On this page, you will learn about my:

• Work roles and responsibilities

• Qualifications

• Teaching philosophy

• Account of Professional practice including my personal and professional action plan.

On the other pages you will find:

Teaching Samples (Sample products of student learning based on effective teaching)

• Screen cast of an introductory lecture for the Law of Trusts

• Corporate Finance stock simulator

• Equitable Remedies Lecture Games

• Extract from Equitable Remedies peer assessed forum

• Law of trusts mock exam

• Student peer feedback paper from law of trusts mock exam and lecturer feedback

• Jury system Debate

• 'Preparing for tutorials' document

• Visual aids

My Teaching Journal

• My path to teaching

• Student evaluations

• Peer evaluations

Teaching Reflection Page

• Reflection on Law of Trusts Course in light of what I have learnt in CUTL

• Reflection on a lecture

• Reflection on the online learning environment

• Reflection on the flipped classroom

• Reflection on co-teaching

Revised Course and Assessment

• LAW3170 Course prepared for CUTL integrating new knowledge learnt throughout the programme

• Course plan and teaching sequence

• Pre-Assessment

When I initially started lecturing, I had a goal: ensure that the syllabus is covered. I studied the assigned textbooks to make sure I covered every minutia, plagued by the fear that I would be reprimanded if I failed to do so. However, I have since realized that this is not an effective method of teaching because students can simply read the textbook and get this information.

My teaching philosophy has been shaped by reflecting on what I benefitted from during my time in university, contemplating on what students found useful in class, as well as what I think I would enjoy as a student. I believe the learning process goes beyond the retention of information. Now, I convey information but expand on the concepts by using real life examples and challenge students by questioning and encouraging them to consider various perspectives. My aim is to enable students to use information as the basis for critical analysis, and by extension, be able to contribute to society by adding to and questioning the body of information in existence. Additionally, I make my students adaptable so that they can function outside the sheltered classroom environment by helping them develop their transferable skills such as public speaking and clear communication.

I am a leader as I encourage my students in their pursuit of knowledge and demonstrate how to succeed in accordance with the requirements of a course. I am also a guide as I give them room to grow without being overly prescriptive. The balance between these two roles shifts depending on which year group I am teaching. For my first-year classes, I occupy more of a leadership role both in lectures where I convey information, and in tutorials where I help them develop their legal skills. For my third-year students, I am more often a guide as I ask more probing questions in lectures and allow students to lead tutorials with interjection from me where necessary. This helps the designated ‘class director’ expand their own thoughts and makes them more independent. It also adds a level of accountability and connectivity in the class as students are answering to their peers.

I believe that active learning is the most effective way for students to retain and understand information. My Corporate Finance students take part in a virtual share simulator to understand the complexity of the stock market. If students are having difficulty in understanding a concept, I will ask someone who did not initially understand, but feels that they now grasp the concept, to explain it to their peers. I encourage class participation in the online environment by using polls, hosting debates, and facilitating group discussions. In the physical environment, I would host competitions to see which groups provide the strongest answers to essay plans. I critique the plans so that the competition adds value rather than just excitement. I encourage students to give feedback to each other as this helps me ensure that they understand the concepts, and it increases their own critical analysis abilities. I host a mock exam in my Trusts class. To receive feedback from me, students must peer assess one another and provide a reflective statement on how they think they can improve based on the peer assessment.

Self-reflection that leads to growth is the most powerful tool I can equip my students with to prepare them for life challenges. My PhD supervisor asked me at every meeting, ‘What did you do well, and what can you improve on.’ I ask these questions to my students, and myself, as I continue to develop my teaching philosophy.

My account of professional practice is based on the UK HE Core Knowledge and Professional Values.

CORE KNOWLEDGE:

1. The Subject Material

2. Appropriate methods for teaching, learning and assessing in the subject area and at the level of the academic programme.

3. How students learn, both generally and within their subject/disciplinary area(s).

4. The use and value of appropriate learning technologies.

5. Methods for evaluating the effectiveness of teaching.

6. The implications of quality assurance and quality enhancement for academic and professional practice with a particular focus on teaching.

PROFESSIONAL VALUES:

1. Respect for individual learners and diverse learning communities.

2. Promoting participation in higher education and equality of opportunity for learners.

3. Use of evidence-informed approaches and the outcomes from research, scholarship and continuing professional development.

4. Acknowledgement of the wider context in which higher education operates, recognising the implications for professional practice.

EP Reflective Account of Professional Practice

Introduction

I am a lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago. My teaching journey began at King’s College London where I was a visiting lecturer in Tort Law from 2017 – 2018. During that year, I taught 3 tutorial groups which consisted of about 15 students per group. I became a full time lecturer at the UWI in January 2019. I started off with relatively small third year classes of approximately 60 students per lecture and 30 students per tutorial group. More recently, tutorial groups have increased to 40 students per group (although the attendance is usually closer to 30), and my largest lecture is 220 students.

