy teaching and learning environment.
Use Professor Gerry Hess’s 8 components for achieving such an environment:
 Inclusion
 Feedback.
 Expectation
 Support
 Respect
 Collaboration
 Delight
 Engagement
More on
this LATER

 We will support your AUTONOMY and have HIGH
EXPECTATIONS.
 We will employ CONTEXT-BASED EDUCATION (See
chapter 4 G) by placing you in hypothetical clinics during
the small group sessions.
 We will use MULTIPLE METHODS of instruction.
(See pages 132-33 for discussion of the kinds of lecture
methods).
 We are attempting to ENHANCE LEARNING WITH
TECHNOLOGY
 We will consciously attempt to ASSESS
THE LEARNING.
 We have integrated PRACTICING LAWYERING into
the teaching.
 Some Reflections from former CLEA
president Carrie Kaas …
The Tipping Point
By Roy Stuckey
By William Sullivan
Anne Colby
Judith Welch Wegner
Lloyd Bond
Lee S. Shulman
By Paul Maharg
 Most law school graduates are not as prepared for
practice as they could or should be.
 Law Schools can do much better. They must make an
Institutional Commitment to do so.
 Significant improvements to legal education are
achievable, if the issues are examined from fresh
perspectives and with open minds.
 The “near exclusive” focus of law schools on
systemic abstraction from actual social context has
two major defects:
1.) The casual attention given “to teaching students how to
use legal thinking in the complexity of actual law practice.”
2.) The failure to complement the focus on skill in legal analysis
with effective support for developing the ethical and social
dimensions of the profession.
The Three Apprenticeships:
The signature pedagogy of all professional fields.
Teach Students how to think, perform & conduct themselves like
professionals.
1.) THINK – intellectual analysis, university teaching
2.) PERFORM – expert practice shared by competent
practitioners. (Simulated Practice settings/ Case Studies /
Actual Clinic Experience with Real Clients)
3.) ETHICAL / SOCIAL – introduce students to the purposes
and attitudes that are guided by the values for which the
professional community is responsible
Conferences Promoting Change in
Legal Education
-
Legal Education at the Crossroads: Ideas to Action, Pt. I
- brought together Deans, the AALS, the Carnegie Foundation, and
leading legal educators to discuss reshaping legal education.
Coalition of 10 schools, headed by Stanford Law have
pledged to discuss necessary changes in legal education.
-
Leaders in legal education reform gathered to address
Best Practices, Educating Lawyers, and the
opportunities ahead in American Legal Education.
For more information go to
http://bestpracticeslegaled.albanylawblogs.com
What are other schools doing?
 Case Law School’s Arc Program: A three year program that seeks to
provide a completely integrated approach to teaching law and lawyering.
 Dayton School of Law: Students are required to participate in one of
three curricular tracks: 1) Advocacy & Dispute Resolution; 2) Personal &
Transactional Law; 3), Intellectual Law, Cyberlaw & Creativity
Each track at Dayton includes:
 Mandatory courses in dispute resolution and values and ethics
 Participation in an externship
 A clinic or capstone course that brings together skills, theory, research and
writing
 Mandatory skills proficiency tests are being developed!!!!
 Many schools, including Stanford are requiring clinics.
 Schools, like Harvard, are overhauling curriculum to teach students to be
more efficient practitioners.
 Vanderbilt is redesigning the curriculum, with faculty departments
setting goals and learning outcomes – in true Best Practices form!!
1.Setting Goals
2.Organizing the Program of
Instruction
3.Delivering Instruction
4.Assessing Student Learning
5.Evaluating the Success of the
Program of Instruction
 Demonstrate a commitment to preparing
students for practice
 Clearly articulate their educational goals
 Shift from content-focused programs of
instruction to outcomes-focused programs of
instruction
 The primary goal should be to develop
competence, that is, the ability to resolve
legal problems effectively and responsibly
 Help students acquire the attributes of
effective, responsible lawyers including selfreflection, lifelong learning skills,
professional skills and professionalism
 Organize curriculums progressively
 Integrate the teaching of theory &
doctrine
 Teach professionalism pervasively
throughout all three years
 Use teaching methods that most effectively and
efficiently achieve desired educational objective
 Employ context-based instruction
 Employ best practices when using any instructional
methodology
 Maintain healthy teaching and learning environments
 Enhance with technology and appropriate use of
practicing lawyers and judges
 Have effective teacher development programs and
establish learning centers
 Include criteria-referenced assessments,
multiple formative and summative assessments,
and various methods of assessment
 Law Schools should regularly evaluate
their effectiveness and use best practices
for conducting such evaluations
Chapter 2 – Best Practices for
Setting Goals for
the Program of Instruction

