This sectiondiscusses the opportunitiesand challenges identifiedinthe casewithrespect to issues of quality of educational practicesat the course level (see also chapter 1). Two themes will be highlighted: student and teacher experienceswith the course teaching, and opportu-nities and challenges for knowledge integration.
6.5.1 Student and teacher experiences with the course activities
As the course descriptionabovedisplayed, the students inthis case had the opportunity to engage with a range of different instructional settings throughout the coursesemester. The intentionstated by the course teachers with theimplemented changes wasfirst of all to in-troduce more practical and realistic elements in the course, partly through visiting and being visited by professionals inthe legal system. In addition, the seminar activitiesaimed at engag-ing students actively inhandlingpractical cases through legal argumentationboth in writing and oralpresentations. Theseseminars presupposed student engagement in the sense that they were expected to prepare, performandworkwith judicialknowledge and problem solv-ing. Thiswasespecially the case in procedural and assignment seminars, whilethelectures aimed atintroducing students to the knowledgefield and providing an overview of discipli-naryareas. In the following, we go more thoroughly into howstudents and teachersperceived and experienced the implementation of these course activities.
Starting with the aims and learning outcomes, the students consideredthese as clear, but more demanding and complicated compared with earlier parts of the study programme. Stu -dents also expressed a wish for more information especially at the beginning of the course in order to prepare themselves for the upcoming learning demands and activities. Even though the students had access to extensiveinformationduring lectures and slides(content over-view, syllabus, timetables, online lectures, ad hoc information and statements by course teachers etc.)madeavailable on the LMS, the students stillcalled for more information and overview of courseactivities. Somefrustrationwasalso expressedin relation toinadequate and sometimes contradictory information.
On the positive side, informants emphasised the motivational value of practical/proce-duralapproaches in a courtsetting, aswell as drawing onjudicial knowledge content and previous judicial precedents. Concerning coherencebetween the various teaching activities, the students consideredthe lectures as a relevant preparation for the seminars and group work. They also expressed that the ‘work-related aspects’ through visits wasvaluable for de-veloping their understanding of the profession.Onestudent even underlined that the ‘ time-pressure situation, with only 46 hours of preparation for the procedure in court, makes this “re-alistic” and a very positive and challenging experience’. However, not all the work-related as-pectsinthecourse turned out asplanned. Only a fewstudents came prepared for the work-relateddebate at the beginningof the semester, leading to a slightly different debate than anticipated. Thisparticularsituation, and othersimilar examples, might illustrate possible
disadvantages with student-centred approaches heavily dependent on the students’ prepara-tions. In particular, theprepared students argue here for more and clearerdemands to all involved students, referring to their experiencesfrom seminarswhereteacherstend not to emphasisethis sufficiently.These students also calledfor more professionalfeedback on their participationinrealistic judicial sessions asrole-players, when observed by visiting profes-sionals. Thiswasconsidered by severalinformantsas a ‘missed opportunity’ to learn and de-velop practical knowledge and procedural skills.Moreover, the students noted that the teach-ers to some extent approached especially the assignment seminarsdifferently,wheresome tended to be lecturing-oriented while other teacherswere more practically oriented towards solving assignments. This discrepancy also illustrates the importance of teacher-coordination when implementing a complex structure with different teaching approaches within a student-centred educational setting.
Thestudents mainly expressed positive experiences withbothin-class and online lectures.
The studentinformants appear here to beless in favour ofusinglectures as an arena for dis-cussion and dialogue (see comment on lecturing format above) Instead, the students seem to prefer lecturesinlargeauditoriums confined to introductionof content knowledge, giving information and providingoverview of disciplinary and thematic areas. The students we in-terviewed seem here to considerlectures as unsuitable for dialogue and student-engaging activities. While the students were pleased with thevariation in content, practical examples and teaching in the lectures, they stressed more flexibility in making theselessons available as digital learning resources. The wish for more extensive technology use partly refers to the fact that only one teacher podcast lectures on a regular basis, and that the digital accessibility waspartially troubledwith technical problems. More extensiveaccessibility of digital mate-rial seems here to be consideredas a potential resourcesupporting student preparationand repeating content. Regarding technology use, students specifically underline the need for clearer announcements, more extensive use of podcasts, more use of ‘live’online lectures, more sharing of video cases and court decisions, and generally a more structured and predict-able handling of the digital learning environment in the course.
