Background

The course clearly states that the intended audience is law enforcement personnel intending to teach at an academy. However, they are not limited to teaching at an academy, but they are also not required to be certified to teach something outside of an academy unless it is a “high liability” topic or a mandated course. High-liability topics would be firearms, driving, etc., and require this 32-hour general course before they can move on to one of the high-liability courses.

Evaluating a course requires access to all of the course material. This course is being evaluated with material provided by a third-party without all of the documentation, namely, without the Instructor Guide. Because of this, there are gaps in what is presented in the Student Guide and may have been presented in a class or a slide-deck. So, this evaluation is limited to what is provided.

Additionally, there are discrepancies between the documents and the claims made on the website, when it comes to when material was revised. It could be that there is a newer version than 2016-2017, but the third-party stated that the version provided is the most recent version provided by their regulatory body online.

There is a lot of good content in many places, however, where it goes wrong, it goes very wrong.

CAVEAT:

According to an AI Overview from a Google search for the Instructor Guide, the Wisconsin Criminal Justice Instructor Development Course (CJ-IDC) materials are strictly controlled by the Law Enforcement Standards Board (LESB). While a single public instructor guide for general download is not available online, you can access course guidelines and certification packets through LESB and technical colleges. WILENET (.gov)

Document: Course syllabus

The document I reviewed was last updated September, 2016 or 2017 (different pages have different dates for the “current version”). I am not aware if there is a newer version either existing or in development.

That said, if, indeed, the 2016 version of the WI CJ-IDC is the most current version, this is the first criticism of the material – it should have been updated far more often than not at all in the last 10 years. Learning, research, and science change, as does case law and learning strategies: law enforcement training has to keep up with changes, as well. We cannot expect change, reform, and improvement to occur if we are not changing, reforming, and improving our own training materials and the skills and knowledge of those that train law enforcement.

Competencies and objectives

The use of learning objectives instead of performance objectives clearly sets up the disconnect between what the course delivers and what the expected performance outcomes would be for participants after the class. This course is not just about learning, as instructors do more than provide theory, the course should be about doing, thus “performance” objectives is a more appropriate use for an instructor course.

It is because of this disconnect, the competencies and objectives are more related to class performance and theory than to performing tasks and application of knowledge and skills development. While the headline says “Competencies,” what are listed are classroom activities, not tasks to be completed within a range of competency in the function of real-time instructor duties. Also, the way the “competencies” are written, they look act like performance objectives, but some are not measurable and others are not effective.

Section 1: Introduce instructor candidates to the structure and activities of the Law Enforcement Standards Board.

Learning objectives are not measurable nor have measurable action verbs. “Become familiar with,” “familiarize,” and “integrate ethics” is not measurable.

Section 2: Identify instructor responsibilities and documentation requirements of Law Enforcement Standards Board approved basic courses.

Objectives use Understand level Cognitive Domain only and overuse “Describe.” Additionally, there is included a walk-through of going through the website and application process, which would be more appropriate for the Psychomotor Domain.

Section 3: Examine adult learning methods and facilitation skills used in Law Enforcement Standards Board approved courses.

Objectives use Remember and Understand level Cognitive Domain action verbs but then jumps to Create with the “intervene” action verb, which isn’t supported by the other objectives. Last objective uses two action verbs with a conjunction, which means that it is actually two objectives or only the higher action verb is necessary.

Section 4: Identify key elements and strategies for planning and preparing effective instruction and learning activities.*

“Become acquainted with” and “consider” are not effective, measurable action verbs. How will they measure “locate?”

Section 5: Recognize standard processes in Law Enforcement Standards Board approved courses for assessing participant progress.

The action verbs are not entirely measurable and do not provide any level of competence demonstration. “And” is used in between two action verbs.

Section 6: Prepare and present a teaching assignment.*

A lot of the “objectives” are related to work done in class and are not about task competency for what an instructor would do after class.

