Reflecting on blogs in assessment

In this article from the Spring 2006 issue of Directions Chris Ashford (University of Sunderland) outlines the use of blogs on a first year LLB module. Chris is interested in hearing about other law schools’ experiences with blogs – perhaps by forging partnerships with other departments a national or ultimately international online blogging community of law students could be forged? If you are interested in being involved in such a project or discussing it further contact Chris on chris.ashford@sunderland.ac.uk.

One of our key challenges as law teachers is to move students away from ‘surface’ learning and towards ‘deep’ learning. The seminal works of Schon and Kolb on reflective practice have generated a panoply of approaches to utilising reflection in student learning.

At Sunderland we have utilised reflective practice at the end of the first term on our first year LLB module, Human Rights & Civil Liberties, for several years. A summative assessment required students to reflect upon their group presentation task and their general progress in the module so far – this proved a revealing assessment for students and law teachers alike.

In September 2005 we decided to take a slightly different approach to the assessment, by incorporating blogs into the reflective process. The students were asked either to submit a full blog or to utilise a blog to produce a reflective account of their progress in the module and an analysis of the challenges they faced and overcame as part of the group presentation. (A blog can be defined as an online journal, where the author can quickly and easily post thoughts and interact with other bloggers. The blogging phenomenon began in 1999, and by the end of 2005 it was estimated that there were more than 20 million blogs worldwide. However, their use in education seems to have had a less rapid rise, despite their value as a tool to aid in reflection and as a mechanism through which students can express their views and feelings.)

Setting the blog up

The software chosen for the student blogs was Blogger. Blogger has a terrific online support mechanism, and crucially was the most user friendly software we found. It allows a blog to be quickly and easily established for technophobes, but also has the flexibility to allow for more complex use amongst the technically proficient, from the incorporation of online opinion polls and ‘hit’ counters through to RSS feeds and beyond. The site takes a would-be blogger through each stage, removing the need for one to one supervision in the setting up of a blog. Nonetheless, I offered a workshop to talk students through setting a blog up.

The session was not well attended and did not reflect the number of students who ultimately took up the option of setting up a blog, perhaps suggesting that support was not necessary for all. Some of those who attended the workshop, plus one or two other students, required further support, and in this sense the early part of the semester was quite resource intensive in terms of student support. Nonetheless, the benefits are proving well worth this early effort.

Posting to the blog

As with the setting up of a blog, posting to it, that is to say writing the entries, is straightforward. There were no specific requirements as to how often students had to post – entries could be daily, weekly or monthly, as they felt appropriate for them. Some students preferred to make regular short posts, whilst others preferred longer intervals and slightly longer posts, taking in a range of events.

An unintended consequence of the blogs was the students’ inclusion of details concerning their work, social life and everyday challenges. This further enhanced the role of the blogs, both as a tool for reflection for students who are faced with reflecting on their wider student experience, but also as an aid for their teachers, who are able to gain an insight into the most quiet of students and understand better the challenges and opportunities that students face beyond the seminar room and lecture theatre.

The online community

The online community created by the blogs means that our students are able to compare and contrast their own experiences with their peers, discovering the best ways of overcoming obstacles and engaging in a collective process of enlightenment. This community is coordinated through WebCT, with links to the student blogs placed within the module space. The blogs are anonymous, but students can still read their peers’ experiences and realise they are not alone. This crucial element of student support is vital for all students, but particularly for first year students at the start of their course. By reading the blogs our students can discover that they are not the only ones finding a particular module difficult to grasp, adjusting to living in a new country with a different culture or balancing work/studies and a social life.

The way forward

Next academic year all students will be encouraged to keep a blog. It is hoped that our students will maintain their blogs throughout the LLB programme, acting as a constant tool for reflective practice, but for there to be a real incentive other modules will need to utilise blogging. It is intended that one additional module in 2006-07 will utilise blogging, allowing students in the current first year to maintain their blogs.

As blogging spreads across the law programme the online student community will become richer and more complex – new first years will able to look at the experiences of the previous year’s students and be reassured that they overcame the obstacles and are now facing new and exciting challenges. And whilst supporting the first years the students in the second year will also be able to look towards the third years’ entries for support.

Last Modified: 4 June 2010