UKCLE e-learning event: simulation & learning

‘There is no spoon’:simulation design

and practice

Professor Paul MahargGlasgow Graduate School of Law

Learning from simulation, UKCLE, 11.9.08 2

overview

1. Experiential learning2. Signature pedagogy3. Transactional learning and simulations4. SIMPLE – an example of simulation learning5. Into the future…


claim 1: there’s no such thing as experiential learning

1. We don’t learn from experience2. We learn by working to interpret experience, given that, when

learning: we have different prior knowledge our aims are always different in subtle ways we learn different things from the same resources ‘resources’ means symbolic objects like books & web pages, but

also people, including ourselves we can learn intimately and deeply from any resource, given a

suitable context3. Teachers and students need to encode those interpretations as

complex memories, habits, skills, attitudes or knowledge objects if they are to re-use them

Schratz, M. and Walker, R.(1995) Research as Social Change: New Opportunities for Qualitative Research. London: Routledge.


Curriculum is multiple distributed technologies and practices. Eg timetables, course teams, notepads, learning spaces, forms of knowledge transmission, discussion, computers, forms of speech, writing – all existing in time spans.

Some technologies are ancient (lectura), some new (standardised clients, mobile phones)

Success in learning means:1. for staff, the need to compose and orchestrate the

curriculum. 2. for students, the tools, support & spaces to manage

their own curriculum

claim 2: curriculum is technology


Standard classroom c.1908. Would you like to learn about measurement and volume this way?

Thanks to Mike Sharples,http://tinyurl.com/6bzdgx


…or this way? (Dewey’s Laboratory School, U. of Chicago, 1901), http://tinyurl.com/6onvjp


Would you like to learn about history and town planning this way?


… or by building a table-top town for a social life history project?(Dewey’s Lab School, http://tinyurl.com/59c93q )


two origins of contemporary learning theory

‘One cannot understand the history of education in the United States in the twentieth century unless one realizes that Edward L. Thorndike won and John Dewey lost.’ Lageman, E.C. (1989) The plural worlds of educational research, History of

Education Quarterly, 29(2), 185-214

E.L. Thorndike John Dewey


E.L. Thorndike John Dewey1. Educational psychologist Philosopher & educationalist

2. Theoretician & experimentalist Theoretician and practical implementer

3. Explored the dyadic relationship between mind & the world

Interested in the arc between experience & the world

4. Adopted as precursor of a behaviourist approach to learning: assessment-led; laws of effect, recency, repetition

Pragmatist approach to learning: prior experience, ways of contextual knowing; democracy & education

5. Emphasised teaching strategies

Emphasised learning ecologies

6. Followed by: Watson, Skinner, Gagné; outcomes, competence & instructional design (ID) movements.

Followed by: Bruner, Kilpatrick, standards movement, Constructivist tradition.


signature pedagogies (Lee Shulman)

Sullivan, W.M., Colby, A., Wegner, J.W., Bond, L., Shulman, L.S. (2007) Educating Lawyers. Preparation for the Profession of Law, Jossey-Bass, p. 24


Transforming Legal Education:four key themes


See Peter Galison’s groundbreaking study of the material culture of modern experimental micro-physics – Galison, P. (1997) Image and Logic: A Material Culture of

Microphysics (Chicago, University of Chicago Press).

A place where theorists, writers, experimenters, instrument designers, policy-makers, politicians and others meet, share knowledge and do collaborative research

Parties traded content and method; they imposed constraints on each other; disciplines & practices coordinated but without homogenising; they communicated in pidgins and creoles to express and absorb each other’s essential concepts.

1. trading zone…?


See the early work of Flower & Hayes, Scardamalia & Bereiter; New Literacies movement; London Group; James Gee.

In Law, see the work of James Stratman, Dorothy Deegan, Leah Christensen, Elizabeth Mertz on the effect of professional identity on student reading & writing strategies.

Each discipline needs to invent methods to embed these approaches in its

teaching, learning & assessment assess student performance based on the learning of

rhetorical models.

2. rhetorical models and problem-based learning…?


