UK legal education & ICT: state of the discipline, state of the art…

1. UK legal education & ICT: state of the discipline, state of the art…

2. Four themes • ICT & legal education – from individual to collaborative work • Innovative learning patterns need innovative assessment • Unique signature pedagogy in legal ICT? • Habits of the head, habits of the heart, habits of the hand…

4. UK Law Schoools Survey 2004 • Bileta survey of ICT provision • Most Law Schools use VLEs • Only a minority customise VLEs • Main use of VLEs - as resources archive • 1/3 use VLEs for coursework submission • 1/5 use VLEs for discussuion/conferencing • Few use VLEs for plagiarism detection

5. Use of Virtual Learning Environments

6. How VLEs are used

7. The UKCLE VLE Project Aims and Objectives • Obtain case studies from UK law school websites covering both undergraduate and professional legal education. • Co-design a project website for UKCLE and BILETA sites • Populate, and set up a procedure for authors to create and maintain case-study web pages. • Provide a set of guidelines into VLE best practice • Website: www.ukcle.ac.uk/vle

8. LUVLE(Lancaster University VLE) Collaborative Learning online • F2F Lectures & Seminars • Online Resources • Any Questions? (asynchronous) • Inter & Intra Team discussions • Student mentoring discussion • Blended (weeks 6-14 & 21-24) • Virtual Negotiations (weeks 15-20)

9. LUVLE(Lancaster University VLE) Negotiations – an online simulation • Team-based collaborative learning all year • Inter-team online negotiations (term 2) • 4-party problem or case study • Identification of legal basis for claims • Negotiation of settlements • Plenary session (F2F) • Written report

11. Transactional Learning Environment Ardcalloch: Transactional Learning Environment (TLE) • students engage in year-long collaborative learning in virtual firms on seven substantial projects • they use f2f meeting (logs), activity logs, personal logs, intranet discussion forums as chat rooms, drafts folders, correspondence folders and style banks

12. Transactional Learning Environments • Active learning • The practical realities of transactions forming the basis of learning • Opportunities to reflect on learning • Collaboration (both within and across virtual firms of 4 students per firm) • Process, or holistic, learning • Immersion in professional role-play • Task authenticity

13. Example: Virtual Court Action Webcasts Tutorials On-line TLE Group Project

15. Resources TLE Project Webcasts Multimedia resources Civil Practice Flow Chart Tutorial Preparation Tutorial Assessment Exam Project Motion

19. Student feedback Paperworld student • Preferred f2f lectures • Didn’t use learning tools in the CD or online environment • Used books, not e-resources • Took verbatim notes from the webcasts • Only listened to the webcasts once E-world student • Comfortable using the webcast environment • Used online information • Used a word-processor to type notes • Viewed and reviewed the webcasts • Used the learning tools, eg speak-fast button • We found that most students adopted a position somewhere along the spectrum of these two poles, and the position was variable depending on purpose of use.

29. Virtual Firms… ‘…enables students to practice, in a safe environment, what they will be practising with real clients and in live legal transactions……’ Excerpt from the Foundation Course in Legal Skills, Diploma in Legal Practice, GGSL

30. Student Quotes • ‘Firms? Computers? Collaboration? Three words guaranteed to strike torpor into the heart of the average mature student.’ • ‘A feeling of dread crept over me when I realised that much of the work for the Diploma was to be carried out in firms.’ • ‘I struggled with the fact that I didn’t have total control over where, when and how I worked.’ • ‘I don’t think that I’ve ever been quite so scared in my life. ……Imagine my shock at discovering that I’d be part of a firm and that I’d be potentially responsible not only for my own failure but that of three others. I almost left.’ • ‘Four strangers, four projects, one team?’

31. Development of our Matrix Learning 20% 41% Trust 12% 27%

32. Development of our Matrix Learning Learning Community Legal Eagles Trust Dysfunctional Friendly Society

33. Low trust and low learning Trust • Culture • Suspicious, blame, independence, me first • Task • Not task focussed; low engagement • Relationships • Victimisation, polarised, abrasive, secrets • Approach • Inflexible, superficial, dictatorial, rigid Learning

34. Low trust and low learning Trust “not my place to act as social worker to my team members.” “Teamwork jarring is insoluble – some people are just destined not to work together.” “Basically I would say that our firm was a success although we would have been better as a group of three.” “…this was done for selfish reasons as at the time I had no desire to work with L as tensions between us from the outset were high” “…childlike tantrums…turned into a nightmare” Learning

35. Development of our Matrix Learning Learning Community Legal Eagles Trust Dysfunctional Friendly Society

36. High trust and high learning Learning • Culture • Inclusive, fair, interdependence, team first • Task • Task focussed: our way; high engagement • Relationships • Open, valued, supportive, honest • Approach • Flexible, organic, consensus, responsive Trust

37. High trust and high learning “the great thing about the firm was that I felt that we all picked up on these weaknesses early on without any conflicts arising” “that doesn’t mean our differences have to separate us…that is precisely what makes us work much better together as a team” “Greater than the sum of the parts springs to mind.” “People were flexible about the work they took on and were willing to try new things.” “…responsibility was shared and that support would be given if someone had a problem.” “The other 2 members of the firm turned up on the negotiation day to lend moral support and share in the outcome” Learning Trust

38. Future projects: e-portfolios • A structured collection of evidence • Belongs uniquely to an individual • Draws the evidence together into a coherent tale of learning (David Baume, 2001)

39. Habits of heart, head, hand… • Important to development of professionals because it enable us to learn from experience • Students need to develop meta-cognitive skills because these skills affect the ability to understand and make sense of experience and are essential to the process of reflection and working in situations of uncertainty • Reflective practitioners draw on intuition to do what feels right • Asking students why they behaved or interpreted a situation in a particular way provides useful insights not only into how much and what they understand but also to extent to which they draw on intuition

40. The Law Society of Scotland Test of Professional Competence Vocational Stage 1 Vocational Stage 2 Vocational Stage 3 The Portfolio Skills Assessment Tools + Learning Logs + Significant Event Analysis Diploma + Subject Assessment Traineeship + Appraisal + Objective Setting PCC + Attend. Client Feedback Model Proposed by Neil Stevenson at Diploma Conference Portfolio Assess.

50. Sieberdam • KODOS Group, based in University of Rotterdam, and have developed an environment based on Ardcalloch • GGSL is liaising with them on an international project on IP in the Diploma, involving our students and Dutch Business students in Rotterdam’s Business Faculty. • Sieberdam academic development team: • Rudi Holzhauer • Karen Jäger • Pieter van der Hijden