Students were invited to choose an artefact from several artefacts introduced and discussed in a two hour seminar held in the Fryer library, hosted by the course convenor in conjunction with Fryer library staff and Emeritus Prof Gillian Whitlock. Students were advised to plan and structure their reflective essays in the following way: (i) report, (ii) relate and (iii) reason. This involves reporting on the artefact(s) chosen, conveying which artefact was chosen to inspire the reflective paper, to summarise what the artefact conveyed and why it was chosen; (ii) relating the artefact to wider socio-legal knowledge and understanding informed by prescribed reading (from earlier in the course) about offshore processing and human rights; and (iii) reasoning, by explaining why the artefact was important in enhancing and enriching the student's learning - their knowledge, understanding and appreciation of offshore processing and its human impacts.
Details
- CLASS SIZE
- 40-60
- CLASS LEVEL
- Post-graduate
- ASSESSMENT SECURITY
- Medium security
- TIME REQUIREMENTS
- Medium time
- GRADUATE ATTRIBUTES
- Independence and creativity, Ethical and social understanding
- CONDITIONS
- Sequence
- FEATURES
- Authentic, Problem based
- TAGS
- essay, object-centred learning, scaffolded, active learning, reflective/reflexive, research skills, analysis, community engagement
Advantages
This summative assessment helps student's develop critical insights into the lived experience of asylum seekers and encourages them to connect the lived experience (conveyed through assorted artefacts) with legal theory and doctrine.
Challenges
The assessment requires very careful scaffolding so that all students appreciate what is required in a reflective essay that invites consideration of artefacts and legal doctrine and invites students to articulate how their learning has progressed, developed and changed by studying artefacts in conjunction with legal doctrine.
Tips for implementation
Collaborate closely with relevant colleagues: ITaLI, the Fryer Library staff and Emeritus Prof Gillian Whitlock (School of Communication and Arts) in this instance. Ensure students can liaise with you to be certain about the parameters of the task which is unfamiliar to many domestic and international students in law.
Professor Peter Billings
p.billings@law.uq.edu.au
Dr Peter Billings is a Professor at the School of Law, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. In 2014 he was a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the School of Law, University of Warwick. His research interests are in particular areas of public law: administrative law, immigration and refugee law, social welfare law and human rights law. In 2016 he received an Australian Award for University Teaching - Award for Programs that Enhance Learning (Pro Bono Centre). Since 2010 he has received five teaching excellence awards within the School of Law for outstanding course/teacher evaluations, and in 2011 was awarded the Vice Chancellor's Equity and Diversity Award (UQ) for the Asylum and Refugee Law Project. Recently, he has published several papers on crImmigration law, policy and practice: including; "Regulating Crimmigrants Through the Character Test: Exploring the Consequences of Mandatory Visa Cancellation for the Fundamental Rights of Non-citizens in Australia" (2019) 71(1) Crime, Law and Social Change 1-23; and, "Getting Rid of Risky Foreigners: Promoting Community Protection at the Expense of Administrative Justice?" (2019) 47(2) Federal Law Review 231. He has edited and contributed two chapters for a socio-legal volume entitled Crimmigration in Australia - Law Politics and Society (2019, Springer), and co-authored a chapter (with R Ananian-Welsh) entitled "Counter-terrorism and the Exclusion of Refugees and Refugee-Citizens from Australia" in Terrorism and Asylum, J Simeon (ed.) Brill Nijhoff, 2020. He is currently co-authoiring a judgment (with Narelle Bedford) for Bringing Indigenous Voices into Judicial Decision-making (Watson, Woods and Douglas (eds)), co-authoring a text on the Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld) (with Nicky Jones) for LexisNexis 2020, and is leading an interdisciplinary project called Regulating Refugee Protection through Social Welfare Law, Policy and Praxis to be published by Routledge in early 2021. Find out more