Witzleb, N; Skead, N --- "A bottom-up approach to developing LLB course outcomes and an integrated curriculum" [2009] LegEdDig 18; (2009) 17(2) Legal Education Digest 8

• A bottom-up approach to developing LLB course outcomes and an integrated curriculum

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A bottom-up approach to developing LLB course outcomes and an integrated curriculum

N Witzleb and N Skead

43(1) The Law Teacher, 2009, pp62-81

The University of Western Australia (‘UWA’) is committed to a student-centred, outcomes-based approach to learning that shifts the focus from teaching to learning; from what the teacher does to what the student does. The UWA Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning (‘CATL’) adopted the description of Outcomes-Based Education (‘OBE’) for this approach.

UWA sought to endorse and implement a student learning outcomes approach to education throughout the University by establishing an OBE Coordinating Group (now the Student Learning Outcomes Coordinating Group). Faculties and schools received university support in implementing a student learning outcomes approach in their curricula. Funding was provided, with different priorities from year to year, to projects designed to disseminate and develop an outcomes-based pedagogy within the specific context of each discipline.

The clear articulation of educational goals is acknowledged to be part of best practice of legal education. Within the Law School, the process of embedding skills and articulating outcomes in the LLB degree commenced at unit (or subject) level with a series of OBE workshops attended by academic staff and facilitated by education experts from the UWA Faculty of Education and the Business School in February and June 2006. The workshops were successful in implementing a student learning approach at unit level.

Towards the end of 2005 the UWA Law School embarked upon a Curriculum Review of the LLB degree. To allow for the involvement of a large cross-section of academic staff, the Law School’s Academic Committee and the Teaching and Learning Committee were jointly tasked with the Curriculum Review. In 2007, the Faculty fully amalgamated the two committees to form the Education Committee. This new Committee is continuing the work started by the Joint Committee in 2005.

At a staff retreat held in May 2006, Faculty unanimously supported the proposal that the Curriculum Review not only address issues relevant to legal content and course structure but that particular emphasis also be given to the identification and coordinated integration of academic, legal and generic skills into the course structure.

With these concerns in mind, the embedding of skills and outcomes in the LLB degree necessitated undertaking a number of activities: (1) identifying appropriate graduate skills and outcomes; (2) documenting the skills and outcomes in a course outcomes statement; and (3) developing and documenting a progressive skills and outcomes map that placed skills teaching and outcomes appropriately within the degree. It was envisaged that this map focus not only on graduate outcomes but also on individual unit outcomes and year level outcomes thereby ensuring both horizontal spread and vertical progression of skills and outcomes throughout the degree.

To begin with, the Joint Committee was faced with the strategy decision of whether this work should be undertaken top-down or bottom-up. A top-down (or course) approach would commence with identifying the outcomes and skills expected of UWA law graduates. Those outcomes and skills, encapsulated in a graduate outcomes statement, would then underlie the construction of the curriculum, and inform the appropriate allocation of outcomes specific to each year of study and ultimately to each individual unit. Other Australian Law Schools seem to have opted for a top-down approach to embedding graduate attributes starting from a formulation of desirable attitudes and skills and then seeking to embed them into the curriculum. By contrast, a bottom-up approach would commence with the statement of existing unit outcomes and assessment structures for each unit. On that basis, progressive year level learning outcomes and ultimately course and graduate outcomes would be formulated.

While the Joint Committee could see the attraction of starting with the formulation of a ‘most desirable’ curriculum, it chose to adopt a bottom-up approach. In doing so, the Committee could draw on the work already undertaken under the OBE process as a result of which unit outcomes and assessment mechanism statements had just been developed for all core and most option units. A top-down approach is unlikely to begin with a truly clean slate but will, at least to some extent, be influenced by existing practice as well as, probably and appropriately, by an examination of the outcomes statements of other comparable Law Schools. Conversely, a course outcomes statement developed through a bottom-up approach is more likely to reflect the particular preferences and strengths of the academic staff involved in teaching the existing course. However, it would have to allow for adjustments of the curriculum where gaps or inconsistencies in the current practice were identified.

While the unit outcomes would form the basis of year level outcomes and these be condensed into course outcomes, the course outcomes statement under this approach would be likely to go beyond a pure re-statement of existing practice. It was envisaged that an audit of the unit outcomes statements across all units in the degree would inform and aid the identification of areas of weakness in skills development. It was further understood that the specific content of some units may offer particularly rich opportunities to facilitate and embed some graduate outcomes, in which case these units could be developed in accordance with identified graduate outcomes.

