The LAWLO Project
LAWLO is a collaborative project between specialists in the School of Law and specialists in e-pedagogy/technology in Modern Languages. The project aims to build on existing e-learning design templates and expertise to develop online learning materials in study skills for Law students.
These online learning materials are created as interactive 'learning objects' (LOs) for Law (Law LOs). Law LOs are made using the LOC authoring tool for teachers. This tool has been developed through a collaboration between eLanguages and the LLAS Subject Centre at the University of Southampton. Previous projects have been undertaken to produce online learning materials in study skills for students in Heath Sciences and for disciplines within Humanities (see HUMLO).
The EAP Toolkit (for international students) and the Study Skills Toolkit (for British students/native speakers of English) are offered to all University of Southampton students and teaching staff through Blackboard and provide a comprehensive set of generic LOs with feedback and other support to scaffold students' learning. Feedback from staff and students has indicated that some LOs within the Toolkit could be made more useful if they were specifically designed for the writing styles and conventions of specific disciplines and embedded into face to face teaching programmes.
The LawLO project is addressing these needs by developing over 15 hours of interactive online materials in the form of reusable LOs which will be embedded in the LLM Pre-sessional Course for international students and LLB undergraduate programmes made available to University of Southampton students and staff through the Blackboard VLE.
Update: July 2010
17 Law LOs have been developed (see titles below). These are now being evaluated on the LLM Presessional Course.
- Producing concise and clear legal writing
- An introduction to the legal problem question
- Responding to the legal problem question
- An introduction to the legal essay question
- Responding to the legal essay question
- Library challenge for students of Law
- Preparing for Law lectures, seminars and tutorials
- Writing a case summary
- Writing a case summary when there is disagreement within the Court
- Introduction to reading legislation and treaties
- Interpreting statutes
- Introduction to Law exams
- Introduction to précis and plagiarism rules for Law students
- References and citations for Law students
- Using primary and secondary sources to support your written statements
- Feedback on Law assessments
- Introduction to the LLM dissertation