Malcolm Knowles was an American educator who devoted his life to the study of how adults learn. Knowles contrasted pedagogy, the science of teaching children, with his concept of andragogy, the science of teaching adults. Knowles' conception of andragogy was based on five assumptions about how adult learning differs from childhood learning:

1. Self-concept: As a person matures his or her self concept moves from one of being a dependent personality toward one of being a self-directed human being.
2. Experience: As a person matures he or she accumulates a growing reservoir of experience that becomes an increasing resource for learning.
3. Readiness to learn. As a person matures his or her readiness to learn becomes oriented increasingly to the developmental tasks of social roles.
4. Orientation to learning. As a person matures his or her time perspective changes from one of postponed application of knowledge to immediacy of application, and accordingly his or her orientation toward learning shifts from one of subject-centeredness to one of problem centeredness.
5. Motivation to learn: As a person matures the motivation to learn is internal.

Reviewing these assumptions, we can see how they are relevant to understanding the training needs of judges. Taken as a whole, these assumptions describe a person who is self-motivated to learn, draws from his or her own experience, is problem-focused, has a strong sense of identity, and wants to perform duties effectively. Teaching approaches that do not account for these assumptions are effectively treating their trainees like children, an unwise tactic when addressing judges.

To this end, one important consideration when designing a judicial training program is the identity of the trainer. Serving as a judge is an extremely specialized role without any truly analogous professions for trainers to draw from. Therefore, real consideration should be paid to involving judges in each phase of the training. A training program is more likely to speak to the needs of judges if it has judicial guidance from the outset, and it is more likely to be well-received if it incorporates judges in aspects of the training. This is not to say that the process should be dominated by the judiciary; professional trainers still know best how to design and implement training. But trainers should not presume to be able to speak for judges on judicial issues and should seek assistance and input where appropriate.

Experiential Learning

Malcolm Knowles' five “assumptions” about adult learning styles shaped his ideas about how to teach adults. However, it is important to emphasize that his assumptions about andragogy do not, by themselves, call for a specific teaching approach. They are simply factors for trainers to keep in mind about their trainees as they design programs for adults. However, a number of teaching theories have grown out of andragogy. One of the most relevant theories, for judicial training, is experiential learning theory.

This theory is based on the principle that learning is a continuous phenomenon that is best understood in terms of a process rather than outcomes, and that experience is at the heart of that process. One of the best known theorists on experiential learning is David Kolb, who pioneered a four-stage model for experiential learning. This model is designed to replicate the process that individuals go through as they engage in learning. The cycle begins with concrete experience. The learner interacts with their world and receives feedback based on these actions. They then engage in reflection, which involves dissecting the experience in order to better understand what has occurred. The learner then moves on to the creation of abstract principles. They come to conclusions about what they have experienced. Finally, they seek to apply these principles through experimentation. This experimentation involves interacting with the world once again, and the learning cycle continues.

While Kolb's learning cycle sounds abstract, it is actually fairly simple to adapt to a training context. Working through the Judicial Education Reference, Information and Technical Transfer Project (JERITT), Charles S. Claxton and Patricia H. Murrell, have done an admirable job of adapting the learning cycle specifically to judicial education in their work Education for Development. For judicial education programs, participants should be primed to recall experiences in their judicial practice, asked to reflect on those experiences either collectively or individually, encouraged to formulate general principles which draw on this reflection, and finally given the opportunity to envision how these general principles will play out in practice. Claxton and Murrell give some suggestions for how to foster each phase of the learning process. Experience can be encouraged through recalling relevant memories or by examining case studies. Reflection can be conducted either individually, via journals, or in larger groups. Abstraction can consist of lecturing or use of the Socratic method. And finally, experimentation can be achieved by speculating on the application of these principles through the use of hypotheticals.

Evaluation

A major contributing factor in many successful judicial training initiatives is a robust system for evaluation. The question of how to effectively evaluate education programs in general, and judicial programs in specific, is a complex one. There are a number of different philosophies about what the goals of evaluations should be and how they should be undertaken. It is difficult, then, to give detailed recommendations for best practices on judicial training evaluation. However, there are a few things that trainers and training institutions should keep in mind in order to implement a strong evaluation. First of all, the goals of the training need to be clearly defined at the outset of the program. Without clearly established goals, it is extremely difficult to conduct a meaningful evaluation. Secondly, the evaluation procedure should be defined in detail before any program is implemented. Evaluations conducted after the completion of a program can reveal useful information, but they cannot provide a complete picture of the training. The most effective evaluations are woven into the implementation of educational programs. Finally, planners should be aware of what can and cannot be measured. It can be difficult at times to establish an evaluation procedure that truly measures whether the program achieves its goals. In those cases, it is preferable to state this at the outset, rather than to evaluate the program using measurable that will not accurate assess the successes and failures of the program.

Conclusion

There is much diversity in the means and goals of judicial training. It is difficult to offer  insight that will be applicable across all situations. However, throughout this overview of “best practices” in judicial training, a common thread emerges. Judicial training programs need to be sensitive to their context. The nature of the legal system, the characteristics of the trainees, and the type of learning all need to be carefully considered. Judges have limited time for training, and each judicial training is expensive. Programs that are not carefully constructed to take all relevant factors into account run the risk of irrelevance, and thus do a disservice to both the trainees and to the public that they serve. A program that sets out to simply train judges can be implemented without much forethought or planning. A program that seeks to have impact beyond the training, though, requires deep reflection. 

Andrew Aall McPherson previously worked for World Learning and the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative. He is currently studying adult education at the University of British Columbia.