The CPLE is a community of legal educators, researchers, practitioners and administrators who collaborate in defining, understanding and promoting best practice in the teaching of law.
The Legal Research Hub, like many legal enterprises, began as a hallway conversation between colleagues, Tarisa and Holli. The idea: a platform for academics and legal professionals to discuss topical legal issues and share their respective insights, and offering opportunities to showcase current legal research. The format: a peer-reviewed online publication, and a podcast series with legal experts. From these aspirations, the Legal Research Hub was born.
Reflecting on their experience as academics and legal practitioners, Tarisa and Holli wanted to create a platform that traverses these legal disciplines and offers a collaborative space for discussing the latest legal news and research. Holli and Tarisa are both currently Higher Degree Research candidates and Assistant Teaching Fellows at Bond University’s Law Faculty. Holli’s research focuses on Access to Justice initiatives and the Rule of Law, and Tarisa’s research area is in International Humanitarian Law, particularly looking at the challenges autonomous weapon systems brings to IHL (International Humanitarian Law). Prior to commencing their research, Tarisa and Holli gained practical experience as lawyers. Holli worked as a Judge’s Associate at the Supreme Court of Queensland and, after admission to legal practice, became a criminal defence lawyer at Legal Aid Queensland. Tarisa was a PLT trainee at QCAT and was admitted into legal practice while she worked as graduate lawyer at Kerr Lawyers.
The recently launched Legal Research Hub aims to bring together academia and the legal profession to discuss and share knowledge about the future of law. It is a forum to spark curiosity and enhance knowledge about current legal topics for everyone from law students to seasoned academics and professionals. The Legal Research Hub provides the latest in legal research developments and topical discussions in law. The motto for the Hub is Lex ferenda enitor ad rem – loosely translated from Latin to: boldly striving towards the future of law.
Thus far, several diverse articles have been published (with more currently under review) including:
The first episode of the Lex Ferenda Podcast series is also now available, for free, online. Tarisa and Holli interview Clair Duffy, an esteemed public international lawyer and teacher, in an insightful discussion about the Brereton Report regarding war crimes alleged to have been committed by Australian Defence Force (‘ADF’) personnel in Afghanistan. The interview delves into the International Criminal Laws and the Laws of Armed Conflict applicable, questions of legal ethics, and explores the impacts of the Report’s findings for the future practices and policies of the ADF.
The support receive for the Legal Research Hub, since it was launched in January 2021, has been fantastic. In addition to the encouragement and promotion of the Hub by Bond’s Dean of Law, Nick James, and other professors and students, legal professionals – including senior practitioners and barristers – have subscribed to the Hub’s website. One reader commented on an article: “It’s a complex situation, so thank you for breaking down the legal framework so effectively.”
Tarisa and Holli have big plans to continue expanding the Legal Research Hub. In addition to initiatives to expand the contributors and audience, the co-Founders are investigating options to integrate CPD-relevant materials into the resources offered by the Hub.
If you would like to contribute, the Legal Research Hub accepts submissions for articles on any legal topic on a rolling-basis. In contrast to some journals, the review and response time is also only a few weeks, so you can get your work in front of readers more quickly. The Legal Research Hub also allows authors to retain full copyright over their work and its use.
If you would like to find out more, please check out the website: www.legalresearchhub.wixsite.com/home. A copy of the submission guidelines and copyright policies are available on the website, in addition to the articles already published and the Lex Ferenda Podcast series.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1998. The objective of the IPCC is to provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies.
Since 1990, the IPCC has delivered five Assessment Reports, described as ‘the most comprehensive scientific reports about climate change produced worldwide’. According to the IPCC’s most recent report:
Human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history.
The continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems.
In urban areas, climate change is projected to increase risks for people, economies and ecosystems, including risks from heat stress, storms and extreme precipitation, inland and coastal flooding, water scarcity, sea-level rise, and storm surges.
Rural areas are expected to experience major impacts on water availability and supply, food security, infrastructure, and agricultural incomes.
By the end of the 21st century, it is very likely that more than 95% of the ocean area worldwide will experience sea level rise.
Anthropogenic climate change is the great challenge of our time, and possibly the greatest challenge we have ever faced.
It has fallen upon the contemporary global community to work together to understand climate change, to address climate change, and to mitigate its consequences.
It is an overwhelming responsibility. It comes as no surprise that so many organisations and individuals are so overwhelmed by that responsibility, that they seek desperately for ways to avoid it – by denying that climate change is anthropogenic or is even occurring, by ignoring or responding with nihilistic nonchalance, by focussing on short term profit and personal gain, or by focussing on distractions … from Playstations and pizzas to pandemics and politics.
Those of us genuinely concerned to respond appropriately to anthropogenic climate change face not only the physical challenge of dealing with climate change and its effects, but also the psychological, emotional, ethical and social challenges of persuading and motivating our governments, corporations, family members and friends to join us.
Fortunately we have at our disposal an extraordinary set of tools. We have rationality. We have science. We have perseverance and resilience. We have a generation of energetic young activists determined to do whatever they can to help. And one of the most powerful tools we have is the law.
It isn’t always obvious how lawyers can contribute to addressing climate change. But it is the law that ensures that the science-based solutions to climate change are implemented and adhered to. Used appropriately it is the law that will help to ensure the global community is united in its response to climate change … and it is global unity that is so desperately needed. (Of course, the law can also be used as a barrier to an effective response.)
And so it falls upon us as lawyers, legal scholars, legal practitioners, members of the judiciary and law students to work together to identify the ways in which the law can and should be used to respond to climate change, including
• ensuring domestic laws align with our international obligations
• regulating industry in a manner consistent with reducing emissions
• addressing the human right implications of climate change
• ensuring our community’s responses to climate change are equitable and fair
• ensuring lessons learned from Indigenous members of our global community are applied appropriately and effectively
As the Dean of a law school, my own interest is in identifying ways in which legal education itself can contribute to addressing climate change, by leveraging partnerships between scholars, practitioners and students to facilitate climate change justice initiatives, and by embedding climate change and climate change law in the curriculum to support the creation of a generation of young lawyers who have the knowledge and the skills to help shape the law in a climate friendly manner.
