Last month I participated in a great conference on legal education by the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning, “Engaging and Assessing Our Students” (link here). There were numerous workshops, and my only regret is that I couldn’t attend all of them. My topic was on teaching with online simulations:
Live websites provide a dynamic “sandbox” for role-playing simulations that cast students as lawyers acting for fictional clients. Such simulations, initially crafted for a Cyberlaw class, can also be used in a wide variety of other courses. This provides a highly configurable platform for the immersive and holistic learning of knowledge, skills, and professional identity, including realistic fact-finding, advocacy, negotiation, ethical traps, and much more. The workshop will first provide background on relevant technology and methodology. We will then move to a mini role-playing exercise using the live Internet, followed by a discussion of the benefits and challenges of online simulations.
Interested readers can find my presentation materials, including a sample scoresheet incorporating all MacCrate skills factors, here.