UF Faculty Department College
Erika Brooke Sociology and Criminology & Law College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Partner Faculty Department Partner Institution
Xavier F. Andrade Castillo Criminal Law Universidad San Francisco de Quito
Title:
Comparative Perspectives on Justice System Operations
Project Description:

This virtual exchange project was an interactive collaboration between undergraduate students at UF and Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ) in Ecuador. Separately, UF students learned about professions connected to the justice system, skills required, individual biases, and developed professional materials. USFQ students studied criminal law and procedure in the Ecuadorian justice system. Discussions were completed outside of class time using Zoom for six collaborative sessions over the semester. In the sessions, students discussed a variety of topics including cultural differences and similarities, and justice system operations (e.g., police, courts, corrections). UF students also completed post-discussion reflection videos via Flipgrid.

To learn more about how the facilitators designed this project and its evolution over multiple implementations, watch this interview or read this article. 

Hear from a UF participant about their experience in this VE project in this interview video or in this article. 

 

 

Learning Outcomes:
  • Interact with individuals from other cultures (beyond their own)
  • Increase their knowledge of global issues/cultural awareness
  • Evaluate the difference in cultural norms and how they can influence operations within the criminal justice system
  • Compare and contrast the difference between the U.S. justice system and a justice system abroad
Participating Countries:
Ecuador
Number of Participants:
35 UF students and 20 students from partner institution
Discipline:
Criminology
UF Course Code & Name:
CCJ4934 - Careers in Criminal Justice
Project Duration:
12 weeks
Activity Type(s):
Student-to-Student Dialogue
Time allotted to each activity:
Synchronous Activities: 1 hour
Individual Work: 1 hour
Technology Tools:
Messaging Applications: WhatsApp
Message Boards/Video boards: Flipgrid
Email
Sequence of Activities:
  1. Students post a video in Flipgrid introducing themselves to their group 
  2. Students engage in small group discussion every week using the prompts provided by the instructor
  3. Students post a video reflecting on what they learned from the discussion and post comments on other students' videos
  4. Students repeat this process for a total of five discussions and post-discussion reflections on different topics

 

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