The SCI has taken a significant step forward. Earlier this week, Karen and I (Paul) conducted two days of SC training at Franklin Pierce Law Centre, New Hampshire, on the Daniel Webster Scholar Honours Programme. This is a programme of study that takes place in the second and third years of the JD programme at Franklin Pierce Law School, New Hampshire. Participation in the programme replaces the requirement for the Bar Exam qualification in New Hampshire.
Feedback indicated the two days went really well. We worked with a group of around 7 clients, amateur actors. The training programme outline is posted under SCI Documentation to the left. After an introduction (slides also under SCI Documentation), David Cleveland, professional actor and adjunct professor at Franklin Pierce, took the group through some improv activities, then we started work on standardising performance in scenario delivery.
Musicians call basic learning and memorising 'note-bashing' -- we note-bashed the details of the roles and scenario, using a form of script template (also posted on the left) then into the performances. And what performances! Karen and I had been told that David had already worked pretty extensively with the group, but we were taken aback with the quality of the acting, and the group's ability to regulate their performance, both the detail of scenario and the emotional tenor of the encounter. Every SC got the opportunity to perform and receive feedback from the group, and they took to it with enormous enthusiasm.
The second day focused on assessment of student performance and the standardisation of this for the purposes of high-stakes assessment. Many fascinating issues arose. For instance was assessment only to be gauged against the detail of the criteria set out in the Likert scale? The complexity of human performance can never be pinned so closely, I believe; and so there is always the possibility of bringing to bear on student performance other standards not mentioned on the page. In fact it's not possible for a human to dismiss such standards entirely -- it's in the nature of the judging process that standards are brought to bear, after all. But what we're looking for from the SCs is an awareness that they're bringing to bear standards that are not on the page, if it significantly affects the assessment grade on any item -- which should be set out in a line or so of the assessment schedule. That awareness is part of the double-level thinking that SCs get immersed in when performing -- regulation of scenario performance, regulation of assessment performance.
But how could we be sure that the group would assess student performance according to the benchmark standards set by John Garvey for the Daniel Webster programme? We marked others -- staff role-playing varieties of good and poor performances. Then we took a student videotape and assessed it. Would SCs achieve the assessment results that John would assign to the student performance? The result, after almost a day's work on assessment standards was wonderful -- such a close clustering of assessment results on the Excel chart that we used. It was a vindication not just of the method, but also the solid work and performance quality produced by David and the others in the SC group.
Photos will be posted soon. John Garvey has been selected to make a presentation regarding assessment, at a plenary session of the University of Washington's Legal Education at the Crossroads: Ideas to Implementation Conference (see also here and here). He's also making a presentation this Wednesday, at NYU, in connection with the Carnegie sub-committee on assessment; and has also been asked to speak at Northern Kentucky U Chase College of Law in September.
We'll be following up with John later in the year, but for now, the Franklin Pierce project is off to a great start.
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