1 Reflections on Teaching Hospitality/Tourism Law to Non-Law Students Marc Mc Donald Dublin Institute of Technology

2 Reflections … Convincing sceptics of the need for: Subject called hospitality/tourism law a dedicated legally qualified lawyer to teach it Areas of law to cover Applied law or pure law Learning outcomes

3 Reflections … Teaching and learning strategies (lecturing or self learning) Assessing learning – exams and continuous assessment Student attendance, class contact hours, what year to teach Learning resources - books, articles and web-based technologies The loneliness of the law teacher in a non- law world

4 Areas of Law to cover Everything or something? General or detailed approach? Management or studies focus? Space for general business law? Starting your own business? What I do/dont do in hospitality law What I do/dont do in tourism law

5 Specific hospitality/tourism industry laws General laws made applied to … Importance of using industry only examples with non-law students Academic credibility – does hospitality/tourism law really exist? Is it a valid area of research? Applied or Pure Law?

6 Aims and Learning Outcomes Module descriptor defines aims and outcomes for level of programme (level 7,8,9) Typical aim (what I hope to achieve) Typical outcome (what student should be able to do after) Want them to know legal basis for common practise Do not want to make lawyers out of them or tell them to obey the law

7 Teaching Strategies Self-learning is the ideal But not practical for teaching law to non-law students because: Conceptually its difficult for students They are not used to legal precision Average student of limited calibre and enthusiasm I teach rather than lecture Problem-based learning

8 Assessing Learning Exams and continuous assessment Exams – theoretical and problem questions Typical mistakes by non-law students in a law exam Preparing non-law students for the law exam Why I avoid continuous assessment

9 Student Attendance and Class Contact How important is it for the non-law student to attend law class? Can they learn by using Web resources? Why non-law student need classes to learn hospitality/tourism law How many class contact hours per week? One or more semesters? What year to study law in - Year 1,2,3 or 4?

10 Learning Resources Lack of appropriate resources My personal journey Using US hospitality legal resources PowerPoint slides and course notes available on Webcoures

11 The Loneliness of the Law Teacher in a Non-law Faculty Loneliness comes: Not jus from being the only lawyer But also from working exclusively in a very narrow legal area IFTTA is important because … Building up expertise by concentrating on different areas over the years The incentive of presenting papers at IFTTA conferences

12 Conclusion Basic challenges facing teaching non- law student remain the same Changes in source and contents of laws Would I do it all again?