All of these issues and more were touched upon at the recent the 2021 Climate Change, Law and Legal Education Conference, jointly hosted by the Bond University Global and Comparative Law and Policy Network and the Centre for Professional Legal Education. I had the pleasure of attending and presenting at the Conference, and hearing from an extraordinary range of speakers about the importance of teaching climate change law to law students, and the many challenges we face in doing so. A book collecting some of the papers presented at the conference is being organised, so look forward to further updates soon about that worthy project.
In 2015, Matt Roach approached the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Law at Bond University, Professor Nick James, with a proposal. He would draw upon his education at Stanford studying the impact of emergent technologies upon legal practice and his experience as a legal practitioner at a large law firm to develop a subject that focussed upon contemporary and future legal practice in Australia and internationally, with a focus upon ‘digital disruption’.
Nick had recently identified a need to expand the law curriculum at Bond to include just such a subject, and Matt’s proposal was accepted. The new subject, ‘Technology and Legal Practice’ was taught for the first time in 2016. The subject description was as follows:
This subject examines change in the legal services industry and explores a diverse range of ideas about how technology can be deployed in legal practice. The business model of the traditional law firm is under threat by new, technology-driven market entrants. Work traditionally completed by lawyers can be done faster, cheaper and better by increasingly capable smart machines employing techniques such as machine learning, data analytics and natural language processing. Some lawyers and law practices will become less useful, relevant and profitable because of these changes. Others will leverage technology to find new and creative ways to deliver legal services and deliver value, delight their clients and gain a competitive advantage. During this subject, students will develop a technology based prototype to address customers’ legal needs.
Matt and the new subject both received extremely positive feedback from the students who enrolled in the subject.
Since then, Matt has delivered the subject every year to a growing cohort of students. The name of the subject was changed to ‘The Digital Lawyer’ a couple of years ago, and the content has been updated annually to acknowledge the rapid changes taking place within the legal services sector, but the emphasis upon a topical, practical and provocative investigation into the present and likely future impact – both positive and negative – of technology upon what lawyers do has continued to resonate with students.
The approach taken by Matt to the assessment tasks in the subject has likewise remained practical, authentic and engaging. Matt initially asked students to prepare prototypes of a technology-based solution to delivering legal services. However, the students showed an interest not just in adopting new technologies but also in reforming the business model of law firms from the ground up. Accordingly, in 2020, students designed their perfect ‘law firm’ for the next five years, incorporating a mix of new technologies and progressive practices encompassing all aspects of legal service delivery.
The quality of the work done by the students in response to this task was so impressive, we decided to draw upon the resources of the Centre for Professional Legal Education to make the five best student projects publicly available.
Assistmatch-me by Dawid Ferensowicz and Julietta Oyediran – A global platform that connects people with personalised professional assistance for all their immigration needs.
Virtual Family Law firm for LGBTQ Adoption by Qiaoyu (Penny) Peng – A virtual family law firm to help LGBTQ couples have a child and build families by adoption.
CSRguide by Tahlia Dimech – An online legal service that makes it easy for small to medium enterprises to start implementing corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives.
Producers’ Cut by Pierce Wilding – An online service that provides production companies with the tools to streamline their contract management
Thrive by James Bartlett – A service to help to simplify the intricate and complex requirements of the NDIS and create a fairer and more accessible NDIS marketplace
Click here to read the report. We hope that you find the papers published in the report as insightful and interesting as we did. And if there is anything in this report about which you would like to learn more, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at cple@bond.edu.au.
On 1-3 October 2020, the Centre for Professional Legal Education proudly hosted the very first Professional Legal Education conference. The plenary presentations and individual Livestream presentations were delivered entirely online and watched live by an audience of 200+ attendees from across Australia and around the world. The goal of the conference was to take steps toward harmonising legal education by bringing together law teachers, legal scholars, legal practitioners, law societies, regulators, and others to engage in discussions about how law is taught in Australia and elsewhere, and in that regard the conference was a success. All of the feedback we have received has been extremely positive, and we are delighted by the level of collegial engagement with the conference from across both the academy and the profession in Australia and internationally.
We are very pleased to announce that recordings of the plenary presentations and most of the individual Livestream presentations are now freely available via the CPLE website.
Whether or not you were able to attend the Conference, you can now access recordings of a wide array of accomplished legal educators, experienced legal practitioners and esteemed legal scholars speaking on a variety of engaging topics.
The Plenary Debate about the topic ‘‘You had one job!’: Law schools are failing at preparing graduates for practice’ with Luke Murphy (President, QLS), Ann-Maree David (Executive Director, College of Law) and Matthew Roach (Director, Parampara) for the affirmative and Assistant Professor Tanya Atwill (Director, Bond GDLP Program), Professor Sally Kift (President, Australian Learning and Teaching Fellows) and Michael Lavarch (former Dean of Law, QUT) for the negative.
The Plenary Panel discussion of the topic ‘Is legal education in Australia over-regulated or under-regulated?’ by Emeritus Professor Sandford Clark (Former Chair, LACC), Professor Lesley Hitchens (Chair, CALD), Professor Alex Steel (Director Teaching Strategy, UNSW), Associate Professor Kate Galloway (Editor-in-Chief, Legal Education Review) and Professor Caroline Strevens (Academy Chair, Association of Law Teachers (UK))
Kylie Fletcher, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Bond University
It has been over three months since the World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. It is now apparent that the effects of COVID-19, and the related restrictions, trigger a myriad of legal issues. Like many of my colleagues, I am endeavouring to acknowledge and integrate COVID-19 into my teaching of a doctrinal law subject. I am attempting to do this in a way that enhances authenticity. This post outlines my journey to date.
I teach contract law. In this discipline, much of the discussion surrounding COVD-19 has focused on COVID-19 related force majeure and frustration triggers. In an effort to maintain a contemporary subject, I included these topics in my previous semester of teaching. As COVID-19 had not reached pandemic proportions until part way through the semester, these were unplanned inclusions. Consequently, they did not form part of the formal assessment program. Instead, I included them as discussion points in the weekly tutorial program. The students responded very well and appeared to enjoy the topical dialog. They seemed to connect with the idea that, once in practice, these types of matters might occupy their time.
