I appreciated the focus in these readings and videos on the active knowledge construction of students, or what students do. I also appreciated the statement that learning occurs by associating new with old information or building new information onto older information. In other words, learning is relational.
I am currently teaching A Cultural History of Crime and Justice. The learning outcomes include:
- Apply the notion of legal culture(s) to reflect on and then articulate a range of possible factors influencing popular conceptions of the criminal justice system and its place in historic British North America and contemporary Canada;
- Describe the English origins of the post-Conquest British North American criminal justice system with an emphasis on the 19th to 21st centuries;
- Examine and explain the evolution of British North American adaptations of English criminal law institutions centered on definitions of reformation of crime, policing, and punishment;
- Examine and describe First Nations laws within a broader context of legal pluralism in British North America and Canada;
- Examine the jurisdictional challenges created by the British North America Act (1867) and explain how its division of power affected the administration of criminal justice and punishment/reformation;
- Examine and explain how constructed identities of class, gender, and ethnicity have shaped the application of criminal sanctions and punishment;
- Distinguish between internal legal history and external legal history and demonstrate the advantages and shortcomings of each approach;
- Examine the nature of historical mindednessand how it shapes the distinctive approach and mentalité of those who adhere to its principles in practicing the historical enquiry.
There is a mix of low-level and high-level learning outcomes, although the latter is emphasized. Because this is a history course students need to be able to describe and explain the basic historical context. This is the ground on which they can then apply and examine larger concepts relating to crime and justice in different historical periods.
Students are assessed through three types of assignments:
- Four block summaries that compare and contrast readings across lessons
- One secondary article analysis
- One primary document analysis
The learning outcomes align with assessments. With the block summaries, students concisely summarize the arguments of scholars and then analyze the readings in relation to one another. The secondary article analysis asks students to extend what they have learned by writing block summaries through an in-depth analysis of two scholarly readings. The primary document analysis then asks students to further extend their analysis by now examining themes relating to crime and justice within a particular historical context.
The learning outcomes and assessments ask students to relate readings, concepts or time periods to one another, and so they are already at the relational or extended abstract levels of the SOLO taxonomy.