#2 Instructional Strategy

Police Officers are taught to be self sufficient and make decisions that could take someone’s life.  Because they are “programmed” to be so confident in making life and death judgments, they are also very hard to teach after they have “made it” out on the streets and proven to themselves that they know what they are doing.  It’s not uncommon to see an officer go to the extreme and arrogantly believe that each decision they make is the right decision.  Continuing education is mandatory.  When its conducted with respect and a sense of “need to know” criterion the results are satisfactory and predictable.

However, integrating educational strategies into the police adult education classroom I believe can dramatically change student engagement and ultimately the educational outcome.

Traditionally, the use of power point presentations with limited “hands on” training is how most subjects are taught.  Hours are spent “instructing” with little or no student interaction.  I have taught the entire police department how to disassemble and reassemble the AR-15.  Yet most still cannot perform this relatively easy task.

Action Research presented an opportunity to discover why this is.  Using three instructional strategies at the same time I am confident will produce measurable results.

Strategy #1

Identifying Similarities and Differences- Working in groups, students will collaborate with each other giving them an opportunity to compare similarities and differences thus allowing them to form a mental picture for each piece of the weapon.

Strategy #2

Homework and Practice-  Although there is no homework because the weapons cant be checked out or taken home, practice will occur multiple times throughout the lesson whether it is during the pretest, non-technology lesson, technology lesson, or the posttest.

Strategy #3

Cooperative Learning- Student collaboration throughout the entire lesson will enable engaged learning to occur and present a learning forum that is rarely experienced in police continuing education.

I also used the MCOLES (Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards) Patrol Rifle Facilitators Guide- Objective IV .B.4.2 as a reference.  It indicates that breaking the students into groups of 4-5 people, allowing them to identify the parts and pieces of the rifle and then charting those results is helpful. 

In other words instructors are encouraged to think beyond the level of lecture and present training objectives in an interactive, practical manner (MCOLES, 2006).

I feel that the combination of strategies will ensure some improvement.  I hope that improvement will be substantial.

Works Cited:

MCOLES, . (2006). Patrol rifle facilitators guide. Lansing, MI:

Picture- Bushmaster.com