I have been planning my next semester of teaching. While doing so, I wondered how I might continue teaching the same topics in a more engaging way. Given the encouraging impact on student engagement, I was drawn towards designing a more authentic learning experience (Hart, Hammer, Collins & Chardon, 2011). This could be done by incorporating real-life professional experiences and competencies (Hart, Hammer, Collins & Chardon, 2011; McNamara, 2017). Outlined below are the steps that I followed in designing such a learning experience.
1. Conducted research
While well versed on the law in these areas, I was not sufficiently familiar with its application in this particular context. In order to bridge this gap, I conducted the usual legal research. In addition to the typical search tools, I referred to Melbourne Law School Covid‐19 Research Network’s Annotated Bibliography of Covid‐19 Legal Literature (Melbourne Law School Academic Research Service, 2020). I also consulted legal practice bulletins and law firm publications so as to better understand the practitioner’s perspective.
2. Consulted authenticity framework
Dr Kelley Burton provides a framework that enabled me to assess the authenticity of last semester’s learning experience (Burton, 2011, 2015). This framework is based on the scholarship in the field, including the work of Herrington and Herrington (Herrington & Herrington, 1998, 2006). Burton’s Authenticity Framework poses questions that enable educators to survey their assessments for the typical traits of authenticity. Upon my doing so, it was evident that there was limited authenticity in hosting a guided tutorial discussion about COVID-19-related force majeure and frustration. The exercise provided students with an opportunity to collaborate with each other and use some limited thinking skills in the context of a real-life topic.
Burton makes the point that authenticity is scaffolded across a whole program (Burton, 2011). For this reason, an educator is not expected to include all traits within an individual learning experience or subject. With this in mind, I focused on identifying and enhancing the traits that aligned with my subject curriculum.
3. Ensured curriculum alignment
Having regard to the Burton’s Authenticity Framework, I decided to enhance authenticity by, among other things, integrating the need to use higher-order thinking skills, creating the potential for ‘a novel or diverse responses’ and requiring students to ‘produce a valuable, polished product’ (Burton, 2011, p.25). I decided to focus on incorporating these particular traits as they assist students to realize the subject learning outcomes. Further, with the scaffolding of the entire law program in mind, these traits are an appropriate fit for contract law.
In order to incorporate these traits, I was naturally inclined to ask students to research and advise on a hypothetical legal problem based on these COVID-19-releated topics. However, in an otherwise busy subject, this might be overly burdensome. In an effort to balance student workload, my preference was to integrate these topics into an already scheduled assessment task.
The Bachelor of Laws at Bond University incorporates an integrated skills and professionalism program. As part of this program, core legal skills are scaffolded throughout the law degree. Dispute resolution and collaboration is taught and assessed at an intermediate level in my subject. Among other things, I typically focus on the negotiation of contract law related problems. Using the assessment structure that was already in place, I decided to incorporate an authenticity-enriched negotiation problem based on COVID-19-related frustration. I also decided to include an exercise that requires students to work with force majeure clauses.
4. Designed for authenticity
I drafted the assessment (and its accompanying rubric) to include the traits that I had selected from Burton’s Authenticity Framework. In devising the negotiation scenario, I was able to draw on my experience as a practicing lawyer advising on frustration issues and force majeure clauses. I was also able to derive inspiration from the resources accessed when I undertook the research (described above).
The negotiation scenario is set between two parties who regularly contract together via a standard form contract. The parties are disputing the frustration of the contracts that were due to be performed in the first half of this year. One party is claiming that the contractual obligations under these contracts have been discharged by frustration through COVID-19-related delay. The scenario has been drafted to accommodate the potential for creative solutions, so students have the opportunity to present ‘a novel or diverse responses’. The scenario also requires students to draft, propose and negotiate a force majeure clause for inclusion in the standard form contract for future use. Students will also be required to submit a negotiation planner. In order to further promote authenticity, this planner is modelled on the Administrative Appeals Tribunal’s Conciliation Preparation Toolkit (Administrative Appeals Tribunal). In drafting a clause and preparing a planner, students will ‘produce a valuable, polished product’.
5. Was mindful of potential for distress
It has been reported that telephone calls to Lifeline have increased by 25% (Willis, 2020). It is fairly clear that a range of COVID-19-related topics have the potential to cause distress. For these reasons, I carefully considered the appropriateness of all COVID-19-related inclusions. Before presenting the assessment to students, I will also consider the other matters that educators ought to consider when introducing potentially distressing content (Baik et al, 2017, p.26). While the need may not arise in my subject, it is also worth my mentioning that trigger warnings may be appropriate in certain circumstances.
If not already, I am sure that most legal educators are planning to incorporate COVID-19-related topics into their subjects at some stage. In doing so, many will be seeking to create authentic learning opportunities. I look forward to hearing from my colleagues about the various ways in which this is achieved.
References
I would like to thank Professor Nick James for his comments and editorial suggestions.
Burton, K. (2011). A framework for determining the authenticity of assessment tasks: Applied to an example in law. Journal of Learning Design, 4(2), 20–28.
Burton, K. (2015). Measuring and enhancing the authenticity of an examination and other assessment tasks. Journal of the Australasian Law Teachers Association, 8(1), 25–33. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/JlALawTA/2015/4.pdf
Hart, C., Hammer, S., Collins, P., & Chardon, T. (2011). The real deal: using authentic assessment to promote student engagement in the first and second years of a regional law program. Legal Education Review, 21(1), 97–121.
Herrington, J., & Herrington, A. (1998). Authentic assessment and multimedia: How university students respond to a model of authentic assessment. Higher Education Research & Development, 17(3), 305-22.
Herrington, J., & Herrington, A. (2006). Authentic conditions for authentic assessment: Aligning task and Assessment. Research and Development in Higher Education: Critical Visions Thinking, Learning and Researching in Higher Education, 29, 146-151.
McNamara, N. (2017). Authentic assessment in contract law: legal drafting. The Law Teacher, 51(4), 486–498.
