The Legal Education Academic: Research- Led Teaching

How could a legal academic combine reflection, scholarship and research with teaching? There is no simple answer since the concept of research-led teaching is complex. It encompasses numerous distinct but interrelated meanings. There is a variety of terminology used to describe different aspects of these nexuses between teaching and research. The terms ‘research-led education’ and ‘research-led teaching’ are used loosely and seem to evoke different meanings to different people, including the academics who write about them. In the following chapter I explore a number of these definitions by looking at some of the intersections of education with research. For each nexus, I include discussion and examples from my own research-led teaching practices. For instance, I engage in on-going action research which involves studying learning styles and assessment: observing, looking at critique, reflecting, and integrating the student feedback and my observations of the students into my teaching. This is a form of scholarship in itself and, as discussed at the end of the chapter, makes the practices translatable into both scholarly publication and applications for teaching awards