Based on the outcomes statements of each unit, all Unit Coordinators at a particular year level were invited to contribute to the formulation of outcomes statements for that particular year level. Several year level meetings were held at which Unit Coordinators and teachers of units taken in a particular year of study met to discuss student outcomes, unit content and assessment. The coordinators of the year level meetings developed a table which identified the following categories of learning outcomes: (1) Legal Knowledge in Subject Area; (2) Broad Framework of Law; (3) Understanding Contextual Issues; (4) Comparative/International Perspectives; (5) Analysis/Critical Thinking; (6) Legal Research; (7) Legal Problem Solving; (8) Legal Writing; (9) Oral Communication Skills; and (10) Personal and Relational Skills

In preparation for the year level meetings, Unit Coordinators were asked to provide information on whether, how and at what level their unit taught and assessed outcomes in these categories. Discussion at year level meetings focused on addressing areas of weakness in skills development, identifying skills attracting too great an emphasis, ensuring progression in skills development, coordinating the timing and structure of assessment methods and incorporating skills development into unit content, teaching methods and assessment mechanisms. The year level meetings were held consecutively so that Unit Coordinators of Year Level 2 could take into account the discussions, decisions and draft outcomes statement of Year Level 1, and Unit Coordinators of the combined Year Level 3 and 4 could base their discussions on the discussions, decisions and draft outcomes statements of Year Levels 1 and 2.

The detailed mapping described above allowed the Joint Committee to create outcomes statements for each year level and for the LLB course as a whole as well as a Graduate Attributes Statement. In the course of the mapping exercise, the Review identified and addressed deficiencies in the range and progression of current outcomes and skills teaching. It recommended the adoption of a more structured approach to skills teaching as well as the introduction of two new core units in remedies and legal theory and ethics.

The work done in the year level meetings resulted in the formulation of statements of student learning outcomes for each year level of the LLB degree detailing the extent to which and the methods by which individual units within each of the four year levels addressed the previously identified skills and outcomes. These statements indicated further, whether an introductory, intermediate or advanced level of skills development was expected at that year level and how the attainment of these outcomes was to be assessed.

As a result, on examining the unit outcomes statements students in a particular year of study should be in a position to better understand what they are expected to achieve in a particular unit in terms of knowledge of subject matter, skills and attitudes and how these outcomes relate to other units the student is taking. At Year Level 2, for example, on reading the Unit Outcome and Assessment Statements for Equity and Property, second-year law students will appreciate that while in first semester Equity focuses on the development of skills in the critical reading and analysis of case law, in second semester in Property 2 the focus shifts to the critical analysis and interpretation of legislation. In both instances, the development of the critical skill is facilitated by the teaching programme with case analysis exercises incorporated into the tutorial programme in Equity and statutory interpretation embedded into small group teaching in Property 2. The relevant skills are then assessed by way of an unseen and closed book case analysis exercise in Equity and a problem-solving assignment based on a statute not formally covered in class in Property 2.

The Faculty OBE team (an adjunct of the Education Committee) was able to extract from the various Year Level Student Learning Outcomes Statements a draft statement of learning outcomes for the whole LLB degree programme. This draft table of course outcomes collating the outcomes in the core units of each year level was supplemented by a further column specifying the contribution that the option units make to the overall course outcomes. The fact that option units will, by definition, not be taken by all students made generalisations about the outcomes of the option programme as a whole somewhat difficult. Nonetheless, it could be stated with some confidence that option units had particular significance in further developing and deepening some of the skills introduced in core units including, in particular, an awareness of the intersection of law with related disciplines and the critical engagement with contemporary and international issues affecting law. The smaller class sizes in most option units also make it likely that communication skills, research and analytical skills will be further enhanced.

An advantage of adopting a ‘bottom-up’ approach to the formulation of course outcomes has been that the Course Student Learning Outcomes Statement accurately reflects the skills and outcomes currently embedded in the LLB degree so that the achievement of these outcomes can, without reservation, be expected of our law graduates.

The Education Committee relied on the mapping exercise described above to construct, through its Faculty OBE team, a Graduate Attributes Statement. Prior to this process, UWA Law School had not formulated any faculty-specific graduate attributes or outcomes. At university level, the Senate has adopted a set of 11 ‘Educational Principles’ which form part of UWA’s Strategic Plan. The Law School’s new Graduate Attributes Statement is formulated against the background of these Principles but did not originate from them.

The Graduate Attributes Statement is thus the result of condensing the actual outcomes of law teaching in each unit, each year and ultimately throughout the course making this statement a more authentic reflection of the student’s actual learning experience and achieved outcomes than attributes or outcomes statements originating from a wish list of desirable outcomes.

On the UWA Law School website, each of the stated attributes is directly linked to the relevant section of the Course Student Learning Outcomes Statement. Providing hyperlinks to the Year Level Student Learning Outcomes Statements and Unit Student Learning Outcomes Statements allows one to drill even deeper and to obtain information on how each year level and, ultimately, how individual units contribute to a particular outcome. It is hoped that the close linkage of the UWA Law School Graduate Attributes Statement with course outcomes, year outcomes and unit outcomes signals to students, potential employers and the community as a whole that the achievement of these outcomes permeates the whole degree and is not merely a statement of aspiration.

