George Baylon RADICS
Deparment of Sociology and Anthropology, NUS and NUS College
Radics, G. B. (2023). Opening up the classroom: Student-led learning in a law and society course [Paper presentation]. In Higher Education Campus Conference (HECC) 2023, 7 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecc2023proceedings/opening-up-the-classroom-student-led-learning-in-a-law-and-society-course/
SUB-THEME
Interdisciplinarity and Education
KEYWORDS
Student-led learning, project-based work, active learning, interdisciplinary, independent thinking
CATEGORY
Paper Presentation
ABSTRACT
Upon graduation, students are expected to lead as opposed to follow, collaborate as opposed to compete, and think broadly as opposed to narrowly. Thus, university education is changing in response to evolving student needs and the realities of workplace. Traditional lectures, heavily weighted final exams, and research papers on narrow topics do not build the skills students need to survive the increasingly competitive job market. Student-led learning provides an opportunity for students to take ownership over their education through leading class discussions and collaborative project-based work. This presentation will explore a student-led learning course at NUS College entitled “Law in the Making”, where students led discussions on legal issues, set up meetings with lawmakers, and drafted a law that they debated at the end of the course.
Student-led teaching involves students teaching to their peers, whilst their peers participate actively in the process to facilitate student-led learning (Marvell et al., 2013). Here, educators seek to empower their students by giving them control of and responsibility for their learning (McKeachie, 1990; Candy, 1991). Business schools experimented with case studies to develop more dynamic, well-rounded problem solvers (Christenson, 1987), while the fields of accountancy (Adler et al., 2007), geography (Marvell et al., 2013), and pharmacy (Po, 1994) have also attempted to create student-led teaching approaches to do the same. “When asked what student skills needed improving there was remarkable agreement across a wide range of employers. All felt that non-technical skills needed further development…namely interpersonal skills, team working, presentation, report writing, CV design, project management, time management” (Sneddon et al., 1995, p. 84). At the same time, there has been a growing recognition that traditional methods of teaching (primarily tutorials and lectures) may perpetuate the opposite, namely dependency and passivity (Kremer & McGuiness, 1998).
While NUS has gained international recognition for its research, further efforts can be made to re-envision the classroom and move further away from traditional “chalk and talk” lectures and tutorials. NUS College, the university’s new honours college aims to “break open the classroom” and to provide “rigorous and stimulating interdisciplinary education designed to help students cultivate the necessary skills to work effectively across boundaries, so that they are able to respond to the challenges of the 21st century.” In the NUS College course NHS2059 entitled “Law in the Making,” students were each assigned a reading to discuss in class, worked in groups to set up meetings with lawmakers, and formed teams to draft a law that they debated at the end of the course. While the course attempted to place more control in the hands of the students, certain challenges emerged, such as complaints of being overworked, underdeveloped professional communication skills, and an overreliance on technology to support public speaking.
This paper will begin with a review of the literature on student-lead learning, then discuss how it was applied to the course NHS2059 “Law in the Making”. The presentation will then explore some of the challenges encountered in the course, as well as some strategies employed to address them. It will provide a glimpse into how student-led learning has the potential to empower students to become more engaged and interested in learning so long as the right balance of student-led and traditional teacher-led methods are employed. Additionally, it asserts that the right incentives can encourage prompt and professional communication, and teaching students how to become better teachers can reduce their overreliance on technology.
REFERENCES
Adler, R. W., Whiting, R. H., Wynn-Williams, K. (2004). Student-led and teacher-led case presentations: empirical evidence about learning styles in an accounting course. Accounting Education, 13(2), 213-29. https://doi.org/10.1080/09639280410001676620
Candy, P. C. (1991). Self-direction for the lifelong learner. Jossey-Bass.
Christensen, C. R. (1987). Teaching and the case method. Harvard Business School.
Kremer, J., & McGuinness, C. (1998). Cutting the cord: student‐led discussion groups in higher education. Education + Training, 40(2), 44-49. https://doi.org/10.1108/00400919810206848
Marvell, A., Simm, D., Schaaf, R., & Harper, R. (2013). Students as scholars: evaluating student-led learning and teaching during fieldwork. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 37(4), 547-66. https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2013.811638
McKeachie, W. J. (1990). Research on college teaching: the historical background. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82(2), 189–200. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0022-0663.82.2.189
Po, L. A. (1994), Brainstorming a pharmacy syllabus: involving employers in curriculum design, in I. Sneddon, & J. Kremer (eds), An Enterprising Curriculum: Teaching Innovations in Higher Education, HMSO, Belfast.
Sneddon, I., Kremer, J., & Lindsay, B. (1995). Evaluating Enterprise at Queen’s, APAS, Belfast.