In my last few blog posts I have been sharing the details of my preparation for remote teaching this semester. I thought carefully about my learning outcomes. I asked myself whether the assessment I will be administering in my subject is appropriate, rigorous and constructively aligned. I reflected on my learning activities, and what I will be doing with my students to help them to achieve the subject learning outcomes and complete the subject assessment tasks.
In the week leading up to my first online class, my focus has been upon my subject website and ensuring it will be ready to be made available to students. In this post I will share my views about this experience. I am mindful of the fact that some of my comments will be specific to Bond University or to its particular Learning Management System, Blackboard, but I hope there is enough here of general relevance.
For a generation of students that expects classroom learning and online learning to form a seamless whole, the subject website has shifted from being a helpful additional learning resource to the foundation of the student learning experience. If a subject website is designed well, it will guide the students along their learning journey and form the framework for all of their learning activities and assessment tasks. I have always put a lot of time and effort into building my subject websites, and now that my subject will be delivered entirely remotely, the subject site has become more important than ever. An additional challenge I faced in preparing for teaching this semester is the fact that all subject sites at Bond University have been moved to a new version of Backboard, called Blackboard ULTRA. I have had to build my new site from scratch, and teach myself how to use ULTRA. That experience has been an interesting one, with several challenges along the way.
The temptation at this point is to vent my frustration about the process of building a new site on a new platform, but I would prefer to remain upbeat and positive, so here are the things I like about ULTRA:
I like how easy it is to edit content on the site. Click edit, change the text, click save. Done. No fiddling about with formatting or upload files.
I have usually enjoyed being able to customise my sites in the past, with lots of colour and images. With the new version I am significantly constrained, and limited to a very simple, black and white ‘look and feel’. But this will ensure students have a more consistent experience from subject to subject, and to be honest it gives me one less thing to worry about.
The standard list of student tools on the left seems to include the most important ones, and again the inability to customise gives me one less thing to worry about.
I particularly like the ‘Attendance’ tool. It looks like a helpful way to easily keep a record of who shows up to the online classes.
I like how the front page clearly shows my personal details and the date, time and location of the next important event in the subject.
The horizontal menu at the top right of the page has some useful tools, including the subject Calendar which automatically includes all of my assessment due dates. I’ve added the days and times of my classes. Apparently the students’ Calendars aggregate their subject Calendars so they see all their class dates and times and all their assessment due dates in one place.
It was a steep learning curve but I’m now quite comfortable with most of the features on the site and – to be honest – I like it. I can see that the students are going to find it much easier to navigate than the old sites.
I decided to have only three folders on the front page: WELCOME, TOPICS and ASSESSMENT.
In my WELCOME folder I added:
A short welcome video. I usually have one professionally created but this time I recorded it myself using my phone, posted it to YouTube, and inserted the link.
A link to my Subject Outline.
A link to a page where they can purchase the prescribed textbook.
In my TOPICS folder I created 12 sub-folders, one for each of the 12 Topics in the subject. In each Topic sub-folder I added:
The PowerPoint presentation for the week’s lecture, just in case the streaming of the lecture is too slow and students can’t follow along as the slides change.
A document explaining what ‘independent study’ I want them to do after each lecture, including the readings.
In my ASSESSMENT folder I created four sub-folders, one for each item of assessment.
In the ‘Tutorial Preparation and Participation’ sub-folder I added a document explaining how students are expected to attempt the tutorial problems for each week, and I then created an Assessment – Essay task for each week’s tutorial questions. By specifying the due date for each task as the date of the relevant tutorial it inserted it into the subject Calendar. And the students can actually type their answers into the box on the website and submit it so I can check to make sure they have done it. I like that.
In the ‘Online Test’ sub-folder I again created a document that explains the assessment task, and then I built 12 online tests, one for each Topic. The publisher of my prescribed textbook has provided very large banks of multiple choice questions (100 per chapter) that I have used to set up the online tests in such a way that each student will be given a different test with different questions. (A relatively tight time limit of 15 minutes to answer 5 questions should ensure the students prepare for the tests and don’t try to simply Google each of the answers.)
In the ‘Practice Problems’ folder I will add the instructions for the task and allow online submission. This will be done closer to the due date in Week 8.
· In the ‘Final Exam’ folder I will upload the take home exam and allow online submission.
I have set up two forums in the ‘Discussions’ part of the site: one called ‘Topics’ where the students can ask content-related questions, and one called ‘Assessments’ where they can ask questions about the assessment. Neither are assessed. I will use the ‘Announcements’ tool to post an announcement at the start of each week introducing the students to that week’s Topic and reminding them about assessment tasks. And to keep them interesting I’m planning on using the Parampara tool to create an interactive announcement each week.
And that’s my site. I have sent a message to the students telling them to meet me in the subject room (accessed via the left hand menu on the front page) at 2.00pm next Tuesday. I am ready to teach remotely!
Kylie Fletcher, Assistant Professor, Bond University
Law students are likely experiencing many challenges at the moment. They or their loved ones might be suffering from COVID19 or they might be in a high-risk demographic or location. They may be recently unemployed or stranded far from support networks. They may have new responsibilities as they care for or home school family members. There is little doubt that these experiences have significant potential to affect their mental wellbeing. I am also mindful of the less obvious influences on mental wellbeing. Many of these have been discussed in the media over the past few months. Among others, there is the anxiety caused by the uncertainty surrounding the COVID19 pandemic (Bowden, 2020), and the effects of lockdown isolation (Landowski, 2020). Naturally, I am wondering what I can do to assist my students during my next teaching semester.