A specific form of problem-based learning. At least seven distinguishing elements –

active learning through performance in authentic transactions involving reflection in & on learning, deep collaborative learning, and holistic or process learning, with relevant professional assessment that includes ethical standards

– which can have a significant effect on learning when used in simulations of professional practice.

3. transactional learning


hypothesis: simulations are powerful learning tools …

… because they: Are close to the world of practice, but safe from the (possible)

realities of malpractice and negligent representation. Enable students to practise legal transactions, discuss the

transactions with other tutors, students, and use a variety of instruments or tools, online or textual, to help them understand the nature and consequences of their actions

Enhance conceptual learning, because concepts are put to use by students in a more or less complex comms- & decision-rich environment

Facilitate a wide variety of assessment, from high-stakes assignments with automatic fail points, to coursework that can double as a learning zone and an assessment assignment

Encourage collaborative learning. Between students, between students & staff

Help students to see the potential for the C in ICT; and that technology is not merely a matter of word-processed essays & quizzes, but a form of learning that changes quite fundamentally what and how they learn.


Two year project, 2006-8, was funded jointly (£200K) by JISC & UK Centre for Legal Education

For students… An open-source, online simulation environment that

students can use to simulate professional practice – any practice.

For staff… Software tools for staff to design and build simulations

and collate all of the resources required.

what is SIMPLE?


large-scale implementation in disciplines

Discipline Degree programme Institution

Architecture BSc (Hons) / March, year 3 Strathclyde U. (1)

Management Science

BA (Hons), year 1 Strathclyde U. (1)

Social Work MA (Hons), year 2/3 Strathclyde U. (1)

Law LLB, year 1 Glamorgan U. (1)

Law LLB, year 2/3 Stirling U. (2)

Law LLB, year 3Warwick U. (1)

Law LLB, year 3 West of England U. (1)

LawDiploma in Legal Practice, p/g

Strathclyde U. (6)


how were projects created?

Idea > initial scenario > computer simulation Implemented process as software tool – the narrative

event diagram Staff were supported through this process

Process enables academic member to build simulation ‘blueprint’ and collate all of the resources required by the simulation

Process and tool allow for highly structured, closed boundary simulations as well as loosely-structured, open-field simulations

Provides potential for simulation import / export



personal injury negotiation project

Administration: 272 students, 68 firms, 8 anonymous information sources 68 document sets, 34 transactions Each scenario has embedded variables, called from a

document server, making it similar, but also unique in critical ways

students have 12 weeks to achieve settlement introductory & feedback lectures discussion forums FAQs & transaction guideline flowcharts voluntary face-to-face surgeries with a PI solicitor


PI project: assessment criteria

We require from each student firm a body of evidence consisting of:

fact-finding – from information sources in the virtual community)

professional legal research – using WestLaw + paperworld sources

formation of negotiation strategy – extending range of Foundation Course learning

performance of strategy – correspondence + optional f2f meeting, recorded





PI project: (some of) what students learned

extended team working real legal fact-finding real legal research process thinking in the project setting out negotiation strategies in the context of (un)known

information writing to specific audiences handling project alongside other work commitments structuring the argument of a case from start to finish keeping cool in face-to-face negotiations more effective delegation keeping files taking notes on the process...


PI project: what students would have done differently…

‘In tackling this project I think that our group made two main mistakes. The first mistake we made was in approaching the task as law students as opposed to Lawyers. By this I mean we tried to find the answer and work our way back. Immediately we were thinking about claims and quantum and blame. I don't think we actually initiated a claim until a week before the final settlement. I think the phrase "like a bull in a china shop" would aptly describe the way we approached the problem. […] Our group knew what area of law and tests to apply yet we ended up often being ahead of ourselves and having to back-pedal

The second mistake we made was estimating how long it would take to gather information. We started our project quite late on and began to run out of time towards the end. None of us appreciated the length of time it would take to gather information and on top of this we would often have to write two or three letters to the same person as the initial letter would not ask the right question.’


PI project: what students would have done differently…

‘At the beginning we thought we perhaps lost sight of the fact that we had a client whom we had a duty to advise and inform. On reflection we should have issued terms of engagement and advised the client better in monetary terms what the likely outcome was going to be.’

