Putting authentic learning on trial: Using trials as a pedagogical model for teaching in the humanities

Abstract

Research on authentic learning has been predominantly focussed on skills-based training: there is a paucity of research on models of authentic learning available for adaptation in the humanities undergraduate classroom. In this article, I will seek to address this gap by proposing that legal trials are ideal models for designing authentic learning scenarios in undergraduate teaching and learning contexts, with a specific focus on the humanities. First, I discuss why and how the structure of legal trials can produce authentic learning environments. Second, I present an undergraduate classroom project that combined two disciplinary fields – Shakespearean drama and criminal law – in an effort to enhance student learning and engagement. I outline how the authentic learning scenario (ALS) was implemented and evaluated and, finally, reflect on the barriers, challenges and potentially transformative effect of authentic learning environments on students and educators. This new intervention combines legal studies and English literature in order to create authentic learning environments to increase interactions amongst students, enhance students’ learning, and foster conditions for transformative learning.

Keywords

Authentic learning law Shakespeare undergraduate classroom knowledge organization self regulation innovative pedagogy transformative learning student engagement

Authentic learning is an active learning model that has a significant impact on student learning outcomes (Bransford et al., 1990; Diamond et al., 2011; Lombardi, 2007a; Newmann et al., 1996; Rule, 2006). Authentic learning environments ‘help students become actively engaged in the learning process, rather than passive receptors of content knowledge’ (Burke, 2009: 10). Herrington et al. (2003) assert that authentic learning “encourages and supports learners in their development of skills in self-regulation and self-learning” (p. 68). Furthermore, authentic learning can enhance the transfer of deep and lifelong learning (Barab and Landa, 1997; Herrington et al., 2003). Reeves et al., in ‘Authentic Activities and Online Learning’ (2002), outline 10 design principles that can generate authentic learning environments: the activities must have real world relevance; there is an ill-defined problem that does not have a single solution; the scenarios are complex and, therefore, require students to investigate solutions over a sustained amount of time; the activities provide students with opportunities to approach the problem from multiple perspectives and employ a variety of resources; collaboration is integral to the activity; learners are invited to reflect on their learning as individuals and as members of a team; the scenarios encourage interdisciplinary perspectives and encourage integrative thinking across different subject areas; assessment is directly related to the activities and should reflect as much as possible the real world assessment; authentic activities create polished products that are valuable and complete; and, finally, this model of learning encourages diversity of outcomes and competing solutions (Herrington et al., 2003: 63).

Over the past 15 years, there is a growing body of research on authentic learning in professional and vocational contexts, including science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education (Jonassen, 2007; Kelly et al., 2008; Koenders, 2006; Saxe, 1988; Weber et al., 2008), Health and Medical education (Dreyfus and Dreyfus, 1986; Driessen et al., 2003; Jamison, 2006; Keppell et al., 2003; Petraglia, 2009), business schools and MBA programs (Ladyshewsky and Ryan, 2006; Quinn et al., 1996) and computer science (Chang et al., 2010; Shaffer and Resnick, 1999). A great deal of attention has also been devoted to creating authentic learning environments through online platforms and e-learning (Brickell and Herrington, 2006; Collins, 1991; Duffy and Jonassen, 1992; Kim and Reeves, 2007; Merrienboer and Brand-Gruwel, 2005; Herrington and Oliver, 2000; Oliver et al., 2007). The legal education field has long been preoccupied with mock trials and moot courts as models of problem-based learning, and in the past two decades legal educators have explored how simulations of courtrooms enhance student learning (Ambrosio, 2006; Barton et al., 2007; Dhooge, 1999; McDevitt, 1998; Wiener et al., 2011; Zimmerman, 1999; Levin 1998). However, research on authentic learning has been predominantly focussed on skills-based training: there is a paucity of research on models of authentic learning available for adaptation in the humanities undergraduate classroom. In this article, I will seek to address this gap. This new intervention in the field of active and authentic learning combines legal studies and English literature in order to create authentic learning environments. This is a pedagogical innovation because it introduces novelty into the context of disciplinary-specific humanities and liberal arts classrooms with the goal of increasing interaction amongst students and enhancing students’ learning (Béchard and Pelletier, 2001).

