Improving Student Engagement in Meaningful Learning at Tertiary Level Experiences from a New Zealand Faculty of Law

In my experience there has been a decline in recent years of students’ willingly engaging with educational experiences unless there is some element of ensuing gain, for example marks towards a final grade. Small group law teaching in a tutorial setting has long been accepted as being the best opportunity afforded to students where they can interact with their peers under the guidance of a tutor in an effort to learn problem-solving techniques. However tutorial attendance figures show that the students who are in the most need of the experience are less and less willing to participate in these activities. The traditional methods of tertiary teaching are not encouraging this group of students to wholly engage with the learning process. This paper describes how online activities such as quizzes were introduced to increase student engagement and lead them towards achieving success in analysis and critical thinking.