Michael Lower is a Professional Consultant in the Faculty of Law in the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He teaches and researches in the fields of Land Law and Higher Education. He is a Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales (non-practising). Michael holds a PhD in Higher Education: Research, Evaluation and Enhancement. The title of his thesis was Communities of inquiry pedagogy and consequential transitions in professional education. Michael was formerly Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning) in the Faculty of Law in the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Consequential Transitions and Undergraduate Legal Education: Implications for Teaching and Assessment
Abstract:
Attempts to improve one’s own teaching and learning practice are driven by a theory or understanding, implicit or explicit, about learning and the practical steps to be taken to promote it. In this paper, I will argue that Beach’s socio-cultural understanding of learning as consequential transition provides a humanistic and realistic theoretical perspective.
Beach describes consequential transition as ‘the conscious reflective struggle to propagate knowledge linked with identity in ways that are consequential to the individual becoming someone or something new, and in ways that contribute to sociogenesis: the creation and metamorphosis of social activity and ultimately society. Producing culture in addition to reproducing it.’
This allows us to think about what learning means in the whole trajectory of our students’ lives and their capacity to be creative and transformative. I draw on Beach to suggest that undergraduate legal education involves inducting our students into the practices associated with higher education / the university and with the law.
I explain how Beach’s theory influenced my own educational thinking and practice. Beach’s theory prompted me to value authentic forms of assessment, collaboration between students, mentoring arrangements and framing student work as a contribution to public knowledge. It led me to think of learning environments as ecological systems.
The Communities of Inquiry Pedagogy and the Professional Development of Legal Educators
Abstract:
Continuing professional development of higher education academics takes a variety of forms. Traditional instruction by an acknowledged expert in ‘best practices’ is accompanied by other, collaborative approaches that emphasise the benefits of having educators join learning communities or communities of practice. This presentation argues that Law Schools would do well to consider the use of the communities of inquiry pedagogy as an important way of thinking about and organising collaborative professional development activity.
The communities of inquiry pedagogy requires learners (here legal educators) to:
- Engage in research in small, collaborative groups;
- On real problems of practical interest and concern for the group members and the broader research / disciplinary communities that they belong to;
- Employing the research / knowledge-creating norms of the disciplinary community (here the community of legal education research academics);
- To engage in a careful, critical, professional exploration of the problem; and
- Reach a conclusion (possibly provisional or nuanced) about the problem they set out to address.
One could imagine, for example, a small group of legal educators coming together to reflect on the forms of assessment that are suitable for blended or fully online learning environments. They could present their findings in a presentation, a blog post, a peer reviewed article, a podcast, to mention a few possibilities. This would allow the members of the community of inquiry to think the question through carefully and to propose potential solutions. They would strengthen their capacity to carry out educational research rooted in their own professional practice.