Teaching

Wow this needs an update – working on it – read the stuff below if you want – its only about 2.5 years or so out of date!

I used to do quite a lot of teaching as far as university teaching loads go. I probably had an average of 12 hours per week teaching plus office hours and project/dissertation supervision. I didn’t think I’d like teaching. I started my academic career as a researcher and really only took a lectureship because I needed a permanent job. However, over the last 8 years I have enjoyed most aspects of teaching and have developed a genuine interest in learning and teaching and legal education in particular. In June 2014 I took on the role as Head of Law for an interim period of 12 months and in June 2015 I was appointed to the role for a 3 year term. This means far less teaching about 3.5 hours per week last year and even less on average this academic year.

Law, Social Justice and Sustainability

This is a new first year module taught over 4 case studies. I will be teaching the first one which is on diversity in the legal profession. I run 3 lectures in the first week to set the scene and context and then we have a weekly tutorial for the following 4 weeks. The case study ends with a formative assessment. Then there’s a week off and then case study two starts

Medical Law

For the first time ever I will be teaching medical law. It’s not until semester 2 so I haven’t fully mapped it out yet but I am excited about it and have a big pile of reading material ready for it

Legal Relationships Sources and Institutions

Another first year module to which I will be contributing the odd session here and there. It covers basic legal skills, English Legal System stuff, EU and International institutions, a bit of constitutional and admin law and the other really important bits and pieces that law students really need to get their head round early on in their studies.

Previous teaching

For most of my time at Bradford I have taught Law and Society. This module was a final year elective module which usually attracted a small cohort – apart from the last 2 years where nearly 60 students took it. The main aim of the module was to get students thinking differently and critically about law, legal education and their studies so far. We examined traditional accounts of  what law is, what constitutes legal reasoning and what legal education is about. We then discussed a number of  issues from different persepctives allowing students to explore a variety of standpoints including feminist legal theory, queer theory and religious or critical race persepctives. This module has probably been my favourite to teach but it no longer exists in our revised degree programme – its ideas live on though – throughout the entire programme.

I have previously also taught Legal Skills  for which I compeltely re-wrote the course. I took over as Legal Skills module leader in 2012/13 and after making some minor changes for that year, 2013/14 saw a very different module in terms of delivery method and also content. Instead of having weekly lectures and tutorials, students will have a 4 hour workshop every two weeks. The module focused on basic skills such as information literacy, and writing skills as well as more specifically legal skills such as legal reasoning and statutory interpretation. Skills Workshop outlines for 2013/14 Semester 1 gives you an insight into the course. Hopefully whoever takes over next can build on that.

I also taught employment law at UG level as a final year option as well as on our MSc in Human Resource Management. The courses are very similar in terms of content although the mode of delivery is different. (2 hour weekly sessions with the MSc, 1 hour weekly lecture, fortnightly tutorial with the UGs). I have also in the past taught English Legal System and the First and Second Year EU Law course.