Matthew, A --- "Co-operative Student Learning in Undergraduate Law: Fostering Teamwork Skills in External Students" [2005] LegEdDig 17; (2005) 13(3) Legal Education Digest 22

Co-operative Student Learning in Undergraduate Law: Fostering Teamwork Skills in External Students

A Matthew

[2005] LegEdDig 17; (2005) 13(3) Legal Education Digest 22

10 Murdoch U Electronic J of L 2, 2003

http://www.murdoch.edu.au/elaw/issues/v10n2/matthew102nf.html

Recent stakeholder pressure to reconsider the fundamental structures and philosophies underpinning legal education provided a unique opportunity to reconsider the design of the curriculum at the Queensland University Technology (QUT) Faculty of Law. One of these skills was teamwork. Teamwork boasts a number of significant pedagogical benefits. Where students are working together to achieve understanding, they may go through a process of sharing their own points of view, knowledge and understanding in order to construct a new knowledge through discussion and debate. However, research already done in this area demonstrates that the assessment of teamwork skill development is difficult.

Having made the decision to incorporate skills into the curriculum, one of the more difficult issues became how to engender the selected skills in external students. University and faculty policy was in favour of engendering these skills in all our graduates, regardless of whether they had undertaken their studies on an external or internal basis. Pursuant to a second Large Teaching and Learning Grant in 2002–2003, the Law Faculty developed an assessment framework to ensure quality in the assessment of generic capabilities. This paper explores how an assessment model has been devised to meet the traditional difficulties that have arisen in fostering teamwork skills in external students through an analysis of the model currently being trialled.

The unit chosen for the development and trial of the assessment model was a compulsory unit, LWB334 Corporate Law, which is typically undertaken by third or fourth year students. It has a teaching team of two full-time members of staff, one part-time member of staff and four casual academics. The author is the unit co-ordinator of this unit.

The primary objectives of the model were to: (1) provide appropriate scaffolding to facilitate and foster teamwork skill development in all students, but particularly in external students; (2) address as far as possible the pedagogical difficulties involved in the assessment of teamwork raised in a literature review and; (3) meet criteria specifically developed by the faculty for evaluation of assessment. The criteria require that assessment be valid, reliable, manageable, authentic and help students to develop in the area being assessed.

Distance learning is becoming flexible learning as students use it as a device through which to choose the setting in which they will undertake their course. The flexibility and advantages of distance learning are likely to be responsible for its continued popularity. Distance learning is also in favour with academic institutions facing the modern pressures of limited funding, resources and staffing. Allowing students to undertake their studies in external mode can prove a cost-effective method of delivering higher education.

There are several important reasons to promote some or all types of interactions in distance learning courses. Some of the reasons suggested by instructors and participants alike include the following: (1) decreases the sense of isolation of individuals involved in distance courses; (2) increases the flexibility of individuals to adapt to new conditions; and (3) increases the variety of experiences individual learners are exposed to, such as multicultural environments, broader age range of learners or greater overall expertise of all learners combined.

The near instantaneous speed and global accessibility of the Internet have considerably affected the manner and alacrity with which people can access and exchange large amounts of information. This enabling technology makes working and studying ‘on-line’ in cyberspace convenient and practical. Virtual teams work in a digital reality inciting non-traditional ways of learning collaboratively and organising teamwork tasks. Virtual teams can also be more complex than face-to-face teams for two reasons: (1) they cross boundaries related to time and distance; and (2) they communicate and collaborate using technology.

Following a review of problems usually associated with fostering and assessing teamwork skills, the assessment model specifically sought to overcome a number of difficulties that traditionally arise. These included: (1) a lack of instruction on how to work in teams and deal with conflict; (2) a focus on the product not the process of teamwork; (3) team selection; (4) a lack of or misleading criteria; and (5) a general lack of personalised feedback on skill development.

The assessment model sought to prepare students for teamwork in two ways. First, materials were developed for inclusion in the comprehensive study guide available to all students in the unit explaining why teamwork skills were being incorporated into their course and how they were to be incorporated and assessed. Second, external students undertook an online tutorial exercise designed to prepare them for teamwork in the unit.

In the tutorial, students considered the variety of options for conducting team meetings in virtual or face-to-face mode. It was anticipated that teams with external student members would meet predominantly in a virtual or online fashion and that his would require support. To facilitate this interaction, private discussion forums were set up for each team with an external student member in order to facilitate communication and document exchange.

Students complained that when teamwork is assessed, they are typically assessed only on the product of the teamwork rather than the teamwork process. This complaint is closely linked to two issues of pedagogical concern. First, student learning is highly influenced by assessment. If students are instructed on the importance of developing their teamwork skills but the criteria for assessment indicate that it is only the substantive content and not the skill which is to be assessed, they will take this as their cue as to what is really important about the exercise. Second, where teamwork is undertaken outside the classroom, staff may have had little or no opportunity to observe the student’s development of teamwork skills. In this paper, this difficulty is referred to as ‘observability’.

The assessment model incorporated a multi-levelled approach to assessing teamwork skills, designed to facilitate student understanding that the development of teamwork skills is important to them. In order to enhance the reliability of the model, students were provided with clear criteria, explicitly addressing the assessment of teamwork skills as a component of the exercise. It was envisaged that these initiatives would enhance the quality of the assessment and learning process and improve student confidence in the development of their teamwork skills. The model specifically addressed the need for feedback and student reflection on their teamwork skill development. Peers would provide formative feedback on how well the student worked within the group dynamic, their strengths, and suggestions for improvement. Students were essentially asked to reflect upon their strengths in teamwork, what they found most enjoyable or profitable about working with others, what challenged them in teamwork and what they would like to be able to do more effectively.

The trial appears to have been remarkably successful in achieving its objectives of fostering of teamwork skills in external students, overcoming the traditional pedagogical difficulties that arise in the fostering and assessment of teamwork skill development.

In order to evaluate the trial of the model, the project team sought feedback from a number of participants in the trial, namely: (1) staff responsible for the administration of the unit trialling the model; (2) staff at the coal-face of preparing students for teamwork and marking the assignments; and (3) external and internal students who completed the trial of the model. Student perspectives were obtained in two ways. First, de-identified data from the students’ reflections on teamwork was quantitatively analysed. Second, all students undertaking the unit were asked to complete a confidential survey seeking their feedback on the assessment of skills in the unit undertaking the trial.

On the whole the responses from both cohorts were reasonably consistent. However, there were some questions where the strength of the response was greater in one group. This analysis particularly focuses on external student feedback. A key concern of the project team with the assessment model was that it would not satisfy the criteria of manageability from the perspective of staff required to administer the model. However, the model was surprisingly manageable.

This paper has explored the difficulties that have traditionally arisen in fostering teamwork skills in external students through an analysis of an assessment model that has been trialled in a third year undergraduate law unit. External students may particularly benefit from teamwork activities, given their propensity to physical and social isolation from the rest of the student cohort. Students have also indicated that the exercise has improved their teamwork skills and has helped them to understand the unit material better than they would on their own. The results of the student survey and the quantitative analysis of student reflections on the assessment of teamwork in the trial tend to indicate that this has been a positive learning experience in teamwork skill development for both internal and external students.