In the following article, I will discuss legal trials as a model of authentic learning for the humanities and the discipline of English literature specifically. First, I will discuss why a legal trial is an appropriate model for creating authentic learning environments in undergraduate humanities classrooms. Second, I outline an undergraduate classroom project undertaken in Winter 2012 that combined two disciplinary fields – Shakespearean drama and criminal law – in an effort to enhance student learning and engagement. This project – titled ‘To Be or not to Be Guilty: Putting Shakespeare on Trial for Fraud’ – is an example of an authentic learning scenario (ALS) that I then measured the participants’ perceptions of learning and engagement. I outline how the ALS was implemented and evaluated and, finally, reflect on the barriers, challenges and potentially transformative effect of authentic learning environments on students and educators.

Part I. Trials and authentic learning: The theoretical model

While it is important to acknowledge that trials are only one facet in the practice and study of law, trials provide a particularly good model of authentic learning that can be adapted to humanities-focussed teaching and learning scenarios. Trials have real world relevance, present a problem that needs to be defined and require participants to form arguments, ask students to undertake sustained investigation over a long period of time in preparation for a trial, encourage participants to incorporate multiple types of evidence and perspectives of witnesses, engage learners in collaborative work as they build their respective cases, offer opportunities for integrative learning across disciplines of law and the humanities, ensure that the outcome is not predetermined, and provide a performative space of a trial as a polished final product that has value. Furthermore, the disciplinary-specific competencies in the humanities complement the professional competencies in law; perhaps most importantly, making an argument in a classroom or courtroom uses similar rhetorical structures and knowledge organization (cf. Cicero’s De Oratore), deploys persuasive strategies (cf. Aristotle’s three artistic proofs: pathos, ethos, logos), requires careful attention to evidence, tailors arguments to particular audiences depending on the context (cf. Quintilian’s three branches of rhetoric: epideictic, judicial or forensic, deliberative), and anticipates refutations in order to anticipate alternate interpretations and strengthen the original argument. Legal precedents – past cases that establish a body of knowledge – mirror scholarly articles (i.e. secondary sources) that scholars use for persuasive force in argumentative essays and research articles. In fact, Quintilian, in Institutio Oratoria, argues that the attainment of rhetoric as an art form requires an intimate ‘knowledge of justice’ (2.15.29) because ‘there are conceptual connections between rhetoric and justice which rule out the possibility of [an] amorally neutral conception of rhetoric. For both, rhetoric is “speaking well,” and for both “speaking well” means speaking justly’ (Logie, 371).

Selecting the type of trial model should be informed by a number of factors, including the identified learning goals, level of the course, subject matter and institutional culture within which the course is delivered. The profile of the students, pedagogical strategies of the instructor and subject matter must align within the authentic learning environment: for example, a first year undergraduate class dedicated to a survey of English literature has different learning goals than a senior seminar on seventeenth-century poetry and prose; therefore, the material must be aligned in different ways. Nevertheless, legal trials correspond with the design principles of authentic learning environments in fundamental ways (Table 1).

Table 1.

Legal trials as models of authentic learning.

Authentic learning: 10 design elements (Reeves et al., 2002)	Legal trials: Corresponding features
1. Real-world relevance	Trials are an important part of the judicial system and circulate in the cultural and social imaginary for members of a civil society. Individuals might have first-hand experience as witnesses, litigants, or jury members. They also have second-hand experience (e.g. via popular culture in television shows, movies, literature).
2. Ill-defined problem	The problem is a question that must be determined at the outset from a collection of facts. When an issue or action is not easily resolvable, and when there is no clear solution, the issue or action can be resolved through legal processes in the justice system, and proceeds to trial.
3. Sustained investigation	In order to prepare for trial, participants must prepare over weeks, months, and sometimes years. Prosecution and defence teams, as well as witnesses and expert witnesses, undertake significant time researching and preparing for trial.
4. Multiple sources and perspectives	Trials are by their very nature polyphonic; that is, they incorporate multiple voices and perspectives. Evidence is presented in many forms, including witness testimony, factual evidence, forensic or material evidence. Furthermore, prosecution and defence teams (or plaintiffs and litigants) argue from diverse perspectives.
5. Collaboration	Trials are collaborative pursuits: prosecutors and defence attorneys work with one another as well as with witnesses, legal researchers, paralegals, and a range of other team members to build their arguments.
6. Reflection	Trials make visible the structure of arguments, the necessity of evidence, the ability to draw on case precedents as secondary sources.
7. Interdisciplinary perspectives & diverse roles	Law is interdisciplinary: members of trial teams must be able to interpret evidence that is often specialized and complex (e.g. medical or forensic evidence) and engage expert witnesses to translate difficult disciplinary knowledge in an accessible and relevant manner to non-disciplinary participants (e.g. judge or jury members).
8. Integrated assessment	Trials provide verdicts that assess the degree of success each side achieved in the presentation of their respective arguments (e.g. Judges provide summary judgments either in writing or in oral delivery. These judgments also include a rationale of the decision). Instructors can explore how trial decisions have the potential to mirror the type of feedback undergraduate students receive on articles in both summative and formative assessment.
9. Polished products	A trial is a polished product insofar as it is a performance. It has a beginning and an end, unfolds over real time, requires engaged participants, and has resolution (a final decision).
10. Multiple interpretations and outcomes	Trials have many different outcomes (e.g. verdicts, decisions, sentences).

