This document summarizes and discusses approaches to improving legal education pedagogy. It discusses how traditional law school approaches can negatively impact students and proposes alternative experiential and problem-based learning methods. As an example, it describes a personal injury negotiation project used at Northumbria Law School that incorporates collaborative learning, reflection, and assessment of negotiation skills. The document advocates open educational resources and simulation projects to help reform legal education pedagogy.

1. Of kindergartens and law schools: learning justice in the 21 st century Paul Maharg Northumbria Law School

3. what do law schools do to students? Stress Benjamin, G. A. H., Kaszniak, A., Sales, B. & Shanfield, S. B. (1986) The role of legal education in producing psychological distress among law students and lawyers. American Bar Foundation Research Journal, 225-252. Negative effect on values & motivation Sheldon, K. M. & Krieger, L. (2004) Does law school undermine law students? Examining changes in goals, values, and well-being. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 22, 261-286. Teaching content and methods induce cynicism McKinney, R. A. (2002) Depression and anxiety in law students: are we part of the problem and can we be part of the solution? Journal of the Legal Writing Institute, 8, 229-55. Rapaport, N.B. (2002) Is "thinking like a lawyer" really what we want to teach? Journal of the Legal Writing Institute, 8, 91-108

4. what difference can legal education make? Legal education has a weak socialising affect, much weaker than the centripetal power of the job market. A. Sherr, A., Webb, J. (1989). Law students, the external market, and socialisation: do we make them turn to the City? Journal of Law and Society 16, 2, 225. Legal subjects studied affect career ambitions, but had a neutral, short term or negative impact on the public service orientation of law students. Boon, A. (2005). From public service to service industry: the impact of socialisation and work on the motivation and values of lawyers. International Journal of the Legal Profession, 12, 2, 229-260. A study on socio-economic & ethnic diversity in Scotland found similar results. Anderson, S., Maharg, P., Murray, L. (2003) Minority and Social Diversity in Legal Education , Scottish Government Official Publication.

5. John Dewey (1859-1952) ‘ A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated activity.’ Democracy and Education (1916) can we make a difference?

6. Standard classroom c.1908. Would you like to learn about measurement and volume this way? Thanks to Mike Sharples, http://tinyurl.com/6bzdgx

7. … o r this way? (Dewey’s Laboratory School, U. of Chicago, 1901) http://tinyurl.com/6onvjp

8. Would you like to learn about history and town planning this way?

9. … o r by building a table-top town for a social life history project? (Dewey’s Lab School) http://tinyurl.com/59c93q

10. two origins of contemporary learning theory ‘ One cannot understand the history of education in the United States in the twentieth century unless one realizes that Edward L. Thorndike won and John Dewey lost.’ Lageman, E.C. (1989) The plural worlds of educational research, History of Education Quarterly , 29(2), 185-214 E.L. Thorndike John Dewey

11. E.L. Thorndike John Dewey 1. Educational psychologist Philosopher & educationalist 2. Theoretician & experimentalist Theoretician and practical implementer 3. Explored the dyadic relationship between mind & the world Interested in the arc between experience & the world 4. Adopted as precursor of a behaviourist approach to learning: assessment-led; laws of effect, recency, repetition Pragmatist approach to learning: prior experience, ways of contextual knowing; democracy & education 5. Emphasised teaching strategies Emphasised learning ecologies 6. Followed by: Watson, Skinner, Gagné; outcomes, competence & instructional design (ID) movements. Followed by: Bruner, Kilpatrick, standards movement, Constructivist tradition.

12. First kindergarten – opened 1837, Friedrich Fröbel Children played freely with blocks, bricks, tiles, shapes: his school was designed for designers Developed the idea of freiarbeit and the educational value of games. Other approaches Montessori method Waldorf education Sudbury school High/Scope method kindergarten approaches

15. Open-plan education where spaces support activity & thinking School as teacher Vertical groupings, 5-11, instead of classes Articulated a pedagogy of six selves & three I’s… ‘ I am sure that teaching is an art and that teachers are artists. The teacher teaches what he is, more than what he knows, and as an artist, involved and giving of himself with love.’ George Baines distributed learning: George Baines & primary education

16. Open-plan building (the ‘articulate school’) Integrated day Family groupings of 40 children, aged 5-9 Team/co-operative teaching characteristics of the Eynsham school

18. All learning areas divided into bays: open-plan building Library Office Laboratory Studio Kitchen House Needleroom Music room Workshop Theatre Withdrawing room

19. No national curriculum, no LEA curriculum, no school curriculum Periods are blocks of time that are flexible if required. Breaks are flexible: play and work are intertwined. Setting out and clearing up were part of the day’s activities for both children & staff. ‘ There is every effort made for the school to be a real community group and to develop skills and abilities of individuals and help them develop attitudes to enable them to be individuals yet concerned with the other individuals in their community.’ Eynsham teacher integrated day

20. Family groupings of 40 children, aged 5-9. Vertically organised (so that children could take mentoring roles) + parental conferencing & teacher observation. Children from same families included in the group (unless requested out) and the group became a family that moved through time. Teachers facilitated, helped organise future work, gave feedback to individuals & small groups, reviewed progress with children. family groupings

