Taking Assessment Out of the Classroom: Assessing the Skills and Values We Really Care About

ABA Standards requiring law schools to identify and assess learning objectives for all students present opportunities to advance and further integrate our clinic and externship programs. This workshop will focus on assessment of law school learning objectives in a variety of experiential courses--field placements, hybrid clinics, and other experiential courses. We start with the premise that just about any law school learning objective from substantive learning, to skills, to character and values development, can be achieved for most law students though well-designed experiential courses. There are some goals, however, that are best or more easily and demonstrably accomplished in clinic/field placement or other experiential courses. In particular, clinics may be the best places to address goals involving multicultural competence or commitment to access to justice. Such outcomes at one time may have been considered aspirational “add ons,” but now are more likely to be recognized as essential for today’s and tomorrow’s lawyering jobs. Using a variety of opportunities available at Albany Law School and tapping into expertise from participants, we will: 1) examine how field placement/hybrid/clinic/practicum and other experiential courses are or can be uniquely situated to address a variety of law school learning outcomes; 2) share rubrics and strategies for assessing learning outcomes; and 3) discuss how an assessment process and the results of assessments may be used to both improve student learning and support our programs within our institutions and the academy