Section 7: Critique the Criminal Justice Instructor Development Course.*

These objectives have nothing to do with the performance of an instructor in the execution of their duties as instructors, but are tasks completed in a class to get credit. The ability to “7.2. Complete the final Criminal Justice Instructor Development course instructor test.” has nothing to do with the tasks that an instructor must perform competently to train participants. These “objectives” are more about administrative tasks that a participant must complete to be certified an instructor within WI and have no learning or training value for the participants they are going to train.

Textbook

The “textbook” is “Wisconsin Department of Justice, Training and Standards Bureau. Criminal Justice Instructor Development Course student text.  Edition: December 2012,” which is actually a Word document. It is not laid out nor designed like a textbook, does not provide a lot of material for independent research or study, and does not effectively organize the material in such a way that would be conducive to learning.

Additionally, if these are the current versions, this would be a 14-year-old textbook for a class that hasn’t been revised in 10 years. The syllabus and the text both say that they were revised in 2016, yet the syllabus says the text version is from 2012. Could be an overlooked typo, but not sure. Textbooks and training should be reviewed and maintained at least once a year, with a change log provided. So far, there is no evidence that this is the case with the documents acquired.

Document: Textbook – Student Text

While the student “textbook” is written in a narrative format, which is more advanced than a lot, the lack of intuitive organization makes it difficult to determine where there is a break in paradigm, learning principle, or topic. While it does not necessarily need to be in a formal outline format, the organization of the material should still have a consistent application that implies organization and hierarchy of information. It is very difficult to determine where objectives (even as they are) are being addressed directly and where the change in topic is between sections, objectives, and chunks of information.

All but one of the links for the sources used do not function anymore, so checking the validity and veracity of some of the content was not possible.

Participants of this course are provided the learning objectives, but it is difficult to keep track of what they are working on within the document because they are only stated once, in the syllabus. Because of this, the content doesn’t flow efficiently. When coupled with poorly developed and unmeasurable objectives, the content of the text feels disorganized, too long in some places, and too short in others.

Recommendation:

The easy fix is to use the objectives as headers for content in an outline format. The headers do not need to be an exact version of the objectives; it is sufficient to include the text without the action verb. This would help organize the material. At the very least, providing the objectives that will be addressed in each section would help give a feeling of organization to the text, if not provide an incentive to make sure the objectives are appropriately scaffolded.

Administrative guidelines

Instructor Development Course Overview

• Organization is confusing. It doesn’t follow the “objective” statements well or it isn’t clear. Use the Objectives as the headers.
• Most of the “Instructor Course Goals” learning objectives use unmeasurable action verbs. “Learn” is not an action verb, it is an activity: it cannot be measured or assessed.
• Focused on education alone, not on training.
• Ethics section didn’t align with the performance objectives
• Course should separate basic course instructor and general instructor. Trying to serve two paradigms creates a weird back and forth.
• Not well written, a lot of grammatical errors and issues with organization, format, and organization.
• Administrative listings of how to apply to be an instructor do not require time in class as an objective. They are not teaching anything that a handout and an activity at the end of class couldn’t complete. This could be part of an introduction, a final chapter, or an addendum

 

Legal Issues – case law

While the use of case law in this course is better than a lot of the courses reviewed, some of the case law is too specific for a general instructor course and doesn’t cover some of the important foundational case law that is more important. One case demonstrating a gap in training related to mental health is useful, but three cases and an IACP position on mental health training and methodology is unnecessary and out of place for a basic instructor course. Additionally, the conclusions drawn from the cases miss the overarching impact on training and on elements of training, while focusing on ambiguous applications. It is as if the only common thread to these cases is the mention of the word training and not the elements of training that are missing. For instance, the Cruz v. Laramie discussion focuses on the use of a restraint with mentally ill and misses the lesson learned specific to training.

