Principal Investigator: Junsong Zhang

Research Team: Albertine De Leon, Ben Coulas

Project Dates: January 11, 2024 - June 13, 2024 

Project Funding: $4,429.40

When Nina Bennett joined the Justice Institute of British Columbia (JIBC) as Program Manager of Work-Integrated Learning (WIL), she quickly recognized its potential in training future public safety professionals.

“Community-engaged learning is the most meaningful way for students to learn, especially for those aiming to be first responders,” Bennett said. “It helps students understand the real-world complexity of the issues they study in the classroom.”

As public safety professions are anchored in the real world, so too is the training provided at JIBC.

To ensure our recruits and students are job-ready, JIBC instructors need to go beyond classrooms and textbooks, adding scenario training to the mix and now, an online training tool for sheriff recruits.

“We found sheriff recruits would come to the training program and they didn’t have the context of the courthouse,” said Jane Dean, Program Manager, Corrections & Court Services Division at JIBC. “The instructors would have to say, ‘imagine a courtroom.’”

A new open educational resource (OER) guidebook, developed by the Justice Institute of British Columbia (JIBC) is now available to help educators to apply Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles to teaching, increasing the potential for student success.