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Spiller, Dorothy; Spiller, Peter --- "Teaching Law in the Context of Student Diversity" [2000] WkoLawRw 6; (2000) 8 Waikato Law Review 106

TEACHING LAW IN THE CONTEXT OF STUDENT DIVERSITY

BY DOROTHY[*] AND PETER SPILLER[**]

I. INTRODUCTION

The primary theme of this article is that teaching in the context of student diversity needs to be responsive to and respect different identities, and build on them in the teaching and learning process. The article focusses on the teaching of law students at the University of Waikato.

The University of Waikato Law School, like the rest of the University, has a diverse student body. There is the usual wide range of academic abilities, with students who are set to make their mark in the legal world and others whose talents are better directed elsewhere. The Law School is mainly populated by New Zealanders of European extraction, but the School has the highest proportion of MŠori students of any Law School in New Zealand. There are students from overseas, including those from Pacific Island countries and Asia. In addition, there are New Zealand residents whose mother tongue is not English and who have different cultural traditions.[1] Another feature of the Waikato law student body is the range in ages: a high percentage are mature age entry students, some of whom are without formal academic entry qualifications.[2]

This diverse student population presents many challenges for teachers in the Law School. Student diversity dramatises issues of teaching and learning that many academics were able to avoid when students were from an academic elite and formed a relatively homogeneous group. Pedagogical awareness of and reflection on this diversity is imperative if all law students are to enjoy equal learning opportunities.

In our discussion, we shall outline some of the key pedagogical principles that we believe are important for teaching in a context of student diversity. We shall also describe specific practical applications in the context of the teaching of Legal Systems, a first-year law course at the University of Waikato Law School.

II. ACKNOWLEDGING AND BUILDING ON DIVERSITY

Our views are premised on the beliefs that we hold about the goals of university teaching and learning. We believe that university education should go beyond the teaching and learning of the skills, language and thinking associated with a specific discipline. We believe that university teaching should develop what Ramsden terms “a change in conceptual understanding”, both in the discipline itself and in a broad sense.[3] It is also our belief that students should eventually acquire the ability to evaluate ideas, challenge assumptions and grapple with a range of perspectives. In the pursuit of these goals, we believe that learning with and alongside other people is essential. Students need to engage with other ways of thinking, seeing and communicating. In this process, cultural diversity can be a rich resource. Likewise, the experiences of mature students in other areas of life (as parents, in the work force, or in first-hand contact with the law) can be valuable.

In order to build upon diversity, differences need to be acknowledged and become part of classroom practice. If we can accommodate differences in our teaching, students can connect their classroom learning with who they are, rather than compartmentalise it as a separate (and alien) experience. Writers on tertiary education, such as Brookfield and Preskill, have suggested ways of building on diversity.[4] One technique is to ask students to talk about themselves as members of social classes or cultural groups at the beginning of a set of classes. Another idea is that on occasions students can work in “affiliate groups” which match the communities from which students come. A slightly different approach which they cite is one developed by the Fetzer Institute, as part of its diversity dialogues. In this exercise, named “the circle of objects”, discussion group participants talk briefly about an artefact that they have brought into the classroom which says something about their ancestry. The discussion leader begins this process and participants speak without interruption when they feel ready. This format may also mean that the class learns to respect silence while waiting for participants to speak.[5]

A belief in the importance of acknowledging student diversity underlies the design of the Legal Systems course. In this course, which accommodates 200 first year law students, the emphasis has shifted away from the lecture format to smaller group teaching. A weekly lecture is retained, but the limitations of this format, not least in terms of the anonymity and passivity of the student body, are recognised. The class is divided into stream groups, and it is in the weekly double period streams that the essential teaching and learning takes place.

The stream meetings enable the identity and name of each student to be recognised in a more personalised environment than in the plenary lecture setting. Knowing the name of each student is a powerful dynamic in the educational process: this is a humanising factor in itself, it increases the sense of motivation and accountability in each student, and it helps to build a learning community. Another benefit of the small group learning approach is that it can break down stereotypes and negative images of sub-populations. In large classes, part of the dehumanising and anonymous effect of the large numbers is that people may be grouped into stereotypical classifications (such as radical MŠori or racists).

