The City Law School Bar Professional Training Course Programme Overview Browser
James Toner is an Educational Technologist who has specialised in the area interactive design and usability evaluation. He has worked in the Legal Education sector since 2006 project managing the online delivery at the College of Law and more recently the implementation of a new Virtual Learning Environment at the City Law School, City University London.
Marcus Soanes is a barrister and principal lecturer who has designed vocational programmes for the Bar Course and the Criminal Litigation LLM. His teaching includes both written and interpersonal legal skills and dissertation supervision. He also trains police, private clients and experts in witness familiarisation and contributes to the Solicitors’ Higher Rights of Audience programme and assessment. He is the editor of the Conference Skills Manual, OUP and has contributed to the Law Teacher, Clinical Law Review and the New Law Journal. Marcus has special interests in online learning, which grew out of a Masters Degree in Online and Distance Education, 2004 Open University. He has presented at the Clinical Legal Education Conference, California, BVC Conferences, SoTL London and Learning In Law Annual Conference.
What is the nature, scope and role of cases in this setting?
With its case-based learning approach, the City Law School Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) may be described as purposefully ill-structured. The narrative structures of these exercises and their repeated use e.g. for case analysis, written and interpersonal engagements, together with the deliberate vagueness of instructions on tasks help to immerse students into the complexity of professionals’ work.
What new tools have been developed and how?
The Programme Overview Browser was developed by James Toner with technical support from Ensemble, as a research and development project towards fulfillment of the coursework component of the postgraduate certificate in technology-enabled academic practice. The twin goals of the Programme Overview Browser are:
- to offer navigation routes through the BPTC
- to enhance student engagement
What are the pedagogical advantages and opportunities of using semantic technologies?
Semantics is based on communication and refers to the meaning of information rather than its syntax. The semantic web offers learners a wealth of related content and meaning through associated relationships “in disparate systems that will be continuously evolving” (Daly, C (2009) The Semantic Web and E-learning, Macmillan Publishers, Ltd. April 9, 2009). Using the SIMILE toolkit, the Progamme Overview Browser provides interchange and conversion processes to support the aggregation of disparate data.
What are the theoretical framings that help us understand this?
Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, the gap between what a learner can do without help and with help, was explored by Bruner and developed into a concept of scaffolding to support learning. Interactions between the teacher and learner offer support, which is removed from learners as they gain confidence, knowledge and associated skills.
Technical scaffolding is a newer approach in which computers replace or complement teachers, and today students can be guided with web links, online tutorials, or help pages. The Progamme Overview Browser is designed within that tradition, though, it may be argued that as its support is in-built and not removed as learners progress it is not truly educational scaffolding. However, we expect learners to use its adaptable search and arrange facilities in different ways at different points, i.e. to plan, to seek direction and ultimately for revision. Thus the Progamme Overview Browser may be described as an example of educational armature: support that is constant and in-built or as meta-support scaffolding that surrounds the educational programme and not merely individual learners. In any event, we argue that the learner-centred design principle that was privileged throughout the Progamme Overview Browser’s conception and realisation at the very least which complements the instructional scaffolding design principles of the CLS BPTC. Therefore we will present a mid-point interpretative evaluation of the Progamme Overview Browser that interrogates its accessibility, efficiency, and asks how accurately it meets its avowed aims.
The Programme Overview Browser also draws on theories of “chunking”, to reduce cognitive overload; “by grouping information into a meaningful, memorable pattern, we reduce the number of individual (and potentially arbitrary) things individuals have to memorize, and increase the chances of understanding the concepts.” (Creating Passionate Users (2007) Crash Course in Learning Theory, Weblog).
Demos to play with
The Programme Overview Browser (opens in a new window)
Links
- City News blog – The City Law School bags brace of Innovation Awards
- The City Law School
- Information about the Postgraduate Certificate in Technology-Enabled Academic Practice
Read more in our publications
Soanes, M. and Toner, J. (2011) Scaffolding Unstable & Complex Structures: the semantic web and complex programme and content design. Presentation given at the annual Learning at City Conference, City University, London, 23rd June 2011.
