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3 Strategies for Engaging Criminal Justice Students in Critical Thinking

 Aaron Fichtelberg

 

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This webinar, led by Professor Aaron Fichtelberg, focuses on developing a classroom where students are open to critical approaches to criminal justice. 
 
Many students begin their studies of criminal justice with commonly held “good guy/bad guy” narratives regarding the criminal justice system and are often resistant to a critical perspective on the issue.  A lecturer who is too strident in how they approach the material can easily lead students to resist critical insights or simply to refuse to engage with the material.

In recent years, however, many young people, particularly those from marginalized groups, have begun to become far more skeptical about the benevolence of the criminal justice system as groups like the Black Lives Matter movement have begun to force discussions of systemic inequalities into the public sphere.  Therefore, it has only become more important the professors of criminal justice help students understand the validity of these critical views regardless of whether their students agree with them.
This webinar will focus on how professors can maintain a classroom that helps otherwise skeptical students to open to a critical perspective on the criminal justice system.  It will emphasize classroom strategies and teaching tips that will help students see criminal justice in a critical light without alienating or offending students who may disagree with such an approach.

Finally, the webinar will discuss bigger questions about what it means to be critical in the classroom.