Whether or not an instructor chooses to design authentic learning environments is influenced by factors in the institutional culture within which they operate. Institutions that support innovative pedagogies – like authentic learning – offer support and resources to innovators from colleagues and administration, an interest in disseminating the results of innovation (e.g. in evaluation, promotion, and review, or through the Research Office), and provide financial resources in the form of funds for innovation and access to pedagogical expertise (Hannan and Silver, 2000). Microcultures – between faculty in local teaching and learning cultures – and local level leadership both play important roles in the perceptions of value of innovative pedagogies (Roxa and Martensson, 2013, 2015), and the number of significant relationships amongst faculty within the microculture influences the way educators think and teach (M̊rtensson et al., 2014). Other factors that impact the likelihood of pedagogical innovation include small class sizes, manageable teaching loads, teaching releases to design new courses, access to teaching and learning centres with educational developers available to help with design and alignment, an evaluation structure that recognizes and rewards innovative teaching, acknowledgment in the promotion, tenure and review process that innovative teaching requires risk, and multiple mechanisms for evaluating pedagogical excellence. While this list is not exhaustive, it does provide some of the possible structures in place at the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels of an institutional culture that can support faculty as they engage in innovative pedagogies and design authentic learning environments.¹

There are many available trial models that provide different kinds of processes and structures depending on the level of complexity and the question under investigation. For example, a criminal trial differs from a civil trial in the commencement of proceedings (the Crown initiates criminal proceedings against the accused while civil trials are between private litigants that might be individuals, companies, or organizations), the preparation for trial (e.g. pleadings, statements of claim, interlocutory motions, pre-trial discovery, witness depositions, subpoenas), the conduct of trials (e.g. examination and cross examination), the burden of proof, the mechanism for judgement, and outcome/consequences (e.g. jail sentence, fines, probation, damage awards, injunctions, an appeals process). Other models for trials include human rights commissions or tribunals, truth and reconciliation commissions and international court systems. When designing an authentic learning environment, educators may use one element of a specific trial model (such as a discovery or interrogatory, a preliminary hearing, or a pre-trial conference that presents incriminating and exonerating evidence), or the instructor might choose to design the entire course around a trial. While choosing from a diversity of trials can be daunting, educators do not need to be experts in law to adapt the model for their purposes. Legal trials all share the same basic principles of natural justice (Table 2):

Table 2.

Processes of legal trials that inform authentic learning.

Legal process	Trial conditions	Classroom design considerations
Commencement of proceedings	Who initiates the process? (e.g. the Crown initiates criminal proceedings against the accused while civil trials are initiated by private individuals, companies, or organizations)	What is the issue at stake? What kind of argument do you use? What is the ill-defined problem?
Trial preparation	How do the teams prepare, research and state their arguments? (e.g. pleadings, statements, motions, pre-trial discovery, witness affidavits, subpoenas)	What information do you have to gather?vHow do you find this information?vWhat kind of research do you need to do?
The conduct of trials	How is evidence presented? How are arguments presented? (e.g. through calling witnesses and engaging in examination and cross-examination, or appearing before a commission with arguments)	Who do you need to persuade? What persuasive strategies do you use and how do they differ depending on your audience?
The standard of proof	How do you use evidence effectively? What weight should be accorded to what evidence? What constitutes incriminating versus exonerating evidence? What is a balance of probabilities? What constitutes beyond a reasonable doubt? What is disputed and what is indisputable?	How do you prove something? What evidence do you employ? What are the strengths and weaknesses of your argument? How do you counter the strengths of an alternate argument? How do you account for weaknesses in your own argument?
Judgement	Who has the authority to resolve the case? (e.g. judge, jury, commission, panel of judges)	What is necessary evidence and argumentation to persuade the person or people assess the efficacy of your argument?
Outcome	What is the nature of punishment (e.g. restorative, retribution, punishment, reconciliation) If the accused is found guilty, what are the possible sentences? If a party is found liable, what are the ramifications?	What is at stake? What has been resolved? Are there still unresolved issues?
Appeals	If the decision is unsatisfactory, what are the processes of appealing the verdict?	How do you challenge a decision? What is your recourse? What qualifies as an appeal?

