The Classroom on Trial: Sending Undergraduates to Court

• In Event: Applied and in the Field Active Learning

Abstract

Political Science 106, Law & Politics, is the largest class that the Political Science Department at Rutgers offers. Required for completion of the class in the Fall 2023 and Spring 2024 semesters were several visits to courts in the state of New Jersey. The first was a visit to the Federal District Court in Newark, and the second a visit to the Middlesex County Court located in New Brunswick. Why? The books, discussions, and lectures for the course class provide more than enough information for a semester. However, studies on political science pedagogy have revealed new evidence on the benefits of applied assessment outside of the classroom. Applied assessment is a growing movement in the social sciences and this project was designed to measure the effectiveness of getting students out of the classroom to physically observe what their textbooks argue. This paper presents quantitative and qualitative observations of the program and a summary of its implementation. Students also completed three anonymous surveys throughout each semester on their expectations and experiences for the program, and preliminary results of that data will be presented.

Author

• Douglas M. Cantor, Rutgers University