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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Journals >> Le Brun and Johnstone, The Quiet Revolution - Improving Student Learning in Law URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/other/journals/WebJCLI/1995/issue5/jarvis5.html Cite as: Le Brun and Johnstone, The Quiet Revolution - Improving Student Learning in Law

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Le Brun and Johnstone, The Quiet Revolution - Improving Student Learning in Law

Reviewed by Francoise Jarvis*

Copyright © 1995 Francoise Jarvis.
First Published in Web Journal of Current Legal Issues in association with Blackstone Press Ltd.

*Many thanks to Fiona Cownie for her helpful comments on earlier drafts of this review.

Introduction

The authors see the aim of a law degree to be centred on student learning and not on course content. This book on how to improve student learning is especially beneficial as it is directed solely at legal education. The extremely full bibliography, (unusually situated at the front rather than back of the book), is evidence of an enormous body of works dedicated to teaching and learning in higher education. However, most of these works are non-subject specific and thus can, in parts, be rather irrelevant to the teacher of law. The authors are members of the Australasian Law Teachers Association (ALTA), which, along with the Canadian Law Teaching Clinic, was the driving force behind the production of this monograph. They, obviously, make much reference to Australian Law Schools and their teaching methods, resource implications, and the specific minority groups that are of particular importance to them. This in no way detracts from the usefulness of this book; teachers in Britain and other jurisdictions will have no difficulty in relating to the classroom experiences that Le Brun and Johnstone discuss.

The authors reason for producing the book is given in the conclusion to chapter one (at p 47):

"The Quiet Revolution: Improving Student Learning in Law has been written for teachers of law who...have nagging doubts about the traditional, doctrinal, rule- oriented approach to legal education, but who have neither the expertise nor the confidence to know where to nor or in which direction to travel."

The authors state that they have produced this work not only for the educational theorist, but also for those unacquainted with current educational theory and also the law student who wants to understand what is happening in the classroom. To be able to analyse how effective differing teaching methods are on student learning, the aims and objectives of the law degree as a whole, as well as individual courses, need to be discussed. With between 50% - 60% of law graduates in the UK and Australia not entering the profession or leaving it a few years after graduating, we can no longer legitimately aim our degree courses at the budding professional. University education is not, and some will argue nor should it be, about training solicitors. The coverage of mere information in the curriculum is not going to be of much use to the non-practising lawyer, other than the academic!

The format of the book is particularly well organised and sectioned; dividing the book into three equally important parts. Each part is preceded by an introduction and within each part the chapters also begin with an introduction and end with a conclusion to summarise the chapter. Although the chapters are supposed to be read sequentially, the introductions and conclusions make it possible to skip chapters and move on to the most relevant sections to the particular reader.

Part One

In Part One we are introduced to Pat and Alex, two concerned law teachers, who are questioning their roles. They have a continuing dialogue throughout the three parts of the book which is used to illustrate examples of the problems and anxieties that law teachers face today. Pat is the most resistant to change and is uninterested in educational theory. Pat follows the belief that "I went through it and so will you" (p.36), thus Pat is content to teach in the traditional, tried and tested manner. Pat believes this resistance to change is supported by the experiences of a colleague, Alex. Alex is much more open to experimenting with different teaching techniques, but is not always confident about the results. Alex admits to being bewildered by the contradictory student evaluations that are received. Here is a warning from the authors not to be discouraged by a few adverse student evaluations. They rightly point out that constant evaluation of teaching is intrinsic to good teaching (chapter 8). They quote from McKeachie, "The Role of Faculty Evaluation in Enhancing College Teaching" (1983) 63 National Forum 37:

"What we are concerned about in evaluating teaching is not what the teacher has done, but what has happened to the students."

Through evaluation the effectiveness of teaching can be seen and adaptations to teaching methods made to improve the students experience of learning. Appendix A to chapter three, immediately after the chapter, (not at the end of the book as usual), is a very useful tool for any teacher interested in self-evaluation.

Part Two

Part Three

The final chapter examines some of the changes that may affect the teaching of law in Australia in the next five or ten years. They begin with a list of "hurdles" that legal educators might face, including shrinking resources, the continuing movement from elite education to mass education, the call for greater diversification of the legal profession and the growing student insistence on relevance in their education. The adaptation of the law degree to meet these pressures is discussed from the perceived implications on the degree programme, the content and focus of law curricula and on academic staff. Particular areas that concern the authors are raised, the most pressing being that there is no fully developed theory or model about how students learn effectively. As they point out this knowledge is essential if the desire is to improve student learning in law. Le Brun and Johnstone refer to the work of Glaser (1991) "Learning, Cognition, and Education: Then and Now", a paper presented at University of Melbourne, to assist in gaining this information and they also suggest further areas to direct research in the pursuit of creating a full theory of effective student learning. They are also pleased to see that assessment is becoming a part of the teaching strategy and would encourage this movement.