Part II. Legal trials as authentic learning: A case study in Shakespeare and Canadian Criminal Law

In Winter 2012, I designed an ALS in ENG223 Elizabethan Shakespeare that arraigned Shakespeare on a charge of fraud in the Canadian Criminal Court system. The idea for the design model was inspired in the fall of 2011 when a Hollywood film – Anonymous – called into question William Shakespeare’s authorship and promoted the Oxfordian theory that Shakespeare could not have written the 38 plays, two narrative poems and 154 sonnets that we ascribe to his canon. This was not a new charge laid against Shakespeare: various conspiracy theories have circulated since the nineteenth century. Anti-Stratfordians suggest that William Shakespeare lacked the education, aristocratic sensibility, overseas experience, or familiarity with the royal court to write the plays and poems that make up what we understand as Shakespeare’s body of work. Over the years many candidates have been presented as alternatives, including Sir Francis Bacon, Edward de Vere (17th Earl of Oxford), Christopher Marlowe and William Stanley (6th Earl of Derby). Despite the lack of credible evidence, the number of books, articles, websites and films has proliferated in the last 20 years, thanks in part to new technologies of dissemination and a cultural appetite for conspiracy theories that question established forms of authority (van Prooijen and Acker, 2015; Wood et al., 2012).

Most Shakespearean scholars are so dismissive of the authorship question that they refuse to address it in their research or in the classroom. When they do address the issue, they frame their interventions with apologies and disclaimers (Garber, 2009; Greenblatt, 2005; Shapiro, 2010). What early modern scholarship overlooks, with a few notable exceptions (Shapiro, 2010), is how the authorship question draws attention to the different assumptions underlying the conspiracy theories, and how deconstructing the ideological forces underlying the conspiracy theories (e.g. of class, gender, geography) reveals as much about the agendas of the Anti-Statfordians and their context as it does about authorship and writing conditions in early modern England. While the nuances and competing theories animating the authorship debate are beyond the scope of this article – and it should suffice that arguments for questioning Shakespeare’s authorship lack credible evidence – the renewed interest in Shakespeare’s authorship presented an excellent pedagogical opportunity to explore the authorship question in order to engage students in the process of analysis and debate while also enhancing students’ understanding of the social and historical context of sixteenth-century England.

In order to create an authentic learning environment, I combined the issue of Shakespeare’s authorship with the structure of mock trial and incorporated the 10 design elements for authentic learning outlined by Reeves et al. (2002). The real world relevance of the authorship issue – the fascination in popular culture over the authorship question and the newly released film – generated a high level of interest and engagement in the project. The authorship question presents an ill-defined problem: for example, were all his works written by someone else or just a few or any of them? While there is a great deal of circumstantial evidence supporting Shakespeare’s authorship, there is no conclusive evidence. In the months leading up to the trial, students tackled historical and legal research in a sustained manner, collaborated with one another within the classroom and in interactive research labs, and assumed diverse roles – in acting, dramaturgy, event planning, trial teams, legal researchers – that encouraged integrative learning and an interdisciplinary approach. The students who participated in the project had different backgrounds with diverse career goals. Furthermore, the trial model created conditions whereby the participants could incorporate a number of different perspectives, interpretations, and possible outcomes. The trial performance was open to the public, and integrated the audience into the final product by inviting them to participate as jurors: the verdict was dependent on the ability of the prosecution and defence teams to sway public opinion. Finally, the students were assessed based on the legal briefs and reports they compiled in advance of the trial, and were asked to reflect on their experience throughout the authentic learning process. I also designed a qualitative and quantitative tool to assess perceptions of learning and the efficacy of the ALS, which I discuss below.

A detailed description of the project

ENG223: Elizabethan Shakespeare is a three-credit, 200 level undergraduate university course with an average enrolment of 40–60 students, and three hours of classroom time per week (taught over two 1.5 hour periods) during a 13 week semester. While the course is largely populated with English Literature Majors and Honours students, approximately one-third of students in the course are from other departments, both within and outside of the Humanities, who take this course as an elective. The demographics of the class largely mirror the student population of the small, primarily undergraduate, residential, liberal education university where the course is taught: students are predominantly aged 19–23; 40% of students are from Quebec, 40% from the rest of Canada and 20% international students (including international exchange students). Ninety percent of students live within one kilometre of campus and approximately 30% of students in the course are not native English speakers.² The course is delivered every winter term in the format of a lecture course by the same full time, tenured professor; this ALS was designed to engage students in an interactive and collaborative manner in the first six weeks of term to enhance student-centred learning for the entirety of the 13 week course. The ALS was designed to build on learning principles to activate prior knowledge, improve knowledge organization, increase students’ motivation, enhance self regulation, and develop both competencies and mastery over disciplinary-specific content (Ambrose et al., 2010).

