University of Tasmania, Australia

Ms Sarah Jane Hiller

PhD Candidate

BA/LLB (Hons)

Contact Details

Legal Practitioner (1995-2010)
Lecturer and Tutor in Law UTAS 2002 to date.

PhD Topic

'Legal Education: Teaching Ethics and Legal Professionalism to Foundation Law Students and the effectiveness of reflective journals as a pedagogical tool' 

The research explores whether it is appropriate to teach ethics and professionalism in the foundation years of an undergraduate law degree. Having established that it can be appropriate to include the study of ethics and professionalism within the first year law curriculum, the research further investigates the efficacy of reflective journaling for this purpose. In examining reflective journaling it also examines whether or not there is an appropriate reflective taxonomy for legal education. Having established that no one model is particularly suited to legal education it moves on to show that reflective journaling can have merit it also shows that other less traditional pedagogical techniques also offerpotentially significant benefits to students to assist with engagement and transformative learning. These techniques include variety with the course delivery, the use of guest lecturers, interactive dialogue and group work, the use of popular culture, real life court observations and critical thinking pedagogy using judgments, analytical skills, role play and oral communication skills. Suchtechniques supplemented with reflective journaling collaboratively with theaims and purposes of foundation course, can provide a potentially rich learning environment for foundation law students to explore not only ethical values associated with professionalism but issues of social justice and equity.

Publications

Joint publication with Dr Olivia Rundle:
Teaching self-reflection to law students in a dispute
resolution unit' (2013) 23 ADRJ 168-178

Supervisors

• Professor Rick Snell
• Dr Natalie Brown

Conference Participation

Papers presented at:

• First Year in Law Conference at Gold Coast, July 2011
• Post Graduate Research Conference at Cradle Coast, August 2011
• Poster presentation in Brisbane Legal Education Conference, July 2011