The first stream meeting of the year is spent largely on allowing each student to speak about his or her own background, life experience and reasons for choosing to do law. The responses range from the 18-year-old European student attracted to law by the soap operas on television, to the Taiwanese and Fijian students whose fathers had directed them to obtain commercial law qualifications to use in the family business back home, and to the MŠori students whose family needed help with claims to land or other resources. This process enables the lecturer to have a sense at the outset of who comprises the diverse mix of students in the class, and so to link into the identity of the audience in shaping and presenting the teaching. The process also allows the students themselves to have a sense of the differences and links that exist within their student body, and build a learning community that respects difference.

At the end of each of the first three quarters, an assessment is conducted on the section of the course covered: tests are held at the end of the first and third quarters and an essay is written at the end of the second quarter. Those who do poorly in the assessment are invited to attend an extra set of classes in the following quarter, to prepare them for the next assessment. At the start of the classes, the students are asked to identify why they think they have not done as well as they had hoped, and their responses are used to help shape the extra tuition. Those in this “struggling students” group, many of whom come from minority cultural groups, appear to have distinctive problems, not least in terms of language and the ability to understand the requirements of the course and its assessment components. The lecturer then designs classes using visual aids and examples geared to the particular requirements of this group.

III. COLLABORATIVE LEARNING

Collaborative learning in which the peer group is a primary learning resource has many well-documented benefits.[6] In a diverse student body, group learning can facilitate the sharing of a range of perspectives. Differences in ways of thinking, learning and seeing can be harnessed for the benefit of the group outcome. Communication between students is often much easier than in the teacher-centred classroom. Where there are different levels of prior knowledge and experience, informal or formal opportunities for peer tutoring can be encouraged. Hinett and Thomas give a number of examples of peer-assisted learning in a law context.[7] One idea is that students bring examples of recent lecture notes that they have taken. These are exchanged with a peer and the students provide each other with feedback on lecture note strategies, highlighting the main theme and other features of the notes.[8] Other commentators have given interesting examples of how they use collaborative learning in other professional disciplines such as engineering and medicine.[9]

In addition to the pedagogical benefits, peer group networks can act as important socialisation and acculturation agents in the tertiary learning environment. For many students from different social and cultural backgrounds, the discourses of the disciplines and of the university itself appear alien and inaccessible. Students may feel powerless because of their unfamiliarity with the culture of the university, both explicit and hidden. Peer networks can give students a safe context to process the norms and expectations of the university, and they can provide students with transition communities which can help them negotiate the tertiary community. Bruffee also argues that peer learning builds on networking and collaboration that most students are familiar with in their everyday lives.[10]

There are many practical ways in which collaborative learning methods can be integrated into the teaching and learning environment. These range from group endeavours on small tasks to extended group projects.[11] Students meet outside class time and pool their resources to work on aspects of their courses such as course readings, case analysis, problem-solving and examination preparation. The study group helps students to economise on time and to share diverse perspectives. The group also offers a supportive network that helps students cope with the tertiary environment and, in particular, with the specific demands of law learning.

There is considerable debate in the literature as to whether such groups should be culturally homogeneous or heterogeneous. Uri Treisman, for example, who used collaborative learning approaches to enhance the mathematics and physics learning of students from minority cultures at Berkeley University, established groups of students from diverse cultures.[12] This meant that students could benefit from culturally different learning styles and approaches. A culturally diverse group would be our personal preference because of our belief in the rich dialogical potential of cultural diversity. However, there may also be a significant role for culturally homogeneous learning groups where students want the support of an affiliate group.

Another debatable point in relation to study groups is the role that can be played by staff. A study group’s comfort and potential may be restricted by a regular staff presence, and where peer groups are based on cultural lines a great deal may be expected of staff who are perceived as being culturally friendly. However, students may like a degree of staff feedback on their group endeavours and deliberations. It may be possible to allocate some slots in the curriculum when staff would be available to offer students feedback on the quality of their group learning, and also enhance their own sense of students’ understanding.

At the Waikato University Law School, there is a MŠori student grouping (Te Whakahiapo) which facilitates and supports collaborative learning. The Legal Systems course offers a separate stream for MŠori students, and this is conducted by a MŠori lecturer. At the start of the year, the self-introduction of the students in each of the streams immediately alerts the students to possible peer groups which they can form. At the initial class, there are sometimes palpable reactions from the listening students as people announce themselves to be ex-police officers, Fijian Indians, or mothers coping with lectures in between household chores, and within a short space of time peer groups are formed. To foster peer group learning and support, the lecturer, in the early weeks of stream meetings, directs the class to divide into small groups in order to discuss a set topic and to report back to the group as a whole.