Law students report higher degrees of psychological distress than the wider population (Kelk, Luscombe, Medlow & Hickie, 2009). Of course, this distress will likely be exacerbated by COVID19 and the necessary but hasty transition to an online learning environment. The results of a study of students at an Australian university demonstrates that many students believe that approaches to learning and teaching contribute to their mental wellbeing (Baik, Larcombe & Brooker, 2019). While I may not be able to manage the impacts of COVID19 or avoid the transition to online teaching, I can support my students by reducing, within reason, subject-related anxieties (Baik et al, 2017). This approach is informed by the scholarship in the field, including the recommendations outlined in Enhancing Student Mental Wellbeing: A Handbook for Academic Educators (Baik et al, 2017). Following are a handful of the more practical measures that I am considering:
Increasing subject organisation: Baik et al recommend that academics consider subject organisation in order to better contribute to student learning and foster mental wellbeing (Baik et al, 2017). I am considering how I might further organise my subject and tailor it to the online environment. This might be achieved by, for example, coordinating with my colleagues to ensure a more consistent user experience across subjects, organising content into smaller more digestible parts, providing earlier access to tasks and assessments, offering additional resources that emphasise hierarchies and relationships, orientating students to their new online learning environment by explaining the differences that they can expect to encounter and utilising online organisers such as class calendars, online booking systems, check lists and electronic reading lists.
Being clearer about my expectations: Students report that clarity surrounding expectations impacts their wellbeing (Baik, Larcombe and Brooker, 2019). A student will feel more content learning in an environment where expectations are made clear.These rapidly changing circumstances provide me with an opportunity to revise my subject learning outcomes and rubrics to ensure that they are appropriately transparent. I will also ensure that they are suited to an online learning environment. While I believe that I already do so, I intend to focus on providing clear explanations of content, tasks and assessments. Further, I hope to provide additional examples, exemplars and feedback opportunities.
Maintaining availability: Student concerns may be more readily addressed when academics are available to discuss those concerns. At the very least, most academics will maintain their current office hours in an online environment. I know many colleagues who are planning to host individual consultations that will run alongside more casual online group drop-in sessions. Of course, it is also important to considerhow one might accommodate the more organic and spontaneous learning needs of students. Students will still have those ‘seize the moment’ style questions that are typically asked during breaks and after class. Where students are happy to raise them for the benefit of or in front of the class, I can accommodate these questions through synchronous chat functions or on class discussion boards. For quick one-on-one questions, the ‘chat’ function in Microsoft Teams (or similar) might prove useful.
Ensuring access to resources: Prior to the COVID19 restrictions, many of my students purchased physical textbooks or visited the library to access hard copies. This may still be possible for some. However, it presents a particular difficulty for those studying from overseas. Needless to say, one solution to this problem is to include eBook resources in the list of prescribed resources. However, I am mindful that some of my students may be living on reduced incomes and may not be able to afford to purchase these resources. Library eBook subscriptions might bridge this gap. However, this will be monitored. The Information Resources Team at Bond Universitymonitors the use of online library resources to identify ‘in demand’ resources to inform purchasing decisions. Further, I will investigate the licencing arrangements of prescribed eBooks to ensure that they are available outside Australia. In certain circumstances, I might also provide students with a range of alterative options that include open access resources or digitised resources from published works in accordance with statutory licence allowances.
Reconsidering workload and assessment: Student wellbeing may be affected when academics misjudge student workload (Council of Australian Law Deans, 2013). These new circumstances provide me with an opportunity to consider the appropriateness of subject and assessment workloads. In particular, I am wary of the additional workload that might come with studying in an online environment. For example, it may be more time consuming for my students to compile a video than to present in person. I will also reflect on the nature of my assessments. High-stakes examinations tend to be a particular stressor for students (Baik et al, 2017). I am considering how I might reduce the weight of my final examination. Of course, this must be done in a way that retains academic rigor and will likely dictate other adjustments. One potential solution is to reduce the weighting of my end-of-semester examination by including a mid-semester examination. However, I am also mindful that promoting student autonomy may positively influence student wellbeing (Sheldon and Kreiger, 2007; Council of Australian Law Deans, 2013). Last semester, a number of my students vocalised a preference for my traditional assessments. Consequently, it may be useful if I present any variation as an option. So, instead of mandating it, students might be able to elect to participate in a mid-semester examination.
Assisting students to develop competence: Baik et al recommend that we support students’ mental wellbeing by assisting them to develop competence (Baik et al, 2017). Like most academics, in order to support the development of competence, I plan for generative learning. I do this by intentionally using existing knowledge and skills to introduce new knowledge and skills. Additionally, I adjust the guidance provided so that it is increased and decreased at the appropriate times. I also provide numerous practice and feedback opportunities. These strategies may need to be reconsidered in order to accommodate the additional cognitive load that comes with adjusting to new circumstances. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that I will have the luxury of reducing the rate at which I introduce new skills and knowledge. However, I am considering reducing guidance more gradually and providing additional practice and feedback opportunities. I may also bring forward and extend my end-of-semester revision program for the benefit of those students who wish to take part. This might be done by dispersing voluntary revision opportunities throughout the semester. Finally, I will also support my students in developing online learning competence, including competence in the skills required to use and engage with the relevant technologies.
I hope that my plans are of assistance to my academic colleagues. There are, of course, numerous other strategies that may be used to promote student wellbeing. Many of these extend beyond reducing subject-related anxieties. For further information, academics may wish to consult the following resources:
Enhancing Student Mental Wellbeing: A Handbook for Academic Educators (Baik et al, 2017); and
Promoting Law Student Well-Being Good Practice Guidelines for Law Schools and the resources referred to within that document (Council of Australian Law Deans, 2013).
References
I would like to thank Professor Rachael Field for her comments and editorial suggestions. I would also like to thank our Library Services Manager, Ian Edwards, for the suggested wording used in the 4th practical measure.
Baik, C., Larcombe, W., & Brooker, A. (2019). How universities can enhance student mental wellbeing: The student perspective. Higher Education Research & Development, 38(4), 674–687.
Kelk, N., Luscombe, G., Medlow, S. & Hickie, I. (2009). Courting the blues: Attitudes towards depression in Australian law students and lawyers. Brain & Mind Research Institute, University of Sydney.
Sheldon, K., & Krieger, L. (2007). Understanding the Negative Effects of Legal Education on Law Students: A Longitudinal Test of Self-Determination Theory. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33(6), 883–897.
For the past few weeks I have been sharing the details of my efforts to prepare for remote teaching next semester. My first step was to engage with a broad overview of remote teaching. I then thought carefully about my learning outcomes, and whether they remain suitable in a remote teaching context. Last week my focus was upon ensuring the assessment I will be administering in my subject is appropriate, rigorous and aligned with my learning outcomes.
