appropriate arrangements should be made to assess practical skills and student performance in the clinic. Depending on the nature of the faculty rules it may for instance be possible to allocate 50% of the grade marks to practical work and 50% to a written examination,134 or to allow 100% of the marks to flow from continuous assessment and assignments.135
8.2.1.2 Opportunities in credit-bearing clinical law courses
Where the clinical law course is credit-bearing the clinicians can place specific demands on the students regarding attendance and participation. Failure to meet these demands can be sanctioned by the withdrawal of a duly performed certificate (or its equivalent) that enables students to write the examination or qualify for the course. Where the credit-bearing course is optional or only available to a limited number of students the clinic can devise a selection process whereby only those students who are really committed to social justice and prepared to work long hours are accepted into the programme.
8.2.1.3 Challenges in credit-bearing clinical law courses
Clinical law courses are time-consuming, labour intensive, and usually demand many more contact hours than regular credit-bearing courses. They require students to spend considerable time outside of the classroom conducting research and following up on their files. Depending on the type of clinic students may also have to staff clinics on week-ends or visit off-campus venues; meet with clients and other persons or officials away from the campus; live in communities away from home during their vacations; or, as street law students do, visit schools or prisons. These activities all need to be balanced with other academic work.
A further challenge is that students who under-perform can only be excluded from the course if they are in breach of the faculty rules regarding duly performed certificates or their equivalents. Specific requirements will have to be drawn up by the clinic to conform to these. Where all the students in a degree or diploma programme are required to participate in a clinical course the greatest challenges are to keep all the students motivated and to ensure that the learning process is not compromised by unrealistic staff-student teaching ratios.136
8.2.1.4 Expectations of students and staff in credit-bearing clinical law courses
The expectations of students in credit-bearing clinical law courses, depending on the nature of the clinic, are that they will learn the appropriate lawyering skills and be exposed to practical aspects of justice education. By the end of the course they expect to be sufficiently empowered to enter the next stage of their legal and professional education. They expect to do this with self-confidence and a better understanding of the challenges involved in delivering social justice. They also want to have a proper understanding of the practical aspects of legal practice. The expectations of law clinicians are that apart from learning practical skills some of the students will have become sufficiently imbued with the notions of justice education and professional responsibility that in their future legal careers they can make a positive impact in the struggle for social justice.
134 As happens in the Street Law course at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. 135 As is the case with the Clinical Law course at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. 136 See above para 4.10.
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8.2.2 Clinical law as a non-credit-bearing course
8.2.2.1 Operational strategies for non-credit-bearing clinical law courses
Where the clinical law course is a non-credit-bearing course the instructors have much greater flexibility in determining the content, delivery and assessment of the course. Ideally the content and delivery of the course should conform to the criteria mentioned above in respect of credit-bearing courses. The difference will be in respect of the assessment because, given the pressures of a law curriculum, students will be reluctant to submit themselves to formal methods of grading and examination if they will not result in academic credit.
8.2.2.2 Opportunities in non-credit-bearing clinical law courses
Where the clinical law course is voluntary and non-credit-bearing, the clinic can devise a selection process, as in the case of optional credit-bearing courses, whereby only those students who are committed to justice education and who undertake to work long hours are accepted into the programme. The clinic has the flexibility to determine its own exclusion criteria for removing students who do not perform from the programme – without having to conform to the faculty rules regarding exclusion from credit-bearing courses. The clinic should, however, make sure that all students are fully informed about what is expected of them by drawing up specific criteria in respect of attendance and participation in, and exclusion from, the course.
8.2.2.3 Challenges for non-credit-bearing clinical law courses
The main challenge for clinicians teaching non-credit-bearing courses is to keep students sufficiently motivated to ensure that they do their work properly and do not withdraw from the programme. Clinicians in such courses do not have the weapon of duly performed certificates or their equivalents to secure compliance and are solely dependent on their ability to maintain the interest of the students. To this end the content and delivery of the programme must be interesting, informative and action-oriented. Students must feel that the skills they are learning and the education they are receiving more than compensate for the lack of academic credit. Clinicians also need to imbue students with a sense of professional responsibility so that they are not tempted to abandon their clients when things become difficult or they feel under pressure.
8.2.2.4 Expectations of students and law clinicians in non-credit-bearing clinical law courses
The expectations of the students and law clinicians teaching in a non-credit-bearing clinical law course are the same as those involved in a credit-bearing course.
8.3 Assessing skills and practical work in law clinics
8.3.1 Skills assessments
The skills-training component of the curriculum requires an on-going, rigorous assessment of the students’ mastery of the relevant skills. An mark sheet must be developed for each skill , with an explanatory memorandum, to ensure consistency in practical assessment. Also, the number of assessors should be limited as much as possible to ensure marking consistency. For example, the mark sheet for the assessment of the interview of a clinic client by a student could look as follows:
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LIVE-CLIENT INTERVIEW: MARK SHEET
Topic Mark Comments
1. Preparation for interview: …/20
2. The interview:
2.1 Opening and chronology: …/10
2.2 Issue identification: …/20
3. Counselling:
3.1 Identification of options: ... /10
3.2 Explanation of options: …/10
3.3 Advice & client’s choice: …/10
4. Closing interview: …/10
5. General impression: …/10
Total: … /100
ASSESSOR: ………. DATE: ……….
