melsc said:
I meant study notes, I never took notes in class...
Only limited notes are taken in class...IMO...the class teacher goes through the case...puts some people on the spot with some questions...explains the judgment...and analyses the judgment.
If you have done your reading you should have a at least a 75% understanding of what is going on in the case and you will only need to write down the points that the teacher mentions which you didn't find in the judgment.
I know there are some people who SAY , when they have a good teacher, that they don't do their readings and just come to class and listen to the teacher explain it all. I kind of don’t like these people much because they drag down the rest of the class. That's if the teacher even slows down to help them.
But really the law school teacher is simply a facilitator. In a perfect world everyone in the class has done the reading and knows the reasoning found in the judgment well enough to explain it to the class before he or she walks into the classroom. If this was the case the teacher would only have to deal with the basics of the judgment quickly leaving more time for analysis. Each class will differ. The best classes are the ones where everyone is on the ball and the teacher can get advanced fast without having to explain all the basics of the judge’s reasoning to those who have not read the case (for whatever reason...and no one ever does all their reading always on time...being it just being that time of session or you just didn’t get the case). Some teachers that I've had randomly put people on the spot each week to see if they have read the cases
Teacher 'Robert...do you agree with the reasoning' (other questions might be 'What is odd in this case?' 'Could the judge have approached the issue differently?')
Robert 'Yeah I agree'
Teacher 'Why?'
Robert 'Um...I didn't do the reading'
Teacher 'Anyone want to help Robert out?'
*Hands shoot up*...
Often the a good teacher will ask questions to see what understanding the student has of the case (if any).
Keen people get very frustrated when the teacher spends too much time going through the basics of the case slowly for the people who week after week make no effort to understand the case and totally rely on the teacher's slow spoonfeeding. As long as the majority have done their reading everything is fine.
For most of the courses at UNSW there isn't a text book. Just a case book that does little explaining and a lot of facilitation (ie heading 'this is what this case is about' followed by the case which the student has to read and workout). In any case I think a deeper understanding is garnered with reading cases. Textbooks only give you an outline. Also if you use the cases as a basis for your note taking and study you can mention points within the judgments in exams which show that you have an intimate knowledge of the case, rather than knowledge of the case that had been gleaned from a two paragraph summary in a text book. I believe teachers can tell the difference.