Cases used in the course include:

• Canton v. Harris – appropriate, misapplied
• Popow v. Margate – appropriate, did not state that this is the case that established failure to train tort, misapplying that to Canton v. Harris.
• Zuchel v. Denver – appropriate, decision making, realism, not just use of force
• Gaddis v. Redford Township and City of Dearborn Heights (2004) – useful
• Herrera v. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (2004) – doesn’t add anything to the instructor failure to train conversation as it is a repeat on mental health response training
• International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) implemented a model policy on “Dealing with the Mentally Ill in 1997 – is unnecessary for this type of training
• Cruz v. Laramie (2001) – unnecessary, the focus being on the use of a restraint with no relevancy to an element of training cited.
• Brown v. Gray (2000) – the content focuses on the Use of Force component of the case and doesn’t focus on the previously established ruling in Canton v. Harris. The Harris case is a result of a deliberate indifference to an obvious need for training, but the section of the case law part is focused on circumstances of failure to train instead of where the lessons learned, and liability exists for an instructor.
• Sager v. City of Woodland Park (1982) – appropriate, negative training
• Markham v. White (1999) – appropriate, content neutral material (sexual harassment)
• Avemco Insurance Company v. Elliot Aviation Flight services – marginally appropriate, there are other court cases that are LE specific regarding maintaining safe environments.
• Paul v. City of Altus – appropriate

 

Learning methods

The learning environment: the learner’s perspective

• The very beginning of this section discusses the three domains of learning without ever discussing that it is Bloom’s Taxonomy. Not only is this problematic, but when listing the six levels of the Cognitive Domain, they are using the version of Bloom’s prior to the 2001 revision by Anderson and Krathwohl. So this entire section is not only out of date, but is does not conform to current use of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
• The next part that addresses the Psychomotor Domain is using a model that is not actually a model at all. Since there are no references or citations supporting this “4-level” domain, I had to go on a google search. What I found was articles talking about integrating the Psychomotor Domain with these four teaching strategies, which also include the other two domains. This entire section demonstrates that the authors of this course did not understand the content they wrote, they did not understand the application of the content, nor the source material that they used for the content. There are three generally accepted versions of the Psychomotor Domain, the most appropriate for law enforcement being the Simpson’s Psychomotor Domain, which uses Seven-levels.
• The next section, “Diverse Characteristics of Learners,” is Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, which does not have any credible, peer reviewed quality research to support. The only research supporting multiple-intelligences are those adhering to multiple-intelligences – any non-adherent research shows there is no correlation with learning when designing training to address each mode.
• I was not given an instructor guide for this course, so there is missing context for some parts. One is in the student activity where it says, “After you receive your assignment…” which refers to an additional document that is provided with these materials called the “Instructor Candidate Teaching Assignment.” This will be reviewed separately.
• The activity is more of a discovery exercise that does not support the previous content. The activity also uses the course’s “4-level Psychomotor Domain” as an element for deciding how to handle challenges, which is a completely inappropriate and disingenuous use of the Psychomotor Domain. The “domains of learning” are specifically related to using action verbs for describing the complexity of a task, not to be used as strategies for teaching. The entirety of this section is misleading, is not supported by learning science, and creates conflicting and inappropriately applied models and methods to learning.
• There is a regular citation to “Professional Precepts” that has a link that does not lead to any source material. The website is rife with potential malware, as well, so do not follow the link. Since the source material is inaccessible, I was not able to find out where the content originated or if it has any validity. However, with the evidence of the previous sections, it is clear that my intuition that it is promoting inaccurate information and misapplied methods and processes that have nothing to do with learning science or teaching. Also, the retrieval date is from 2009, so the source is already 17 years old, which is too far out of scope to have value – there is no telling how old the original content was before 2009.

 

The learning environment: the instructor’s perspective

• The first part cannot be contested because the source material is irretrievable, but it is okay. Without having the source, it is hard to say whether there is any evidence to support the content about the characteristics of an effective instructor.
• Another learning myth is then used in the discussion about slide decks – Left/Right Brain. This has been debunked.
• The formatting of the content makes it hard to differentiate between chunks of information. “Lecture Methods” and “Facilitate Discussions” is in the same text format as the chunked information within Lecture Methods.
• The definition of “facilitate” when it comes to training is used differently in the Learning and Development world. To be a facilitator is not just facilitating discussions, it is to be a guide for the participants as they pursue self-discovery in learning. Often it is used as an antonym for “instructor,” where even this application is a semantic fallacy – instructors do facilitator stuff and facilitators do instructor stuff. A GOOD instructor knows when it is appropriate to do one or the other.
• While too brief, the content on scenario-based training was accurate and one of the few courses to actually discuss it. There needs to be a lot more information and exercises for creating, managing, and debriefing scenarios, but generally it was good.
• The section on online learning was excessive when more content could have been dedicated to other parts. Very few instructors will ever design online learning, especially because to do so typically requires additional skills and software packages that they do not have access to. While the content was technically accurate, it would have been more appropriate to use the space for discussing a strategy of hybrid work using online materials.

