Using SIMPLE at the University of Stirling School of Law

Case study on the use of the SIMPLE application in the law school at the University of Stirling, one of five law schools participating in UKCLE’s SIMPLE project.

If you would like to know more about the use of SIMPLE at Stirling contact Kay Goodall on k.e.goodall@stir.ac.uk.

Stirling used SIMPLE for two simulations in a module taken by 63 first and second year undergraduate students during 2007-08. The simulations were managed by a senior lecturer, who devised and built them and then ran them with a postgraduate student. The lecturer had little prior experience of simulation learning, but had used a VLE for the delivery of handouts and other tasks.

Simulation I

This short simulation, built around an incident on a film set, lasted one week and replaced a tutorial. The lecturer took the role of partner in a law firm with the students playing the roles of lawyers. At the end of the simulation the students had to submit a report.

Building the simulation

The lecturer found it easy to set up the simulation – the time taken was no more than the contact time usual for a tutorial, with the added benefit that the work could be done at any time. She also felt that having gone through the process once there would be less work required to set up future simulations.

Running the simulation

The students grasped the idea more quickly than the lecturer had expected, however a surprisingly high number did not participate, even though the simulation was compulsory. It was generally the less able students who did not take part, perhaps due to workload issues.

The students seemed comfortable using SIMPLE once bugs were fixed, although they did not like having to log in multiple times. All seemed to be computer literate. No odd or unexpected behaviour was observed, however one adventurous student, while knowing the case was fabricated, pretended it was real and got much out of pointing out flaws, in a constructive way.

Some difficulties were encountered in administering a course where first year students work with second year students, who perhaps have different motivations. Each group had to hand in a report, however some students worked closely as a group, others worked separately within groups, while others worked entirely alone. The simulation is designed to allow any of these possibilities.

The students put in more effort and participated more than for a normal tutorial, possibly because they had to produce something written at the end. SIMPLE was a good way of seeing what they were not understanding about legal concepts.

Simulation II

The second simulation ran for four weeks and was in the area of public law. The lecturer again took the role of partner in a firm with the students as lawyers. At the end of the simulation the students had to submit a briefing report for assessment.

Building the simulation

Due to lack of time the simulation was markedly less complex than the lecturer had initially hoped. Building the it took around 10 hours, including two hours to create the blueprint. The lecturer found she had forgotten some aspects of using the SIMPLE tools since running the first simulation. Uploading was straightforward, taking about an hour, but adding students one by one was rather tedious.

Running the simulation

The students seemed to grasp the topic and take it seriously, perhaps because they knew it had been part of the examination in the previous year, and to enjoy being given realistic problem questions. Other staff agreed that while it was not usually a popular topic, the students for once seemed to understand it well, although the SIMPLE effect was just one among a number of factors.

While the lecturer felt she could have been more ambitious with the simulation she still felt it had a profound effect on her teaching – it had encouraged her to teach public law as if it were a private law subject, ie as a practical domain. The students also seemed to prefer this method.

General comments

The SIMPLE look was less exciting than the lecturer had expected, but using it was more straightforward. One of her ambitions for the future was to give students different roles in the simulation.

Using the toolset caused a few problems – the tools were not entirely intuitive and crashed on occasion, and more documentation was required on building simulations. However, support from the SIMPLE team was very good – having them in the background had been key to successfully building and running two simulations.

It would be useful to be able to customise the appearance of the platform to make it more welcoming, for example by using more colour. Email prompts on the next step in running a simulation would also be helpful, as attempts to use the SIMPLE calendar had failed.

Advice for SIMPLE users:

• understand student roles and how they will use SIMPLE before they try it themselves – set up a student account and try out the tasks as a student would experience them
• keep the simulation as simple as possible first time around and do a short run or pilot before trying anything else
• start to develop and plan the simulation as early as possible, before the semester begins
• choose a subject you know well and are fully comfortable with before trying to simulate it

Last Modified: 30 June 2010