As the aim of this work is to concentrate on improving student learning it may come as a surprise to many readers to see just how much emphasis is placed on the teacher and effective teaching, rather than on learning theories (chapter two). It is not surprising, especially around results time, to hear academics question exactly how much effect they have on students; they like to take credit for the successful students but belittle their influence on the failures.

As the authors tie effective student learning so closely to the performance of the teachers, it is disappointing to see how little of the book is devoted to examining the characteristics of the law teacher. Passing reference is made to gender issues and racial and homophobic attitudes as concern the student body, and the various types of student, e.g. mature, aboriginal, female, non-English speaking, but much less of an issue is made of the individuality of the teacher. It is taken as fact that women academics and academics of colour are marginalised (p.34), but no attempt is made to explain either this or the effect of this marginalisation on the students. It is stated that women law teachers experience hostility, mostly from younger, white males (p.65 footnote 33), but guidance on how this hostility affects the teacher or is manifested in the teaching of law is not explored. In the authors' attempts to obliterate indirectly any comment on the character of law teachers, Pat and Alex are non-gendered.

A brief consideration is given to the history of law schools and law teachers, from plumber to pinnacle, (chapter one), which bears more than a passing resemblance to Twining's "Pericles and the Plumber" (Twining 1994). The historical journey in this chapter goes some way to explaining why the present system of law degree teaching requires no formal training of its teachers, or even a set qualifications profile.

Much of the book is devoted to teacher assessment and evaluation, so perhaps the idea of formal "teacher" training ought to have been mooted. As graduates who have been through the system law teachers are expected to know how to relay what they learned to their students. This, almost inevitably, leads to the teacher copying the methods of teaching that were used to teach him/her; we are back to Pat's "I went through it and so will you." To break the cycle there needs to be a regime of training to be an educator. The lack of training and apparent second rating given to teaching as compared with research in promotional criteria, could discourage some academic lawyers from investing their time in educational theory. Even when teaching was taken seriously in American Law Schools, Able, ("Evaluating Evaluations" (1990) 40 Journal of Legal Education p.415), points out that the less successful teachers continued to teach and they were just denied merit raises. I do not advocate that "unsuccessful" teachers (however that is evaluated) should be removed from their jobs or, even their teaching duties, but surely that teacher cannot be permitted to continue unchanged: a regime of re-training teaching skills must be employed. Perhaps if teaching law was credited with a "professional" teaching certificate, it would be deemed more worthy. There would be obvious opposition to the introduction of any sort of mandatory training for academics and much of the criticism would be justified. For example, there are many excellent law teachers who are primarily practitioners; they would see little benefit or incentive in undertaking more qualifying training.

Rather than formal training, more and more Universities and departments are requiring new members of staff to undertake Staff Development Courses and offer Staff Support Systems to less experienced colleagues. These issues of teacher training and support are not fully discussed in Le Brun and Johnstone's book and this I feel is a major fault. There is also little discussion of the role of mentoring and probation years for new staff. Making educational theory the core of staff development courses for all law teachers, not just the new ones, would pave the way for experimentation with innovative techniques which would be more in tune with the new information that we now have on how students actually learn. The Quiet Revolution could be a core work for the development of such courses.

Le Brun and Johnstone regard their book as an introductory work, and, as such, it is a successful introduction to legal educational theory. It is a very practical book as well as being strong on theory and the teacher who is interested in improving his/her teaching and his/her students' learning will find many practical examples and exercises to use in the classroom. The authors are aware that breaking away from traditional teaching methods and means of assessment will not be easy but may be an anxious exercise undertaken from a feeling of compulsion, rather than desire on the part of some law teachers. However, they make it clear that it would be rewarding work to see the students actually learning to be critical thinkers rather than vessels of information. In this book the authors manage to instil an enthusiasm for change, rather than a reluctance, and although law schools may face an uncertain future they are equipped to see that students graduate with a legal education as well as a law degree.

Bibliography.

< Griffiths, S, & Partington, P (1992) 'Enabling Active Learning in Small Groups' in Effective Learning and Teaching in Higher Education Module 5, Parts 1& 2 (CVCP).

Twining, W (1994) Blackstone's Tower: The English Law School Sweet & Maxwell.