A.) School Commits to prepare students
to practice effectively and responsibly in
contexts they are “likely to encounter.”
Chapter 2 – Best Practices for
Setting Goals for
the Program of Instruction - Cont’

B.) Clearly Articulate Educational Goals – for
school, for courses, for each class.

Phase Shift – identified by Judith Wegner – see
page 43. If educational objectives were made
clear to students, students could reach the point
at which they master the concept to “think like a
lawyer” more quickly and with less stress.
Chapter 2 – Best Practices for
Setting Goals for
the Program of Instruction - Cont’

C.) Articulate goals of institution in terms of
desired outcomes.



OUTCOMES: what students will know and be
able to do upon graduation and how they well
they will do it.
when objective outcomes are not made explicit,
the pre-occupation is specific knowledge.
GLOBAL MOVEMENT towards outcome
education: up until now US Law Schools have
ignored it
Seven Principles of
Outcomes (1 – 4)
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Collaborative formulation with bench, bar and
others including students
Consistent and serve school’s mission
Adopted on faculty consensus after dialogue
and deliberation
Measurable – not decimal place accuracy but a
general judgment of whether students can
know, think and do most of what’s intended.
(see reference to how clinical profs do this all
the time, page 49)
Seven Principles of
Outcomes (5 – 7)



State outcome without jargon, explicitly and in
plain English
Number of outcomes is based on what faculty
can reasonably address and assess during
duration of law school
Outcome demands should be reasonable in
light of the abilities of students and faculty
Task of Developing
Outcomes




Should occur by collaboration among law
schools and other entities
An American Institute for the Practice of Law
Various statements: LSAC Project to create new
LSAT, ABA Legal Education Section, Judith
Younger see pp. 50-55.
Chooses to use the Outcomes adopted in
England and Wales
Articulate Goals for Each
Course in Terms of Desired
Outcomes
 Do you feel overwhelmed?
 Don’t – Instead listen to what Tom
Brummond, who wrote a brief summary
of the Best Practices in teaching says:
page 55 of book.
 Of course its unfamiliar to us, but we can do
together with some help from overseas!
 Some examples are given at 55-59.
Civil Court Best Practice:
Example (pages 56 - 57)
Aim: To develop skills in relation to the conduct,
funding and resolution of civil ligation.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of the course students
should be able to:
 Interview and advise clients on straightforward issues
 Take basic precognitions
 Draft basic pleadings
 Demonstrate working knowledge of the rules of civil procedure
 Explain how civil procedure may be funded
 Explain how actions are settled
 Know the role of, and conduct basic negotiations
 Explain and discuss ethical rules associated with civil litigation and
dispute resolution.
BOTTOM LINE: Help students acquire the
attributes of effective responsible lawyers.
 Self reflection and life long learning
 Intellectual and analytical skills
 Core knowledge of the law
 Core understanding of the law
 Professional skills
 Professionalism
Practical Judgment as an
Intellectual Skill
 “Clinical judgment”– Medical education
term, a “clinical” habit of mind, practical
wisdom and often complex social
circumstances.
 The key needed to identify assess and
propose concrete solutions in particular
 Clinical Professor Mark Aaronson
identified 6 key characteristics
The 6 Key Characteristics of
“Practical Judgment”
1. Entails the application and tailoring of general knowledge
to particular circumstances.
2. A dialogic process of deliberation or reasoning.
3. The ability to be empathetic and detached at the same
time.
4. Knowledge is an instrument that should be used
equitably for the benefit of humanity.
5. Lawyering judgment develops over time, and requires
exposure to variety of problems, and repetitive practice.
6. Practical Judgment intertwines intellectual and moral
attributes.
Professionalism: beyond the MPRE
 Commitment to justice
 Respect for the rule of law
Honor, integrity, fair play, truthfulness and candor
 Sensitivity and effectiveness with diverse
clients and colleagues
 Nurturing quality of life
The 12 Outcomes of The Law Society
of England & Wales
(1 -6)
1. Demonstrate appropriate behavior and integrity in a range of
situations, including contentious and non-contentious areas of work.
2. Demonstrate the capacity to deal sensitively and effectively with clients,
colleagues and others from a range of social, economic and ethnic
backgrounds, identifying and responding positively and appropriately to
issues of culture and disability that might affect communication techniques
and influence a client’s objectives.
3. Apply techniques to communicate effectively with clients, colleagues
and members of other professions.
4. Recognize clients’ financial, commercial and personal constraints and priorities.
5. Effectively approach problem-solving.
6. Effectively use current technologies and strategies to store, retrieve and
analyze information and to undertake factual and legal research.
The 12 Outcomes of The Law Society
of England & Wales
(7 -12)
7. Demonstrate an appreciation of the commercial environment of
legal practice, including the market for legal services.
8. Recognize and resolve ethical dilemmas.
9. Use risk management skills.
10. Recognize personal and professional strengths and weaknesses,
to identify the limits of personal knowledge and skill and to
develop strategies that will enhance their personal performance.
11. Manage their personal workload and manage efficiently and a
number of client matters.
12. Work as part of a team.
CHAPTER 3 – BEST PRACTICES FOR
ORGANIZING THE PROGRAM OF INSTRUCTION

