Challenging What They All Know: Integrating the Real/Reel World into Criminal Justice Pedagogy

Abstract

In this article, the author discusses the rationales for and evidence of the benefits of incorporating a student‐centered, active learning approach in courses associated with a criminal justice curriculum. She, then, examines the substance, implementation, and pedagogical objectives of using three particular techniques: jail tours, outside speakers, and narrative and film analysis. The author concludes that these activities, when well‐structured and planned, represent a “teaching by stealth” strategy for active learning, whereby the student becomes engaged, and often engrossed, in real or reel life experiences, from which he not only derives enjoyment, but develops confidence, motivation, and interest (without realizing it) to undertake intellectual challenges that were previously unthinkable and in all likelihood improbable.