E-Classroom

 

Initiator and Coordinator: Michael L. Perlin


We have two aims:

1. Our first aim is that interested HumanDHS network members can participate in Michael Perlin's existing online teaching program.

2. Our second aim is to build our own HumanDHS education program as an array of diverse online courses/seminars/talks/workshops shaped by our Education Team members with their very diverse expertise and approaches, supplemented with face-to-face gatherings at our annual meetings.

 

Michael L. Perlin writes to the Education Team in May 2007:

Dear friends:

I am writing this email as a follow-up to a conversation that I had with Evelin and Linda on Tuesday, May 10, during which we discussed a wide array of new educational initiatives that the HDHS Network might undertake. The conversation was an inspiring one, and I am sharing it with all of you, both hoping for some feedback and wanting to "plant the idea" of what we hope we can do.

First, some background. During the December 2006 NYC conference, I had lunch with Evelin, Linda and others of you to discuss an idea that I had been thinking about for the prior months (but had held back on until I actually had a chance to interact with many of you at the conference). We decided then that the idea that I had raised - more about that in a minute - was of potential interest for the group and that, at some point in the future, some of us would get together to discuss it. And that's what we did on Tuesday.

For those of you who don't know me, let me share some information about who I am and what I do. In my "day job," I am a professor of law at New York Law School, specializing in mental disability law (that was the focus of my career as a practicing attorney before I became a professor in 1984). In addition, I am director, of the International Mental Disability Law Reform Project in the law school's Justice Action Center, and also am director of the law school's Online Mental Disability Law Program (see generally, www.nyls.edu/mdl) .

In those roles, I have devoted most of my time over the past seven years to the creation and expansion of a program that allows us to offer courses to advocates, activists, scholars, and students around the world in a variety of mental disability law-related topics. Here, we have dual aims: (1) providing an important educational experience in an area of "law and society" that is still shockingly "under the radar" in many parts of the world, and (2)encouraging action on the part of our students to work for social change in this substantive area (much of what we do in an international context is discussed in my article, An Internet-based Mental Disability Law Program: Implications for Social Change in Nations with Developing Economies, 40 Fordham Int'l L.J. 435 (2007) (available online at http://www.humiliationstudies.org/education/teamlong.php#perlin).

We currently have partnerships with five US-based law schools, have done multiple courses in Japan, one in Nicaragua, a version of one in Finland, and we are currently creating partnerships in China, Mexico and yet another time in Japan.  We currently offer six courses - Survey of Mental Disability Law; Mental Health Issues in Jails and Prisons; Sex Offenders; The Americans with Disabilities Act: Law, Policy and Practice ; International Human Rights Law and Mental Disability Law; andLawyering Skills for the Representation of Persons with Mental Disabilities - and will be adding two more in the 07-08 academic year (Forensic Ethics and Forensic Reports; Mental Illness, Dangerousness, Risk Assessment and the Police Power), at which time we will be launching our on-line Masters in mental disability law studies. The pedagogy for the courses include these components (for each course):
- 14 hours of DVDs, all of which I created (or which were prepared by other professors under my supervision)
- weekly reading assignments with "focus questions"
- a weekly, synchronous chatroom
- on-going, threaded, on-line "question-and-answer" message boards, and
- two live day-long seminars, one about a month after the course begins, and one at the course's conclusion.

When we met last December, I indicated that we could take our pedagogy style and use it as a guide to the creation of courses of interest to HumanDHS Network members and their friends and colleagues. [These courses are not free, of course. New York Law School must break even in offering these programs, and there are embedded costs (our OIT provider, creation of DVDs, fees to chatroom teachers, administrative costs, etc.) that must be kept in mind; these will vary depending on what we decide to do]. We also agreed on Tuesday that it might make sense for the live seminars to be optional, so as not to discourage individuals who could not travel to the conferences from taking the courses.

