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45 J. Legal Educ. 568 (1995)
All I Ever Needed to Know about Teaching Law School I Learned Teaching Kindergarten: Introducing Gaming Techniques into the Law School Classroom

handle is hein.journals/jled45 and id is 578 raw text is: All I Ever Needed to Know About Teaching Law School I Learned Teaching Kindergarten: Introducing Gaming Techniques into the Law School Classroom Jennifer L. Rosato As law teachers, we are constantly searching for effective ways to enhance our students' learning and improve their motivation. Some of us design problems, create role plays, or introduce material from other disciplines. But law teachers generally have not sought teaching techniques from educators outside of law schools.' It is time that we did. I taught in a variety of settings before teaching in law school, and those experiences have strongly influenced my approach to law teaching. I began by teaching in preschool and kindergarten, where the integration of education and play contributed to the children's enjoyment and learning. One teach- ing method-gaming seemed particularly effective in combining education and play. I am defining gamingbroadly: gaming has students actively taking on a role and, while in that role, effectuating changes in an artificial but realistic environment.2 From early childhood, children learn by playing games. They Jennifer L Rosato is Associate Professor, Brooklyn Law School. She thanks Michelle Cucuzza and Jennifer Schaefer for valuable research assistance, and Lymarie Rios forsecretarial assistance. She also extends her thanks to Doris Del Tosto Brogan, Stacy Caplow, Linda Feldman, Marsha Garrison, Elizabeth Schneider, and Marilyn Walter for helpful critique and invaluable support. Funding for this research was provided by a generous stipend from Brooklyn Law School. 1. See Jay Feinman & Marc Feldman, Pedagogy and Politics, 73 Geo. LJ. 875, 895 (1985); cf. William Wesley Patton, Opening Students' Eyes: Visual Learning Theory in the Socratic Classroom, 15 Law & Psychol. Rev. 1, 1 & n.1 (1991). 2. There is disagreement in the educational psychology literature over the definition of gam- ing. Distinctions among various definitions primarily concern the relationship between games and simulations. Some commentators interpret games and simulations as separate and distinct methods. See, e.g., Phillip H. Gillispie, Learning Through Simulation Games 4 (New York, 1973); Joseph D. Harbaugh, Simulation and Gaming- A Teaching/Learning Strategy for Clinical Legal Education, in Guidelines for Clinical Legal Education 191, 196 (Chicago, 1980); J. Thomas Butler, Games and Simulations: Creative Educational Alterna- tives, Teaching Trends, Sept. 1988, at 20, 20. Other commentators define a game as a subset Journal of Legal Education, Volume 45, Number 4 (December 1995)

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