I am presently teaching:

Entertainment Law;

Law of Trusts;

Equitable Remedies;

which are all undergraduate courses. I hope to be afforded the opportunity to teach on the LLM in the future, and to teach on the undergraduate intellectual property course as this is the area in which I have my LLM and PhD.

Design and plan learning activities/or programme of Study

The issue

Designing and planning learning activists must be tailored to meet the needs of the students (Bowen, 2017). When I first started teaching Law and Legal Systems, a first-year course, I did not have much time to prepare as I was given a list of topics and slides that were copied word for word from the textbook. I had to learn the material, which was completely new to me, create a course outline, and try to fix slides on a weekly basis. The workload made it difficult to tailor the course to the needs of the students. In addition, I had never taught first year students before.

What did I do?

After completing the course, I spent time reflecting on how I could improve it and making changes to the mode of delivery, content, and skills that I wanted to target to in greater alignment with Bowen’s approach. I concluded that I was expecting first year students to perform skills such as essay writing that they were not equipped with. Since this course and many of our courses require essay writing, I restructured all the tutorials. In the past, I had provided essay prompts and discussed them in class. This mirrored my own experience of law school, but what I did not consider is that I too struggled with essay writing and relied on friends in older year groups for guidance (CV 3). I wanted to ensure that my course was appropriate for the level of learners I was teaching (CV 2).

How did I do it?

In my new skills-based approach, I provided the essay prompts and a skill that would be worked on for the tutorial. The first few weeks are focused on crafting thesis statements. We then progressed to arguments, use of evidence, and counterarguments. The students were still applying the knowledge they had learnt from lectures and their readings (CK 1), but they were doing so with greater guidance appropriate for their stage of the LLB. This approach allowed me to pay greater heed to the diversity of learning styles (PV 1) and modernized my approach to teaching by departing from the traditional expectation that students come equipped with certain skills (PV 4). This enhanced the quality of my teaching as I was more student focused and focused on pedagogy as opposed to simply conveying information.

Sustained Impact

The skill of writing persuasive arguments is important for legal practice, but as noted by Jacobs and Pulsinelli (2019), lecturers do not usually have the time to teach writing skills. This is a fair criticism as the focus in law courses tends to be on content with the expectation that students will know how to write. While we do have a course on legal writing, it spans one year and the essay writing component is taught after my course is already concluded. Thus, teaching with a skill-based approach developed their writing ability early in the LLB, and helped them be more analytical with the course materials. Students have learnt how to approach writing from a critical perspective as opposed to the descriptive perspective that they used in high school. This also helped them identify areas of misunderstanding which led to greater participation in class. There was a marked improvement in the grades received in the course. In addition, the feedback I received indicated that students appreciated the guidance on the various skills as it made them more aware of the expectations of the course,

Teach and or Support Learning

The issue

The students that I teach are aged 18 – 21 and thus grew up with technology. As such, I try to use technology that would resonate with them in my teaching. In this section, I give an account of how I modernized teaching the Law of Corporate Finance by using gamification.

What did I do?

Nugent et al (2019) suggest that an interactive, contextual approach enhances the knowledge intake by students. In order to make the course more relatable, I introduced a virtual stock simulator game with $1M USD fake capital. This makes the subject matter more relevant to them as many of them have no background knowledge of investing. Without this type of activity, the subject matter could seem esoteric, particularly when learning about the different methods of trading.

How did I do it?

I reviewed the game rankings on a weekly basis. This fostered a healthy sense of competition which I find particularly motivating to law students (CV 3). This method of teaching and learning has been hailed as a potential transformative model that departs from the Langdellian model which has been criticized for failing to engage students in learning (Ferguson, 2016)(PV 3). The competitive aspect led students to conduct their own research on the ebb and flow of the stock markets (PV 2).

Sustained impact

Students would come to class and explain why their portfolio performed badly or why they experienced a surge based on worldwide economic developments, which would help me assess their level of understanding of what was being taught in the course (CK 5). This game promotes participation by all students and caters to individual learners as they can play at their own pace as the game runs for the entire semester (CK 4). Students reported that the game made the class more enjoyable and that they developed an appreciation for the stock market that they would not have gained without this practical experience.

Assess and give feedback to learners

The Issue

In the past, I have attempted to give individual feedback, but this provided difficult for large classes. I felt that I needed a more effective way to deliver feedback so that students would be able to improve and progress (CK 6). I recognised that I needed to understand the wider context of feedback and assessment practice in the HE setting and my professional practice (V4) in order to determine how to provide effective feedback. I turned to my senior colleagues to discuss how they approach feedback and assessment (CK 5). They suggested several methods such as using a general feedback sheet which could be posted online and giving oral feedback in class.

