The Covid-19 pandemic is a game-changer for both law students and Malaysian Higher Educational Institutions (MHEI). As such, Puteri Sofia Amirnuddin foresees that MHEI is looking into the possibility of integrating online learning as part of the student’s curriculum.
In fact, legal education providers such as Brickfields Asia College (BAC) and Advance Tertiary College have been forced to conduct online learning during the Movement Control Order (MCO) to prevent any further disruption towards the student’s learning process.
Aside from that, Raja Singham (Managing Director at BAC) mentioned that BAC has integrated business studies and legal technology modules into their undergraduate programme. This allows future students to develop a more holistic skill set and adapt to the changes in the legal job market.
From the talk, it is safe to assume that change will be constant – or as many call it ‘the new normal’. Raja also notes that disruption is happening in every sector and legal education is no exception.
With that, let us take a look at how Taylor’s University has coped with the changes during the pandemic. Puteri Sofia Amirnuddin was also able to provide some insights into the University’s plans for the future as the pandemic continues.
Online Learning Has Been Brought Forward
Overnight, the term ‘online learning’ became a common buzzword among those in the education line. For Taylor’s University, that was not a term they were unfamiliar with. Prior to the pandemic, the University has encouraged its lecturers to incorporate e-learning week every Semester.
The e-learning week at Taylor’s Law School takes place during Week 8 of the Semester in which undergraduate students are given the opportunity to develop their independent learning skills. With this, lecturers were required to design lessons to ensure that there is a balance between face-to-face activities and online activities.
However, the pandemic has brought about certain changes to the University. We will analyze it from 3 perspectives:
Academic Staff
The University has organized several webinars to help their undergraduate academic staff to deliver their modules online. The webinars cover areas on online individual and group assessments, online final examination and many others. These webinars managed to equip the undergraduate academic staff at Taylor’s University to fully embark into online teaching and learning.
- An example of webinars organized by Taylor’s University to help academic staff to deliver their modules virtually.
Primarily, the outbreak delayed the commencement of the undergraduate program by 2 weeks after the MCO was implemented. Furthermore, online learning plans for undergraduates students were also brought forward to the start of the Semester.
In this aspect, the academic staff for the Master of Laws programmes were not as adversely affected as the programmes were designed to consist of both face-to-face lectures and blended learning.
The blended learning initiative for postgraduate students consisted of various online learning activities. It was not limited to online lectures as it involved a number of online interactions between the lecturers and students. Therefore, the lecturers were already familiar with carrying out online teaching during the blended learning phase.
Undergraduate Students
Naturally, the Covid-19 outbreak disrupted the lesson plans for the undergraduates since the lecturers had to clock in extra hours to redesign their lessons and bring forward their online learning plans.
As noted in our previous article with Puteri Sofia Amirnuddin, she had made certain changes to her teaching style to ensure that her undergraduate students are receptive to online learning
You can read more about it here.
With the lack of physical interaction, it can be difficult to implement her gamification methods in her online classes. Furthermore, Puteri Sofia Amirnuddin explained that her undergraduate students expressed mixed feelings toward the whole online learning process. While some students were quick to adapt to the changes, there were also a handful of students who still long for face-to-face lectures.
In this situation, Puteri Sofia Amirnuddin tried to increase student interaction in these classes to ensure that her students are engaged in the lesson throughout the duration of the class. Here, it is up to the teacher as to how they would want to increase student interaction: it could be by way of cold-calling students, introducing online quizzes or encouraging students to switch on their video every 20 minutes.
In a time where convenience is key, lecturers will also immediately upload the recorded lesson on TIMeS (that is Taylor’s Moodle platform) after the lesson so students can always revisit the lesson during their free time.
Postgraduate Students
In light of Covid-19, the biggest difference for postgraduate students was that they had to sit for an online final examination for the first time. Like the undergraduate programme, online learning has been fully integrated into the postgraduate curriculum. As such, Puteri Sofia Amirnuddin and the rest of the lecturers have utilized Zoom, Microsoft TEAMS and Google Hangouts to carry out their online classes.
Considering that most of the students for the Master of Law Programmes are more mature, Puteri Sofia Amirnuddin and the lecturers felt that they need to take a different approach. Therefore, she has decided to only use gamification for the undergraduate modules.
For the postgraduate programmes, students are encouraged to engage in meaningful virtual discussions. They will share how certain laws or incidents have affected their work or the way their organization operates. Her postgraduate students also note that this approach differs from the traditional research-based methodology.
The University Ensures That Learning Resources Can Be Assessed Conveniently During The Online Learning Phase.
Without the luxury of being on campus, you may wonder how students gain access to the materials needed for their studies. Fortunately, Taylor’s University has thought of this problem and came up with a solution.
Prior to the start of the Semester, Mr. Harmahinder Singh, the Head of School of Taylor’s Law School has encouraged all lecturers to upload copies of e-books up on the module pages. In order to ensure that these e-books are of the latest version, he personally requested the librarian to purchase the latest version of all e-books which are relevant to law students.
He will also follow up on matters pertaining to e-books to ensure that students are not at a disadvantage when it comes to online learning. In fact, all lecturers have been advised to update all of our lecture notes so that the information contained in the presentation slides reflect the current changes in the law.
Students have also been advised to utilize Taylor’s Online Library databases in order to extract relevant journal articles to supplement their reading. Hence, with that:
Taylor’s University Plans for the Future
As a Taylorian (yes that is an actual term), Puteri Sofia Amirnuddin believes that the University is always up for the challenge to innovate in line with the demands in the industry.
Firstly, Taylor’s University has introduced a new curriculum framework where students can have the options to opt for free-electives, extensions or even a double degree in addition to the degree that the students have opted for.
The University has also support Puteri Sofia Amirnuddin’s method of teaching and gamification initiative which we have explored in our previous article.
Final Remarks and Puteri Sofia Amirnuddin’s Hope for the Future of Legal Education
From what we have discussed so far, it is clear that the pandemic has disrupted the legal education sector. It allowed the MHEI and legal educational institutions to gauge the strengths and weaknesses in the way they teach students. It is clear that Taylor’s University has kept its values to continuously innovate ahead of the challenge.
Puteri Sofia Amirnuddin believes that both students and institutions need to learn from this situation so that they can be prepared for the next global pandemic. As of now, no one knows when the Covid-19 crisis will end.
Puteri Sofia Amirnuddin hopes that all academics in MHEI are able to adapt their practices and tradition that was ingrained into them in the previous system. Now, academics can challenge themselves to try new approaches relating to teaching and learning in order to enhance the education process.
She also suggests a good initiative on part of the lecturers and MHEI is to continue developing their methods to deliver lessons online. There are various webinars on LinkedIn about online teaching and learning. Therefore, it would be beneficial for both lecturers and students to participate in these webinars to obtain insights on the best practices from academics around the world.
Lecturers can also try new methods such as case-based and problem-based learning or role playing a certain character in class to gamify their lessons. She emphasizes that when the students see the effort placed by the lecturers to make the session more engaging or interesting, students are more likely to participate in these sessions.
In conclusion, a student will always remember a teacher by the way he or she teaches. As an educator, Puteri Sofia Amirnuddin relentlessly innovates her teaching process in order to give what’s best for her students.
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