Paper presented at the Australasian Law Teachers' Association annual conference hosted by Murdoch University School of Law, Perth, Western Australia September 29 - October 2 2002
- Outcomes Based Learning, Information Literacy Standards, Educational Principles, Lifelong Learning, Strategic Plan goals, Law firm expectations - how do we manage to include all of these concepts in our teaching and learning programs and at the same time focus on our specific areas of teaching?
- Legal Research Skills training has been integrated within core units, and the skill levels developed incrementally through the Law degree at the University of Western Australia since 2000 as part of a special program. The program, cooperatively developed by the Law School and the Law Library, aims to improve the legal research skills of students within the Law Degree, seeking to ensure they achieve a certain level of competence before they enter the legal profession, where legal research skills are a vital part of legal practice.
- As part of a review of its Legal Research Skills Program the University of Western Australia Law Library has recently mapped the Legal Research Skills Learning Outcomes to the CAUL Information Literacy Standards, in the context of UWA's Educational Principles and the UWA Library's Strategic Plan for 2002 - 2004. The Legal Research Skills Learning Outcomes were developed to reflect the University of Western Australia's interest in Outcomes-based education.
- This paper will outline how the many-headed teaching and learning Hydra was tamed, with practical examples from documents and tables referred to and produced during the Law Library's review process.
- When the UWA Law Library and Law School began our Legal Research Skills program in 2000, we felt that we were breaking new ground. Though we had some insights from Law Schools and Libraries in Australia and overseas[1]
there was no blueprint for exactly what we wanted to achieve with our program. We saw a need to provide our students, over the whole course of their degree and incrementally, with skills to produce quality research, and for our graduates to be better equipped to meet the demands of the legal profession. Appendix 1 is a matrix showing the core units through the degree in which instruction is given, and at what levels. The Library and the Law School embarked on a creative journey to fulfil a locally perceived need.
- Though our program was in tune with directions in the legal profession, Higher education and UWA's aims generally, it became apparent in 2002 that there were new developments in Teaching and Learning at a national and institutional level that we needed to take account of. Things were moving fast, and if we didn't tame this Hydra we could possibly be out of step with the University and miss out on the benefits of new knowledge. We saw the need for a closer association with the National goals, institutional goals and departmental goals in order to show where our program fit in the scheme of things.
- What information should we be taking into account? The first stage was to identify the various documents relating to Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, and see whether there were common themes or goals. The following key documents were the most relevant and useful.
- Graduate Skills Assessment - Australian Council of Educational Research (ACER). June 2000.
http://www.acer.edu.au/unitest/index.html
This is a test, commissioned by DETYA (as it was then called), designed to assess the generic skills of new university entrants and then students about to graduate. The areas covered by the test are:
* Critical Thinking
* Problem Solving
* Interpersonal Understandings
* Written Communication
- ACER also suggest that other areas that could be tested in the future include:
* Information Literacy
* IT Familiarity
* Personal Management Skills
These are all skills to equip students for lifelong learning
- Information Literacy Standards - Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL), 2001.
http://www.caul.edu.au/caul-doc/InfoLitStandards2001.doc
The CAUL Information Literacy Standards are a set of seven 'standards' or 'outcomes' designed to enable students to "recognise when information is needed and have the capacity to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information"[2] The standards are:
- The information literate person recognises the need for information and determines the nature and extent of the information needed.
- The information literate person accesses needed information effectively and efficiently.
- The information literate person evaluates information and its sources critically and incorporates selected information into their knowledge base and value system.
- The information literate person classifies, stores, manipulates and redrafts information collected or generated.
- The information literate person expands, reframes or created new knowledge by integrating prior knowledge and new understandings individually or as a member of a group.
- The information literate person understands cultural, economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information and accesses and uses information ethically, legally and respectfully.
- The information literate person recognises that lifelong learning and participative citizenship requires information literacy.
These Standards are being reviewed by CAUL in 2002.