 

Teaching psychomotor skills

• The whole “Predictable order of change” appears to be completely made up content. The entire section misapplies Bloom’s Learning domains, misunderstands the use of the domains, and erroneously combines terminology with incorrect definitions. For instance, the very first paragraph says “The first stage, the cognitive stage, is marked by awkward, slow movements…” is a completely false application of learning domains. If the authors actually studied Bloom’s Taxonomy and the learning domains within, they would have used one of the first levels of complexity as found in Simpson’s Psychomotor Domain – perception. While it is accurate that the typically the cognitive Domain is the first step in learning, it has no impact on learning psychomotor skills. They are unique and separate domains for a purpose – measuring performance looks different in the different domains.

To use their example of driving a car. Overwhelmingly, there is a lot of cognitive learning before someone has ever gotten into a car. While there will always be exceptions, almost no one gets in a car who has never driven a car and asks, “Where is the brake?” They would have learned where the brake is, what the brake does, and how and when to use a brake before ever getting into a car to look for one; in order to look for something, you have to know what that something is. But none of that is in the psychomotor Domain while all of it is in the Cognitive Domain.

It is clear the authors of this section have no idea what Bloom’s Taxonomy is, how it is used, how to apply it, what the purpose of Bloom’s is, and how to train it. I do not know where this content came from because, like a lot of content related to this topic, there are no sources cited.

• Direct teaching strategies is, for the most part, correct.
• Indirect teaching strategies is mostly correct.
  • I was unable to verify exactly where the “teaching progressions is taught with three concepts” originates, but I did find it most commonly among training for sports. While there are a lot of similarities with sports training and law enforcement training, it is not a 1:1 correlation. Using Simpson’s Psychomotor Domain levels of complexity would have been far more appropriate content for this section.
  • Motor learning principles could actually be applied to all learning. Not sure why this is considered a motor learning concept. It maybe that this was taken from a sports paradigm, as well.
  • The providing feedback/debriefing section is good, except the new standard of debriefing is to allow the participant to report their experience first, which was covered in a previous section but not reinforced here. In developing psychomotor skills, it is important for a participant to be able to explain what they did and why they did it. It provides a level of reinforcement and recognition.
  • There is an activity for practicing feedback from a role play, but I do not have the materials of what the role play would consist of, so I cannot review whether or not the role play activity is effective.
• At the end of the section, there is a comment about being led through a practice skill session, but there is no additional material on what that is.

Managing the Classroom

This section is fine.

 

Preparing to teach

Representing the LESB and your agency/academy; Training Materials

Since this is all QI procedure, there is nothing to comment on.

 

Course planning and management, Factors that influence planning

These sections are ok.

 

Block and lesson plans

This is an area of contention since it is organizing material before the material is decided.

While planning the day is necessary, the plan should come after developing a lesson plan and writing a lesson plan. Content drives the timing of the course. If you create a lesson plan before you know what the content needs to be, you’re run into issues of either having too much content for the time or not enough. This is also in direct opposition to basic instructional design methodologies.

A course should be written and developed entirely before the timing of each block of time is decided. Only after the course is fully developed can an instructor know how much time they will need. The number of participants does matter for the amount of time dedicated to practice and activities, but unless the instructor knows what those will be, they cannot accurately plan a block of time.

The third paragraph shows one of the fundamental issues with how LE training is created – too much depends on “background, training, and experience.” Timing should be based on content and content based on “research, observation, and analysis.” Relying solely on guesswork (which is essentially what this paragraph implies) leads to regular inconsistency between iterations of delivery, a lack of continuity between this course and other courses and material, and injects a lack of accountability.