Many law students have reported on the peer group as being particularly helpful in the law learning process. Whereas students from other cultures may be shy about asking questions or making comments in class, their peer group provides a safe environment and reassurance that they are not on their own. MŠori students in particular demonstrate their need for peer group formation, to replicate the “awhi” (embracing) communal support of their own culture and to counteract the isolation which a number of them experience. On occasions the lecturer in the course has attended a peer group (at its request) to give assistance which is focussed on the group’s distinctive needs.

IV. DIALOGUE BETWEEN TEACHER AND STUDENTS

Dialogue between staff and students is imperative in any tertiary classroom, but is especially significant in classrooms with diverse groups of students. For deep learning to occur, and for students to be fully engaged in the academic process, teaching must connect with the students and their histories. Occasional tests are limited by their summative function and cannot provide the lecturer with an ongoing sense of what is happening for the students in relation to their learning. The teacher should create, in addition to more traditional assessment, regular opportunities for dialogue. Angelo and Cross suggest the use of brief probes, discussions or questionnaires at the beginning of a course.[13] These strategies give the teacher an idea of the levels of understanding, knowledge and expectations that students bring into the classroom. Brookfield recommends the weekly use of the critical incident questionnaire in which students are asked to respond anonymously to certain questions. The student responses can be read very quickly by the teacher who can, where possible, make modifications, backtrack, or help the students see the rationale for what is being done.[14]

Dialogue which shows that the teacher is responsive to student needs can undoubtedly enhance the teaching and learning experience, but also has other benefits for students. Practices of this nature invite students to participate more actively in the teaching and learning process and give them the satisfaction of contributing to the character of the teaching. These strategies may also go some way to reducing the power imbalance in the classroom and nurturing students’ sense of self-esteem. Such a shift in power can be very helpful to students whose cultural and personal histories are very different from the dominant discourses of university learning. Furthermore, sustained dialogue can help to build an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect.[15]

A form of dialogue is sustained in the Legal Systems course through the students’ completion of a weekly preparation exercise. The completion of 80% of these qualifies the students for 5% of the final mark. Because each week forms a building block in the educational process leading to the final assessment, it is important that students attend classes each week and are adequately prepared for each class. The exercise means that students are prompted, week by week, to do the readings and to begin the vital process of translating their thoughts into writing. The preparation worksheets afford feedback to the lecturer from the students as to what they are learning. Where there are recurrent misunderstandings, the lecturer can then return to the issues involved and explain them in a different way. The worksheets also give the opportunity for the students to have regular constructive feedback from the course teachers, thus enhancing students’ understanding in areas where they need help, and giving confidence through affirmation of work that is well done. Because students have prepared for each session, they are readier to contribute to the class, thus further increasing their confidence and enhancing the quality of the discussion. Quieter and less industrious students then have the opportunity of seeing how well their peers perform and can consider possibilities for their own development. Well-prepared students can contribute valuable thoughts and ideas to each other, and the lecturer stands to gain from new insights coming from students.

Dialogue between lecturer and students is developed in other ways. There is the feedback obtained through the assessment which takes place at the end of each quarter. In the streams, the lecturer sometimes follows up the lecture given earlier in the week by asking each student to relate one new idea or insight gained from the lecture, and to raise any questions which they may have about the material covered. The range of insights which students obtain from the same lecture provides ample testimony to the diversity of the student body. At the end of each major section of the course, the lecturer asks each student in the stream to indicate the easiest and the most difficult aspects of the work in that section. Again, there is a range of responses, from the person with a previous degree who is coping easily with the course, to the school leaver struggling with a less regimented environment, to the MŠori student who finds the university world more individualistic and competitive than her home setting. The feedback allows the lecturer the chance to modify the teaching of the course, by building on these diverse experiences. This process also allows the students a greater feeling of belonging in the course and the sense that their distinctive personalities are being recognised and valued.

