The College of Law's e-learning initiatives

Andrew Harvey, College of Law

Presentation at Vocational Teachers Forum III, 10 January 2004

Andy is the Director of e-learning Development at the College of Law in London. In his paper at the third Vocational Teachers Forum he described the College’s e-learning initiatives on the Legal Practice Course (LPC) – read Scott Slorach’s progress update at the Learning in Law Annual Conference 2008.

The College’s current initiatives on e-learning within its LPC consist of computer-assisted learning exercises and discussion groups, both supported by the Blackboard learning management system and delivered in full time, part time and block learning modes of delivery.

The computer-assisted learning exercises support student study outside the classroom sessions, while the discussion groups enable students to collaborate on assignments. Both aim to establish a platform from which workshops can work more successfully, to add variety and flexibility to student study and to improve the quality and consistency of their preparation for classroom sessions, with a view to improving their classroom experience.

The College introduced these initiatives via pilots and evaluations (by qualitative and quantitative research) over a number of years, designing materials that test and develop basic knowledge and problem-solving skills.

Computer-assisted learning

The College’s current approach

• student preparation for workshops includes a half hour of work with computer-assisted learning exercises (up to 15 questions)
• the questions aim to test and/or develop:
  • students’ knowledge and understanding of the areas of law or practice covered in the workshop
  • students’ ability to apply these to facts at a basic level
• the exercises are promoted as an essential part of the curriculum
• questions use a variety of types (true/false, multiple choice questions, multiple answer, ordering, matching, fill in the blank, ‘essay’/free text)
• the Blackboard ‘gradebook’ reports to the student on:
  • right or wrong answers with feedback thereon
  • his/her score on the exercise
  • the class average score
• the Blackboard ‘gradebook’ reports to the tutor on:
  • the identity of non-sitters
  • the class average score
  • the scores of individuals
  • the class’s performance on each question
• the same exercises are available for students to re-use for consolidation or revision

What we have learnt so far

Student attitudes:

• when given the choice, students value face-to-face tuition more highly than computer-assisted learning (such as a recorded tutor)
• students place a high value on receiving feedback on their performance as a course develops
• students are reluctant to devote study time to activities that do not obviously offer benefits to them in relation to success in exams

Tutor attitudes:

• tutors are reluctant to trust a group of students to do preparatory work on which a classroom session is dependent, and will tend to ‘go over’ the ground in the classroom session

Discussion groups

What we are doing

• discussion groups generally prepare students for selected workshops
• protocols and expectations are set from the outset, for example the roles of students and moderators
• the moderator posts the topic for asynchronous discussion for one week before the workshop (on full time courses; for one month on block learning courses)
• the moderator’s role is essentially to steer or correct as necessary – students are encouraged to view, and use, the discussion group as a study group
• contributions to the discussion are displayed in ‘threaded’ format to assist participants in tracking the sequence of contributions to the discussion

Students show some reluctance to participate, for which the following reasons may be given:

• lack of anonymity
• tendency to defer things until the last minute
• an unfamiliar medium
• perception that discussion groups are extra-curricular

Tutors have reported a noticeable difference in the level of work produced in the classroom following a successful discussion group.

Success factors:

• tutor/moderator’s attitude and/or rapport with the group
• distributing hard copy instructions as well as ‘posting’ the same to start the discussion group
• discussion that feeds directly into a workshop exercise
• discussion that bears an obvious relation to assessment
• discussion that invites participants to raise one new point each – spreads the contributions and encourages early contributions by picking the easier or more obvious points
• discussion that develops in stages that are introduced progressively by the moderator
• identifying anticipated learning outcomes from the discussion group

Risk factors:

• imprecision in setting the topic for discussion
• relying on participants to respond to contributions from colleagues rather than setting a topic that offers scope for a multiplicity of original contributions
• setting a discursive topic
• coincidence of DG with pressure of other work
• imposing an excessive workload on the moderator (better to appoint individual students to take an enhanced role, on the basis of instructions supplied to him/her?)

Last Modified: 4 June 2010