Advancing the Theory and Practice of Self-Determined Learning

Improving the effectiveness of large-class teaching in law degrees Sascha Mueller, Ursula Cheer, Lynne Taylor, Elizabeth ToomeyAuthors Associate Professor Lynne Taylor, Professor Ursula Cheer, Professor Neil Boister, Professor Elizabeth Toomey, Sascha Mueller, Dr Debra Wilson – University of Canterbury. Date completed: May 2012 About the project In this project, a group of 6 University of Canterbury School of Law lecturers investigated current methods of teaching large compulsory law classes. individual School of Law national and international. Methodology The 6 parts of the project were: a national and international literature review survey of advancing law students at the University survey of staff teaching at the law school focus groups involving a selection of advancing law students from the survey group analysis of the data development of good practice guidelines. Themes Implementation Implementation is taking place at 3 levels: Individual – the teaching staff involved in the study have made changes to their teaching of large classes. Presentations

SOLO taxonomy I am pleased to say that John Biggs himself has endorsed this representation of his ideas; "I've just found your website on SOLO et al. via google. I'm delighted! Your diagrams of prestructural-extended abstract are very elegant..." The SOLO taxonomy stands for: Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes It describes level of increasing complexity in a student's understanding of a subject, through five stages, and it is claimed to be applicable to any subject area. I confess to a slight distrust of this kind of "progressive" model, which aspires inexorably to a final state. However, the emerging field of work on Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge links in very effectively with the SOLO taxonomy and offers some points about how the above issues might be addressed. There is a small but enthusiastic group of teachers using the SOLO taxonomy to structure their teaching in schools, and blogging about it.