REMOVING THE PEDAGOGICAL STRAITJACKET FROM LEGAL EXECUTIVE STUDIES IN AOTEAROA/NEW ZEALAND: EMBRACING CONSTRUCTIVIST ONLINE PEDAGOGIES

In the Aotearoa/New Zealand context there are a number of tertiary organisations that deliver vocational education and training qualifications. Institutes of technology (ITPs) (sometimes called polytechnics and are similar to community colleges) are publicly-funded organisations. As part of their role in contributing to society, these organisations develop in-house qualifications, but also deliver national and occupational/industry-based qualifications. Delivering a range of different qualifications can create a number of tensions that are challenging to resolve. This paper focusses on the challenges that arose from the external ownership of the education and training of legal executives by the New Zealand Law Society (NZLS). Due to the external ownership of the qualification, educators in the ITP context were not able to alter the pedagogical framework and assessment design to fit their educational setting or specific student needs. Furthermore, the programme, course outlines, assessment approaches and teaching guides remained essentially unchanged, except for legislative updates over the years. After a mandatory review by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) in 2016 it was decided by all stakeholders that a new diploma was required. This was the first step towards providing pedagogical freedom for tertiary organisations, such as ITPs, to deliver a programme that used more contemporary theories and approaches to teaching and learning. With a change on the horizon, my teaching team at the Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology jumped at the opportunity to develop a new, innovative programme for legal executives. As a result of our efforts, we were the first educational institution to gain NZQA accreditation to deliver the programme in 2016. The purpose of this paper is to outline how and why the qualification was redeveloped to address the review and be delivered completely online. Our approach to qualification re-development focussed on addressing the limitations raised in the review by incorporating threshold concepts based on current legal executive practices and leveraging constructivist pedagogical practices. For example, while a fully online learning environment can present many challenges to teachers and students, if a constructivist approach is built into the qualification design holistically, students in an online environment can thrive. The qualification re-design includes problem-based learning to bring in contemporary real-life examples and establishes communities of learning to allow students to interact and learn from each other in the online classroom. A key part of making the constructivist approach work online is the use of synchronous and asynchronous technologies such as Adobe Connect and Moodle. Being faced with moving to a fully online qualification is a daunting task, however, in this paper we argue the use of constructivist pedagogical practices enhances the experiences of teachers as well as students. Moreover, the constructivist approach provides a way for committed educators to respond creatively and effectively to the pressures of rapid pace of technological change and industry demand for work-ready graduates.