In order to activate students’ prior knowledge, the 51 undergraduate students enrolled in ENG223: Elizabethan Shakespeare were divided into 10 working groups (five to six students per group) on the first day of class and assigned one topic related to the Shakespeare authorship question (e.g. early modern literacy, print culture, grammar school education system, Shakespeare’s contemporaries).³ In researching the historical and social context within which Shakespeare lived, students were asked to activate their prior knowledge. As Ambrose et al. state, ‘If students’ prior knowledge is robust and accurate and activated at the appropriate time, it provides a strong foundation for building new knowledge. However, if knowledge is inert, insufficient for the task, activated inappropriately, or inaccurate, it can interfere with or impede new learning’ (p. 4). Class discussions in the first week were designed to identify prior knowledge that might impede new learning: for example, early modern and contemporary ideas of authorship differ considerably, and the concept of intellectual property, plagiarism and other modern legal and ethical codes were anachronistic in sixteenth-century England. Students were encouraged to be attentive to their own assumptions and cautioned about the pitfalls of making false historical generalizations without careful, nuanced research.

During the second week of the semester, students were trained on research methodologies during two sessions in the library’s interactive training lab in order to conduct historical research and organize their new knowledge in effective and integrative ways. According to Ambrose et al., when ‘knowledge structures are accurately and meaningfully organized, students are better able to retrieve and apply their knowledge effectively and efficiently’ (p. 5). Each group was asked to compile research related to their topic, synthesize information and present – as a submitted assignment – a 600–800 word ‘legal memo’ that was divided into three sections: (1) the facts pertaining to their topic; (2) an interpretation of the facts for the prosecution team; (3) an interpretation of the facts for the defence team. The assessment was two-fold: students were evaluated on the quality of research they identified (from legitimate scholarly sources) and the ability to organize this knowledge as evidence for two different, competing sides of the authorship debate. The assignment sought to help students develop a ‘complex network that connects important facts, concepts, procedures, and other elements” in coherent and meaningful ways (Ambrose et al., 2010: 43). In an effort to ensure that assessment was integrative, evaluation in the course was both formative and summative: students were evaluated on their ‘legal memo’ (for their critical thinking, argumentation, and research skills), on their formative writing reflections (to enhance metacognition and develop written communication skills), their participation and trial preparation (for their level of engagement in creative collaborations as well as their ability to problem solve), a final research essay, and a final exam.

The first phase of the ALS – the three-week in-class instruction and assessment – was completed once ENG223 students submitted their group projects. The second phase of the ALS required students to work together outside classroom hours to co-construct the trial performance. Ten students volunteered to join the trial teams (five students for the prosecution, five students for the defence), six students animated the historical witnesses, eight students ran the Advertising and Promotion Committee (responsible for designing posters, promoting the event on campus, writing opinion pieces in the student newspaper, contacting local media, and designing a social media strategy), and seven students sat on the Legal Advisory Committee (where they did extensive research around the Canadian criminal court system and determined how we could ensure verisimilitude with legal procedure, rules, discourse, and criminal terminology for our trial). Six students took responsibility for event planning, five students organized the evidence, costumes and props for the trial, and nine students created a Witness Resource Committee (where they helped script historically accurate responses to the questions the prosecution and defence teams wanted to ask the actors). Participation in the second phase of the ALS was not assessed formally in ENG223. Despite the optional nature of the second phase, the high level of student participation was due in part to the high degree of autonomy they were given over their learning journey: ‘motivation plays a critical role in guiding the direction, intensity, persistence, and quality of the learning behaviours in which they engage’ (Ambrose et al., 2010: 5). Students initiated their own differing degrees of involvement; those who were uncomfortable about more public roles chose to participate as researchers or coaches while others sought out opportunities to improve their rhetorical and public speaking capacities. This variation in involvement – and its effect on the learning experience of students – is addressed below in the evaluation of the ALS.

