When I teach criminal justice statistics my primary goal is to make sure all of my students grasp the foundations of science used in the criminal justice system. This broad and seemingly simple objective is accompanied by a number of challenges. Students can be apprehensive about learning statistics, may not embrace the mathematics component of the class, as well as maintain an uncertainty about learning something completely different from their other social science coursework. A less obvious but related challenge for ensuring student success in a criminal justice statistics course is accessibility. To make my course fully accessible to all of my students I must meet their diverse range of learning needs. This blog post concerns my on-going efforts to apply a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) strategy in my criminal justice statistics course. I will highlight the principles of UDL and provide examples of how I am taking small steps to apply these principles using university resources.
UDL is the action of designing a course with consideration to the diverse needs of a diverse student population (Dolmage, 2017; McGuire et al., 2006; Meyer et al., 2014; Rose & Meyer, 2002). This approach is focused on how students learn, as well as the variability in cognitive and emotive learning. Applying this approach to a major required senior-level criminal justice course enables the success of students who learn in a variety of ways. Providing diverse opportunities to receive, apply, and assess content and learning is important for any course with students that have a variety of statistics and research methods pre-requisite learning. There is a need for the UDL approach because it is a major course required for graduation that provides an important skillset to students that are entering the field.
Three UDL principles are applied in my course redesign including multiple means of: 1) representation, 2) action and expression, and 3) engagement. Providing multiple means of representation means using non-text instructional materials that aid students that struggle with access to “print” curriculum such as textbooks. Multiple means of action and expression is defined as how students perform course related tasks which aid students that may demonstrate mastery of course material in different ways. Finally, multiple means of engagement provide novelty to learning tasks which can enhance student motivation.
To implement the principle of representation I eliminated a textbook requirement for the course. I replaced this conventional core item of a statistics course with instructional examples of the different tests that I cover in class. This not only meaningfully reduced costs for the course by $140 per student, but also provided students full access to these tutorials via Canvas. My students were also provided access to a supplemental open-access statistics textbook. This free textbook can be accessed by students on Canvas.
Student demonstrate understanding of course materials applying the action and expression principle through multiple formats of class assignments. My course assignments include conventional tests administered in-person and online, low-stake application homework assignments, and a group assignment involving both a final report and presentation. Students utilize the university licensed SPSS, as well as Excel, to complete their application homework. The coupling of these assignments provides students with a diverse opportunity to illustrate their learning that may either excel working independently, collaboratively, or both.
Finally, I have applied the principle of engagement by exposing students to real-life publicly accessible criminal justice data. At the end of this semester, students will collaborate in groups to complete data analysis and reporting of one of three different sources of criminal justice data. These sources include arrest records, self-report victimization records, or survey data pertaining to the public’s perception of law enforcement. These data are accessible via UNC’s university subscription with the Inter-university Consortium of Political and Social Research (ICPSR). Over the course of a two-week data analysis workshop h students work together to clean and code the data, conduct data analysis, and draft a final report and presentation. Student engagement is enhanced through allowing them to explore datasets and answer research questions that represent their own interests.
My on-going experience this semester implementing UDL in my criminal justice statistics course has shown promise for providing greater opportunity to my students to access what they need to be successful in the course. I’ve learned that implementing small steps like this by using the resources already available at UNC can go a long way to providing our diverse student body with open-educational resources. With access to such resources I think any course can realize and enhance student access implementing changes, big and small.
Open Educational Resources (OER)
UNC’s Open Education Resources
Commons Open Educational Resources
Inter-University Consortium of Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
References
Dolmage, J.T. 2017. Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education. University of Michigan Press.
McGuire, J.M., Scott, S.S. & Shaw, S.F. 2006. Universal design and its applications in educational environments. Remedial and Special Education. 27, 3, 166-175.
Meyer, A., Rose, D.H. & Gordon, D.T. 2014. Universal Design for Learning: Theory and Practice. CAST Professional Publishing.
Rose, D.H. & Meyer, A. 2002. Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal Design for Learning. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