This week I am going to think about, and plan, my learning activities. What will I be doing with my students across the semester to help them to achieve the subject learning outcomes and complete the subject assessment tasks?
It is traditional, and tempting, to think of this process in terms of ‘content delivery’. I have a package of doctrines, principles, cases, legislation, concepts, stories, activities and assessments that make up the ‘content’ of my subject. I have a certain amount of time to ‘deliver’ that content to the students. I usually feel that there is more ‘content’ than I have time to comfortably ‘deliver’, and I feel that I frequently need to rush to ‘get through’ all the content.
And when it comes to delivery of all this content, it is again traditional, and tempting, to default to what are called Law’s ‘signature pedagogies’. I will for two hours each week talk at the students in a lecture theatre, verbally explaining everything I think about the subject that is important, or interesting, or necessary. I’ll tell the students to follow up what they learn in the lecture with self-directed study in the form of reading (textbooks, additional readings, cases, legislation, journal articles, etc) and working on assessment tasks (weekly tutorial problems, assignments, essays, etc). And the following week I’ll spend another hour in the classroom going through some of these assessment tasks – usually practice problems – with the students. That’s the way law is often taught.
The problem with thinking about what we do during the semester as ‘content delivery’ is that it is based on what is at best an incomplete, and at worst deeply flawed, understanding of how learning works. ‘Content delivery’ seems to assume that we have the content, our students are empty vessels into which the content needs to be deposited, and our teaching is the process of transmitting the content from our minds into the minds of the students. It’s what has been called the transmission model of teaching, or what Paulo Freire called the banking concept. It’s easy to understand, but it isn’t an accurate representation of the learning process. Students don’t arrive with empty heads waiting to be filled with our perfect knowledge. They arrive with an existing set of ideas and assumptions about our subject, and learn through a set of experiences during the semester that allow them to add to, modify and improve what they already know. Our job as teachers isn’t to ‘transmit’ or ‘deliver’ the content to the students. It’s to provide them with a series of learning experiences that will facilitate their efforts to construct a new understanding of the subject that aligns with our stated learning outcomes.
And the problem with setting up those ‘learning experiences’ as a two hour lecture, seven hours of self-directed study, and a one hour tutorial is that that is not necessarily the best set of learning experiences for each student. Perhaps they are … but perhaps there are other, better learning experiences we can provide for our students. Some students learn effectively by listening passively to a two hour lecture … but many do not. Some students have the self-discipline to work out for themselves what they should do between the lecture and the tutorial … but many do not. And some students learn best by preparing practice answers to exam-style questions and then being told what they did wrong … but many do not.
My efforts this semester in transitioning to remote delivery provides me with the opportunity to reflect deeply upon the learning experiences I give my students. Do I want to try to replicate what I normally do, but in an online environment? Can I simply give a two hour lecture online, then let the students go away and read and study by themselves, and then bring them together in smaller groups for an online tutorial that otherwise looks exactly the same as the classroom tutorials I normally use? Or does this new environment give me the opportunity to do something differently? Of course I remain constrained by my university’s’ expectations and requirements regarding timetables, scheduled hours in the ‘classroom’, assessment deadlines and weightings, and so on. But within those constraints I have the freedom to innovate, and to hopefully improve my teaching and my students’ learning.
As I have explained previously, I have expressed the learning outcomes for my subject as:
Explain and critique the law regulating enterprises in Australia, including tort law, contract law, consumer protection and competition regulation, IP law and business law
Communicate their knowledge of the legal system and enterprise law effectively and appropriately, in writing and verbally
Identify, analyse and solve authentic legal problems, taking into consideration their ethical dimensions
The question for me now is: within the constraints imposed by my institution, and mindful of the many challenges faced by my students and by me as their teacher during this global crisis, what set of learning experiences during the semester will maximally facilitate the achievement by my students of these learning outcomes?
I want my students to be able to explain and critique the law regulating enterprises in Australia. This requires them to engage with a set of complex doctrines and ideas. There is an enormous quantity of information available to the students about these doctrines and ideas but it is unreasonable for me to expect them (given their level of experience with the law) to navigate and makes sense of all that by themselves. I can identify on their behalf some accessible and credible resources that will assist them to understand this information: readings from the textbook, extracts from the key cases and legislation, and so on. I need to be mindful of the fact that many of the students will not have physical access to the Law Library and so I have to ensure all of the resources are accessible online. Where possible I should direct my students to the relevant parts of what are often substantial readings, rather than simply tell them to read the whole thing and work out for themselves what is and what is not important.
One of the most helpful things I can do in this regard is take the time to explain the overall shape and structure of the relevant topic each week, emphasise the most important parts, enliven the material with anecdotes, and explain in my own words the aspects of the topic that are particularly complicated or challenging. I would usually do this once a week in a single two hour lecture. But remote delivery provides me with other options. I might break the topic down into smaller sub-topics or ‘chunks’, talk about each sub-topic in detail and then take a break to answer student questions and check student understanding with online polling. I could even pre-record the sub-topic explanations as a series of 10-15 minutes videos, and either direct the students to watch each video during the scheduled lecture time or have them watch them before the lecture, leaving more time during the scheduled online class time to engage in group activities, assessments, and conversations. In my experience, the subject matter of a traditional two hour lecture can be presented in a series of videos totally about an hour, since when I record a presentation I speak much more quickly and with fewer pauses than when I deliver a live presentation.
I can still follow up the large class activities and the self-directed learning with some small class discussions and problem solving. But remote delivery makes it easier to divide the online class into buzz groups and have them work together on problems. I could spend the first part of the class going through that week’s prescribed problem in the usual way, testing student understanding and responding to student queries, but I can also use some of the time to have the students break out into buzz groups to work on a new problem together, and then bring the group back together for a discussion. In the past I might have asked the students to also submit written answers to that week’s problem, as formative assessment, summative assessment or both. Instead I could require the students to create a 5 minute video where they explain not their answer to the problem but their approach to the problem, walking me through their process of reading the question, thinking about and planning their answer, doing their research and so on. Teaching my students how to identify, analyse and solve authentic legal problems is my third learning outcome; monitoring and providing feedback about their process is just as important as evaluating their final answers.
