Professors Garvey and Sparrow Headline "Legal Education at the Crossroads, v. 3.0"

Professors John Burwell Garvey and Sophie Sparrow were headline speakers at this year's Assessment Conference, "Legal Education at the Crossroads, v. 3.0" in Denver, Colorado.

Prof. Garvey, director of Franklin Pierce Law Center's Daniel Webster Scholars Honors Program (DWS), was one of the conference's plenary speakers on student assessment.  He talked specifically about the standardized client initiative and other assessment tools adopted by the ground-breaking program. Professor Garvey's overview of DWS and how it meets the needs of the 21st century legal community, "Making Law Students Client-Ready: A New Model in Legal Education" is found in the most recent Duke Forum for Law and Social Change.  (The article begins with an in-depth overview of American legal education and calls for reform; details about DWS start on page 115.)

Prof. Sparrow co-led the plenary, "Formative Assessment of Teaching" with Prof. Gerald F. Hess. The session addressed the multiple and varied ways professors can get formative assessment on their teaching.  Sparrow is a consultant to and Hess is co-director of the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning, and they, along with Michael Hunter Schwartz, wrote Carolina Press' newly published Teaching Law by Design: Engaging Students from the Syllabus to the Final Exam.

Prof. Sparrow also led a break-out session, "Working Professionally with Others: Summative Assessment of Students' Small Group Contributions," that covers the difficult topic of assessment and evaluation of individual students' contributions in group learning situations.

The innovative initiatives Professors Garvey and Sparrow shared with their colleagues at "Legal Education at the Crossroads, v. 3.0" are indicative of the entrepreneurial educational spirit innate to Franklin Pierce Law Center since its founding in 1973.