What did I do?

I reflected on the advice given by my colleagues and did my own research of assessment methods. I learnt about self-assessment and peer review (Rawson and Tyree, 1989) (PV 3). Upon further research, I introduced two formative peer assessed mock exams (Topping, 2009). in the Law of Trusts, a third year course. I think this is appropriate for a third-year course as the students are familiar with what is expected from them at this level (CK 2).

How did I do it?

The mock exam is administered and then we go through the answers together in class. While going through the answers, students correct their friend’s work and provide written comments. They are free to ask questions throughout the correction process to ensure their feedback is as accurate as possible (CK 6). If students want additional feedback from me, they must prepare a statement reflecting on the peer comments and include how they think they can improve. I have found this method to be more effective for several reasons. Firstly, they care about what their friends think and thus will put a lot of thought into their work (CK 2). Secondly, giving them the opportunity to mark puts them in the shoes of the lecturer. Students are surprisingly accurate with their marking and become more self-aware of their own work (CK 3). Thirdly, the students must think for themselves as to how they can improve rather than simply coming to me with their work. This is important for when they go out into the working world where they will have little guidance on how to succeed (PV 4)(CK 6). Inculcating the practice of self-reflection (Watson and Kenny, 2014) will serve them throughout their professional lives (PV 4).

Sustained Impact

I have used this approach for three years, and every year students comment on how helpful they find the exercise to be. They have told me that it has allowed them to see how other students write, and how facts can be interpreted in different ways. They have also remarked that having to mark a friend’s paper made them think about the marking process and helped them identify their own shortcomings and strengths (CK 5).

Develop effective learning environments and approaches to student support and guidance

The issue

I teach Entertainment Law, a course that looks at a wide range of laws and their application to the entertainment industry. I wanted to make the course more engaging so students could have greater involvement in the learning process (CK 3). I conducted research and learnt about the flipped classroom as a way to enhance learning, but it can only work if students are prepared before class (Akciyr and Akcayir, 2018)(CK 5).

What did I do?

I decided to try this pedagogy with a colleague for Entertainment Law this semester. We provided students with materials which they were instructed to read before class, and instructed them that they had would have to draw on areas of law that they had learnt in the past to succeed in this course (PV 3). I was worried when I saw a low course take up of 14 students compared to 40 – 60 in previous years. However, this is the most engaging, interactive class I have ever taught. It is the first time I have ever had a class where attendance is nearly 100% weekly and students do not only prepare for tutorials, but clamour to participate.

How did I do it?

Each week in the lecture, we hold a discussion on an area of entertainment law. Students then bring an article to class from a newspaper or magazine which is relevant to the area for analysis in the tutorial. The materials are posted on the class padlet so everyone has access to them and can comment on the sources (PV 2). We also brought in two guest speakers for the students to interview. Steve Adelman from the Global Crowd Alliance and lawyer for Travis Scott in relation to the 2021 Astroworld Disaster spoke on crowd management. Major Penny, local influencer, event promoter and ‘mic man’ answered the students questions about how events are run regionally compared to internationally (PV 4).

Sustained impact

By allowing lectures to be open discussion forums rather than trying to convey masses of material, students have become more involved in learning and have expressed appreciation of how the course has aligned reality with theoretical approaches to law (CK 3). Guidance is still important as the students are learning so we encourage them to ask questions on anything that they are unclear about in terms of legal principles, and have sessions on the assignments before they are due so they can ask questions on the instructions and content (CK 2). All students remarked that it was their favourite course on the LLB, and it made them remember why they wanted to initially pursue a law degree. They said they were happy to do the research because and share their thoughts because they were given the freedom to learn in their own ways (PV 1).

CPD Reflective Review and Action Plan

Goal: Universal Design for Learning

Universal Design for Learning is a concept that is important to me because of the barriers I have observed in making education accessible in Trinidad and Tobago. My classrooms are located on the upper floors of buildings with no elevator, no wheelchair accessible doors, no hearing loop etc. While I cannot fix the physical infrastructure, I can make my classes accessible to all learners. To achieve this goal, I attended a webinar on ‘How to Use Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Online Learning’ in February 2022. I value an equitable learning environment so I attended this event to event to increase my understanding of how I can make learning more accessible. I had already been utilizing some of the strategies suggested such as providing slides in advance for visual learners and using clear, simple instructions where preparing assignments. I learnt that I should be flexible with deadline as I need to take into consideration the difficulties that students experience at home, and that a good option is to ask the student how much extra time they need as they will then self-regulate their work.

The other steps I need to take to achieve this goal include reflecting on the delivery of my courses and changing delivery to suit, as well as engaging with the Student Life and Development Department to determine what accommodations might be needed.