21. Teachers formed a co-operative: helping each other teach meeting regularly to plan & discuss activities and resources All teachers recorded their practice in daily diaries, which for some became a record that fed into writing about school activities. Teacher practice exemplified Dewey’s democratic practices: ‘associated living’ & ‘associated thinking’ team teaching

22. curriculum objectives

23. curriculum methods & techniques

25. six selves, three I’s Six selves Three I’s

26. ‘ Curriculum is everything that happens to a child’

27. kindergarten & art schools Fröbel Memorial, Fröbel Kindergarten, Mühlhausen, Thuringia

28. signature pedagogies (Lee Shulman) Sullivan, W.M., Colby, A., Wegner, J.W., Bond, L., Shulman, L.S. (2007) Educating Lawyers. Preparation for the Profession of Law, Jossey-Bass, p. 24

29. transforming the pedagogy…?

30. A specific form of problem-based learning. At least seven distinguishing elements – active learning through performance in authentic transactions involving reflection in & on learning, deep collaborative learning , and holistic or process learning, with relevant professional assessment that includes ethical standards – that can have a significant effect on learning when used in simulations of professional practice. transactional learning

32. personal injury negotiation project Administration: 272 students, 68 firms, 8 anonymous information sources – PI mentors 68 document sets, 34 transactions Each scenario has embedded variables, called from a document server, making it similar, but also unique in critical ways students have 12 weeks to achieve settlement introductory & feedback lectures discussion forums FAQs & transaction guideline flowcharts voluntary face-to-face surgeries with a PI solicitor

33. PI project: assessment criteria We require from each student firm a body of evidence consisting of: fact-finding – from information sources in the virtual community) professional legal research – using WestLaw + paperworld sources formation of negotiation strategy – extending range of Foundation Course learning performance of strategy – correspondence + optional f2f meeting, recorded

37. PI project: (some of) what students learned extended team working real legal fact-finding real legal research process thinking in the transaction setting out negotiation strategies in the context of (un)known information writing to specific audiences handling project alongside other work commitments structuring the argument of a case from start to finish keeping cool in face-to-face negotiations more effective delegation keeping files taking notes on the process...

38. PI project: what students would have done differently… ‘ In tackling this project I think that our group made two main mistakes. The first mistake we made was in approaching the task as law students as opposed to Lawyers. By this I mean we tried to find the answer and work our way back. Immediately we were thinking about claims and quantum and blame. I don't think we actually initiated a claim until a week before the final settlement. I think the phrase "like a bull in a china shop" would aptly describe the way we approached the problem. […] Our group knew what area of law and tests to apply yet we ended up often being ahead of ourselves and having to back-pedal The second mistake we made was estimating how long it would take to gather information. We started our project quite late on and began to run out of time towards the end. None of us appreciated the length of time it would take to gather information and on top of this we would often have to write two or three letters to the same person as the initial letter would not ask the right question.’

39. PI project: what students would have done differently… ‘ At the beginning we thought we perhaps lost sight of the fact that we had a client whom we had a duty to advise and inform. On reflection we should have issued terms of engagement and advised the client better in monetary terms what the likely outcome was going to be.’ ‘ […] unlike other group projects I was involved in at undergraduate level I feel that I derived genuine benefit from this exercise in several ways: 1. reinforcing letter-writing, negotiation, time-management and IT skills 2. conducting legal research into issues of quantum working effectively in a group as a group - not delegating tasks at the first meeting and then putting together pieces of work at the second meeting.’

40. curriculum: tempo & complexity

41. curriculum: tempo & complexity

42. three-level thinking for teacher/designers…

43. Curriculum is multiple distributed technologies and practices. Eg timetables, course teams, notepads, learning spaces, forms of knowledge transmission, discussion, computers, forms of discourse, writing – all existing in time spans. Some technologies are ancient ( lectura, glossa) , some new (SIMPLE, standardised clients, mobile phones) Success in learning means: f or staff, the need to compose and orchestrate the curriculum . f or students, the tools, support & spaces to manage their own curriculum curriculum is technology

44. OER software: SIMPLE See http://simplecommunity.org Aims – Be collaborative : staff, students, different institutions, different professions Be international – in our increasingly globalized jurisdictions we need to enable our students to work with others Research our practice Integrate with other forms of simulation, eg standardized clients O rganize like Mozilla

45. OER in simulation resources: Simshare See http://www.simshare.org.uk Aims: Collate simulation resources which are repurposed as open educational content Create guidelines for future publication of simulation projects Help staff to use simulation more widely and effectively through staff development . Create methodologies that will help staff to see more clearly how simulation OER can be interpreted.

47. OER ethics resources See www.teachinglegalethics.org

48. Two book series: Emerging Legal Education Book Series, Ashgate Publishing, editors Paul Maharg, Caroline Maughan, Elizabeth Mertz. Digital Games and Learning Book Series, Continuum Publishing, editors Sara de Freitas & Paul Maharg. research & publication…

49. Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/paulmaharg Blog: http://zeugma.typepad.com SIMPLE: http://simplecommunity.org Simshare: http://www.simshare.org.uk Email: [email_address] web details