With this as background, these were the three (non-exclusive) options that we discussed on Tuesday:
(1) We can create special sections of our courses for HDHS Network members (we had thought, by way of example, that there might be a significant number of HDHS Network members interested in either the International Human Rights and Mental Disability Law course or the Sex Offenders course or the Mental Health Issues in Jails and Prisons course to make it suitable to create a section just for our members.
(2) We can encourage HDHS Network members to enroll in ongoing courses (we will be offering the first three listed above this fall, and the second three listed above in the spring). If HDHS Network members were interested in any of the courses, but there was not enough of a critical mass to sustain a section just for our members, then individuals could, on a per capita basis, enroll in any or all of the six courses we will be offering in 07-08.
(3) We can create new educational opportunities for the HDHS network, including:
(A) An array of online courses, lectures, seminars, and workshops, covering the field of Humiliation Studies, in other words, an online "menu" on the theory of humiliation and dignity, and its application, namely the relevance of humiliation and dignity for areas such as Migration; Globalization; Peace and Conflict; Human Rights; History and Conflict; Cycles of Violence; Gender Issues, and Public Policy Planning), using our pedagogy model as a basic structure.
(B) Adding the live day-long seminars that complement the online courses to the regularly-scheduled annual HDHS meetings

I am very excited about working with all of you on any and all of these ventures. Please let me know what you think!
All the best,
Michael
Prof. Michael L. Perlin Director, International Mental Disability Law Reform Project Director, Online Mental Disability Law Program New York Law School, New York


How it works

Any individual has the opportunity to make their own course within this framework, but, if they are to be done in conjunction with NYLS, these need to be done in line with the structure that I set out. So it isn't exactly as easy as everyone simply making their own course, but, everyone has the capacity to make their own course.
If, for example, Linda were to want to make a course, once we figured out costs, this is what we would do:
1. You would create a syllabus and I would check to see if the syllabus would "work" in our system (this has NOTHING to do with content, but rather with structure).
2. I would send you an email, spelling out what needed to be done (first, to determine how many of the weekly DVDs would be talking-heads-and-power-points, how many might be roundtable discussions, how many might be demonstrations/simulations, etc; then, to create powerpoints for each week; then, to come up with a schedule for filming.
3. Then, we would need to figure out how many people would be involved in the actual production of the DVDs (would it be just you and Linda? Would others participate? et), and then we would have to come up with a schedule for shooting (we do these on campus)

On 18/08/2007, Michael Perlin gives us the news for fall 2007:

Dear Evelin and friends:
I wanted to alert you all to current developments in New York Law School's online, distance learning mental disability law program (which I have discussed with some of you in prior emails). During the fall 2007 semester, we will be offering three courses as part of this program:
1. Survey of Mental Disability Law;
2. Sex Offenders (for the first time), and
3. Mental Health Issues in Jails and Prisons.

Registration of students for all courses is open now and anyone interested should contact Liane Bass, Esq., Senior Administrator (lbass@nyls.edu). We expect to launch our online Masters in mental disability law studies in August 2008, and credits earned prior to that date in any of these courses will be "grandparented" into that degree.

For more information, visit the website www.nyls.edu/mdl or write to me. And if anyone is affilaited with an academic institution or NGO that might be interested in pursuing potential partnerships with us, please let me know that as well.

All the best,
Prof. Michael L. Perlin, Director, Online Mental Disability Law
Program, New York Law School

On 10/05/2008, Michael Perlin gives us the news for fall 2007:

Dear Evelin and friends:
During the fall 2008 semester, New York Law School (NYLS) will be offering four courses in its online, distance learning mental disability law program:
* Survey of Mental Disability Law;
* Sex Offenders;
* Therapeutic Jurisprudence, and
* Americans with Disabilities Act: Law, Policy and Procedure.

In the spring 2009 term, it will be offering these five courses:
* International Human Rights and Mental Disability Law;,
* Advocacy Skills in Cases Involving Persons with Mental Disabilities: The Role of Lawyers and Expert Witnesses;
* Forensic Reports, the Role of the Expert and Forensic Ethics,
* Mental Health Issues in Jails & Prisons; and
* Mental Illness, Dangerousness, the Police Power and Risk Assessment.

The courses are appropriate for human rights workers, practicing lawyers, mental health professionals, sociologists, criminologists, mental health activists, advocates, and all those interested in this important area of social policy and the law.

For more information, please visit the website: www.nyls.edu/mdl or write to Prof. Michael L. Perlin, mperlin[at]nyls.edu, Director, Online Mental Disability Law Program, New York Law School.

Registration of students for all courses is open now and anyone interested should contact Liane Bass, esq., Senior Administrator (lbass[at]nyls.edu).