- Mission Statement : Educational Principles
http://www.acs.uwa.edu.au/reg/mission.html
UWA's educational principles are:
- To master the subject matter and techniques of their chosen discipline at internationally-recognised levels and standards
- To acquire the skills required to learn, and to continue through life to learn, from a variety of sources and experiences
- To adapt acquired knowledge to new situations
- To write and speak clearly, concisely and logically
- To think and reason logically and creatively
- To question accepted wisdom and be open to new ideas and possibilities
- To develop mature judgment and responsibility in moral, social, and practical, as well as academic matters
- To develop the capacity to take a leadership role in the community
- David Treloar, Outcomes-Based Education and Standards for the University of Western Australia. May 2002.
http://www.catl.uwa.edu.au/obe/OBE-Discussion.doc
David Treloar writes that "outcomes-based education at its most essential can be thought of as being little more than making explicit to every student the goals or objectives of their course and of each of its units and . . what each student is expected to be able to understand and to do at exit and at intervening stages."
Outcomes can be generic for all university students, or specific to a discipline, like Law. They should be incremental (ie. have levels of advancement) and should be assessable.
- A Basic Guide to Writing Student Learning Outcomes Statements Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning (CATL)
http://www.catl.uwa.edu.au/online/outcomes.html
This document explains what learning outcome statements are, and how to write them, including:
* Write them for specific units
* Work from the general to the specific
* Always use verbs in outcomes statements
* Statements should have measurable criteria
- Innovation Through Collaboration: Library Strategic Plan 2002-2004
http://www.library.uwa.edu.au/publications/plan/Library_strategic_plan.pdf
Goal 3 of the Library's strategic plan states that the Library aims:
- To incorporate the use of information within all the University's learning environments
This is to be achieved through the following objectives:
3.1 Identify information skills requirement of target groups in order to apply the Information Literacy Standards in a relevant context
3.2 Collaborate with academic staff in the development of learning programmes
3.3 Incorporate flexible delivery of information skills training within the context of the total student learning experience
3.4 Incorporate the delivery of relevant high quality information within student learning programmes.
- What does it all mean? From these documents we see a number of common themes and connections, and can draw some conclusions:
- Lifelong learning is a National and Institutional concern, so this should always be considered in the creation of curricula and student learning outcomes
- Information literacy is one of the generic skills that should be developed in our students and expected of our graduates. For example, the teaching of Information Literacy mainly covers the first three Educational Principles espoused by UWA.
- Legal Research Skills can be considered to be information literacy skills. They are the practical outworking of some of the seven CAUL Information Literacy Standards for the discipline of Law.
- There is a place for general aims or objectives within an institution, but there is an expectation that these will be refined and developed into learning outcomes that are:
- specific
- discipline and unit based
- assessable
If student learning outcomes do not meet the above criteria then they are not useful to the curriculum and lose their university and departmental context.
- The objectives are to be about Student Learning, not our Teaching. These learning outcomes should be transparent to the student.
- How can we demonstrate that these standards, aims and objectives are related and cohesive?
For our Legal Research Skills programme we decided to create a table which shows the Student Learning Outcomes, Resources, Assessment, CAUL Information Literacy Standards and CAUL Outcomes (numbers only). See Appendix 2 for a sample page.
In a cover document (Appendix 3) to this table we outline the context of the document which reveals that it is based on the University's Educational Principles, the Library's Strategic Plan 2002-2004, and the CAUL Information Literacy Standards.
- Reviewing the situation: recent developments
While we are satisfied with the connection between UWA Educational Principles, Library's strategic plan, student learning outcomes, resources and CAUL standards, we have recently felt the need to revise the document again in the following areas.
- As part of our Legal Research Skills program we had already developed some 'skills competencies' or learning outcomes. In 2002, using the guidelines from UWA's CATL, we re-drafted the student learning outcomes, making sure each of the outcomes had an action word and was purposeful.
- We have since been referred to a document called Developing Objectives and Learning Outcomes and Relating to Assessment[3] which gives a wider context to outcomes, and provides detailed guidelines for writing student learning outcomes. For example, it suggests that not all verbs are specific or measurable enough to be used in a learning outcome statement. We will be revising the outcomes statements once more with the guidelines from this document in mind.
- Also, though we build on the skills learnt throughout the Law Degree, the above document suggests that within each group of learning outcomes, there should be varying levels from simple to complex. Most legal research skills are Cognitive (Knowledge) or Psychomotor (Skills). So for example, in the Cognitive area, students should develop from simply recalling information, to comprehending, applying, synthesising, and finally evaluating information. We will also be reviewing the learning outcomes in light of this information.