The second phase of the ALS encouraged students to perform the complex task of designing and implementing a trial while also gaining mastery over disciplinary-specific content. To develop mastery, ‘students must acquire component skills, practice integrating them, and know when to apply what they have learned’ (Ambrose et al., 2010: 5). Through analysis of the legal memos, and during several ‘pre-trial conferences,’ the trial teams built their arguments based on the research compiled in the legal memos. Legal professionals volunteered to act as our legal advisors and run seminars on fraud, intellectual property, and authorship within the Canadian Criminal Code. Students had an opportunity to learn from practitioners in the field, and some of the students involved in the trial have since graduated and gone to law school. Participating students also benefitted from sessions with practioners in the field to understand legal process, language and procedures. Once the trial teams established their questions, historically accurate answers were scripted for the witnesses. Students, many of whom had never acted before, played the witnesses – William Shakespeare, Anne Hathaway, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, and First Folio editors, John Heminges and Henry Condell. Faculty members of the Drama Department volunteered as drama coaches and dramaturges: they met with the witnesses and members of the defence and prosecution teams several times in advance of the trial to ensure that they fully grasped the three-dimensional nature of the witnesses they were examining, cross-examining, or playing.

On 24 February 2012, Shakespeare was prosecuted for fraud in a performance that was open to the public. For the most part, participants had no experience public speaking or acting, but their mastery of the material, hard work and enthusiasm created an energy in the room that was palpable: audience members participated throughout the trial, clapping, laughing, chanting and urging the judge (the University President) to find the defendant guilty or not guilty. The crowd was engaged from their arrival (where student–protestors held signs with slogans such as ‘Out, out, damn charges’ and ‘Methinks Shakespeare doth protest too much’) to the finale (where Queen Elizabeth I arrived and exonerated Shakespeare in deus ex machina style).

Part III. Measuring the impact of designing authentic learning environments

Quantitative analysis

In order to measure the efficacy of the authentic learning environment, I gauged perceptions of learning and engagement with a quantitative survey, which was designed to assess whether the learning goals were met and also to assess the impact of the exercise on individual and collaborative learning:⁴

88.6% of participants agreed or strongly agreed that ‘Shakespeare’s trial successfully connected skills and knowledge from multiple sources and experiences’;

89% participants agreed or strongly agreed that ‘The assignment encouraged us to explore diverse and even contradictory points of view’;

90% participants agreed or strongly agreed that ‘Shakespeare’s trial helped me understand Shakespeare’s authorship issues contextually’;

91.4% and 89% participants agreed or strongly agreed that ‘The group project provided a socio-historical context that gave me a deeper understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare’s plays’ and ‘The group project taught me more about Shakespeare’s contemporaries (e.g. Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Heminges and Condell)’ respectively;

When asked if ‘Shakespeare’s Trial Project’ encouraged me to develop the following core competencies, ‘Critical thinking’ 89.5% participants agreed or strongly agreed, while 87.6% of participants agreed or strongly agreed that the developed the competency of ‘Creative and Adaptive problem solving’.

Furthermore, students demonstrated a high level of engagement, reflected in a higher level of class attendance (11% higher than the previous three-year average), rigorous class discussions, and the improvement in writing and argumentation skills in the final essays (reflected in a seven percent increase in the final essay marks over the previous three-year average).

Qualitative assessment

According to Meyer and Land (2005), ‘it is hard to imagine any shift in perspective that is not simultaneously accompanied by (or occasioned through) an extension of the student’s use of language’ (p. 273). They assert, ‘Through this elaboration of discourse new thinking is brought into being, expressed, reflected upon and communicated. This extension of language might be acquired, for example, from that in use within a specific discipline, language community or community of practice, or it might, of course, be self-generated’ (p. 274).⁵ With this in mind, I encouraged participants to reflect on their learning experiences in an anonymous reflective writing exercise at the end of the term. Three central narrative threads emerged from an analysis of these written testimonials: first, students identified their transformation as people, as members of the academy, and as learners. Second, students located the authenticity of the ALS in the dynamic interplay between a rigorous academic approach and the entertaining, sociable dimension of the learning environment. Finally, students identified the interdisciplinary and collaborative aspects of the ALS as the most valuable factors that enhanced perceptions of their learning experience.

The first recurring narrative revealed that students were aware of their experience as a process of transformative learning. For example, one student said, ‘The experience became an integral part of my life that changed my views of myself and gave me the courage to put myself in uncomfortable situations that I knew would teach me something new … The experience helped me to grow as a person and an academic.’ Another student remarked on their transformation as a learner and member of the academy: ‘There's no question the mock-trial broadened my perspective and it opened me up to new and creative ways of thinking about education and the value of cross-discipline cooperation. I even surprised myself with what I what was capable of as part of this team.’ Students’ career trajectories were also transformed: ‘Before this event, i had never considered myself going to graduate school, now i am seriously contemplating continuing my studies after university … It taught me so much more than i could learn in a classroom.’ Students gained ‘courage’ and ‘confidence’ and were ‘surprised’ at their capacities for engagement, their roles as collaborators, and their ability to master disciplinary-specific content. These responses indicate that the design principles of authentic learning have the potential to create transformative learning experiences, and that there are deep and long lasting effects on students’ ontological, affective and cognitive spheres (Meyer and Land, 2003, 2005).