8.3.2 The seven-step skills training process: TOS-PCR-A
The skills training programmes in the curriculum that precede the assessment should comply with the following training sequence (over a number of training sessions):
First: Explain the title (what do we mean by ‘Negotiation’?);
Second: Discuss the required outcome (the level of competence expected at the end of the training in negotiation);
Third: Identify and name the subsidiary skills (ss) required to reach the outcome (e.g., ss1: preparation for negotiation; ss2: starting the negotiation, etc);
Fourth: Demonstrate and practice each subsidiary skill separately (e.g., a whole training session just on the various ways of starting a negotiation);
Fifth: Using a case study , make students combine all their learnt subsidiary skills;
Sixth: Give feedback, and do remedial training on subsidiary skills not up to standard;
Seventh: Using a fresh case study, assess the student’s mastery of the skill (i.e., against the defined outcome).
8.3.3 Assessing case management
The fairest and most effective way to assess each student’s case management is to base the assessment on file handling. The recommended method is to develop a file-handling mark sheet based on the following criteria (all the relevant student’s files being assessed at the end of each semester, and the marks under the categories below averaged to get an overall mark):
1. Completion of cover details: [10 ]
2. Content of client’s and supporting statements: [40]
3. Appropriate research and actions: [20]
4. Satisfactory completion of diary: [10]
5. Timeous follow-up and client communication: [20] Total: [100]
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8.4 Annual course and skills audits
The public-interest law course content of the curriculum (i.e., Social pensions, children’s rights, etc) must be reassessed on an annual basis with reference to the case statistics of that year. For example, if the statistics show that in the course of the year, refugee cases constituted 20% of all cases handled by the clinic, a module in Refugee law will have to be developed and added to the curriculum for the next academic year. This will mean that some existing modules may (depending on their statistical frequency) have to be reduced in scope or removed from the curriculum entirely.
In the same way, changing circumstances may require new skills training programmes to be included in the curriculum: for example, a new computerized file-management programme may have been installed requiring training in its use.
8.5 Conclusion
The operational strategies, opportunities, challenges and expectations regarding the academic training and justice education aspects of clinical legal education programmes will depend upon whether the courses are credit-bearing or non-credit-bearing.
Credit-bearing courses have to comply with the assessment criteria required by the law faculty or law school offering the course. Students involved in credit-bearing courses are exposed to the academic sanctions applied to all law students enrolled in credit-bearing courses.137
Non-credit-bearing courses can be more flexible as they are not confined by the usual academic rules regarding assessment. However, it is more difficult to deal with students who do not conform to the course requirements as they may not bound by the academic sanctions associated with credit-bearing courses.
Given the heavy workload faced by students in clinical programmes it is recommended that all clinical courses should be integrated into the academic programme as credit-bearing courses.
137 This is required by the Council for Legal Education in Nigeria, and as a condition for the funding law clinics in South Africa by the Attorneys Fidelity Guarantee Fund.
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CHAPTER 9: DEVELOPING LESSON PLANS
Contents:
9.1 Knowledge, skills and values 9.2 Effective learning
9.3 The general lesson plan
Outcomes:
At the end of this chapter you will be able to:
1. Explain the difference between knowledge, skills and values. 2. Design a general lesson plan.
This chapter defines lesson outcomes. It then describes the requirement for an effective lesson and suggests two types of lesson plans that can be used to assist clinical teachers to prepare for their classes: (a) a general lesson plan or (b) a grid lesson plan for skills training. Either may be used. The grid plan gives a more detailed breakdown of the lesson.
9.1 Knowledge, skills and values
Outcomes are what the students should know by the end of the clinical law lesson. When developing a lesson plan law clinicians should bear in mind that the ideal lesson should include three kinds of outcomes, being knowledge, skills and values.
Knowledge outcomes refer to what the students will know by the end of the lesson about the relevant substantive or procedural law principles, skills or values being taught (e.g. “At the end of the lesson students will be able to explain …”).
Skills outcomes refer to what the students will be able to do by the end of the lesson (e.g. “At the end of this lesson students will be able to conduct …”). To ensure that skills outcomes are achieved, see the discussion in Chapter 11.3 above.
Values outcomes refer to what the students will appreciate by the end of the lesson (e.g. “At the end of this lesson students will appreciate the importance of …”).
The outcomes regarding knowledge, skills and values should be explained to the students at the beginning of each lesson so they know what to expect. The inclusion of the outcomes in the law clinician’s lesson plans ensures that he or she has the necessary guidelines as to what he or she is trying to achieve in the lesson. The outcomes also enable the instructor to check whether or not he or she has achieved to objective of the lesson.
9.2 Effective learning
Clinical law teachers do not rely on the traditional lecture approach to teaching because it is the least effective method of imparting knowledge to students.138