Learning Across Sites: New tools, infrastructures and practices - Earli

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250 O. Dysthe et al.
Law: strict structuring of the study activities and
spaces for dialogues
The study activities of law students in the undergraduate courses are structured in
weekly cycles of lectures, individual writing of drafts, group discussions of drafts
published in a VLE, peer and TA feedback and posting of final papers (Vines &
Dysthe, 2009). Groups of ten students are led by a teacher assistant (TA) who is an
advanced student. When the writing assignments are posted in the VLE, students
prepare individually for group meetings where the assignment is discussed and
possible outlines are negotiated. Each group is divided into three ‘commentator
teams’ to ensure student feedback on all assignments. Because the teams alternate,
a student receives feedback from different peers. The mandatory process is strictly
regulated: student drafts are due at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, peer comments must be
posted at 5 p.m. on Thursday, and each TA comments on half of the texts every
week, within Monday at 2 p.m. The group assignments are case- based, i.e. authentic
legal problems constructed by experienced law teachers. Student papers are not
graded. The final exam consists of a take- home group exam that is a prerequisite
for the individual, traditional sit- down exam, where students write essays similar
to the kind they have been practising.
The change from the earlier study system is radical. Organised activities used to
be restricted to lectures and seminars, individual study was the norm, writing was
voluntary and assessment was postponed until the end of the third semester, when
not surprisingly the failure rate was high. In our re- analysis of the empirical data we
looked for activity- types and patterns. We found the new study regime ‘dialogic’
in the sense that there are rich opportunities for discussion and exchange of views
among peers and with the tutor. However, we detected a contradiction between an
underlying authoritative view of teaching and learning and the dialogic elements.
Our interpretation is that this inhibits students in developing their own ‘voices’
and their ‘inner persuasive word’. The dialogic potentials seem to be overridden
by an implicit authoritarian understanding of knowledge and learning.
Discussion of findings at the law faculty
At the Faculty of Law, compulsory group attendance, writing assignments, feedback
system and frequent assessment have paid off in terms of a dramatic reduction of
students who fail. In this respect there is no doubt that the regime, including the
feedback model, has been ‘productive’. It is difficult to isolate the effect of feedback
as such from the system in which it is embedded, but the fact that comments
to student texts in one group amounted to approximately 15,000 words testifies
to its importance. Student evaluations also ascribe the good exam results to the
structured writing and feedback processes. The expectations and the criteria are
no longer a guessing game for the students (Sadler, 1998).
There are, however, signs that the system has some counterproductive effects.
First, in the interviews students talked about losing motivation because of the