Regarding seminar teaching, students mainly support the active elements inthis setting and especially how assignments were used and workedwith.Thestudents experienced that this opportunity toobserve and discuss a demonstrationin how to approach written assign-ments in the assignment seminarswas a fruitfuladditionon issues not readily and explicitly addressed inreadings and otherparts of the syllabus.The followingcomment from one ofthe student informants explains this in further detail:
‘that you solve cases, is a way to learn how you understand the subject and it prepares you for the exam, the actual work with assignments. Getting help with this by the seminar teach-ers … yes it puts it in a practical pteach-erspective. Most of us need help with this. It’s difficult. And in these seminars we learn to understand the more implicit details that we do not have a clue about in the beginning and which you can’t read about in the books. That’s what we learn in the assignment seminars’
How assignments are shaped and formulatedseems also to be important regarding students learning experiences. This is illustrated in the following comment:
‘The assignments we were presented with during the course and assignment seminars were different compared with previous parts of the programme. We did not do any of the small assignments, which was typical in previous parts of the programme. Instead we were pre-sented with more comprehensive practical assignments. This worked really well.’
The success factor of theseassignments wasexplained partly due to thewholeness of working with judicialproblems and learning about theentireprocess inhandlinglegal cases. These comprehensive assignments thereby opened up the opportunity to learn how to ‘grasp the complexities of the discipline’. An additional positive aspect wasthe relevance of these assign-ments inrelation to the finalassessment: ‘it was much better to work on these extensive assign-ments since they are much more similar to what we are given in the final exam’.
Some informants did howeverexpress discomfort with the student-engaging focus inthe seminars, calling for more lectures and traditional teaching. Nevertheless, this was not a dom-inanttendency, which is confirmed by the student survey. On the contrary, a challenge men-tionedinthe student interviews was a problem withpassivestudents:‘Some of the students do not take responsibility in seminars; they lean back and just take notes. So some students do not contribute’. The student informants suggested here clearer measures where teachers should push the students more:‘it should be stricter already in the beginning. When students are passive, the teachers should demand more from them so that they contribute. They could do this by asking questions, make them answer questions and do presentations’. The student in-formants are herepointing topossible strategies for handling passivestudents and that the seminar teaching seems to be handleddiversely by teachers: ‘the teachers approach the sem-inars in different ways. Some hold mini-lectures while others ask questions and expect students to contribute’. The informants hereclearly prefer the student-engaging approaches in the seminars.
While seminars and assignments were considered as more challenging compared with pre-vious parts of the programme, thestudents still underlined the benefits of being challenged inthis way. The informants point here to the importance of devoted teachers emphasising student engagement and avoiding ‘mini-lecturing’. Interestingly, even if thestudents were given a range ofopportunities to discuss disciplinary problems and receive feedback through seminars and assignments, theoverallopinionamongst students still istoprovide more feed-back opportunities. According to the teachers on the other hand, feedback opportunities dur-ing thecourseappear to be underused by thestudents. The teachers point here to seminars as an important arena for meeting, discussing and giving feedback to students, both formally and informally. The slightly lowstudentattendance at seminars(just abovehalf of the popu-lation) might hereexplain some of the discrepancy between student and teacher experiences.
A possible explanation for this slightly low student attendance is voluntariness:‘The students have to register in order to participate in a seminar group, but when they are registered, it is still up to them if they want to attend or not’. Attendingseminarsis based onfreewill anda
‘no-show’has noformalconsequences for the students. The teachers’ reasoning behind this voluntary principle is to encouragestudents’ self-regulation, while a possible side effect might be manifested in lowerstudent presence. However, the explanation forlowattendance and how this relates to students’ self-regulation is undocumented and unclear inthis case, but the
questionremains important given that seminarsare considered as ‘the very heart of their (stu-dents) learning in the course’.
Inreflecting about furthercoursedevelopment, the teachers stress the significance of mak-ing students realise the importance of being actively engaged by preparing properly for sem-inars, writing assignments, contributing to discussions and engaging in orallybased legal ar-gumentation invarious organised courseactivities. This also raisesquestions about how to encouragemorewidespread student participation especially inseminars, but also how to mo-tivate them to participate more actively inotherorganised instructionalsettings. To some extent, many students appear to prefer a more passive role inteaching sessions due to a felt pressure to perform well, but alsoinpreferring the lecturers’ input rather than participating in student discussions. Theteachers mention that this expectation of active participation shouldbemoreclearly communicated in the beginning,even before the students beginthe semester.
