Fiona Clements is an Assistant Professor in LPS and teaches Equity and Trusts and Law of Succession to UG and MA Law students.  She is the academic lead for the Wills, Trusts and Estates clinic, offering pro-bono advice to the public on inheritance, trust and probate issues.

I think all students can do well in assessments if we give them the best opportunity to prepare for the type of assessment

1. What led you to use whiteboard exercises for teaching intestacy law?

If you’re thinking about the distribution of property on death, it’s useful to know what the shape of the family looks like. And drawing a family tree – and this happens even in practice – it’s not just an academic exercise. Drawing a family tree is really important because then you can see who the potential beneficiaries might be. It was a natural progression when we were thinking about the distribution of property to think about what the family tree might look like and have a go at drawing it out. And students didn’t bring with them a lot of experience of drawing a family tree. They might have done a family tree when they were at primary school and learning about the Tudors or whatever, but they hadn’t really had much opportunity or much need to draw one, and that’s really how it started.

2. How do you adapt your approach for students with different confidence levels?

I scaffold all my teaching, so I always come in with easy questions that get progressively harder and I always encourage the students who I know are less confident to answer a question early on before they start getting harder. I think I have a slight advantage in teaching Law of Succession because it’s a final year module. And the students, they know me because I taught them a core earlier down in their learning. And we build up a really nice group dynamic because we tend to be smaller groups and they’ve all chosen it. I think there are things that I do that help support students who lack confidence.

A lot of students support each other in a way that perhaps they might not earlier on in their education because they don’t know each other so well. But we have an opportunity to really become a cohesive group. And the students root for each other and say ‘oh, go on, you can do it.’ And if they’re writing something on the whiteboard and they miss something out, someone will say, ‘oh, have you thought about this, that and the other?’ in a non-confrontational, non-critical way.

3. What role do anxiety and mental health play in classroom participation?

That’s a really good question.  Before we even get to the classroom participation, I would say that with mental health and anxiety issues the biggest barrier that I see them creating is actually stopping the students from coming to the sessions, because I think once the students have come into the session, there’s plenty that we can do to keep them engaged and feeling confident and well supported so that they’ll come back again. But I think it’s the fear of what might be going to happen and is a very real sort of barrier.

Also, I think it’s helpful for us to have an understanding of what mental health and anxiety issues students might be experiencing, because to have an understanding helps us to increase our empathy and our ways differently, maybe choosing different language to that’s a little bit more inclusive or more encouraging.

4. Why do confident students struggle with formal oracy assessments?

I think all students can do well in assessments if we give them the best opportunity to prepare for the type of assessment. Oracy assessments are assessments that they’ve not necessarily had much experience of taking before. I imagine students who’ve

done a language might have had an oral as part of their language GCSE or whatever. And if languages aren’t their thing, then that may or may not have been a happy experience for them.

There’s very little – even with lawyers who as a job, particularly the barristers, who are going to be standing on their feet and talking – I don’t think there are many opportunities for us to help the students to prepare for that sort of assessment. But I do believe that if we give students the best opportunity we can to prepare for that type of assessment, I don’t think there’s any reason why the confident and the less confident students

shouldn’t be able to do well. I also think it’s the way that we frame the type of assessment for them. Helping them to understand that we want them to do well and we’re giving them the best opportunity to do that.

An oral assessment that’s not a presentation gives them a really good opportunity to really explain and demonstrate what they do know in their own words because with an oral assessment, that’s more of a chat where the person who they’re talking to can give them prompts if they get stuck. This could be a really nice form of assessment for them to use and also a bit different to just having to write essays.

5. How do you gauge the success of interactive teaching methods?

Feedback from the students. Verbal feedback from the students, attendance of the seminars, they talk with their feet. If they’re enjoying it, then they come along and they want to get involved. Having a large number of students actively involved in seminars, I always think is a measure of success because they’re feeling confident enough to want to get involved and want to chat things through.

We also do a formative assessment in week 4 and week 9, so I can see how they’re getting on in terms of preparing for the exam and know that they’re on track with their learning. But mostly feedback from the students because they say they enjoy it. And the module recruits well. And I think that’s because students who’ve taken the module tell students in the year below that it was helpful and they enjoyed it and I like to think that’s the case.

6. Have you got any tips or advice for people who want to use this teaching method?

We know that the students tend to feel anxious when we put them on the spot and ask them a question about their prepared learning, so anything that gives them an opportunity to get involved in a less threatening way has to be good, whether it’s writing on the whiteboard as a way of not having to look at their peers, or using Lego. or using mini whiteboards and then holding up their answers, anything that takes away that pressure of putting a person on the spot, which is what students tell us they find so disconcerting. And it’s the prospect of being made to look foolish, I suppose, in front of their peers that discourages them from wanting to take part. And I think writing on the board works in my area.

But anything, any method that takes some of that pressure away is beneficial for students.  If they keep coming to the sessions, then that feels as though it’s a win before anything else happens.