The cognitive computing revolution in simulation for academic and professional education: an

implementation and its implications

Robert Clapperton, Ametros Learning IncPaul Maharg, The Australian National University College of LawDirk Rodenburg, Queen’s University Faculty of Law

preview1. Brief resumption of sim learning in legal education

2. Development of a new sim engine and its implementation

Slides available at: http://paulmaharg.com/slides

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1. Brief resumption of sims in legallearning

• Key terms: technology, legal education, simulation• Date range: 1970-2012• 238 items potentially relevant, with a final listing of

123 dataset items• Six common law jurisdictions: UK jurisdictions,

Ireland, USA, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, & cross-jurisdictional projects/publications

systematic review: Maharg & Nicol (2014)

• Media is a powerful determinant of learning

• Early period:– 1970s & 80s – 9 items used CAI & use of early AI programs

– 3 items in this early period describe interactive video-discs, 2 describe video-conferencing sims

• From 2000 onwards:– Various types of transactional learning environments

– Use of virtual worlds

– Use of virtual office

– Electronic casebook

– Custom-made environments

media & sims

• Sims as an emerging pedagogy: complex, no set of settled guidelines, powerfully affected by technology disruption

• Interdisciplinary theory a given, both in technological research and educational research

• Poor quality of research across 42 years, in terms of research design, data design, analysis, dissemination

• Very few confirmatory studies

• Very few longitudinal studies

themes arising from systematic study

use of innovative approacheseg the transitive power

of music notationin SIMPLE project…

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Panmure Lute MS (c.1632), 5, no.3.

Music for Lute Consort, c.1500

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Narrative event diagram, Personal Injury Transaction: Pursuer

… can be used as simulation notation

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Narrative event diagram: Personal Injury Transaction: Pursuer and Defender (Gould et al 2009)

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Compare lute tablature across two staveswith simulation notation

2. Development of a new sim engine and its implementation

some initial thoughts to frame the conversation…

• The fundamentals of good education do not change (debate, critical interrogation, pain, uncertainty, struggle, interstitial moments of clarity, development of ways of thinking, critique of that settled disciplinary way of thought)

• Curriculum (re-)design is essential• Transformational moments are possible, both in collaborative

and singleton learning – we need to support them• Legal practice / capability is not a poor cousin to academic

study / capability13

some initial thoughts to frame the conversation…

• Digital tools can help define and frame specific educational objectives and experiences

• But objectives only go so far to determine the full digital experience – Emotions? Pace & tempo? Sense of intimacy? Collaboration / singleton learning? Tone? Genre? Rhetoric of relationship between tutor/facilitator and students?

• Learning resources and space – the sense of being and nothingness, spaces to develop values and give voice to those values – need redesigned, too

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useful approaches from medical education…

• PBL – problem-based learning, where students start with problems and define their own learning outcomes re knowledge and skills

• Use of high / low fidelity clinical contexts to support integration– PBL + wet & dry labs – Residencies – Simulated patients – Early supervised practice– Grand rounds – Clerkship

• The learning zone is the assessment zone15

… and other disciplines

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online AI sims

Require to be:•Local but distributed•Unique but scalable•Designed with a Geerztian thick authenticity, but capable of adaptation to thin authenticities•Non-prescriptive but rule-based and challenging those rules•Challenging but without killing engagement

(Maharg & Nicol 2009)

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Queen’s Law – OCE Grant to develop simulation platform

• Queen’s Law recently submitted and won a $250,000 industry / academic partnership grant to develop “intelligent” simulation platform

• Key objective is to create an authoring platform that enables any individual or group to develop highly compelling, complex simulations – pan-disciplinary: law, medicine, engineering, business

• Project will use an international consortium of law schools (8) to help give feedback on platform and student/staff experiences

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platform characteristics

• Back-end connectivity to cognitive computing platform (IBM Watson) is completely hidden from simulation creators

• Platform will integrate guided instructional framework into authoring platform

• Narrative, characters, roles, context, are all created by simulation authors

• Performs independently of LMSs – but values can be passed through APIs

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role & effect of AI characters• Students are given a scenario, a role and a timeline• They interact with AI characters in the scenario using email and chat-

based clients. AR voice comms are in development• Staff play a range of mentoring, coaching, facilitation roles• They can replay short sims (each unique) and reflect on their interactions

following the simulation• They can explore different approaches to client-based learning• They learn by fusing knowledge, skills, values• Ethical learning proceeds from experience and practice: it doesn’t only

precede

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sim creators’ experience

• Choose domain, boundaries and constraints• Choose specific learning outcomes• Develop narratives, characters and contexts that support the

outcomes• Model real world interactions (conduct, communication,

ethics, competing interests)• Develop supporting materials• Anticipate student reactions, problems, challenges

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other (longer term) objectives

• Work collaboratively cross-institutionally, with PEARL @ ANU College of Law and elsewhere

• Develop an embedded assessment framework to measure simulation performance

• Develop an embedded analytics engine to harness simulation data for both research and simulation development purposes

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implications

• Improved sim middleware to help sim creators design sims?

• Virtuous triangle of improvement – staff, students, Watson, each helping the other to improve

• Perhaps it will foster the vision of interdisciplinary sims

• Not open source, though, like SIMPLE• Useful platform for further research into sim learning

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referencesGould, H., Hughes, M., Maharg, P., Nicol, E. (2009). The narrative event diagram (NED): a tool for

designing professional simulations, in Gibson, D. (ed) Digital Simulations for Improving Education: Learning Through Artificial Teaching Environments, IGI Global Books, Hershey, PA.

Maharg, P., Nicol, E. (2009) Cyberdam and SIMPLE: a study in divergent developments and convergent aims, in Learning in a Virtual World: Reflections on the Cyberdam Research and Development Project, eds Warmelink, H, Mayer, I., Wolf Publishers, Nijmegen.

Maharg, P., Nicol, E. (2014). Simulation and technology in legal education: a systematic review and future research programme. In Grimes, R., Phillips, E., Strevens, C. (eds), Legal Education: Simulation in Theory and Practice, Ashgate Publishing, Farnham, Emerging Legal Education series, 17-42.

Maharg, P. (2007). Transforming Legal Education: Learning and Teaching in the Early Twenty-First Century. Ashgate Publishing, Farnham.

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Paul MahargEmail: paul.maharg@anu.edu.auWeb: paulmaharg.comSlides: paulmaharg.com/slides

Dirk RodenburgEmail: dirk.rodenburg@queensu.caWeb: law.queensu.caSlides: as above

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