It's SIMPLE: the SIMulated Professional Learning Environment

Here Patricia McKellar (UKCLE) gives an overview of the background to the SIMPLE project including key points from the project evaluation, as well as a list of key articles and papers on SIMPLE and simulation learning in general.

Simulation is one of the major applications of the Web in education and training as well as entertainment, but until recently it has received relatively little attention in higher education. The SIMPLE project is an excellent example of simulations being used for educational purposes.

SIMPLE was initially designed to help students learn how to undertake practical legal transactions, such as raising or defending a civil court action, carrying out a personal injury negotiation or completing the purchase and sale of property – see below for more on the concept of transactional learning. The application can also been used by other disciplines and was piloted during the project by social work and architecture, departments.

What is transactional learning?

The common denominator in the use of SIMPLE is the legal transaction. The SIMPLE team has developed the concept of ‘transactional learning’, with the following characteristics:

1. It is active learning – transactional learning goes beyond learning about legal actions to learning from legal actions.
2. It is based on doing legal transactions – students learn about the practical realities of legal actions.
3. It involves reflection on learning – for example documenting a file, thinking across transactions, reflecting upon group process.
4. It is based on collaborative learning – students help each other to understand legal concepts and procedures by discussing issues, reviewing actions in a group, giving peer feedback on group work, and so on. In other words, students begin to learn how to leverage knowledge amongst themselves, and to trust each other’s developing professionality (learning about know who and know why, as well as know what).
5. It supports holistic or process learning – in seminars and lectures and in their reading students engage with ideas and form understandings of legal concepts, documents, actions and the like. However such learning is ‘part to whole’ – the SIMPLE application provides opportunities for ‘whole to part’ learning, and for learning about legal process.

What are the benefits? SIMPLE provides a framework for students to engage in transactions typical of real life situations. This authentic immersion allows students to shift from merely learning process, procedures and facts to learning, through firsthand experience, about professional capabilities such as personal responsibility, team working, ethics, client care and risk management. SIMPLE also provides a comprehensive, adaptable and supportive management system for academics seeking to use simulation learning.

Simulation environments can be agents of substantial change and powerful learning environments across a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses. They are potentially disruptive heuristics on three levels:

1. Staff need supportive environments in which to share good practice and experiment.
2. Students need to be aware of the expectations made of them in these new environments.
3. Collaboration between staff, institutions and students is needed in order to successfully implement simulation learning.

Below is a list of the key points arising from the SIMPLE project in relation to these three areas.

It’s SIMPLE: key points arising from the project evaluation

Relating to staff:

• time needed to become familiar with the technological aspects and new concepts
• some technical skills required, although most managed to operate the tools after training
• concern about the front loading of work to create the simulation blueprint – start with a simple scenario and begin as early as possible
• initial difficulties in simulation design and the design of resources
• think in advance about how responses will be managed – give guidelines about how this will work
• run a pilot with staff or students before full implementation
• enhanced monitoring and mentoring functions welcomed
• differing expectations in terms of the look and feel of the software
• hosting the platform creates challenges

Relating to students:

• benefits included enhanced professional skills, a heightened awareness of client care issues and improved IT skills
• authenticity of simulations welcomed
• collaborative working encouraged peer review
• assessment revealed improved understanding of the subject matter
• regular feedback needed

Relating to the implementation of simulation learning:

• open simulations with a wide choice of paths vs bounded more linear simulations
• disruptive simulations vs convergent simulations
• identity exploration through role play (personal and disciplinary) vs rote learning
• knowledge object forming via play vs knowledge resumption by traditional means
• transactional learning vs conventional teaching
• interactive mentor roles vs conventional lecturer/tutor
• front loading simulation building vs conventional teaching preparation
• curriculum organised around spaces and resources vs curriculum organised around teaching interventions and resources
• replay and feed forward culture vs snapshot assessment culture

Key articles and papers

• Barton K & McKellar P (1998) ‘The Virtual Court Action: procedural facilitation in law’ ALT-J 6(1)
• Barton K & McKellar P (2007) Transactional learning: Ardcalloch Sheriff Court is open for business JILT 2007(1)
• Barton K, McKellar P & Maharg P (2007) Authentic fictions: simulation, professionalism and legal learning Clinical Law Review 14(1):143-193
• Barton K & Maharg P (2006) ‘E-simulations in the wild: interdisciplinary research, design and implementation of simulation environments in legal education’ in D Gibson, C Aldrich & M Prensky (eds) Games and simulations in online learning: research and development frameworks Hershey, PA: Idea Group at 115-48
• de Freitas S & Neumann T (2008) ‘The use of ‘exploratory learning’ for supporting immersive learning in virtual environments’ Computers and Education
• Gould H, Hughes M, Maharg P & Nicol E (2009) ‘The narrative event diagram (NED): a tool for designing professional simulations’ in D Gibson (ed) Digital simulations for improving education: learning through artificial teaching environments Hershey, PA: IGI Global
• Maharg P (2008) ‘SIMPLE learning and professional practice’ in I Mayer & H Mastik (eds) Organising and learning through gaming and simulation Amsterdam: Eburon Academic
• Maharg P (2007) Transforming legal education: learning and teaching the law in the early 21st century London: Ashgate (chapters 6-8 and the conclusion and afterword deal specifically with transactional learning and SIMPLE)
• Maharg P (2006) ‘Authenticity and professionalism: transactional learning in virtual communities’ in G Minshull & J Mole (eds) Innovating e-learning practice: the proceedings of theme 3 of the JISC Online Conference: Innovating e-learning (chapter 6)
• Maharg P (2004) ‘Virtual communities on the Web: transactional learning and teaching’ in A Vedder (ed) Aan het werk met ICT in het academisch onderwijs Nijmegen: Wolf Legal Publishers at 75-93
• Maharg P & Owen M (2007) Simulations, learning and the metaverse: changing cultures in legal education JILT 2007(1)

Last Modified: 4 June 2010