Innovative projects transforming teaching and learning in Legal education Project 1: Faculty of Law Online Academic Tutor (FLOAT) “In an attempt to provide an effective transfer of knowledge, understanding, skills and competencies to law students, an innovative approach to teaching and learning was developed by the Faculty of Law in the form of the Faculty of Law Online Academic Tutor (FLOAT). FLOAT is a first of its kind that has the potential of revolutionising the manner in which the Faculty of Law transfers knowledge, competencies and skills to law students” (Vice Chancellor’s Distinguished Award Innovation of the Year Submission, (FLOAT) 2021). The project was conceptualised to take different stages, and to date, two phases of this project have been achieved and completed. The first phase: The first phase of FLOAT was designed to benefit law students irrespective of their level of study, as it was developed to be inclusive. Furthermore, this approach adopted a scenario-based structure which seeks to introduce students to authentic scenarios or cases relating to the practice of law. In this way, the objective was to close the gap between theoretical learning and practical learning. The practical approach of FLOAT would be to provide students with a scenario through text in assessments, but FLOAT provides videos that were produced specifically for FLOAT to mimic authentic scenarios from which students can develop the skills necessary to apply related aspects of the law to a certain set of facts. This type of interactive teaching methodology was infused to some extent, while the idea of gamification did not find its way within the first phase and rather characterised the second phase of FLOAT.1 1 The project team composed of: Prof D. Millard; Dr M. van Staden and Dr M. M. van Eck. Introduction This piece reflects on three innovative projects which have positively impacted recent teaching practices of law and fostered inclusive teaching and learning practices at the Faculty of Law at UJ. The objective of these innovative projects is to enhance legal education and to improve the design of pedagogy in law courses. It is critical to continuously reflect on the nature of teaching practices by law schools to ensure that the teaching of law remains relevant to the ongoing societal legal challenges that confront the country. It is also important to ensure that teaching practices are engaging and keep up with the latest technological developments. The recent innovative teaching and learning approaches to transform legal education underlie its accessibility to everyone and ensure that it is inclusive while it remains relevant to the market. With the increase in class numbers of students, it is imperative for the Faculty to be innovative in the new approaches of teaching law to ensure that every member of the class benefits from teaching and learning. Since 2019, the Faculty has embarked on advancing innovative teaching and learning tools in line with UJ’s strategic plan of integrating advanced technologies such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence (AI) into the curriculum. 43 A Journey of Innovation
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