Cristian Galilea
Working Title
Friere has mentioned many times in his writings about education that there is a need for student interaction. Many professors and students agree on the idea that having student interaction with what is being taught causes them to retain more information. So why hasn’t this way of teaching been implemented into more classes? The class I will be going through and talking about how it could be changed is the Intro to Criminal Justice. A course that tries to cover a large range of information in half a semester inorder to keep students in, but ultimately causes few to retain mosof what is taught.
In Intro to Criminal Justice you go over the many forms of law, from the history to the people who enforce it, and yet it is all done through a slide show of notes and a reading in the textbook. A way to make this more engaging for the students is to have a person who is or was in the criminal justice profession and talk about what it is really like and what they had to do. This also allows the students to be more engaged by asking questions and really hear what its like to do that job. Also to implement recording into the discussion would allow students to go back later to watch it and take notes on what the person said. This would, in my opinion, cause the students to retain more of what the lesson was about. This would have to be paired with the reading as well and maybe a short slide show about it but this is where we could incorporate another idea. Recording an in class discussion on the reading. This would put more stress on learning the material from the reading and if you are having trouble retaining it all or want to know more about a section of it you can discuss it with the teacher in class. The purpose of recording it instead of taking notes allows everyone to be more focussed on the discussion at hand and be engaged in the conversation, this also allows students to help students if they know the material better. The recording also offers a way of going back over the discussion to then take notes on anything you are confused or interested about. Both of these ways would greatly increase student attention and participation in class while also putting emphasis on the importance of doing the reading.
As of now the lack of interest and interaction among the students is quite obvious. The classes are mostly silence and blank stares as the professor reads off the slides until class ends. This course in crucial to keeping the interest people have in studying criminal justice either as their major or a minor. Because of the lack of interaction it is hard for everyone to remember the information because it is simply being read to them in a lecture style way of teaching without going in depth. This is a course that does not feel like it should be lecture based because you need to be engaged in order to find the right path to take your next courses and where you want to take your life after college.