Barab et al. (2000) argue that authenticity occurs ‘not in the learner, the task, or the environment, but in the dynamic interactions among these various components … [so that] authenticity is manifest in the flow itself, and is not an objective feature of any one component in isolation’ (p. 38). Students articulated the value of taking an integrative approach to their learning experiences, whereby content mastery and the sociable aspects of the event merged. One student remarked,‘No other event that I have taken part in, no other event at Bishop's, has involved that level of collaboration of students and faculty across disciplines while still fostering sound learning and being extremely educational. Not to mention quite entertaining. As a business student, it was a great opportunity to get out of my comfort zone and work with people who have all different interests and backgrounds.’ According to the qualitative responses, the ‘authenticity’ in the ALS came from the dynamic interactions between the many components – mastery of content, the development of research skills, the experiential nature of the ALS – and framed around an activity that was ‘entertaining’ and ‘fun’: ‘I loved being involved in a project where we could see our research consulted and eventually blown up into a full-fledged trial. It really proves that you can merge work and activities while providing an interesting perspective on any topic.’ The ALS was designed to help students develop competencies that were relevant and applicable while ultimately enhancing their learning through heightened engagement and interaction with one another and with the disciplinary-specific content.

In their accounts of the ALS, students repeatedly privileged the constructivist approach to cooperative learning, whereby individuals build their knowledge by connecting new ideas and experiences to form new or enhanced understanding through positive group interdependence and the support of their instructor and peers (Brame and Biel, 2015; Bransford et al., 1999; Davidson and Major, 2014; Johnson et al., 2014). The testimonials are overwhelmingly positive about the collaborative and interdisciplinary nature of the ALS: ‘I think the mock trial provided us with a great opportunity to get to know people in a relatively big class. The known knowledge document also was a fun way to explore the context of Shakespeare’s like and plays (especially the appendices). Shakespeare’s trial was a great way to engage students in a variety of disciplines.’ Another student noted, ‘The fact that we did group work to gather information for the trial allowed us to meet our peers and interact with them in a way we would not have otherwise. Creating the document forced us to consider both perspectives, and objectively view the issue (which most of us likely had an opinion about) … Overall, it was a unique learning experience that tied together the different disciplines found at Bishop’s and mixed fun with education.’ This account is representative of all three threads that emerged in an analysis of the qualitative data: according to the students, the transformative learning experience was authentic because it incorporated a dynamic interplay between entertainment and academic rigor with an emphasis on the interdisciplinary and collaborative nature of the ALS.

Students are often ambivalent about group projects, and there are a myriad of challenges, including the dominance by a single student or conflict avoidance, ‘free riding’ and the ‘sucker effect’, issues associated with diversity in groups (e.g. gender, ethnicity), and the social dilemma problem – in which students face conflicting demands between altruism and self-interest (Bourner et al., 2001; Brame and Biel, 2015; Davies, 2009). However, the students did not articulate any of these common issues that usually arise in group work. While the qualitative responses were overwhelmingly positive, the design considerations for the second phase of the ALS led to varying degrees of involvement, which presents potential limitations for delivering authentic learning to all students equally. One student notes, ‘Experiential and multi-disciplinary learning is the best thing that Bishop’s has to offer as a small school. It is a “get-what-you give” sort of project. Those who were willing to participate and give themselves to the project on various levels got valuable experience out of it. While these projects are not for everyone, they work well to go beyond the classroom material.’ In the future iterations of this ALS, I would integrate the trial preparation into the 13 weeks of term and increase formative and summative assessment, including moments for metacognition via writing dossiers and reflective writing. I would be particularly interested in looking at the intersections between the design principles and its effect on transformative learning, especially in the context of cognitive dissonance or ‘troublesome knowledge’ (Land, 2004).