So I have decided each week’s learning activities will look like this:
A short video announcement posted to the subject website where I explain what we are doing that week.
A series of short videos where I present the material I would usual present in a lecture.
A large class where I take the time to explain the more difficult concepts in more detail, engage the students in class activities, engage in discussions about the critical and ethical aspects of the material, and answer student queries.
A set of specific readings and self-directed learning activities that the students will undertake after the large class.
A small class about a week later where we discuss the self-directed learning activities, and the students work on a new learning task in buzz groups.
An online test to (1) assess their progress and (2) motivate them to keep up with the learning schedule.
I will of course monitor the progress of my students’ learning and levels of engagement as we move through the semester, and make adjustments as required. This is for me, and for my students, a very different approach to teaching and learning. It is inevitable that some things will not work out the way I envisage. As long as I am mindful, agile and reasonably flexible I am sure everything will be fine.
Last week I began describing my efforts to prepare for remote teaching next semester: I will be coordinating the new subject Enterprise Law, a compulsory subject in Bond University’s new Transformation degrees including the Bachelor of Legal Transformation. My first step was to engage with a broad overview of remote teaching. (Since that post, my colleague Tory Baumfield has drawn my attention to this excellent article, written specifically for law teachers struggling with the transition to remote teaching, and which I strongly encourage you to read if you are not sure where to begin.) I then thought carefully about my learning outcomes, and whether they remain suitable in a remote teaching context.
This week my focus will be upon ensuring the assessment I will be administering in my subject is appropriate, rigorous and aligned with my learning outcomes. This final point is important: as explained last week, the notion of constructive alignment tells us that the assessment tasks we give our students should evaluate the extent to which the students have achieved the learning outcomes we set for the subject. If I have stated a learning outcome but I don’t assess it, or if I have an assessment task that measures something other than a learning outcome, I really should reconsider either the learning outcomes or the assessment task.
Remote teaching will prevent me from using some forms of assessment I have used in the past, but it is also encouraging me to adopt other forms of assessment, some of which may on reflection be more suitable and better aligned with my learning outcomes. They may also be more authentic. One of the more traditional types of assessment used in the discipline of law – the invigilated, handwritten, closed-book examination – prioritises the integrity of the assessment process and challenges the students to demonstrate their understanding of the subject in quite difficult conditions, but it lacks authenticity in that it is difficult to imagine circumstances in which the students will be required to complete a similar task – hand-writing a legal advice in only a couple of hours without access to resource materials – in ‘real life’. A ‘take home’ exam delivered online, where the students have a longer period to complete the task and can access their notes, the textbook and any online resources, certainly raises concerns about integrity and rigour (which can be addressed), but it is more authentic in that it more closely replicates the kind of task they might be asked to undertake in their professional lives.
In choosing appropriate assessment tasks, I want to ensure I use a combination of formative and summative assessment tasks. A formative assessment task is one with the principal objective of enhancing student understanding; marks for the task may or may not contribute to the final grade for the subject. It might be a quiz, the marks for which don’t ‘count’, or it might even be as simple as asking oral questions of my students in class. A summative assessment task, on the other hand, has the principal objective of evaluating student understanding or competence; marks for the task will contribute to the final grade for the subject. It is the summative assessment tasks that are my focus at this stage.
I have expressed the learning outcomes for my subject as:
Explain and critique the law regulating enterprises in Australia, including tort law, contract law, consumer protection and competition regulation, IP law and business law
Communicate their knowledge of the legal system and enterprise law effectively and appropriately, in writing and verbally
Identify, analyse and solve authentic legal problems, taking into consideration their ethical dimensions
I would normally build assessment tasks around these learning outcomes as follows:
An interim assessment task that requires the students to keep up to date with the material as it is presented, challenges them to think critically about the material, and tests their understanding of both basic and advanced concepts, e.g. a mid-semester test.
Class participation tasks that require the students to participate regularly in class discussions and demonstrate their understanding of the material orally, e.g. tutorial participation marks.
A final assessment task that requires the students to synthesise what they have learned in the subject and apply their understanding to solving complex legal and ethical problems, e.g. a final exam.
I don’t need to throw these out and start again. I can retain my broad categories of assessment task, but the way I administer them will change in the online environment.
Interim assessment: A mid-semester test can of course be administered online. But I am no longer obligated to administer all of the questions at once. I could instead set up a series of online tests that assess student understanding as it is taught. I might have three mini-tests during the semester. The extreme example is a series of online tests, administered each week of the semester, where I assess concepts from that week. The questions could be well-designed MCQs (which can be marked automatically), complex problems, or anything in between. In my subject I am going to set weekly online tests worth a total of 30% of the final mark, each test comprising a combination of MCQs and short answer questions. It will take some work up front to create a bank of good quality questions, but that effort will pay off during the semester with a reduced marking load.
Class participation: If I am teaching my classes online, I should still be able to assess student participation in class. There are however some additional challenges to be taken into account. Does the platform allow me to ‘see’ all of my students? What if a student has a technical difficulty and cannot attend or participate? What if the class is too large for me to easily evaluate student performance online? I may need to provide an alternative ‘channel’ for students to demonstrate that they have met the relevant learning outcome, e.g. an a synchronous discussion board where students can post a written contribution or a short video. In my subject, I will allocate 10% of the final mark to participation. The classes will be small enough for me to assess student participation using a good marking rubric, but I will also give my students the option of posting a short video answer to that week’s tutorial exercise on the subject discussion board.
Final assessment: As previously stated, I can replace my normal end-of semester invigilated, handwritten examination with a take-home examination where the students have 24 hours to complete the task and submit their work via the subject website. This will require me to think very carefully about the questions I set. I don’t want to give them a task where they can easily Google the answers. The classic legal problem used in law schools is well suited to this task. Provided it is a relatively novel problem, the students will not be able to find the answer online. I am however conscious of not making the final assessment task unnecessarily stressful, particularly during what is already a very stressful time. I’m also mindful of my own marking load at what will be a very hectic end of semester period. I would normally weight the final task at 60% (relatively high compared to other disciplines but still much less than Law’s traditional 100% final exam). I now think 40% would be more appropriate, and I can ‘move’ the other 20% to earlier in the semester by setting a legal problem similar to what the students would ordinarily do on the exam, but require them to complete it and submit their answer much earlier. This will also allow me to identify problems with their problem solving ability sooner, and provide them with useful feedback about how they can improve.