Insummary, the students’ overallimpression of the course is a rather largeworkload re-lated to various teaching activities and assignments. This workload is perceived by many of the students as positive, especially regarding practical elements and visits, more extensive assignments, assignment seminars and collaborative procedural work, while some students considerthis workloadasless profitable, preferring more individualstudying.The implemen-tation of more extensive assignments is considered as especially fruitful both with respect to learning the complexities of the profession and in preparing for the finalexam. Slightly sur-prising is that the finalassessment has been keptunchanged during the coursereform. A pos-sible explanationfor this is that theextended assignments presented and workedon in the seminarsemerge as a retrospective coursealignment between seminarwork and final assess-ment. However, this last aspect remains unclear as it isnot commented onby the course leader and teachers.
6.5.2 Opportunities and challenges for knowledge integration
Inthis discussion,we approach the last two research questions presented in the introduction of this report: What challenges do thestudents and teachers face with thegiven pedagogical approaches and learning activities, andwhat canwelearn from thecase that matters for qual-ity in educational practices?
A basic premise for the implemented courseactivities in the criminal law coursewasa previously experienced challenge of students not being engaged inpractical use and applica-tion of the disciplinaryknowledge incriminal law. The changes made in the coursewere therefore specifically aiming atintroducing teaching and learning activitieswhere the stu-dents engage actively withprocedural work and practicalimplementationinthe learning of the discipline. Thesechanges stand out to be as challenging for both teachers and students.
As several ofthestudentswere sceptical when it came to the changes made in the course design, the different datasources haverevealed a need for planning how todeal with students not fulfilling their obligations to student-centred learning.
Drawing on the students’experiences documented in the previous sections, one of the mainfindings, which is interesting to discuss further, is the somewhat two-sidedoutcome
related to teaching aimed atengaging students more actively. Onthe onehand,students seiz-ing the opportunities provided though active engagement, largelyconsiderthis to be highly beneficial for their own learning. These active students appear to be happy in the role of tak-ing responsibility, making appearances and coming forward during active teaching sessions, such asinthepresentation of written products, proceduralperformances and in discussions inseminars. On the other hand, the student-centredapproach appearsasdouble-edgedinthe sense that less prominentstudents experience a level of pressure and therefore are less com-fortable in taking a more active stance. This somewhat divided featuremight subscribe to what emerges as a highly competitive learning culture in the discipline oflaw and law e duca-tion, where the exposure beyond an established colloquiumwith a familiar assembly of stu-dents for many can be related to some level of anxiety. In this way and due to this pressure, a part of the learning community inthis discipline unintentionallymight lead to the exclusion of less assertivestudents. A measure for handling this challengewould be tocreatesafe are-nas for exposure and opportunities for practising exposure specifically for morereluctant students. Another measure would be, based on this awareness, to safeguard support measuresfrom teachers during student performancesaswell as to support and encourage students to collaborate supportively during student-centred teaching sessions.
Anotherchallenge relates to the approaches and activitiesin the courseinvolving a large variety of teaching and lesson formats. This complexity triggersagreater requirement for coordinationwhich tosome extent seems tohavebeen underestimated by the teachersand faculty staff. The challenge for students here is to havesufficient information about the pur-posebehind each activity, which is important concerning making adequatepreparations. The need for clarity and transparency related to the activities appearedhere to be somewhat un-even and variedalso to some extent between teachers. Thisispotentially confusing forthe students and is also perceived asunfortunate by thestudents concerning how they allocate their time; an issue which is important in a course where time is considered as limited.
A possible remedy for the above-described problem is first to be veryspecific indefining the reason and purpose of all the activities implemented in the course. The complexity related to the multiple teaching structures alsoillustratesthe importance of coordinating activities and displaying clearly howthe activities are interrelated and mutually supportive. Making explicit this interrelatedness is often underestimated whendesigning courses inhigher edu-cation, especially since students rarely take part inthe reasoning and discussions building up to thefinal study courseimplementation. Moreover, the student experiences withdiffering teaching approaches inparallel seminar sessions adds inunfortunateways to the confusion, a challenge which can be met through more focused and frequent coordination between
A possible remedy for the above-described problem is first to be veryspecific indefining the reason and purpose of all the activities implemented in the course. The complexity related to the multiple teaching structures alsoillustratesthe importance of coordinating activities and displaying clearly howthe activities are interrelated and mutually supportive. Making explicit this interrelatedness is often underestimated whendesigning courses inhigher edu-cation, especially since students rarely take part inthe reasoning and discussions building up to thefinal study courseimplementation. Moreover, the student experiences withdiffering teaching approaches inparallel seminar sessions adds inunfortunateways to the confusion, a challenge which can be met through more focused and frequent coordination between