While authentic learning is a design model that provides principles for creating innovative pedagogies in disciplinary-specific settings, the transformative potential is not necessarily implied in the current principles. However, the design establishes conditions for transformative learning whereby students cross thresholds. Meyer and Land (2003) define threshold concepts as ‘akin to a portal, opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something. It represents a transformed way of understanding … without which the learner cannot progress’ (p. 1). The five concepts that determine whether a learning experience is transformative is that they are ontologically transformative, irreversible, integrative, bounded (disciplinary specific) and potentially troublesome (learners experience cognitive dissonance) (Meyer and Land, 2003). Transformative learning and threshold theories have been subject of much scholarly attention in the last decade (Blackie et al., 2010; Cousin, 2006; Davies, 2003; Entwistle, 2003; Land et al., 2008) and there are fruitful new spaces to explore the intersections between design and impact, authentic and transformative learning.

Barriers and challenges to designing authentic learning environments

Evidence about the transformative potential and impact on student engagement is compelling; however, there are a number of barriers facing educators who are interested in creating authentic learning environments in their classrooms in higher education. One of the deterrents to innovative teaching is the amount of time and effort required to design and then deploy innovative pedagogies in the classroom (Herrington and Herrington, 2006; Kirschner et al., 2006; Renzulli et al., 2004). Designing authentic learning environment requires more effort than ‘standard academic instructional methods (Herrington et al., 2010). Furthermore, it is it inherently risky to experiment with new pedagogical models, especially when professors have not benefitted from pedagogical training, might not be familiar with scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) and evidence-based practices, do not have access to resources or support in their institutional culture or in their disciplinary field (Biggs and Tang, 2011; Prosser and Trigwell, 1999). Moreover, taking pedagogical risks is often not rewarded in the processes of promotion, tenure and review, and might in fact be detrimental for career progression (Gravestock, 2012; Herrington et al., 2010). Finally, students must be complicit and engage in this model of learning, to which they are often unaccustomed and sometimes uncomfortable: Taplin (2000) has noted that students may have difficulty in changing dependent learning habits, that problems can arise if students are not self-motivated, and that many are accustomed to teacher-centred modes of instruction and are unhappy when this directed support is withdrawn. Others, such as Hoffman and Ritchie (1997), have found that some students experience discomfort at ‘the increased degree of freedom they experience’ when they are accustomed to ‘comprehension and synthesis of instructor-specified information, based on instructor-formulated learning objectives, and participation in instructor-led learning activities’ (p. 100).

Conclusion: Reflections and transformations

In the design and implementation process, I anticipated that the authentic learning environment would set up a learning experience where students crossed thresholds: I did not, however, account for my own transformation as an educator. I have crossed my own pedagogical threshold: since 2012 I have used legal trials to innovate new pedagogies; for example, in Fall 2016 I transformed an upper year seminar course on Seventeenth-century Poetry and Prose into a seminar that analyzes John Milton’s Protestant Epic Paradise Lost by prosecuting Satan for ‘crimes against humanity’ at the International Criminal Court (ICC). I have also collaborated with colleagues on a team-taught first year course – Introduction to Literary Studies – where we designed a custody battle between two fictional characters in Scott Fitzgerald’s “Babylon Revisited.” Inspired by conversations at the micro-level, one of my colleagues in the History department is currently designing a historical exercise to put US democracy on trial in the wake of Trump’s election, particularly given some similar sentiments being emboldened in our Canadian context. Furthermore, I have had stimulating discussions with colleagues from other departments where we have explored alternative models that include non-adversarial resolutions to legal disputes: Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, arbitration, and even Model UN simulations broaden applications of authentic learning environments in diverse disciplines, including history, international studies, peace studies and more. The possibilities are endless when the model is flexible, adaptable, and when there is alignment in the learning goals, choice of learning activities, and teaching strategies and evaluation in the design of the authentic learning environment. Innovative pedagogies proliferate when educators have institutional support, resources and a healthy dose of courage.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author biography

Jessica Riddell has a broad range of teaching and research interests, including Renaissance drama (Shakespeare and his contemporaries); Medieval Drama; Medieval Literature, especially Chaucer; Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Poetry and Prose; Performance Studies; Rhetoric and Oratory, and Masculinity Studies. Dr Riddell was awarded the 3M National Teaching Fellowship in 2015. She was the first recipient of the award at Bishop's University. She was also awarded the William and Nancy Turner Award for Teaching Excellence (2011–2012), the most prestigious recognition of teaching excellence at Bishop’s. Dr Riddell earned her Masters and PhD in English Literature from Queen’s University, where she held a SSHRC Doctoral scholarship. Upon graduation in 2009, Dr Riddell was awarded a SSHRC post-doctoral fellowship (which she declined in favour of a tenure-stream position at Bishop’s). Dr Riddell currently holds a SSHRC Insight Development Grant for her work on early modern gender and genre theory.

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