Final Year Curriculum Design Principles

1. Final Year Curriculum Design Principles • Conceptualising a capstone experience for law students • An effective capstone experience responds to diversity through: • Enhancement of students’ capacities to engage with diversity in their future professional lives, and to recognise and respond appropriately to potential discrimination; • Being accessible by, and inclusive of, all students, accounting for the diverse learning and professional needs of each student, including the need to make informed decisions about diverse career choices; and • Accommodating different programs and program progression. • An effective capstone experience provides closure through: • Supporting students to synthesise their learning in the program by building upon the knowledge, skills and capability development that has taken place over the entirety of the curriculum; • Providing enhanced opportunities for students to reflect on their personal and professional development over the course of their legal education experience and how that prepares them for their future professional and personal lives; and • Assisting students to attain an understanding of what it means to be a graduate of the discipline and begin to develop a professional identity. • An effective capstone experience promotes student engagement through: • Enabling students to apply their knowledge skills and capabilities in realistic contexts and placing students in active roles requiring authentic responsibility for their own work; and • Providing appropriate opportunities for reflection in order to achieve closure and transition from student identity to developing professional identity. • An effective capstone experience embeds aligned assessment practice through: • Assessing whether or not students are able to apply knowledge skills and capabilities in authentic and unfamiliar contexts; • Incorporating feedback from a multitude of sources, including peers and self-reflection, to enhance students’ capacity to make professional judgments about both their own work and that of others in order to become effective continuing learners and practitioners; and • Recognising the culminating nature of the capstone experience. • An effective capstone experience supports transition through: • Assisting students in beginning to develop a sense of professional identity and transition into a diverse range of professional destinations; • Consolidating students' lifelong learning skills, such as resilience, self-confidence and self-efficacy, as the foundation for their future professional and personal lives; • Providing opportunities for students to consolidate their career development and planning processes; • Enabling students to enhance their professional skills and competencies, including moral reasoning, ethical decision making and professional judgement, so they can be applied in complex environments post graduation; and • Assisting students to use their university education in their roles as ethical citizens and leaders in the global community. • An effective capstone experience is evaluated and monitored through: • Curriculum design that is evidence-based and enhanced by regular evaluation that leads to curriculum development and renewal throughout the entirety of the curriculum; and • Ensuring all students have achieved the discipline threshold learning outcomes. • Contact Details • Project Leader: Professor Sally Kift (s.kift@qut.edu.au) • Project Team: Professor Des Butler, Rachael Field, Judith McNamara, Catherine Brown • Information in relation to the project is available from the project website at http://www.ljrc.law.qut.edu.au/research/projects/capstone/ The Australian Learning and Teaching Council has received funding from the Australian Government for this project. The views expressed in this material do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Government.