Looking At You Looking At Me Looking At You: Learning Through Reflection In A Law School Clinic
AbstractIn this paper the three authors describe a research project on reflection by staff, students and researchers on clinical legal education conducted in the SCALES clinic of Murdoch University School of Law at Rockingham in Western Australia. The research focussed on what the process of reflection could add to students’ learning in clinical legal education. The two goals of the project were to investigate the needs and views of students enrolled in clinical legal education and to develop a handbook to help the students think about their clinical learning. The authors examine the concept of the ‘reflective practitioner’ and identify the legal clinic as a place that can function as a mirror for both staff and students to reflect on their work and themselves in the three areas of pedagogy, professionalism and personality. The authors sought to understand students’ views of the supervision process, to analyse students’ needs to make clinical legal education more effective and fulfilling and to incorporate the students' views and experiences into a student manual on clinical legal education. The paper concludes with several insights gained from the reflection of both staff and students. |