The analysis of discursive practices at the service of the teaching innovation in Higher Education: A legal education experience

Journal title EXCELLENCE AND INNOVATION IN LEARNING AND TEACHING
Author/s Luigina Mortari, Alessia Bevilacqua, Roberta Silva, Fedra Alessandra Pizzato
Publishing Year 2021 Issue 2021/0 Language Italian
Pages 18 P. 45-62 File size 0 KB
DOI 10.3280/exioa0-2021oa11127
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

View article Download Open Access article

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

Even more than in other areas of higher education, teaching innovation in legal education is currently aimed at supporting the development of reflective, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills, which are essential requisites to face a profession whose degree of complexity is clearly increasing. To this aim, the Department of Law and the Teaching and Learning Center (TaLC) of the University of Verona have launched teaching innovation paths by adopting the educational and transformative evaluation perspectives, which are implemented through the peer observation and the analysis of discursive practices. The goal of these hetero-evaluative strategies is to promote reflective and metacognitive processes, which should lead instructors to acquire greater awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of their teaching practices and improve them.

Keywords: discursive practice, legal education, teaching innovation, faculty development, higher education

  1. Bloom, E. M. (2017). Creating Desirable Difficulties: Strategies for Reshaping Teaching and Learning in the Law School Classroom. U. Det. Mercy L. Rev., 95(2), 115-151.
  2. Austin, J.L. (1955). How to do things with words. The William James Lectures, Harvard University. In J.O. Urmson & M. Sbisà (Eds.), How to do things with words (2nd ed., 1975). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
  3. Beach, A., Sorcinelli, M.D., Austin, A., & Rivard, J. (2016). Faculty development in the age of evidence. Sterling, VA: Stylus.
  4. Barton, T.D. (2016). Re-Designing Law and Lawering for the Information Age. Notre Dame JL Ethics & Pub. Policy, 30(1), 1-36.
  5. Bennett, S. & Santy, J. (2009). A window on our teaching practice: Enhancing individual online teaching quality though online peer observation and support. A UK case study. Nurse Education in Practice, 9(6), 403-406.
  6. Blumer, H. (1969). The methodological position of symbolic interactionism. Sociology. Thought and Action, 2(2), 147-156.
  7. Carasik, L., Renaissance or Retrenchment: Legal Education at a Crossroads (2011). Indiana Law Review, 44, 735, Western New England University School of Law Legal Studies Research, Paper No. 11-3.
  8. Carroll, C. & O’Loughlin, D. (2014). Peer observation of teaching: enhancing academic engagement for new participants, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 51(4), 446-456.
  9. Denvir, C. (Ed.) (2020). Modernising legal education. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  10. Denzin, N.K. (2008). Collecting and interpreting qualitative materials (Vol. 3). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
  11. Domenici, G. (2018). Quando la Valutazione diventa risorsa aggiuntiva nei processi di istruzione. In A. Marzano & R. Tammaro (a cura di). Azioni formative e processi valutativi. Scritti in onore di Achille Maria Notti (pp. 65-76). Lecce: PensaMultimedia.
  12. Felisatti, E. (2019). La valutazione all’Università: riflessioni dal passato e prospettive per il futuro. Giornale Italiano della Ricerca Educativa, XII – numero speciale – maggio, pp. 15-28.
  13. Heidegger, M. (1947). Brief über den Humanismus, [Lettera sull’umanesimo]. In Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit, [La dottrina di Platone sulla verità], Bern, trad. it. di F. Volpi, Segnavia, Adelphi, Milano, 1987.
  14. Jones, E. (2017). One size fits all? Multiple intelligences and legal education. The Law Teacher, 51(1), 56-68.
  15. Knauer, N.J. (2015). Learning communities: A new model for legal education. Elon L. Rev., 7, 193-224.
  16. Lane, J.E. (Ed.) (2014). Building a smarter university: Big data, innovation, and analytics. critical issues in higher education. State University of New York, Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
  17. Niedwiecki, A. (2012). Teaching for lifelong learning: Improving the metacognitive skills of law students through more effective formative assessment techniques. Cap. UL Rev., 40, 149.
  18. Patton, M.Q. (1994). Developmental evaluation. Evaluation practice, 15(3), 311-319.
  19. Patton, M.Q. (2006). Evaluation for the way we work. Nonprofit Quarterly, 13(1), 28-33.
  20. Patton, M.Q. (2016). What is essential in developmental evaluation? On integrity, fidelity, adultery, abstinence, impotence, long-term commitment, integrity, and sensitivity in implementing evaluation models. American Journal of Evaluation, 37(2), 250-265.
  21. Rhode, D.L. (2012). Legal Education: Rethinking the Problem, Reimagining the Reforms. Pepp. L. Rev., 40(2), 437.
  22. Rorty, R. (1967). Introduction: Metaphilosophical Difficulties of Linguistic Philosophy. In R. Rorty (ed.), The Linguistic Turn: Recent Essays in Philosophical Method (pp. 1-41). Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
  23. Ryan, E., Shuai, X., Ye, Y. & Haomei, L. (2013). When Socrates meets Confucius: Teaching creative and critical thinking across cultures through multilevel Socratic method. Neb. L. Rev., 92(2), 289-348.
  24. Sheriff, K. (2015). The Empathetic Lawyer's Training Ground: Fostering Resilience to Vulnerability in Legal Education Through Transformation of Reactive Institutions to Reflective Institutions and Waking the Sleepy Responsive State. Recuperato da SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2676473 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2676473.
  25. Stake, R.E. (1975). Evaluating the Arts in Education: A Responsive Approach. Columbus, Ohio: Merrill.
  26. Stuckey, R. et al. (2007) The Best Practices Report for Legal Education. United States: Clinical Legal Education Association.
  27. Sullivan, W.M. (2018). After Ten Years: The Carnegie Report and Contemporary Legal Education. University of St. Thomas Law Journal, 14(2), 331-344.
  28. Sullivan, W.M., & Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. (2007). Educating lawyers: Preparation for the profession of law. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Wiley.
  29. American Bar Association (1992). Legal Education and Professional Development – An Educational Continuum. Chicago: American Bar Association.
  30. Mortari, L. (2002). La Grounded Theory: Una via per la formazione alla ricerca educative. In D. Orlando Cian (a cura di). Didattica universitaria tra teorie e pratiche (pp. 115-128). Lecce, Italy: Pensa Multimedia Editore.
  31. Mortari, L. (2003). Apprendere dall’esperienza: il pensare riflessivo nella formazione. Roma: Carocci.
  32. Mortari L. (2007). Cultura della ricerca e pedagogia. Prospettive epistemologiche. Roma: Carocci.
  33. Mortari, L. (2009). Ricercare e riflettere. Roma: Carocci.
  34. Mortari, L. & Silva, R. (2018). Words Faithful to the Phenomenon: A Discursive Analysis Method to Investigate Decision-Making Processes in the Intensive Care Unit. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 17, 1-14.

Luigina Mortari, Alessia Bevilacqua, Roberta Silva, Fedra Alessandra Pizzato, L’analisi delle pratiche discorsive come strumento a servizio dell’innovazione didattica nella Higher Education: un’esperienza nella legal education in "EXCELLENCE AND INNOVATION IN LEARNING AND TEACHING" 0/2021, pp 45-62, DOI: 10.3280/exioa0-2021oa11127