Teaching and learning for legal skills trainers

Fully Booked

16 February 2005

The aim of this seminar, organised in collaboration with BIALL (the British & Irish Association of Law Librarians), was to showcase innovative practice in learning and support from the perspective of the law librarian. The programme explored issues such as induction, skills training programmes and the use of VLEs and discussion boards.

The opening address by Peter Clinch of Cardiff University, with the title Supporting law teaching: training and teaching, provided a framework within which the remaining presentations at the event could be viewed and appraised. Peter’s presentation gave a brief history of VLEs including definitions of basic terminology, as well as illuminating insights into some theories of learning and pedagogical models for e-learning.

Seven papers followed:

• Lessons learnt from the Legal Research Skills Programme – Sandra Meredith (University of Oxford) described her research into how students related a standalone legal research skills programme at Oxford to their everyday study
• Developing an interactive multimedia guide to enhance legal research skills – Claire Tylee (University of the West of England) described the development of an interactive, Web-based guide to enhance legal research skills tuition
• Quizzes, discussion and VLEs on the Bar Vocational Course – Michael Chapman (City Law School) described the introduction of WebCT onto the BVC City Law School
• Developing the student learning environment at City University – Emily Allbon (City University) looked at the role of WebCT and LawBore, a student law portal, in enhancing the student experience
• VLEs and their role in legal education support: a UK overview – Marianne Barber (College of Law) provided an overview of the possible and the desirable in the promotion of legal resources via a virtual learning environment
• Integrating information literacy into an undergraduate law course – Cathie Jackson (Cardiff University) described the integration of information literacy into a Legal Foundations module
• Lawpaths as a tool for enhancing pedagogy – Sarah Carter and Liz Gladin (University of Kent) provided an update on the progress of the Lawpaths project