- The Developing Objectives document also emphasises the importance of assessment in demonstrating the fulfilment of student learning outcomes. We feel that we need to focus more attention on selecting appropriate assessment tools to achieve this.
- The UWA Library's Teaching and Learning Team has also been working on a project in this area. The Team is seeking to link some simple information literacy learning outcomes for first years with appropriate assessment activities. A document will be produced which will hopefully assist academic and library staff across the University incorporate the teaching and assessment of the generic skill of information literacy within their first year units.
- In the past, except for a few WebCT exercises administered by the Law Library, we have left this area up to the academic staff. This has meant it has been difficult to ascertain whether students were really reaching the outcomes, because most of our feedback was anecdotal.
- We will be looking more closely at how we can measure whether students have achieved the different learning outcomes in preparation for our 2003 program. We will use the assessment activity suggestions from the document produced by the Library's Teaching and Learning Team in our own review of assessment. This will be done in consultation with Law academic staff and our Instructional Designer.
- The Resources used in Legal Research can change from week to week, let alone year to year. We update this section of our Learning Outcomes document every year. The legal profession demand a certain level of expertise in electronic resources from their articled clerks. We are conscious of the need to give the students a balance of skills in print and electronic media, but increasingly, electronic resources are taking over.
- In Law, when we were first developing our Legal Research Skills program, outcomes-based learning had not yet reached the level of prominence it has today. As we did not have the benefit of this knowledge, we chose to look at what we had been teaching in the way of legal research skills, and what needed to be taught with reference to academic staff and the expectations of the legal profession.
- In 2002 we have basically gone back and done what many documents on Outcomes-Based learning suggest: Work from the general to the specific. We looked more closely at the national, institutional and departmental context in which we were teaching. Surprisingly, despite some outcomes statements which were a bit vague and still need some work and the need for some specific thought regarding assessment, our objectives proved to be sound and met all of the relevant CAUL standards for information literacy and UWA Educational Principles. We were already in tune with the Library's goals, as we had helped shape the Library-wide interest in Information Literacy since 1999.
- However, our base document will continue to change with national, institutional, departmental and professional directions. The taming of the Hydra is an ongoing labour of Hercules, but it is thankfully not a Sisyphean task.
OUTCOME BASED LEARNING in the Legal
Research Skills Program
UWA Law Library
Learning
Outcome Statements
The
following document contains:
·
a matrix of core units for integrated instruction and
·
a table of learning outcome statements
for the joint Law Library and Law School Legal
Research skills program which has been in operation since 2000.
The
learning outcomes cover basic, intermediate and advanced skill levels over the
whole LLB, and were written in consultation with academic staff at the Law
School.
The
original learning outcome statements written in 1999 have been revised with
reference to the document A Basic Guide to Writing Student Learning Outcome
Statements produced by the UWA Centre for the Advancement of
Teaching and Learning.
CAUL
Information Literacy Standards
General
Objectives for Legal Research and Responsibilities were mapped in Information
Literacy Standards and their Application to Curricula at the University of
Western Australia.[4] However the following document identifies
the CAUL Information Literacy Standards and Outcomes associated with each group
of Learning Outcomes for specific Legal Research Skills.
UWA
Educational Principles
The
table is based on UWA Educational Principles. In particular the Law Library has a desire to encourage students
- To master the subject
matter and techniques of their chosen discipline at
internationally-recognised levels and standards
- To acquire the skills
required to learn, and to continue through life to learn, from a variety
of sources and experiences
- To adapt acquired
knowledge to new situations
Legal
Research skills are essential for students’ academic requirements, but also for
their professional careers.
University
Library Strategic Plan 2002 – 2004
The
Law Library aims to play its part in reaching Goal 3 of the Library’s Strategic
Plan, namely
- To incorporate the use
of information within all the University’s learning environments
by
fulfilling objectives 3.1 – 3.4 in its Legal Research Skills Program, and
through this Learning Outcomes document in particular:
3.1
Identify information skills requirements of target groups in order to
apply the Information Literacy Standards in a relevant context
3.2
Collaborate with academic staff in the development of learning programmes
3.3
Incorporate flexible delivery of information skills training within the
context of the total student learning experience
3.4
Incorporate the delivery of relevant high quality information within
student learning programmes.