The example provided in the fourth paragraph further shines a light in the issue. First, if it is a 40-hour block of training, then it should always take 40 hours. The content dictates what can be accomplished in certain amounts of time, not the other way around. Second, there is an error in logic – instructors do not have 8 hours of teaching per day, they have 7.5 hours. Overwhelmingly, courses that run longer than 2 hours have a 15-minute break imposed. This means for every 4 hours of instruction, 15 minutes is gone in the form of a full break. Two 4-hour blocks would result in half an hour missing for every 8 hours of training time. Credit hours do not equal time-in-training. So, for any block over 4 hours, they have to account for missing 15 minutes of training time.

Adjusting the lesson plan

Adjusting the lesson plan comes when the content doesn’t fit the available training time. At this point a decision needs to be made to adjust the timing to fit the content, cut content that doesn’t fit in time allocated, or adjust expectations and divide content into different courses.

 

Evaluating success of the Lesson Plan

While the questions are acceptable for “evaluating” the success of the lesson plan, this should be determined through a more effective process called validation. If this will be a course taught on a regular basis, then the course should go through a validation process that assesses course performance on different levels per iteration of validation. Validation should be at least three iterations.

Another interpretation would be an After Action Report (AAR) or debrief with co-instructors.

Additionally, most of this could be covered in a performance Focused Learner Survey of participants and a self-assessment for comparison to what the participants experienced.

Part of the problem is that this course is designed for academy instructors, but applies to non-academy instructors too, so there is a lot of ambiguity at the same time that it is over-specialized to a specific paradigm.

The previous issues lead to problem found in LE training already: if the state is providing curriculum that must be followed, there shouldn’t be an introduction of instructor specific tasks and activities. The state curriculum should include activities, discussion, questions, and assessments, to include rubrics and answer keys. “Evaluating success” as it is written in this course provides far too much subjectivity without establishing a clear direction for instructors.

 

Principles of class organization

This entire section is geared toward performing activities. There is a lot of depth and detail for something that only has limited application. The content is factually accurate and has some value.

 

Adapting courses

This content is fine.

 

Performance standards and assessment

Assessing progress

The content is general and accurate as an introduction to assessment types and tools.

 

Testing guidelines for the basic recruit courses

Since this is all state specific policy and procedure, it is fine.

 

Practice Teaching Assignments

The content in the Student Text is sufficient. There would be additional instructions and commentary in the Instructor Guide that would give this section’s design more clarity for evaluation.

 

Professional Development and Summary

Both sections are mostly policy and procedure specific to WI or a recap of some of the same, so it is fine.

 

Appendix A

All but “How students learn skills” is fine. There is a lot more to it that could have been covered, like moving participants from simple to complex and concrete to abstract, while being dependent on the instructor at the beginning and the goal of independent performance being the goal.

 

Appendix B

This entire worksheet is unnecessary, since Multiple Intelligences is a learning myth.

 

Appendix C

Is fine.

 

Appendix D

Instructors should get away from using Likert Scales, since they do not provide any reasonable or actionable information on performance. Evaluations should use Performance Focused Learner Survey standards, instead.

 

Appendix E

This should be a rubric with objective standards clearly stated. The use of Likert Scales as an evaluation technique is purely subjective and provides no reasonable or actionable information for adjusting performance.

Appendix F

Suffers the same issues as other Likert Scale commentary. The survey should be written using Performance Focused Learner Survey standards for real actionable and informative feedback.

 

Appendix G

While admirable that this course provides a glossary (many don’t), it is not comprehensive. More could be added to the glossary to make it more effective.

 

Resources

All but one link is broken.

All references and citations are over 10, many are close to or over 20 years old.

Inconsistent citation style make sit difficult to locate material.

Nine citations are insufficient for a course of this weight and duration.

 

Document: Instructor Candidate Teaching Assignment

This document is the assignment and assessment document for the final teaching assessment. The performance objective that is stated is poorly written (as stated in the syllabus section).

The overall content is procedural according to WI policy and procedure, so is fine.

The evaluation form is comprised of Likert Scales, so has the same issues as previously stated in Appendix E of the Student Text.