Storytelling: a five-tier framework and the flipped classroom approach

Abstract

ABSTRACT Storytelling is a popular teaching method in legal education. Despite that popularity, research on designing and delivering this method to support different learning outcomes in legal education is limited. Thus, it is the purpose of this article to build a pedagogical framework of storytelling based on current teaching practices. Conventional pedagogy has identified three storytelling approaches: (1) to help students understand legal concepts; (2) to help students learn and remember the theories and techniques about storytelling; and (3) to teach students how to tell their clients’ stories. Based on the analysis of case studies reported by law teachers, this article argues that there are at least two more storytelling approaches. This article aims to classify these storytelling approaches in a five-tier framework. Furthermore, it proposes that applying the flipped classroom method to storytelling helps law teachers teach towards learning outcomes more efficiently and effectively than the conventional approaches.