Gave the keynote on simulation and learning at the CALI conference. Conference session wiki is here. Also gave an informal session here on the same subject. Lots of interested questions from delegates.
But will the simulation engine actually work in US legal education? I think it will, for a number of reasons, provided the entry strategy is the right one. One interesting point: a delegate came up to me later and asked, is this stuff podium-based teaching or is it clinic? The answer of course is that simulation learning is neither, and both. It can have elements of feedback from virtual tutors, which makes it seem like a form of clinic; it can have links to more formal teaching encounters. But the truth is that sim learning is closer to PBL than either podium-based teaching or clinic.
What’s interesting here is that someone was thinking about sim learning in terms of the categories he already had. Shifting categories is always difficult, as difficult as transfer of learning, or transformation of learning. But it’s also necessary if we aren’t going to be constrained by our prior categories so that we’re unable to imagine how new forms of educational practice might play out for us and for our students.