V. PEDAGOGY FOR DIVERSITY

An environment of trust is promoted when different approaches and ways of doing things are valued and respected. At the beginning of a teaching module, it may be helpful to find out, not only about students’ prior knowledge and life experience, but also about important cultural values and preferred learning approaches. Some familiarity with basic cultural norms of different groups of students can help teachers to avoid insensitive comments and behaviour. For example, sitting on a table is unacceptable in MŠori culture. MŠori students have said that, when a teacher sits on the table, it can affect their entire sense of wellbeing in the classroom. Learning approaches may also vary across cultures, for instance, a collaborative mode of learning is often the preference of MŠori and Pacific Island students.[16] Finding out about these differences can help the teacher to adopt more inclusive practices. A wide range of teaching approaches gives students the opportunity to build on their own preferred learning styles, and also to take on the challenge of different ways of learning.

Using diverse teaching and learning strategies is one cornerstone of a pedagogy designed to meet the needs of a diverse student body. The language used by academic teachers is another important aspect of teaching that can promote better learning by a diverse student body. The language used by academic teachers may have many cultural overtones as well as subject specific idioms. Teachers can easily make their language more accessible and even make discussion of the particular discipline a regular part of their teaching. Many terms that are widely used in assignment setting, such as “critique” or “critically evaluate”, are not as self-explanatory as teachers seem to imagine. Traditionally, many academics have refused to accept the education of students in tertiary literacies as part of their job. The change in university populations in most countries is gradually compelling academics to reconsider their role, and to accept that teaching the language and modes of thinking and writing in the university and in their disciplines is something which can and should be taught.

In the Legal Systems course, students are exposed to as wide a range of teaching methods as possible. Efforts are made to use visual aids, including overhead transparencies and power point presentations, together with examples designed to reach a variety of cultures. It is recognised that deep learning is achieved for all if teaching methods provide for different perspectives as the course progresses.

At the weekly lecture, either a staff member gives an overall framework for learning in the streams that week or a guest speaker shares practical insights into the area of legal practice being covered.[17] In streams, various teaching strategies are utilised. These include teacher-centred sessions, where the lecturer takes the student through a judgment so as to develop skills of case analysis, to small group interaction and then oral presentation by members of the class on points discussed, to the assignment of an extract to each member of the class for reading and then oral explanation. At the end of the year, students in each stream are presented with the lecturer’s rendition, against the background of a popular song, of the gist of the work covered, and students are encouraged to present their understanding of the work in a song or limerick form. The unfailing experience is that this last-named learning experience reaches students who have not been touched by any other teaching strategy, and exposes talents which have not been revealed before, thus facilitating confidence-building and creativity. In particular, MŠori culture sets great store by the use of waiata (songs) at gatherings, and MŠori students have responded well to this learning experience.

In the lectures and streams, conscious efforts are made by the staff to make as few assumptions as possible. Appealing to student memories of New Zealand of the 1980s can sometimes draw out useful student experiences, but such appeals may mean little or nothing to school-leavers and new immigrants. Anecdotal and idiomatic speech is sometimes used to capture the imagination of some members of the class, but always needs to be followed by a more prosaic rendering of the message. Thus, for example, the statement that “the powers that be placed this matter in the too-hard basket” has immediately to be followed by “the Government found this matter too difficult to deal with”. Care is also taken with pronunciation, including the proper enunciation of MŠori terms and phrases which now permeate the law.

The Legal Systems course recognises that language is at the heart of the discipline of law: the mark of an accomplished lawyer is his or her use of precise, concise and effective language. Efforts are made by the lecturers in the course to model the use of such language in presenting the objectives and assessment requirements of the course. At the beginning of each quarter, the lecturer uses the plenary lecture to explain the nature of the assessment that will conclude that part of the course. Students are given the questions that they must address in the assessment, and the lectures, streams, readings and preparation exercises are all directed to preparing students to that end. This teleological or end-centred teaching approach focusses student effort in an efficient and economical way, and is found to be of value by almost all of the diverse student body.

Focus on language also comes through the requirement that students regularly read selected cases from an early stage of the course. The language of the law, while more accessible today than in previous times, still requires a mental shift by many students coming to law for the first time. In their reading of cases, students begin to see how the unique and sometimes antiquated legal expressions are intertwined in the presentation of the cases. The regular preparation exercises require the students to reflect their own understanding of the material and its language, and alert the lecturer to wayward spellings and misunderstandings.[18] This process is underscored by the assessment at the end of each of the first three quarters.

