teaching legal research skills at city - emily allbon
DESCRIPTION
Presentation at the HEA workshop 'Teaching research skills to Law Students: a workshop on best practice '. This event brought together university law teachers and law librarians to discuss legal information literacy and current best practice in teaching research skills on the LLB, the role of law librarians, how research skills are taught (including on-line methods), progression through the undergraduate curriculum, whether for credit or not, and collaborations between law librarians and academic staff. This presentation is part of a related blog post that provides an overview of the event: http://bit.ly/1bIvVhhTRANSCRIPT
Teaching Legal Research Skills
At City
Emily Allbon
Doing OK… but not entirely happy
Great relationship with
the school
Lots of input in all kinds of
things (many non-library
related)
Embedded
…but not quite there with
legal research teaching
What happens at City?
Legal method ~ 330 LLB1 students – rising all the time!
3 lectures
4 workshops
Understanding cases and statutes
Legal research
Legal writing
Public speaking (mooting)
3 assessments
Online resources workbook, case comment & moot
4 lecturers
1 lecture (2 hrs)
1 workshop (2 hrs) with groups of
30 students
1 assessment (pass/fail)
Where do I fit in?
I want them to:
Understand the issues around…
and…
…how to avoid
As well as knowing
the importance of,
and the best ways
to:
Content
Lecture Workshop
Sources of law
Citation
What’s in the library?
Statutes
Law reporting
Journals and commentary
Lawbore
Basic Westlaw searching
Keeping up to date
Used iPads
2 tutorial groups
Flexible room
Using free resources for research - evaluation
Legal research in the profession
Comprehensive intro to Westlaw (advanced + connectors)
Fake websites
Keyword exercise
Silly problem questions
What do students think?
“I learnt how to use Westlaw effectively, in the sense of using “” and words like ‘and’.
“I learnt how to search for particular cases by using keywords & subjects, as well as how to analyse a case”
“Favourite bit was all the hands-on”
“Great interaction in session between students and Emily, which made the tutorial fun, enjoyable, practical and educational all at the same time”
Assessment
Online resources workbook
Tests their ability to find cases,
legislation and journal articles.
Research trail essential
Work submitted and marked
online
Observations?
Assessments pre 2011? Video
critique & blog post.
Halsbury’s Statutes Workbook
The dream?
The glue to tie it all
together
One consistent topic
All assessments linked and
learning scaffolded
Connected to a core
subject assessment
One day…
Any
questions?