Once I have settled my assessment regime, I need to make sure I am clear with my students about my expectations regarding their performance. I need to ensure that at the very minimum I provide my students with:
a brief description of each assessment task;
the marks and weighting allocated to each assessment task;
the due date for each assessment task; and
the subject learning outcomes aligned with each assessment task.
It is also helpful if I provide my students with additional assessment information, including:
a detailed description (including word limits) of each assessment task;
submission instructions (including deadlines, how to submit online, and penalties for late submission) or examination conditions (e.g. duration, closed book/open book) for each assessment task;
the marking criteria for each assessment task;
the dates students can expect each assessment task to be marked and feedback provided;
the form that feedback will take (e.g. written feedback, oral feedback, etc);
the penalties for exceeding word limits;
the process of applying for extensions;
late submission penalties; and
any policy regarding student appeals of assessment results.
Some of this information will be included in the subject outline, but it will be helpful if all of it is clearly set out on my subject website.
Next week: Choosing appropriate learning activities. Meanwhile don’t forget to check the CPLE’s list of remote teaching resources.
The focus of many law teachers at the moment is upon successfully navigating the transition to remote delivery of teaching. For many of us, the challenge is a significant one: not only do we have to learn a new set of skills, we also have to have to find a way to provide our students with a personalised learning experience that is as engaging and rewarding as what they would have received if they were on campus. We are assured by our institutions and by many of our colleagues that it is possible to do so. However, the sheer quantity of information, advice and support available to us can sometimes appear overwhelming, and it can be difficult to know where to start. In this post I will share my own experience in addressing this challenge.
Next semester, I will be teaching a brand new subject, Enterprise Law. This is a compulsory subject in Bond University’s new Transformation degrees, including the Bachelor of Legal Transformation. Fortunately I have most of the content ready in the form of lecture slides, tutorial problems and the like, but now I need to think about how I am going to deliver the subject remotely next semester, including how I want my subject website to look. It will be a Blackboard ULTRA site as well, and it will be my first time setting up a site on that platform, so that is an added challenge. Where should I begin?
I decided that a good place to start would be with a broad overview of remote teaching. There are many such overviews available online, and it is likely that your own University has produced such a guide for the academics at your institution. At Bond, our Office of Learning and Teaching has produced an excellent guide to remote teaching, called ‘TLC: Teach-Learn-Connect’. It contains clear and concise explanations and lots of good insights and advice, such as:
we should keep it simple, be flexible, and embrace the opportunity;
‘good teaching is good teaching’;
there are several differences between synchronous delivery (educators and students gather and interact in “real time”) and asynchronous delivery (educators prepare subject materials and activities that students can access and interact with at any time), but both are important;
it is critical to create a ‘sense of belonging’, i.e. ensure our students feel respected, valued, accepted, cared for, included, and that they matter;
virtual ice breakers can be used to help break down barriers and build rapport with, and between, our students; and
when planning to transition to remote teaching delivery, we start by examining the existing subject structures and assessment tasks to determine their suitability.
Reading that sort of overview was very helpful … but now what?
It seemed to me the next step was to reflect on my learning outcomes. I decided it would be helpful for me to remind myself what it is I really want my students to know and be able to do as a result of completing my subject. My learning outcomes should inform all of the decisions I make about remote teaching.
The learning activities I choose to use, whether synchronous or asynchronous, should help my students achieve the learning outcomes. If I like the look of an online learning activity, but it has nothing to do with achieving the learning outcomes, I should think carefully about whether or not to use it. (Of course, there are other reasons for using a learning activity – it might enhance overall engagement or build a ‘sense of belonging’.) If I have identified a particular learning outcome but I don’t actually do anything with the students that relates to that outcome, I should either review my learning outcomes or review my learning activities.
Similarly there should be a clear and direct relationship between my learning outcomes and my assessments. The assessments should measure the extent to which my students achieve the learning outcomes. If I have stated a learning outcome but I don’t assess it, or if I have an assessment task that measures something other than a learning outcome, I really should reconsider either the learning outcomes or the assessment tasks. All this is known as ‘constructive alignment’. Watch this Prezi presentation by Eric Orton for a clear and concise explanation of the concept
In my subject, Enterprise Law, I have a fairly clear idea about what it is I would like my students to know and be able to do. My students are not enrolled in a traditional law degree, and are not training to be lawyers. They are doing this subject to learn about the legal and ethical rules that apply to running or participating in an enterprise. The goal is to teach them enough for them to organise their own affairs and the affairs of their enterprise in such a way that they don’t get into legal or ethical difficulties or if they do get into difficulties they recognise that fact and have an idea about what they and those around them need to do. I would also like them to not only know what the law is, but also appreciate its imperfections and form views about how it might be improved.
I expressed my learning outcomes as:
Explain and critique the law regulating enterprises in Australia, including tort law, contract law, consumer protection and competition regulation, IP law and business law
Communicate their knowledge of the legal system and enterprise law effectively and appropriately, in writing and verbally
Identify, analyse and solve authentic legal problems, taking into consideration their ethical dimensions
Now, as I move into making some important decisions about how I will teach and assess remotely, I am going to keep these learning outcomes close to hand to remind me what it is I am trying to achieve in teaching this subject.
This video explains how Bloom’s Taxonomy can be used to write learning outcomes.
This useful handout issued by the University of Melbourne contains some very useful tips for drafting learning outcomes, drawing upon the AQF and Bloom’s Taxonomy.
These resources offered by the University of Toronto include a long list of examples of learning outcomes.
This blog post explains why many learning outcomes are badly written.
My next step will be to review my proposed learning activities. That will be the subject of a future post.
The Centre for Professional Legal Education 