How is Criminal Justice Interactive transforming the CJ classroom?

– more than 200 schools and nearly 15,000 students are using CJ

– 80% of instructors observed improved student performance in courses that utilized CJi

– 83% said their students seemed better prepared for class discussions

– 93% of students surveyed said that CJi contributed to their success in the course

– 97% of students said that CJi made the course more enjoyable

– 70% of students spent as much time or more time in CJi than they did reading their textbook

The Criminal Justice Interactive Demo is Live!

I am happy to announce that the Criminal Justice Interactive (CJi) demo is live. The demo includes the fully-functional Parker Heights town interface as well as one live chapter–Chapter 4 “Criminal Law.” Here’s how to access the demo:

• Go to www.prenhall.com/cji
• Click on the “Access Demo” tab on the bottom left of the screen
• On the next screen click on “Click here to enter criminal justice interactive”
• You’re in!

The interface is very intuitive, and it’s fun to explore. If you would like a more guided demo experience, click on the link below to download a step-by-step walk through of the demo.

CJi Demo Walkthrough

If you have questions, comments, or want more information, leave a comment on the blog or feel free to email me directly (Tim Peyton, Criminal Justice Editor at Pearson Prentice Hall, tim.peyton@pearson.com).

Enjoy!

CJi: Challenging Students to Think

In my previous post I listed the instructor and student needs that Criminal Justice Interactive (CJi) is being designed to meet. In this post I will discuss in greater depth how CJi will meet one of those needs–namely the instructor need for homework and assessment resources to challenge students to go beyond the mere memorization of facts.

WHAT INSTRUCTORS TOLD US

Based on feedback gathered through a comprehensive web survey, a series of focus groups, and numerous conversations with introduction to criminal justice instructors, we found that many instructors struggle to get their students (particularly non-majors) to think critically about issues raised in the course and apply concepts to real life contexts. Part of this has to do with the fact that the intro CJ course is “a mile wide and an inch deep.” There is simply a lot of ground to cover, and not much time to do it. Also, students seem to be generally conditioned to simply memorize the facts, terms, and concepts that they need to know to pass the test. While many instructors that we spoke with have developed creative and effective resources and teaching styles to get students to go deeper than mere memorization of facts, instructors, nearly universally, told us that any resources a publisher could provide to help them would be very useful.

Let’s take a closer look at the kinds of homework and assessment resources that CJi will offer.

What is Criminal Justice Interactive?

As I mentioned in my previous post, Criminal Justice Interactive (CJi) will be the first comprehensive, truly multimedia introduction to the criminal justice system. In this post we’ll explore how CJi will be organized, what the user interface will be like, and what kinds of content it will include.

INSTRUCTOR AND STUDENT NEEDS

CJi was designed to meet some specific needs of criminal justice instructors and students that we identified in a series of focus groups, surveys, and other research (I’ll go into more detail about that research in a future post). These needs include:

1. Instructors need course materials to help them better engage students. Many intro CJ instructors we spoke with struggled to engage their students in the material presented in the course, particularly non-majors. Many of these instructors also viewed the typical textbook as a detriment to engaging students. We found a strong desire among intro CJ instructors to utilize more engaging multimedia course materials, but also found that most instructors struggled to find such materials.
2. Instructors need homework and assessment resources that challenge students to go beyond mere memorization of facts. Most of the CJ instructors we spoke with wanted their students to not only memorize facts about the CJ system, but also to be able to think critically about the system and discuss key topics and issues in a real world context.
3. Today’s students are used to learning in a multimedia world and need learning materials that reflect this reality.  Students spend far more time online than they do reading and they tend to seek out information online rather than through printed sources. The experiences that students have online and with video games and other multimedia seem to heighten their expectations of an ideal learning experience, particularly learning that involves multimedia.

CJi is being developed with these primary needs in mind. Let’s explore CJi a bit and see how it will meet these needs.

Welcome to the Criminal Justice Interactive (CJi) Blog

My name is Tim Peyton, and I am the editor for criminal justice at Pearson Prentice Hall Publishing. This blog is designed to keep you up to date on the development of a brand new online multimedia introduction to criminal justice product that we will be launching later this year. Over the coming months I’ll be posting information about the research that informed the creation of this product, specifics about the development process, details about what the product will be like and how instructors and students will use it, and preview images and video from the product itself.

Criminal Justice Interactive (CJi) represents an evolution in course materials for the introduction to criminal justice course. It will be the first comprehensive, truly multimedia introduction to the criminal justice system.  CJi will integrate a dramatic storyline, simulation activivites, learning modules that present key topics and learning objectives, and assignable and gradable homework and assessment activities–all within an interactive graphic interface designed to appeal to the “digital natives” that make up much of today’s student population.

I am extremely excited about working on this project. I hope that you will check back from time to time to learn more about CJi. Talk to you again soon.