WorkshopsAs a young child, I had a speech defect. I didn’t start talking until I was four years old, but once I started, I never stopped. Maybe I went into teaching because I wanted to be heard. Maybe this is why I work so hard to find my voice as a teacher and to empower students to find their own voices.
Why is the key goal of a criminologist to help students find their voices? Because when students find their voices, they can argue persuasively orally and in writing. And to argue well, a student must learn facts; marshal facts to support arguments; weigh evidence; and be able to see arguments from different points of view. Students who can do all this are empowered to get their voices heard above the din of other voices.
Of course, you may feel that students must know something before they have anything valuable to voice. I agree. Therefore, I expect students to devote most of the time spent on homework to learning the “facts of the case.” To help students learn these facts, I provide study questions on each reading. To ensure that the readings are completed, I quiz over one of these study questions at the top of each class period. By assigning readings and giving quizzes over them, I let my readings do my lecturing. Therefore, I became known as the teacher who doesn’t lecture.
Not lecturing puts a lot of pressure on the discussion portion of each class. To focus each day’s discussion and keep it going, I ask each student to bring a written question–and its answer–to class every day. Whenever the full-group discussion slows, I call on a student who hasn’t spoken to share their question, which provokes a new round of discussion. To keep it interesting, I also use a different discussion format every class day.
I assess students on how much content they have learned as well as how well they have learned to argue about criminal justice issues. To assess content knowledge, students are tested daily on one short answer question and again at the time of the midterm and final exams. To assess how well they have learned to argue, students write formal argumentative essay papers and answer essay questions on the exams. Each student also serves as “teacher for a day” by giving a 5– to 7–minute speech and by sharing the accompanying paper with all the students in the class. My goal is for these speeches and papers to be the best ones the students have ever created. To that end, I meet with each student for 40 minutes before his or her paper and presentation are due.
In addition to assessing my students’ work, I also assess my own work as a teacher. To self-assess, I rely on my own inner voice and the voices of my students. Every midterm, I give students an evaluation with just three questions: What most helps you learn in this class and why? What most interferes with your learning in this class and why? What could you do differently that would most help your learning in this class and why? I ask students to write at least one full paragraph about their experience in the class. Then, students discuss it with a group and tell me about their main concerns. Afterwards, I just listen without responding except to ask questions to clarify concerns. The next day I come back with some changes I am prepared to make, some changes that are nonnegotiable (I explain why), and some changes they may want to consider making themselves based upon their own self-reports.
I try to be constantly responsive to student concerns, especially the ones that are aimed at helping students learn more. It seems that my teaching is a constant effort to improve based on what I’m hearing from students. Over the years, it’s been their collective voices that are responsible for most of the good things about me as a teacher. It reminds me about what one anonymous writer said about her readers (Boice 1994:58): “I’ve just imagined a large chorus of faces, all the people who have given me [feedback]… I can, more or less, hear them all at once, in near-concert. They have a special message for me. I must listen. I must listen.”