‘[…] unlike other group projects I was involved in at undergraduate level I feel that I derived genuine benefit from this exercise in several ways:1. reinforcing letter-writing, negotiation, time-management and IT

skills2. conducting legal research into issues of quantum3. working effectively in a group as a group - not delegating tasks at

the first meeting and then putting together pieces of work at the second meeting.’


PI project: tempo & complexity


PI project: tempo & complexity



Students co-opted to community-police plagiarism Students carry out authentic client-based work, not

artificial, assessment-led tasks ICT is used to create multiple versions of tasks via

document variables + support for tasks: feedforward Students take responsibility for their transactional

learning, their files, their clients, their firm, ie assessment: encourages ownership, not submission enhances collaboration, not plagiarism

Staff take responsibility for designing transactional learning

plagiarism? free-loading?


1. Plagiarism is not just about students being selfish, or narcissistic behaviour, or academic cheating or a syndrome or lack of integrity or anything else

2. We create fertile conditions for it to flourish by our teaching & assessment designs: 1. lack of apprenticeship models2. insufficient situated learning & assessment3. poor academic literacy support within disciplines

3. We need to re-design the ecology of learning, eg:1. trading zones, for students > students, staff > staff,

students > staff2. teach rhetorical models via games, sims, debriefs, PBL, etc. 3. transactional learning

plagiarism – the wider context


SIMPLE: community of practice

See http://simplecommunity.org

Aims – Be collaborative: staff, students, different institutions,

different professions Be international – in our increasingly globalized jurisdictions

we need to enable our students to work with others Work through bodies such as Global Alliance for Justice

Education Integrate with other forms of simulation,

eg standardized clients Organize like Mozilla


what will the SIMPLE community do in the future?

Develop more teaching, learning and assessment templates, including curriculum guidelines

Provide tools to create a more sophisticated map and directory for a virtual town

Enable more variety of comms media between students and simulated characters/staff.

Offer more sophisticated monitoring and mentoring functions

Design more functionality, eg voice mobile in-world…





a final example: legal writing

In our Diploma programme, we emphasise writing as a social activity with:

networks of meaning Distributed learning across the internet and other forms of

knowledge representation Collaborative learning at all levels


contrast intermediateweb-based learning …

Still focused on: 1. Organisations, ie LMSs, silos of knowledge2. Products, ie handbooks, CDs, closely-guarded downloads3. Content, ie modules, lock-step instruction4. Snapshot assessment of taught substantive content


… with social, collaborative learning

Focus shifts to:1. Organisation has weak boundaries, strong presence

through resource-based, integrated learning networks, with open access, eg MIT & OU open courseware

2. Focus not on static content but on web-based, aggregated content

3. E-learning as integrated understanding & conversation, just-in-time learning

4. Assessment of situated learning


compareALIAS...

ALIAS – Ardcalloch Legal Information & Advice Service –ie simulation only, on closed intranet, with static content, product-focussed, not process-focussed


... with sim + wiki, developed as a professional collaborative writing

environment

Simulation of professional writing contexts Creation of wikis within ALIAS – Ardcalloch Legal Information

and Advice Service Students will:

see each other’s drafts (collaborative reading + critique) amend firm’s drafts (collaborative drafting) Be responsible for individual articles (ownership…)

Staff will: see student drafts (observe collab. learning + working) comment on drafts (feedforward on individual work)

Staff will include professional legal writers as well as GGSL staff, and use previous student work & previous students as mentors


Curriculum is full of multiple technologies and practices Success in learning means:

1. for staff, the need to compose and orchestrate the curriculum

2. for students, the tools, support & spaces to manage their own curriculum

Simulation has the potential to transform the roles of both staff and students, and their capacities to teach & learn.

simulation curriculum as technology


contact details

Email: [email protected]

Blog: http://zeugma.typepad.com Book: www.transforming.org.uk

These slides at: www.slideshare.net/paulmaharg

SIMPLE Foundation: http://simplecommunity.org

Technology

UKCLE e-learning event: simulation & learning