Technology, E-Learning and the Online Classroom
Chapter Thirty-Four
Syllabus topic 2, "Methods of Teaching - Merits and demerits"
Pages 125 to 127 of 543
In one line
Technology is not a teaching method; it is a channel that any method can run through, and the useful question is which methods survive the change of channel and which do not.
In the wording a student can write in an exam: e-learning is the delivery of instruction through electronic means, including live online classes, recorded lectures, electronic reading material, legal databases and discussion platforms; it extends access, permits repetition and makes primary sources reachable, but it weakens the interaction on which discussion methods depend, cannot deliver skill-based clinical teaching, and reproduces existing inequalities of device, connectivity and language.
The distinction the topic turns on
A projector is not a method and neither is a video call. The method is what the student is doing. A lecture delivered on a screen is still a lecture, with the same merits and the same demerits, plus some new ones.
So the honest way to answer this topic is method by method. Which of the methods in chapters 230 to 300 survives being moved online, and which does not?
The lecture survives almost intact, and gains: it can be recorded, paused and rewatched.
The case and problem methods survive partly. Materials circulate easily and small-group discussion is possible, but the loss of the room costs attention and the willingness to speak.
Discussion methods suffer badly. The Socratic method depends on reading a face and on the pressure of an audience, and both are attenuated. The seminar works; the tutorial works well in small numbers.
Simulation survives in some forms. A negotiation or a client interview can be conducted on a call; a moot can be argued on one and often is.
Clinical work does not transfer. A person who needs help at a legal services clinic, a trial to be observed and an office to be sat in are physical facts.
And legal research improves outright. A student with a database has better access than a student in a college library, which is the one place where the channel is a straightforward gain.
Merits
Access. A student who works, who lives far from the college, or who cannot attend for a period, can still receive the teaching.
Repetition. A recorded class can be watched again, at a chosen pace, which answers the lecture method's single-pace defect from chapter 230.
Primary sources become reachable. Bare Acts, judgments, gazettes, Law Commission reports and syllabus documents are all online and free. A student can now read the source rather than a summary of it, which is exactly what Modules III and IV require and what the college library often could not supply.
Reach of expertise. A specialist can address a class anywhere without travelling, which matters most to colleges outside the large cities.
Technology, E-Learning and the Online Classroom
Cost. Materials distribute at nearly zero cost once made.
And a record exists. What was taught can be checked, which is a real accountability gain.
Demerits
Interaction is thinner. Silence in a video call is not the same silence as in a room, and the teacher cannot see whether the class has understood.
Attention is contested. The device that delivers the class also delivers everything else.
The digital divide is real and it is a fairness problem. Device, data, electricity, a quiet place to sit and a family that accepts study as work are not evenly distributed, and a method that assumes them excludes people.
Skill teaching does not transfer, as above, and skills are what the clinical papers exist for.
Assessment integrity is harder. An unsupervised online examination is a different instrument from a supervised one, and chapter 440 takes that up.
Passive consumption is easier than ever. A recorded lecture watched at double speed while doing something else is attendance without learning.
And it can be used to substitute for what a college lacks. A college with two teachers and no library that puts recorded lectures online has not solved the problem the recordings are covering.
Where the policy stands
NEP 2020 supports the direction. The policy speaks of legal education embracing new technologies for wider access to and timely delivery of justice, and its wider proposals include technology in education generally. Chapter 100 explains that a policy is not law.
And bilingualism is part of the same proposal. The policy proposes that legal education be offered in English and in the language of the State. Online delivery makes that cheaper to attempt, since a recording can be made once in each language.
But the Rules have not changed. The Rules of Legal Education 2008 contemplate a full time course with attendance and infrastructure, and nothing in them turns a law degree into a distance qualification. A candidate should not write as though online teaching had altered the legal position.
A worked example
A college moves an entire semester online.
Contract and jurisprudence go across almost unchanged, delivered as live classes with recordings.
The alternative dispute resolution paper is a problem. Schedule II requires it to be conducted by senior legal practitioners through simulation and case studies with practical evaluation. Simulated negotiations can be run on calls, and are; the practitioner can attend from chambers, which is easier online than in person.
The drafting paper is a bigger problem, because fifteen drafting and fifteen conveyancing exercises must still be produced and marked, and marking thirty pieces per student without a room is a workload question rather than a technology one.
Technology, E-Learning and the Online Classroom
Moot court survives, argued on a call before a bench in three places.
Trial observation and the internship stop. There is no online substitute for sitting in a court or an office, and those are sixty of the hundred marks of paper 24.
The honest conclusion for an answer: the channel changes what is possible unevenly, it favours the transmission of knowledge over the acquisition of skill, and a college that measures its online semester only by whether classes happened has measured the wrong thing.
Quick revision
Technology is a channel, not a method. Answer the topic method by method.
Survives: the lecture, with gains from recording; the seminar; the tutorial in small numbers; moots; and legal research, which improves outright.
Suffers: the Socratic method and classroom discussion.
Does not transfer: live client clinical work, trial observation and internship.
Merits: access, repetition, reachable primary sources, reach of expertise, low distribution cost, and a checkable record.
Demerits: thinner interaction, contested attention, the digital divide, no skill teaching, harder assessment integrity, easier passivity, and use as a substitute for what a college lacks.
Policy: NEP 2020 supports new technologies and bilingual delivery, but it is a policy and the Rules of Legal Education still contemplate a full time course.
Test yourself
1. Why is it a mistake to treat e-learning as a teaching method in its own right? Because the method is what the student is doing, and a lecture delivered on a screen is still a lecture with the same merits and demerits. Technology is a channel through which any method may run, so the topic is answered method by method.
2. Which methods transfer online least well, and why? Live client clinical work, trial observation and internship, because they depend on physical facts: a client who needs help, a court to sit in and an office to watch. The Socratic method also suffers, since it depends on reading a face and on the pressure of an audience.
3. Give the one respect in which the channel is a straightforward gain. Legal research. Bare Acts, judgments, gazettes and official reports are online and free, so a student can read primary sources their college library could not supply, which is what Modules III and IV of this paper require.
4. What is the fairness objection, and why is it more than an inconvenience? Device, data, electricity, a quiet place to study and a household that treats study as work are unevenly distributed, so a method that assumes them excludes some students altogether rather than merely serving them less well.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.