Contrasting the UWA Law School Graduate Attributes Statement with the UWA Educational Principles shows that the attributes do more than re-cast the generic skills referred to in the Educational Principles for the discipline of law. Despite the independent genesis of the graduate attributes, the university’s Educational Principles nonetheless find reflection in the attributes which suggests that the Law School’s educational practice and vision is in line and consistent with the approach of UWA as a whole.

The Curriculum Review was based on a conception that the coordination and progression of skills teaching across the degree could and should be improved. The Education Committee came to the view that the core curriculum should continue to focus on developing skills in finding and understanding legal materials, legal reasoning, legal problem solving and written and oral communication. There was broad-based support, however, for giving greater attention to structuring the curriculum in a way that ensures that these skills are deepened and refined as students progress through their degree. Such efforts could draw on the example of the Law School’s research skills programme. Rather than in a stand-alone unit, UWA law students are instructed in research skills in the context of a range of consecutive core units beginning in the first year of study. This integrated approach to research skills teaching has been developed by the UWA Law Library staff in close cooperation with the Unit Coordinators of a number of designated consecutive core units. The research skills program aims to give students hands on instruction in increasingly sophisticated research techniques and requires them to use their newly acquired skills in the completion of research tasks in the relevant subject areas.

Discussion among teachers during the outcomes project revealed that writing skills as well as oral skills should become further priority areas. On further consideration of the issue, the Education Committee favoured an approach that focused on writing skills in the very early stages of law studies whereas oral skills, by contrast, are likely to be developed more successfully after students have completed some basic law units.

Apart from skills development, the outcomes project also informed the Curriculum Review as to the desirability of increasing the range of core units. The Education Committee considered it desirable to elevate remedies from an option unit to a new core unit. It is intended to serve as a capstone unit to a number of units in the law of obligations, such as contract law, torts law and equity, and to be closely aligned with the teaching of civil procedure.

Further, the Education Committee is currently considering introducing a compulsory new unit that seeks, at an early stage of the degree, to familiarise students with theoretical approaches to law and ethics as well as the role of lawyers and law in society. Currently, UWA does not have a single compulsory unit in legal theory.

It is too early at this stage to demonstrate an improvement in student learning outcomes. However, it is expected that students will benefit from a clearer understanding of anticipated student learning outcomes at unit level, year level and course level as detailed in the various Student Learning Outcomes Statements resulting from this project. Ideally, students should use the outcomes statements to reflect on their progress towards achieving the desired graduate outcomes.

The students’ perception of the clarity of articulation of learning outcomes and the alignment of teaching and assessment methods with those outcomes will be evaluated by way of the various student survey mechanisms already in place at UWA as well as the national Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) graduate survey. The profession’s perception of the improvement in skills development will be assessed by way of employer feedback and surveys, and the staff perception of the improvement in student learning outcomes will be considered annually at the year level meetings.

In developing student learning outcomes at unit, year and course level, the Education Committee has been mindful of the importance of aligning assessment mechanisms with student learning outcomes. At unit level, the linkage between outcomes and assessment was addressed in the 2006 OBE workshops. At year and course level, the frame of reference of the various year level coordinating groups included the coherent and coordinated incorporation of skills development into assessment mechanisms with a view to ensuring that the progressive development of all identified student learning outcomes is appropriately and adequately assessed and evaluated throughout the LLB degree. The Year Level Student Learning Outcomes Statements and the future year level meetings will enable Unit Coordinators to continue to coordinate their efforts in this regard.

During 2007 and 2008, the University of Western Australia undertook a major review of its course structures.

The reform options put forward in an Issues and Options Paper in 2007 included a range of general degrees preceding any professional degree, a general first year, and requiring students to undertake units outside their home faculty. Of these options, the UWA Course Structures Review Steering Group adopted the former. Its Report, published in 2008, recommends that UWA will, in future, offer only six undergraduate courses. Students who wish to study law will first complete one of these degrees and then enrol in a postgraduate law programme leading to a JD (Juris Doctor) degree. Under current arrangements, there are three different pathways into the LLB programme: students can study for the LLB as a three-year programme if they completed a prior degree in another discipline or as a four-year programme if they completed at least the equivalent of one year’s study in another discipline.

If the recommendations are ultimately adopted by the relevant university bodies, they will undoubtedly have a profound impact on the tertiary education experience of all UWA students. Students in professional disciplines like law will begin their qualifying degree after already having acquired dependable generic skills and solid knowledge in their foundational course. One of the major advantages of offering a law degree only as a graduate course, rather than the varying course options currently available to UWA law students, will be that the student cohort can be expected to begin their law studies with a more sophisticated and homogeneous skills base than at present.

The Law School will face the challenge of maximising the educational potential these new parameters present. It is likely that a new postgraduate course in law will allow for a curriculum content with greater intellectual depth, will require a modified pedagogy that takes account of students’ increased maturity, and will offer more varied and demanding assessment than in a first-cycle course including, in particular, increased exposure to research work. It can also be expected that the current experience of undertaking, implementing and monitoring a large-scale curriculum reform and the efforts of firmly integrating skills development into the curriculum, will stand the Law School in good stead in any move towards the proposed new course structure.