Peer-Led Academic Support Network

CRJ-1: Introduction to Criminal Justice and Society

Supplemental Instruction, Learning Partnership, Pathway to Equity

Reflection on the implementation of Supplemental Instruction Leader support in my course:

I decided to use the Supplemental Instruction (SI) program because my course is lecture heavy and exams play a significant role in determining students' grades. I believe all my students benefitted from the program, particularly those who participated and met twice a week with the SI leader outside of class. The SI leader provided valuable feedback on the most challenging concepts for students and helped me meet them where they were academically. I spent more time on particular topics, provided supplemental reading to aid understanding, and included low-stake writing assignments that asked students to explain their reasoning. I believe this made the course more equitable for everyone. Furthermore, based on our regular meetings, I reworded, jettisoned, or added clarity to exam questions, which helped improve overall scores. Additionally, our meetings helped identify challenges some students were facing outside of class. Taken together this helped achieve one of the most important learning objectives for the course; students being able to present an overview of the due process and crime control model of the criminal justice system.

McGuire’s Teach Students How to Learn resonated with me most, I particularly gravitated towards her four-step process of teaching Bloom’s Taxonomy. It provided a concrete way to explain the difference between learning and studying to students. It made me rethink my use of the term study and put it in its proper context. Studying information makes it fleeting, after the exam it's gone. Simply trying to remember mountains of information was not advancing them up Bloom’s pyramid. It’s through this lens I carefully crafted writing assignments based on current events that required students to use the concepts, theories, policies, etc., used in the course to climb Bloom’s learning pyramid. At the very least, I wanted students to reach the analyzing/evaluating stage, so that when they encountered difficult questions posed on the exam, they could rely on the higher-order forms of learning to get the correct answer. I think this contributes to a culturally responsive pedagogy because part of learning, according to McGuire is creating analogies and examples that connect to their lives.

A point of emphasis for the SI leader and I was motivating students to study and not be discouraged by a less-than-satisfactory grade on a low-stakes quiz or assignment. McGuire’s book talks about how it is not students' ability or intelligence that prevents them from getting high scores, but their preparation. I discussed the importance of preparation during class as it relates to metacognition, particularly active reading. Through experience and discussions with my SI leader, I learned that students either do not read at all, read very little, or try to cram the night before. So, I used McGuire’s previewing exercise from Chapter 5 to maximize student engagement when reading. The goal of the exercise was to show how our brains retain information when we start with the big picture and add details to fill in the big picture. Students were asked to read a passage without a heading or title and then asked a series of questions about the passage. None of the students could answer the questions, but after the title was given, and they reread the passage, the questions made perfect sense. I believe this exercise engaged students, fostering learning by showing the importance of actively reading or previewing. It showed it was not enough to show up to the lecture and think they learned the material, but to open the textbook and engage with the material outside of class. Doing this would lead to greater success on exams/quizzes which are based on lectures and the textbook.

Reflection on My Cultural Awareness

Cultural Tree

The cultural tree above showcases my examples of surface culture, shallow culture, and deep culture. As an African American family, food, and music represent surface culture for me. My shallow culture is embodied through respect, structure, adaptability, and faith. My deep culture is governed by charity/service, interdependence, love, and being non-judgmental.

Through this exercise, I have become more culturally aware by critically analyzing the unconscious beliefs and norms that anchor and help me make sense of the world. Identifying the source of my cultural beliefs has enabled me to develop more sensitivity towards other cultures. This newfound awareness has been extremely helpful in the classroom, where I avoid putting students in a box or projecting my expectations on them based on my cultural beliefs.

Image
I choose this image as not only a reminder of what I'm striving for in the classroom but the world! I want to remove barriers that prevent students or any individual from transcending the things that hold them back.	" Your score on the first test is not an indication of how smart you are. It's a reflection of your behaviors, the way you prepared for the first test. And I can teach you a way to prepare that's going to help you ace the next test" (McGuire, 2015, p. 19). This quote from Chapter 3 on Metacognition in McGuire's book represents what is possible when students and educators recognize that poor grades are not about smarts, but discipline. When given the proper tools/strategies students can achieve heights they didn't believe were possible.

Moving Forward

In practical terms, having an SI leader has proven to be quite helpful for those who choose to participate. Even though students self-select, I have noticed that encouraging those who have not performed well on initial assessments to attend the SI sessions has led to a significant improvement in their scores. I have also observed that students tend to share information and insights with the SI leader that they won’t share with me. Therefore, maintaining regular communication with my SI leader has benefitted the course qualitatively. Supplemental Instruction is a valuable tool I plan to continue utilizing moving forward.

**Faculty Bio**
	My name is Alton Williams, I have been teaching in the Criminal Justice Department for the past six years. My goal is to help students develop into independent thinkers, who analyze the evidence and reach the most valid conclusions based on their analysis. My teaching philosophy emphasizes interactive teaching strategies, critical thinking, and ethical reasoning.

Funding Information
	The Peer and Academic Resource Center (PARC) in partnership with The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) The Division of Inclusive Excellence (IE) This work was supported by: CSU Office of the Chancellor Academic Affairs grant for Faculty Professional Development