Basic Principles
 Strive
to Achieve Congruence
 Progressively Develop Knowledge, Skills, and
Values
 Integrate teaching of theory, doctrine, and practice
 Teach professionalism pervasively throughout all
three years
STRIVE TO ACHIEVE CONGRUENCE

Harmonize:



Programs & Educational mission
Curricula & Educational Outcomes, building mastery
Course-by-course objectives & overall curricula

Identify Desired Outcomes

Then, Map the curricular and co-curricular opportunities



where students are introduced to the skills, values, and
knowledge
where do students get to practice them
at what point are students expected to attain the desired level
of proficiency.
STRIVE TO ACHIEVE CONGRUENCE – CONT’

MAPS identify depth and breadth of opportunities, as
well as reveal curricular gaps, redundancies and
inadequacies.

Evaluation processes should also be congruent –
determine if the objectives are actually being
accomplished.
PROGRESSIVELY DEVELOP KNOWLEDGE,
SKILLS AND VALUES
Law Schools should be more than just a
collection of courses.
 Schools should have sequential design for a
“Pathway for Learning.”
 Systemic coherence is necessary, even if
teachers lose some autonomy.

INTEGRATE TEACHING THEORY,
DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE

Too much time analyzing doctrine, and too little
time for competence promoting abilities.

Move beyond “doctrine vs. other skills”
dichotomy.

Not just “add” skills. Need to integrate them.

Integrate cognitive, practical, and ethical-social
apprenticeships.
“Law Schools cannot prepare students for practice unless they teach doctrine,
theory, and practice as part of a unified, coordinated program of instruction.”
TEACH PROFESSIONALISM PERVASIVELY
THROUGHOUT ALL THREE YEARS

Ironically – law school breeds unprofessionalism


Competition between students for limited rewards foster
unprofessional conduct. Instead, establish a culture of
respect, civility, responsibility and honor.
Ethics should also be taught pervasively.
Chapter 4 -Best Practices
for Delivering Instruction: Principles
applicable to all modes of teaching

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






A. Know your subjects extremely well (unfortunately this is not
enough)
B. Continuously strive to improve teaching skills
C. Create & maintain effective teaching and learning environments
D. Explain goals and methods
E. Choose teaching methods that effectively and efficiently achieve
desired outcomes
F. Use multiple methods of instruction and reduce reliance on the
Socratic dialogue and case method
G. Employ context-based education throughout the program of
instruction
H. Integrate practicing lawyers and judges into the program of
instruction
I. Enhance learning with technology
J. Establish a “Learning Center”
Continuously Strive to Improve
Teaching Skills

