In this paper, I will document a teaching experiment conducted for first year law students taking LC1004, “Law of Torts” in AY 2002/2003, examine students’ feedback on the experiment and propose some guidelines for the further exploration of the method.

The experiment

Ideally, a tutorial should be a lively discussion for students to apply what they have learnt and raise questions. However, in reality, this is rarely the case for various reasons and tutorials often became mini-lectures. The main idea for my experiment was to teach students by having them teach because I believe that a person learns most when he/she has to teach. Getting students to teach other students meant that they must not only understand the content, but also think through how it fits together. Furthermore, this role reversal puts students in the teacher’s shoes. Students now have to think not only about content and structure, but also how best to convey the information effectively. My aspiration was that students would realise that a pure lecture method was not necessarily the best way to teach and learn. Finally, it was hoped that with this method, students will gain confidence in public speaking.

This experiment was conducted over two tutorial sessions (Sessions 1 and 2) with students divided into two teams (Teams A and B) two weeks before the first session began. In Session 1, Team A would conduct the tutorial as if they were the teachers and Team B the students. Students from both teams were told that they would have complete freedom to structure and conduct the tutorial. They could consult me as many times as they wished two weeks before their respective sessions began, after which I would only sit in as if I were a student. As students during Session 1, Team B was expected to be prepared for and to contribute to the discussion at hand. Students were also informed that their performance though noted, would not be graded.

The sessions

In all the sessions I attended, both teams came prepared to present and participate. While there was some initial hesitation on the part of the teaching team, once they realised that I was not going to formally start the class, they took matters into their own hands and began the class. Interestingly, the teaching teams all opted to teach by facilitating responses from the class. None adopted the ‘mini-lecture’ approach with which they were familiar. However, a number of problems did surface through the course of the sessions. These include:

1. Occasional foray into irrelevancies. A student would bring up a point which was irrelevant to the discussion and the teaching team either did not have the experience to recognise that the discussion was going off tangent or did not have the abilities to draw the discussion back. In this situation, I had to ask (in the role of a student) how the point raised fit in with the current discussion. This was usually sufficient to bring the discussion back on track.

2. Occasional gap in content coverage. This was generally due to the teaching team not realising or overlooking a vital point. This did not come as a surprise to me and a simple question that addressed the missing point will solve the problem. Interestingly, when brought up in this manner, the teams were able to address the missing point correctly.

3. Uncertainty of the state of the law. This was not surprising considering that the tutorial sheet was designed to highlight the ambiguous areas in the law. This uncertainty was typically handled in two ways. The first was resolving the uncertainty through the process of class discussion. This was ideal as students then weighed the opposing views and came to their reasoned conclusions. The second way was for students to accept that this particular area of law was uncertain and be able to argue both for and against. In some cases, students were able to traverse this difficulty on their own. In others, I would intervene by asking appropriate questions.

Interestingly, none of the presenting teams got the law wrong. This reinforced my belief that students can learn the law on their own provided that there are sufficient guidelines and parameters to assist them. At the end of each session, both teams were asked to provide feedback on the experiment via email.

Feedback

Generally, students’ feedback on the experiment was positive. Four main themes emerged from the feedback:

1. Ownership of the lesson. Students felt that this method gave them more ownership of the lesson which motivated them to prepare for class, respond to the teaching team’s questions and engage in discussions.

2. Effect on learning. From the feedback, it appeared that this method had a significant effect on students’ learning. By requiring them to prepare and teach, students were compelled to fully understand the content of that session. As one student wrote:

   [It made me] aware of the fact that I had to be a lot more organised. […It’s] different when you conduct a class because you have to be a lot more certain about the different issues and the different strands of arguments and to make sure they follow the same thread and to make sure they eventually end up somewhere.

   In addition, requiring the presenting teams to respond to questions from the other students allowed them to work through their own areas of doubt and uncertainty as they formulated responses to those questions.

