POLS 439W: Senior Seminar in Criminal Justice

Course Description

From the course catalog: This course involves an integrated analysis and critical examination of all of the subfields of criminal justice, including criminology, policing, adjudication, corrections, and criminal justice process and policy. This seminar assess the substantive knowledge, critical analysis, writing, speaking, and computer skills of senior-level students.

From my syllabus: This course will critically explore, analyze, and assess a variety of criminal justice-related topics and institutions. These involve criminology, law enforcement, corrections and correctional institutions, policy, and other subsets of criminal justice. In this seminar, you will engage in thoughtful and respectful discussion about these topics, as well as utilize critical writing skills, computer skills, and communication skills.

Course Modality

For Fall 2021, this course will be taught online with both a synchronous component (once a week) and asynchronous activities.

Students are expected to attend class each week in zoom meeting. Attendance counts and they do group work or workshop their papers. Students also will read articles and complete a Wiki page once in the semester to explain one article as well as discussion boards. There will be a mix of individual/group work and a variety of activities during and between classes.

I have tried to use the IAEL to design a way for students to feel a throughline week to week by using a variety of assignments and activities to keep their minds engaged with the course even when not in the classroom. I have tried to be intentional with the kinds of assignments so that students don’t feel like it is busy work, but rather a part of a larger project or understanding that builds over the course.

Course Design

This course utilizes weekly modules that are designed to attend to two different aspects of the course:

Analyzing a variety of criminal justice topics through scholarship and critique, and
Completing a research/policy analysis of a criminal justice-related topic. Each week students have tasks to complete related to learning about/critiquing CJ concepts as well as something to work on to scaffold their final projects.

This course has a long-term project that guides some of the asynchronous activities and is built up over the course of a semester.

Students do a mix of self-guided learning, learning through peer teaching, and reflecting throughout the course.

There is a multitude of assignment types such as: discussion boards, journal reflections, Wiki Leader assignment, research paper, research presentation (podcast or poster), in-class work both individual and group. The final project is also scaffolded throughout the semester so that pieces are due every few weeks rather than all at once.

This course is a Criminal Justice course which is the capstone for the program. Students complete a research project and it is a writing intensive course.

Student Engagement

Students engage in a variety of ways: with each other, with me, with the community, and with the discipline. I have been redesigning the final project to be flexible in terms of what students are doing and how they deliver the information. This should help provide students with ideas about how to package information and ideas for specific communities

Students complete a Wiki assignment to summarize and analyze articles for other students. They pose questions we use in discussion for that week during synchronous meetings.
Discussion boards to react to questions I pose regarding critical analysis.
Introduction slides to get to know each other
Reflection and scaffolding of projects through journal activities that are also a space to ask me questions privately.
Group work during Zoom sessions to seek material/resources and teach to rest of class.
Students will engage with the literature for their final project utilizing a new assignment designed by my cohort in the IAEL. This will help students be more engaged with the resources they use and how they fit together rather than just as an annotated bibliography.

Assessment of Student Learning

Please see syllabus for SLOs, Grading Policies, brief descriptions of assignments and course structure. (Please note that the syllabus will be changing, but this is the general structure of the course.)

Paper Guidelines

Sample of In-Class Activity

Sample of Rubric for Final Paper

Technology & Tools

This course utilizes a variety of tools in Blackboard, Google, and other plug-ins to help students learn on their own and in groups

Blackboard Wiki allows students to summarize and crowdsource information about readings each week as well as ask questions of each others.

Jamboard for in-class group work and brainstorming

Podcast assignment or poster presentation for a final project showcase. The poster presentation is created as a slide that is uploaded to a website to create a virtual showcase.

Civic & Community Engagement

One thing I want to add to my course is to tie it into our internship program or another volunteer opportunity. I may have students reflect on it for extra credit or as a separate choice activity. Either way, I want students to be thinking about what communities they want to influence in a more nuanced manner.

Elements of Experiential Learning & Connections to the Professional Field

For the students’ final project, students will be asked to present their work in some form. From the IAEL, I plan on providing new ways for students to present their information in ways that make sense for their career goals. They can choose to present in a traditional poster presentation or create a podcast to present information to a broader community.

For some in-class activities, I plan on developing new activities related to weekly topics that they can connect to potential career opportunities. One thing that students have expressed to me is that they still feel a lot of cloudiness when it comes to their future, so I want to develop some surveying and reflections into assignments to helps students see what careers are possible and actually explore them.

Elements of Equity, Diversity & Inclusion

Almost every research topic we discuss considers marginalized communities and how to improve conditions related to justice. We also have many students who want to work within the criminal justice system, so we work together to think of areas of improvement from a variety of perspectives.

Students also engage in a variety of activities that take into consideration equity, diversity, and inclusion. I try to be very mindful of the variety of circumstances students face and make sure to be flexible and equitable across the classroom.

Training in Course Design

I have attended multiple trainings provided by Chico State to help improve my courses and am always trying to react to new course and student needs.

Active and Experiential Learning Institute, Summer 2021
Two P’s Civic Engagement Workshop, Summer 2021
QLT Workshop series, Spring 2021
Digital Pedagogy FLC, FDEV, Fall 2020
Go Virtual Summer Institute, June/July, 2020
10,000 First-Gen Wildcats FLC, FDEV, Spring 2020
Tipping Point Equity, Engagement, Resilience, January 16th, 2020
Tipping Point Student Success Summit, January 17th, 2019
Affordable Learning Solutions, FDEV, May 2019
Inclusive Teaching Academy, FDEV, May/June 2019
Free Speech FLC, FDEV Spring 2019
Improve Your Teaching Practice FLC, FDEV, Fall 2018

These workshops/institutes/communities have all helped add new dimensions to my course. I’ve been taught to truly understand the student experience, build in flexibility, choice, and student-centered learning for my courses. I have learned new technologies that have helped keep things fresh for my students. One of the most important things I’ve learned from these workshops is that you should always be reflecting on your own courses and how students learn, and to try to adapt as much as possible. There’s almost always more than one way to do something. Also, explaining why you do what you do to students helps them know how to take ownership of their own learning.

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