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Innovations in teaching law to accountancy and business students
Author
Teo, Jack Cheng Chuah
Abstract
A great deal of research has been carried out to show how active learning strategies can be used to stimulate students to foster higher order learning skills. Much of this research has been carried out on undergraduates who are pursuing business courses but much of the focus, to-date, has been on how such strategies can be used to teach management as well as other business oriented subjects like statistics and marketing. Hardly, if any, research has been done on how law is being taught to business students. In the view of the author, this omission is significant as the law course is always included as one of the core subjects in any accountancy or business curriculum and law, as a subject, lends itself readily to the use of active learning strategies in the cultivation of higher order learning skills.
This paper starts by identifying the problems which exist in teaching law to business students and showing the deficiencies in the teaching methods which are currently being used. A major problem which arises with the teaching of law to business students is that lecturers find it very difficult to motivate the students, most of whom (other than the few who have a natural inclination for the law) complain that law is dry and boring. 'This paper discusses in some detail, motivational theory as it applies to business students and the difficulties experienced by law lecturers in motivating the students. Part of the difficulty lies in the fact that business students do not consider law to be a "mainstream subject" ("Macro" difficulties) while the other difficulties related more to the lecturing style of the individual lecturers ("Micro" difficulties). The paper discusses how the author has successfully identified and overcome these difficulties.
The paper then goes on to discuss the innovative teaching strategies used by the author in lectures and tutorials. These include the use of guided imagery exercises in lectures and the use of cooperative learning techniques in tutorials.
Finally, the paper concludes with an analysis of the new assessment techniques used by the author to complement the innovative teaching techniques which he has used above.
This paper starts by identifying the problems which exist in teaching law to business students and showing the deficiencies in the teaching methods which are currently being used. A major problem which arises with the teaching of law to business students is that lecturers find it very difficult to motivate the students, most of whom (other than the few who have a natural inclination for the law) complain that law is dry and boring. 'This paper discusses in some detail, motivational theory as it applies to business students and the difficulties experienced by law lecturers in motivating the students. Part of the difficulty lies in the fact that business students do not consider law to be a "mainstream subject" ("Macro" difficulties) while the other difficulties related more to the lecturing style of the individual lecturers ("Micro" difficulties). The paper discusses how the author has successfully identified and overcome these difficulties.
The paper then goes on to discuss the innovative teaching strategies used by the author in lectures and tutorials. These include the use of guided imagery exercises in lectures and the use of cooperative learning techniques in tutorials.
Finally, the paper concludes with an analysis of the new assessment techniques used by the author to complement the innovative teaching techniques which he has used above.
Date Issued
1997
Call Number
HF5657 Teo
Date Submitted
1997