Intensive Teaching in Law Subjects

Abstract

The use of intensive teaching is increasing in Australian law schools. For some Australian law schools, most of their masters subjects are now taught on an intensive basis. This article reviews the literature on intensive teaching. The observation is made that there has been little discussion in the literature of the merits of such teaching in law schools. The article also reports the results of a statistical analysis comparing the student evaluations of a subject in the masters program of an Australian law school that was taught on an intensive basis with the student evaluations of the same subject taught by the same teacher across a full semester. Finally, the article reports the results of interviews with teachers at one Australian law school that makes extensive use of intensive teaching in its masters program. The teachers identify successful teaching techniques and they also identify some challenges with intensive teaching.