Session Type: AALS Committee Programs
Session Capacity: N/A
Hotel: Parc 55 Wyndham San Francisco Union Square
Room: Sutro
Floor: Second Floor Level
Student assessment is an important aspect of our work in legal education. How can the methods we use to evaluate student progress further – or imperil – our efforts to nurture accomplished and responsible professionals? This program will consider assessment methods as tools for fostering learning and for identifying and developing the full range of skills necessary for excellence in the practice of law.
We recognize that discussions of assessment often are laden with jargon that can be off-putting to law school faculty. This program will move beyond jargon to discuss several critical purposes of assessment. We will explore in detail how achieving our educational goals may require us to reconsider and reconfigure the way we measure student progress. We also will consider assessment in light of students’ educational and psychological needs, and examine the new work in this area that is being done by law professors around the country. The program will include demonstrations, discussion and specific examples of innovative assessment techniques. We anticipate that the first panel will take approximately 45 minutes, with the second panel directly following.
Panel I. Why Student Assessment Matters
Moderator: Elizabeth M. Schneider, Brooklyn Law School
Speakers: Aderson B. Francois, Howard University School of Law
Meredith J. Harbach, University of Richmond School of Law
Greg Munro, University of Montana School of Law
This panel first will ask the question: what are we assessing? Possible answers include: communicating effectively; developing analytical skills; exercising professional judgment; and understanding and interpreting doctrine.