Alignment of assignments and learning outcomes

I plan to revise all of the courses I currently teach to incorporate a greater variety of assignment styles. I had previously only used problem questions and essay questions as these are standard law assessments. In the future, I will include multiple choice, group presentations, and research papers to test different learning outcomes. This will add variety to the assessments and allow me to incorporate greater authenticity. I am going to put further thought into the different types of assignments that I can use in relation to different courses, to accommodate different learning styles (Xu, 2011). I am also going to review all of my learning outcomes as I now understand that only one action verb should be used, and that the outcomes must be SMART. Additionally, I need to ensure alignment with the overall objectives of my Faculty and the UWI (Donnelly and Fitzmaurice, 2005).

Revise courses to be more interactive and include gamification

For tutorials, I have started requiring two students to be class directors and one student to scribe during the class and then distribute the notes. The aim is to ensure students are involved in the teaching process and can interact with their peers to work together to come up with answers to questions that are provided in advance. I allow there to be two student directors as I realised that students are more confident when working with a friend. For larger classes, I have been experimenting with teams. Students have to form themselves into teams at the beginning of the semester. They must name the team and post their members on an excel sheet available via myelearning. Points are awarded on a weekly basis for participation in lecture games such as quizzes and presentations, and points can also be scored by individual team members for their performance in tutorials. I need to review how I structure the teams and how useful the students found this type of interaction, so I await the feedback for my Equitable Remedies course where I have tried out this approach. My goal is to have revised all my existing courses by December 2022.

I also want to integrate more technology in to my courses, even when we return to physical classes. I find padlet to be a great tool for sharing information, and Quizziz is a fun but challenging way for students to recall their knowledge. Additionally, formative forums via myelearning with guided questions and peer reviews are useful for allowing the students to apply their knowledge and collaborate with each other. I want to be able to assess which types of technology are most effective when we return to physical classes. As such, I will complete this goal by April 2024 as I will probably need to make changes over the next two years based on feedback from students and my own reflections.

Update assignments to include analytic rubrics

In terms of marking, I will be using analytic rubrics as I find they help me overcome bias in marking, and are instructive to the students when attempting the assignment and understanding the marks received. Since I will have to get new assignments approved, and this process can take a while, I plan to have this exercise completed by September 2023.

Introduce Peer Review

I would like to start a peer review process at my Faculty so that the overall quality of teaching can improve. This was done at King’s College London when I tutored in Tort law and while I was a bit nervous as I was teaching for the first time, the experience was very helpful. Some of my colleagues have allowed me to sit in on their lecturers so I can be exposed to various styles of teaching. I have found that to be very helpful and will continue to engage in this activity, but I think it would also be worthwhile for my colleagues to give me feedback. I hope to launch this in September 2022 and have this continue within my faculty.

Sources:

Akçayır, G., & Akçayır, M. (2018). The flipped classroom: A review of its advantages and challenges. Computers & Education, 126, 334-345. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2018.07.021

Bowen, R. (2017). Understanding by Design. Retrieved 18 March 2022, from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/understanding-by-design/

Donnelly, R., Fitzmaurice, M. (2005) Designing Modules for Learning. In G. O'Neill, S. Moore & B. McMullin(eds.)Emerging issues in the practice of University Learning and Teaching, Dublin, All Ireland Society for Higher Education (AISHE).

Ferguson D. (2016) The Gamification of Legal Education: Why Games Transcend the Langdellian Model and How They Can Revolutionize Law School Chap L Rev, 19, 269.

Jacobs, B. & Pulsinelli, G. (2019- 2020) A Case Study in Legal Writing Pedagogy: Connecting Doctrine and Skills to Authentic Client Voices. U. Tol. L. Rev. 51, 1.

Nugent A., Lodge, J. M., Carroll, A., Bagraith, R., MacMahon, S., Matthews, K. E. & Sah, P. (2019). Higher Education Learning Framework: An Evidence informed model for university learning. Brisbane: The University of Queensland.

Rawson, S., & Tyree, A. (1989). Self and Peer Assessment in Legal Education. Legal Education Review, 1(1). doi: 10.53300/001c.5977

Topping, K. (2009). Peer Assessment. Theory Into Practice, 48(1), 20-27. doi: 10.1080/00405840802577569

Watson, G., & Kenny, N. (2014). Teaching Critical Reflection to Graduate Students. Collected Essays On Learning And Teaching, 7(1), 56. doi: 10.22329/celt.v7i1.3966

Xu, W. (2011). Learning Styles and Their Implications in Learning and Teaching. Theory And Practice In Language Studies, 1(4). doi: 10.4304/tpls.1.4.413-416

Get in touch at emma.perot@sta.uwi.edu