Upcoming Conferences
Institute
- Technology In and Beyond the Classroom: How to Use Technology to Leverage Learning (Co-sponsored by ILTL and North Carolina Central University School of Law), March 3, 2012
Read description... - Value of Variety, June 25, 2012
Read description... - Reflecting on Our Teaching, June 26, 2012
Read description...
Other
- Setting and Assessing Learning Objectives from Day One (Albany Law Center for Excellence in Law Teaching (CELT)), March 30, 2012
Read description...
Idea For January 2012
Using Formative Assessment to Speed Up Doctrinal Coverage
Many professors, especially those teaching bar courses such as torts and contracts, struggle with what appears to be two conflicting goals: coverage and analytical skills training. However, it is possible to increase your doctrinal coverage while also helping students develop their analytical skills and exam preparation by using the assessment process to develop and review the substantive material. This synergistic combination of assessment and coverage can be effectively achieved through active learning exercises carefully designed with specific goals in mind.
Washburn University School of Law
Article For December 2011
Mary Lynch, An Evaluation of Ten Concerns About Using Outcomes in Legal Education, William Mitchell Law Review.
Mary Lynch's "An Evaluation of Ten Concerns About Using Outcomes in Legal Education" makes a compelling case for the many benefits of moving legal education accreditation to an outcomes-based model while addressing common misconceptions and misunderstandings about the goals of outcomes-based education. Using fundamental works in the outcomes assessment field, she tackles such common but false claims as the assertions that outcomes assessment is "anti-theoretical and anti-scholarly," outcomes assessment impinges on academic freedom, and outcomes assessment will require law teachers to "teach to the test." The result of this effort is a rational, thoughtful, convincing argument that outcomes assessment will improve legal education by leading law faculties to thoughtfully chose the outcomes they want their institutions to teach students and make curricular and teaching decisions based on standards and objective data rather than faculty preferences and unsupported beliefs.
[Read fulltext at SSRN]
Washburn University School of Law
