Visual approaches to property law pedagogy

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to consider a more visual approach to property law teaching practices. This will be achieved by exploring the existence of “visual learners” as a student body, evaluating the use of more visual teaching techniques in academic practice, recognising the historic dominance of text in legal education, and examining the potential for heightening visual teaching practices in the teaching of property law.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper reviews and analyses some of the available literature on visual pedagogy, and visual approaches to legal education, but also introduces an amount of academic practitioner analysis.

Findings

This paper evidences that, rather than focusing on the categorisation of “visual learner”, the modern academic practitioner should use the customary use of more visual stimuli, consequently becoming a more “visual teacher”. This paper demonstrates that these practices, if performed effectively, can impact upon the information literacy of the whole student body. It also proffers a number of suggestions as to how this could be achieved within property law teaching practices.

Practical implications

The paper will provide support for early-career academic practitioners, who are entering a teaching profession in a period of accelerated and continual change, by presenting an overview of pedagogic practices in the area. It will also provide a stimulus for those currently teaching on property law modules and support their transition to a more visual form of teaching practice.

Originality/value

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of visual pedagogy in legal education, and specifically within that of property law, which has not been conducted elsewhere.

Citation

King, F. (2016), "Visual approaches to property law pedagogy", International Journal of Law in the Built Environment, Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 80-94. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLBE-02-2016-0004