Dewey and the Law: The Continued Relevance of Dewey’s Experience and Education to Legal Education

• In Event: Roundtable Session 16
  In Roundtable Session: The Experiences of Doctoral Students Across the Disciplines

Abstract

The need for experiential learning within professional education at large and legal education in particular has been repeatedly identified by practitioners and professors alike (e.g. Erickson, 2012; Sullivan et al., 2007). This year’s conference theme encourages us to consider innovation within the context from which it arises, contemplating how research-informed innovation can have a positive impact upon students’ educational experience at university. Looking both to John Dewey’s classic Experience and education (1938) and the experiential learning occurring in doctoral-level legal education today, I suggest that Dewey’s key points could be productively brought to bear on conversations related to experiential learning in legal education, as we challenge ourselves to consider links between education research, theory and innovation in pedagogical practice.

Author

• Jennie Carolyn Ferris, McGill University