3. The learning environment. Some students felt that having their peers conduct the class created a good environment for exploration and learning. Because students knew each other well, their intra-group rapport created a fun and relaxed atmosphere which relieved some tension for the teaching team. One student expressed:

   I felt less inhibited in asking questions and challenging the answers presented by other students (Perhaps this is reflective of the respect Asian students generally have for their teachers, which may in certain circumstances inhibit students from putting forward any question or argument that may seem rude to the teacher).

4. Student development. In the process of teaching and working together as a team, students developed effective presentation and learned to work as a team. This would be particularly useful to their future careers as lawyers.

Of course, as with all things, there was feedback about difficulties faced by the students:

1. Amount of time and effort needed. A common difficulty was that some students felt that the time and effort needed for them to do this well placed burden on an existing heavy workload. Another student felt that:

   [B]ecause we don’t know very much about what we don’t know, […] I think a disproportionate amount of time is committed towards investigating the subject.

   In fairness, there is some truth to this. This experiment basically threw students into the deep end. Further, because this was a new activity for the students, their unfamiliarity with the subject would lead to some stress and take more time this first time round.

2. Uncertainty in learning. Students were uncertain whether they were learning the correct things. There are two aspects to this. Firstly, they were not confident that they were on the right track. The ambiguity of the law and the lack of a teacher-imposed structure in the class contributed to this uncertainty. There were also concerns that students answering the questions of other students was a matter of “the blind leading the blind”. Secondly, because of students’ lack of knowledge and experience, there was also a feeling that the class may not be getting as much as they should from the session.
   
   Again, these are admittedly fair concerns. As mentioned earlier, there were times where intervention was necessary to bring the discussion back on track or fill in a content gap. However, student feedback also revealed an ‘over-concern’ with acquiring the correct content as opposed to focusing on the processes of thinking, reasoning and argumentation.

3. Issues relating to teamwork. There were three main concerns relating to working as a team. The first was that the working groupsof about 6–8 students might have been too large. On hindsight, teams of 2–4 students might have been more ideal. This leads to the second concern that there was unfair distribution of work in some cases. Requiring students to submit a written or verbal report before the class and allocating marks for their performance might have helped to resolve this issue.
   
   The final concern relating to teamwork was that of overspecialisation. As one student expressed it:

   Students are delegated various areas/questions to do, which if done well means that they are very well versed in that area. The flip side is that if the question is not broad enough, they are ONLY well versed in that area… as compared to usually when they have to do all the questions.

   This is a fair concern and presumably, relevant only from the viewpoint of the teaching team. Again, this can in part be addressed by having smaller working groups and careful drafting of the tutorial questions to encompass a balanced coverage of issues.

Direction for the future

The purposes of the experiment as set out earlier in this paper were achieved in varying degrees. Of course, one experiment and limited feedback are insufficient to determine the usefulness of this method. More ‘experimentation’ over a period of time and by a broader base of teachers will be required. Below are some suggested guidelines for colleagues who might be interested in conducting similar experiments:

• Small teams of 2–3 will be appointed the previous session to prepare for and teach the upcoming session. This will be done on a rotational basis so that everyone in the class can expect to be assigned such a role.

• The teaching teams will have two consultation sessions with the teacher before their teaching session to assist them in their task and to clarify any doubts they might have.

• Each student in the teaching team is expected to contribute equally to the preparation and teaching of the coming session.

• Assuming the course allows for this, the teaching teams will be allocated a team grade that will count towards their final grade for that course.

• During the teaching session, the teacher will be present as a ‘student’ to assist if necessary.

• Specific tutorial questions should be drafted carefully to cover a range of issues relating to the particular topic.

• The first consultation session should be arranged and instructions, expectations as well as distribution of the workload set out.

• The second consultation session—held about three days before the teaching session—should focus on the team’s proposed teaching plan, method and content. The teaching team can also discuss areas of uncertainty and clarify doubts with regards to content.

• The teacher should attend the class and intervene only where necessary (e.g. to bring a discussion gone awry back on track, point to a gap in content or reasoning). After the teaching session, the teacher might choose to meet with the teaching team a final time to provide feedback on the teaching session.