Law Professors’ Forum: Mediation Shop Talk – Grading in Mediation Clinics

Here’s another summary of info from the Legal Educators’ Committee’s program entitled Law Professors’ Forum: Mediation Shop Talk, which was part of last month’s ABA DR Section’s annual meeting in New York.  The Forum was split into three separate presentations: a general “plenary” session, the notes for which Andrea posted on May 9th, a clinical section devoted to issues of grading in mediation clinics, and a “schtick” program for lecture style mediation classes. 

 

What follows are the notes for the session on grading in mediation clinics.  My thanks to Darshan Brach at Hastings for forwarding the notes and for acting as a co-facilitator for the session along with Jim Levin from Missouri.

The following are ideas and thoughts captured from the Session on Law Student Assessment at the end of the LEC, with some editorial additions. 

Criteria for Student Assessment

         Transparency – criteria clear to students

         Meets articulated teaching goals

         Ensures “fairness”

         Helps students to learn

         System is manageable for professors

*See also Chapter 7, “Best Practices for Assessing Student Learning”, Carnegie Foundation, Stuckey and others (2006).

 

What do we assess?

Skills:

         Observable mediative skills (simulation/fieldwork)

         Improvement

         Effort

         Professionalism

 

Classroom Participation and Theory:

         Frequency of class participation

         Quality of class participation (theoretical understanding, depth of analysis, uniqueness of insights)

 

Written Submissions:

         Writing quality – clarity, organization, grammar

         Understanding of theory and learning goals

         Depth of analysis

         Uniqueness of insight

 

Individual or Group Projects

         Input quality and quantity

         Collaboration skills

 

Presentations

         Student effectiveness in conveying ideas/learning goals

         Organization, structure effectiveness (evidence of planning/preparation)

 

Other

         Ability to listen to and follow instructions

         reflectiveness

Methods of Assessment

         Instructor evaluation

         Peer evaluation

         Objective/third party evaluator

         Party (mediation) evaluations

 

Specific Assessment Tools Used by Participants

         Each student required to teach one of the classes on the syllabus

         Students read DR theory and write paper on what type of mediator they want to be

         Case studies

         “Time capsule” – individual student videos at beginning of semester assessed by student at end

         Peer evaluation of videos where evaluator is evaluated

         Assessment criteria tied to categories of behavior (to stay away from assessment of personal characteristics)

         Student identification of personal learning goals with self evaluation at end of term/class

–   Performance and feedback

 

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