BEATRICE MONCIUNSKAITE

Building Law Students' Critical Thinking and Advocacy Skills in the Age of AI: Innovative Approaches to Teaching and Assessment

The recent proliferation of Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT has presented a profound challenge to higher education. These challenges extend beyond mere academic integrity; they impact the very nature of the student experience, as an over-reliance on AI can erode a student's confidence in their own critical thinking skills. To address this, legal educators must employ innovative assessment strategies that empower students to reclaim their intellectual agency and advocacy skills. In this presentation, I will explore the benefits and complexities of using interactive group presentations as an assessment tool for Advanced Jurisprudence—a subject taught to senior undergraduate law students.

Beatrice Monciunskaite is an assistant professor at the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University. Her teaching and scholarly interests include comparative constitutional law, European Union law and democratic theory. Beatrice's PhD research was funded by the Irish Research Council and investigated the status of liberal constitutional democracy in Lithuania and Latvia in light of the current rule of law crisis in Europe. Beatrice is also a Fulbright alumna, receiving the 2021/22 Fulbright Student Award. She is currently working on a monograph detailing the trajectory of liberal constitutional democracy in the Baltic States while continuing to research in the area of the rule of law crisis and European Union accession law and policy.