Excellence in teaching, means:
 Command of subject matter
 Clear communication of expectations
 Enthusiasm and expressiveness
 Classroom interaction
 Rapport with students
 Individualized feedback
 Reinforcement of student performance
Continuously Strive to Improve
Teaching Skills – Cont’

Good Teachers are:





Approachable and accessible
Interested in student learning & well-being
Open to student ideas and questions
Concerned about actual progress
Laws Schools must:
 Value teaching in hiring, retention & promotion.
 Require teaching portfolios

ABA & AALS should define effective teaching.
Create and Maintain Effective
Teaching & Learning Environments

Example: Hess’s 8 components
 Respect, Expectation, Support, Collaboration
 Inclusion, Engagement, Delight, Feedback

Do No Harm to Students

Support Student Autonomy
– Avoid hostile,
competitive, confusing classroom.
(perspective taking, choice
provision, meaningful rationale provision)

Foster Mutual Respect
 Dialog
 Explore ideas
 Solve problems creatively
 No humiliation or denigration – model respect
 Learn student names & experiences / Let students know you
Create and Maintain Effective Teaching &
Learning Environments – Cont’

Have High expectations





Its an element of respect
No piling on work
Have FAITH - They can do it!
Model high expectation of yourself
Foster Supportive Environment
 Attitude = concerned & helpful
 Frequent student-faculty contact, including formal
 Role model and mentoring role

Encourage Collaboration
 Cooperative learning = higher team achievement
 Helps students prepare for actual practice (team projects)
 Teacher-Student collaboration in course design
Create and Maintain Effective Teaching &
Learning Environments – Cont’

Make students feel welcome & included
 Enhances motivation
 Motivated by sharing the goals of the course
 Validates diverse perspectives
 Teach to wide variety of learning styles & intelligences
 Engage students & teachers effect performance
 Interest & eye contact
 Solicit viewpoints
 Encourage speaking
 Active learning – Share Responsibility
 Take Delight – Enthusiasm!!!
Power struggles negatively
Create and Maintain Effective Teaching &
Learning Environments – Cont’

Give Regular and Prompt Feedback
 Students need know what they know and don’t know
○ Oral & Written
○ Not everything needs to be written

Helps students improve their self-directed
learning skills
 Learn how to learn in the future
 Reflective self-evaluation
 Seek feedback

Model Professional Behavior
 Basic moral attitudes, social responsibility
 How to treat others
 Use of power and authority
Explain Goals & Methods

Transparency
Choose Teaching Methods that Effectively
and Efficiently Achieve Desired Outcomes
Student-oriented, not faculty oriented
 Less “sage on the stage”
 More teaching where students take
active responsibility for their learning
 Some construction (of a project) – not all
deconstructing text or arguments.

Use Multiple Methods of Instruction and
Reduce Reliance on the Socratic Dialogue
and Case Method

Multi-modal methods (see, e.g., pages 132-33)

Limit Socratic method – vicarious, and avoid
its use as a weapon
Employ Context-Based Education
Throughout the Program of Instruction

Improves transfer from the classroom to
practice: students store in memory differently

Learning Problem Solving
 Repetitions
 Experience consequences of choices
 Inductive efforts to understand what works
 Practice + informative feedback + reflection +
self-assessment
 Increase use of case histories and actual cases
– beyond the clinics.
Employ Context-Based Education Throughout the
Program of Instruction – Cont’

Use to Teach Theory, Doctrine & Analytical Skills:
 Hypotheticals are situated learning – problems and cases
 Teach theory and analysis

Use to Teach How to Produce Law-Related Documents
 “Productive action”: idea + technique + performance

Use to Teach How to Resolve Human Problems and
Cultivate “Practical Wisdom”
 Practice (praxis)
 Interplay between testing theory, and deriving knowledge from
experience
 Dynamic of professional practice is essential – Fluency needed in
both:
○
Engaged mode of narrative thinking & detached mode of analytical thinking
 “Supervised Practice” is antidote for lethargy, & creates habits of
the mind
Other Best Practices for
Delivering Instruction

