Assess Me Once, Shame on You

1. Assess Me Once, Shame on You Creating and Assessing a Continuum of Support for At-Risk Law Students Courtney G. Lee University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law

2. Two Types of Assessment Course Program

3. Three Steps of Assessment See Assessment Clear & Simple, Barbara E. Walvoord

4. Pacific McGeorge Assessment Continuum

5. Pacific McGeorge Assessment Continuum Academic Counseling

6. Assessment Exercise Example: Relevant Facts In the first column, write a relevant fact from the fact pattern. In the second column, write one sentence explaining why that fact is relevant under the applicable rule. Objectives: Students will demonstrate the ability to choose relevant facts that relate to a specific rule. Students will demonstrate understanding of how logical inferences relate to specific facts in analysis.

7. Assessment Exercise Example: Relevant Facts In the first column, write a relevant fact from the fact pattern. In the second column, write one sentence explaining why that fact is relevant under the applicable rule.

8. Assessment Exercise Example: Outlining a Performance Test Tone: Audience: Goal: Objectives: Students will demonstrate the ability to effectively outline a large quantity of information within a timed environment. Students will demonstrate the ability to differentiate between relevant and irrelevant information.

9. Assessment Exercise Example: Outlining a Performance Test Tone: Audience: Goal:

10. Rubrics • Help students understand what you want • Help students see what they need to improve • Help you normalize your grading & speed up the process

11. Assessment Exercise Example: Peer Review with Rubric Objectives: Students will demonstrate the ability to see positive and negative attributes of others’ work. (Future assignments: Students will demonstrate the ability to apply this understanding to their own work.)

12. Program Assessment: Data to Consider • Entering credentials (LSAT, UGPA) • 1L grades, 2L grades, 3-4L grades (improvement?) • Bar pass • Student opinion: Is the program working? • LSSSE, student course evaluations, focus groups, individual meetings • Professors’ course evaluations: Are the students “getting it”? • Experiential learning supervisors’ evaluations

13. Program Assessment: Avoiding Pitfalls • Voluntary programs: Track students who participated and those who were invited but did not participate • Keep one centralized system & one main “keeper of the system” • Excel? Banner? Etc. • Registrar? • Hold regular meetings to debrief

14. A Few Resources… • Assessment Clear and Simple (Walvoord) • Legal Analysis: 100 Exercises for Mastery (Hill, Vukadin) • Outcomes Assessment for Law Schools (Munro) • Teaching Law by Design (Schwartz, Sparrow, Hess)

15. Questions?