VI. CONCLUSION

In the 1950s, Robert McGechan of Victoria University of Wellington Law School challenged his contemporaries by saying that students should “learn the techniques, the way of the law and not so many legal rules; because we want [them] to learn for keeps, not to pass examinations”.[19] The deep learning of legal methods and patterns of thought in each member of a diverse student body poses formidable challenges. This process requires of the law teacher qualities of vigilance, patience, sensitivity, tolerance, openness to change, and hard work. At times the challenge appears insuperable and there are periods of exhaustion and frustration. But the modern-day student diversity can be an intoxicating mix, helping to keep the teaching process a dynamic one. And the recognition of student diversity in the education process is peculiarly apposite to the discipline of law. After all, the unceasing flow of new legislation and case-law is itself a testimony to the law’s response to the infinite variability and diversity of human behaviour.

Ko Aotearoa ngŠ tŠngata, ko kawe k‘ te ngŠkau.

Gathered are the people of Aotearoa, but each heart responds to a different calling.

[*] Lecturer in Tertiary Teaching and Learning, Teaching and Learning Development Unit, University of Waikato.

[**] Professor of Law, University of Waikato. We wish to record our thanks to Tania Martin of the Teaching and Learning Development Unit, University of Waikato, and Khylee Quince of the School of Law, University of Auckland, for their valuable assistance.

[1] The 2000 enrolments in the School of Law were: 55.6% European extraction, 28.5% MŠori, 7.5% Asian, 3.5% Pacific Islander, and the rest noted as “other”.

[2] The 2000 enrolments in the School of Law were: 55.5% under 25 years, 29.7% 25-39 years, and 14.8% 40 years and over.

[3] Ramsden, P Learning to Teach in Higher Education (1992) 4.

[4] Brookfield, S and Preskill, S Discussion as a Way of Teaching (1999).

[5] Ibid, 104.

[6] Spiller, D “Using the peer group as a teaching and learning resource - redefining the role of the teacher” (Proceedings of the 1998 Annual Conference of the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (1998)).

[7] See Hinett, K and Thomas, J Staff Guide to Self and Peer Assessment (1999).

[8] Ibid, 50.

[9] Ditcher and Pearse, “Group learning in a mechanical engineering design class”, in Spiller, D (ed) Narratives from Tertiary Teaching (2000); and Miller, Loten and Schwartz, “Successful formats for applied learning in small-group tutorials in pathology, clinical biochemistry and other subjects” in Spiller, ibid.

[10] Bruffee, K Collaborative Learning (1993) 27.

[11] Spiller, supra note 9.

[12] Treisman, U, paper delivered at the International Consortium of Educational Development Conference, Austin, Texas (1998).

[13] Angelo, T and Cross, P Classroom Assessment Techniques (1993) 2ff.

[14] Brookfield, Stephen Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher (1995) 115. The Classroom Critical Incident Questionnaire poses the following questions: 1. At what moment in the class this week did you feel most engaged with what was happening? 2. At what moment in the class this week did you feel most distanced from what was happening? 3. What action that anyone (teacher or student) took in class this week did you find most affirming and helpful? 4. What action that anyone (teacher or student) took in class this week did you find most puzzling or confusing? 5. What about the class this week surprised you the most? (This could be something about your own reactions to what went on, or something that someone did, or anything else that occurs to you).

[15] Fraser, “Building relationships in the classroom through peer teaching and peer asssessment”, in Spiller, supra note 9. We do however acknowledge that there are different perceptions amongst students of the appropriate degree of familiarity with staff.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Thus, in the first quarter, on statute law and Parliament, a local MP speaks of the passage of legislation in Parliament; in the second quarter, on the judiciary and case-law, a local High Court judge speaks of the role and functions of a judge; and in the third quarter on the legal profession, a local practitioner speaks on the role and responsibilities of a lawyer.

[18] Thus, for example, the lecturer encounters adverbial (adversarial), Council (counsel), descented (dissented), first insistence (first instance), higherarchy (hierarchy), orbiters (obiter), precedence or president (precedent), and statue (statute).

[19] McGechan, "The Case Method of Teaching Law" (1953) 1 VUWLR 9.