Integrate practicing lawyers and judges
into the program of Instruction

Enhance Learning with technology

Establish a “Learning Center”
 Education and Support
 Assessment of performance based skills
 Innovation laboratory for faculty
Chapter 7: Assessing
Student Learning
 We SHOULD BE finding out if students have achieved learning
outcomes of courses studied.
 Only real assessment US law schools use is Bar Exam
 Not only to protect public from those few trainees “not expected to
overcome their deficiencies” but to:
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

Foster learning
Inspire Confidence
Enhance Learners Ability to Self Monitor
Drive Institutional Self-Assess and curricular change
Conduct Criteria
Referenced Assessments Not
Norm-Based
 The traditional scaled grading system allows law schools to “sort”
for employers but impedes “learning, community building and
moral development.”
 In particular, first year harms student motivation and opinion of
law school.
 Tests/Assessments must be: Valid, Reliable and Fair.
 A single exam at the end of the year in a time pressured
situation fails on all 3 counts.
Judith Wegner’s Five Key Principles
for Assessment
 Learning is:
 The Point
 Must Be Made
Visible
to Be Assessed
 Multifaceted and Develops Over Time
 Must reflect the particular purpose ( evaluating vs. conferring distinction vs.
documenting professional capabilty)
 Occurs in Context
Assess to…
 Inform Students of their Level of Professional Development
 Limited Proficiency
 Basic Competence
 Intermediate Competence
 Advanced Proficiency
Asessment Examples
 The student is familiar with the skill, task or transaction, but not




able to perform it.
The student can perform the skill, task or transaction, but requires
closely supervised practice.
The student can perform the skill, task or transaction with
minimal supervision.
The student can perform the skill, task or transaction adequately
without further training.
The student can perform the skill, task or transaction in an
outstanding manner with virtually no supervision and could
provide assistance to others.
Assessment Examples –
Interviewing Assessment used at Glasgow Graduate School of Law in
January 2006
 Questions – rated on scale of 1 – 5
 1. Greeting and introduction by the student lawyer was appropriate
 2. I felt the student lawyer listened to me.
 3. The student lawyer approach to questioning was helpful.
 4. The student lawyer accurately summarizes my situation.
 5. I understood what the student lawyer was saying.
 6. I felt comfortable with the student lawyer.
 7. I would feel confident with the student lawyer dealing with my situation.
 8. If I had a new legal problem I would come back to this student lawyer.
Assessment Examples –
Interviewing Assessment used at Glasgow Graduate School of Law in
January 2006
 The Scale used to rate the questions on the previous slide:
 1 point: Lawyer was bored, uninterested, rude unpleasant, cold, or
obviously insincere.
 2 points: Lawyer was mechanical, distracted, nervous, insincere, or used
inappropriate remarks.
 3 points: Lawyer was courteous to you and encouraged you to confide in
him or her.
 4 points: Lawyer was generally attentive to and interested in you. You felt
confident to confide in him/her.
 5 points: Lawyer showed a genuine and sincere interest in you. There was a
sense of connection between you and the lawyer.
Conducting Formative
Assessments – Techniques
 Misconception / Preconception check: uncovers prior knowledge or




beliefs that may hinder learning.
Minute Papers: a/k/a “half-sheet responses” asks students “what is
the most important thing learned today?”
Empty Outlines: Prof gives partial outline, asks students to fill in
blanks.
Categorizing grids: students sort info in concept categories.
Defining Features Matrix: students categorize concepts according to
certain defining features.
Conducting Formative
Assessments – Techniques
Cont’
 Classroom Opinion Polls: helps students evaluate opinions against
their peers.
 Course related self-confidence surveys: allows professor to evaluate the
best approach to student learning, as well as student needs.
 Electronic Mail Feedback: professor asks question by email, and
receives a anonymous answer from each student.
 Group Instructional feedback technique: peer reviewed teaching
evaluation, outside facilitator visits class.
Require Students to Compile
an Educational Portfolio
 Not just for one course or clinic
 But, for entire law school career
Questions & Answers
-Repeat confidence survey
- distribute self-assessment
- Distribute Assignment and Table of Contents to Chapter 5
+ take some time now to discuss
what part of Chapter 5 you would
like to discuss as part of your
BREAK OUT assignment.
“Report Back from Small Groups”
- Self-Assessments We would also ask that you
take some time to reflect on
how you will use this
presentation in the future.