Choosing a Method, and Combining Methods

None of that requires resources the Rules do not already assume. Rule 11 and Schedule III require the library and the faculty; rule 12 provides the internal marks that make the project and the exercise worth doing.

And for the four clinical papers the combination is prescribed, not chosen. Schedule II requires simulation and practical exercises for paper 21, case study and viva and periodical problem solution for paper 22, simulation and case studies conducted by senior practitioners for paper 23, and moots, trial observation and an internship diary with a viva for paper 24.

The sequence matters as much as the mixture

Exposition first, where the student knows nothing. The case and problem methods presuppose enough knowledge to know what to look for.

Then reasoning. Once the framework exists, judgments and problems do work that exposition cannot.

Then production. The project and the seminar require both knowledge and reasoning.

Then performance. Simulation and the clinic require all three, and a student sent to a live client too early is a risk to the client.

A course that inverts this fails, and the commonest inversion is the college that sets a project in the first month and a lecture course thereafter.

What an answer on this topic should say

Refuse the question as put, politely. If asked which method is best, say that the question is incomplete until the objective is named, and then answer it for each objective.

Use the constraint. The Indian problem is not ignorance of better methods; it is class sizes and staffing. Say so.

Cite the regulator. Schedule II prescribes methods for four papers, and that is evidence of an official position.

And end on assessment. Method reform without examination reform fails, which is why topic 3 follows topic 2 and why chapter 450 says the same thing from the other side.

A worked example

A college wants to improve teaching without money. What can it actually do?

Not the tutorial, which needs teacher hours it does not have.

Not the live client clinic, which needs a supervising advocate and clients.

But it can moot, because a room, a problem and three teachers cost nothing, and Schedule II already requires three a year per student.

It can circulate two judgments a paper and teach them properly, which costs photocopying.

It can send students to the court with a list of things to look for, which costs a form.

It can set short research exercises, which cost marking time but very little of it.

And it can move the internal marks from attendance to a project, an exercise and a moot, which costs nothing at all and is the change that makes the other four work, because students prepare for what is marked.

That is the honest answer to this topic: the cheapest available reform is to change what the internal marks are given for, and every method above becomes possible the moment it carries marks.

Quick revision

No best method. The choice is governed by the objective, the numbers, the resources and the assessment.

Assessment is decisive: students allocate effort to what carries marks, so a method the examination does not reward is abandoned by rational students.

Sequence: exposition, then reasoning, then production, then performance. Sending a student to a live client too early is a risk to the client.

Schedule II prescribes the combination for the four clinical papers, so for those the mixture is not a choice.

The cheapest real reform available to a poor college is to change what the internal marks are given for, because every method becomes possible once it carries marks.

Test yourself

1. What four factors govern the choice of a teaching method? The objective sought, whether knowledge, reasoning, skill or attitude; the number of students; the resources available in teacher hours, library and facilities; and the form of assessment, because students prepare for what carries marks.

2. Give the correct sequence of methods across a course and say what goes wrong when it is inverted. Exposition, then reasoning, then production, then performance. Inverting it sets students to produce or perform before they have the knowledge to know what to look for, and in the clinic it exposes a real client to a student who is not ready.

3. Name three methods a college with no money can adopt immediately. Moot courts, which need only a room, a problem and a bench; teaching two or three circulated judgments by the case method; and short legal research exercises. Court visits with a prepared list are a fourth.

4. Why does the answer to this topic end on assessment rather than on teaching? Because a method that carries no marks is not prepared for, so reform of teaching without reform of assessment does not survive contact with rational students, which is why topic 3 follows topic 2.