Mock Crime Scene at North Houston Campus: Exercise in Team Teaching

North Houston Criminal Justice program mock crime scene

Contributed by Chelsea Issacson, General Education Instructor

Remington College – North Houston Campus has been implementing a strategy called “team teaching.” The strategy calls for teachers in different degree programs and fields to come together and create a dynamic and interactive learning environment in which students team up for projects and events.

This teaching strategy allows students to learn from one another, work in groups effectively and efficiently, and problem-solve by applying what they know from their programs to a specific problem created by the teachers for the students to solve collaboratively.

Another mock crime scenario in our North Houston Criminal Justice program

One such example took place at the beginning of the term in May, when students in an English Composition course were asked to team with the Criminal Justice program to create a mock crime scene.

The goal for this project was for Criminal Justice students to gain experience in analyzing a crime scene and documenting evidence and for English Composition students to exercise their descriptive writing skills.

The mission for Ms. Isaacson’s English students was to view the crime scene and take notes first; they were to use as many adjectives and prepositional phrases as possible to vividly and specifically describe what they saw in the Criminal Justice lab.

"The note" left by the subject (and written by our North Houston English Composition students

The challenge was that they were to form no judgments or conclusions, only to objectively describe in detail the crime scene that Mr. Johnson’s class created.

All who participated were extremely excited about the assignment because they realized its relevance to their future occupation, and they knew they would be able to apply the descriptive and analytical skills they were using to the work force.

This innovative strategy turned out to a great shared learning opportunity for all.