Professor Jolyon Ford
College of Law
Jolyon worked with educational experts to design and scale-up more engaged, interactive learning activities in a large first-year compulsory law subject. He did so by introducing active and interactive pre-class, in-class and post-class learning and peer engagement opportunities into what were hitherto mostly content-heavy lectures and tutorials with limited scope for building cohort cohesion and belonging.
The value of active learning in Law pedagogy
Jolyon’s approach to teaching first-year law students is to enhance more active learning through greater scope for students to experience active pre-class and in-class engagement, as well as an early introduction to assessed group work. His intention is to promote – at the outset of their degree studies – students taking responsibility for their own learning, while also normalising interactivity in the classroom. His approach is also intended to reduce marginalisation and foster a greater sense of cohort cohesion and belonging.
Jolyon attempts to shift from mere intake, recall and replication towards ‘higher-order’ thinking skills (and make very overt to students his intention to help them to make this shift). This involves trying to privilege active student self-construction of ‘threshold concepts’ that they can use to navigate the often large volume of materials involved in law studies from mere recall and replication towards ‘higher-order’ thinking. He sees this focus on key concepts as contrasting with the entrenched approach in law studies which can be content-heavy or revolve unduly around mastering formulaic analytical tasks.
Jolyon selects tech-based visual and other platforms to enable self-paced pre-class modules and formative interactive quizzes: not to replace core reading, but to help build conceptual understanding. In the large-group lectures he incorporates digitally mediated class discussions and participation using polling software (on students’ own devices), in line with principles of inclusive pedagogy and universal design approaches. This allows students to discuss key concepts or cases with peers, facilitating interaction and collaboration. This was not simply ‘bolting on’ technology to traditional lecture styles: the aim was good pedagogy, not technology for its own sake. His aim is that the class becomes a community invested in co-creating knowledge
… a far more exciting introduction to law than I expected (being initially apprehensive).
Student comment
… your commitment through COVID and genuine desire to see us learn, above and beyond focus on marks, was instrumental.
Student comment