Spring 2022 Course Evaluations

What aspect(s) of the course or instruction could be improved?

Nothing. I’m not sure. I feel like in a way I’ve plateaued in my progress, but I don’t know if there is anything they could do in the course differently to help with that. I think it’s more that I need to seek individualized help to work on it. The book is old and out of date. I caused a mistrial by things I said in both my opening and closing statements, and the book was of zero help in avoiding those pitfalls. In my closing, I hit multiple underwater rocks, and though I had a command of the facts and the respect of my classmates for my presentation, the Justice was right to rebuke anyone who praised it (I believe he told one student who was praising my closing, "Don’t say that. It was terrible and probably caused a mistrial."). The Justice was totally right, but the course doesn’t really provide the tools for missing those pitfalls - if you didn’t have the Justice for professional responsibility or did not cover the restrictions on what the prosecution can say in opening or closing in another class, watch out! Maybe for future classes he will give a better head’s up, but then again, failing in a classroom is itself very valuable because it sticks with you longer I suspect. So I can see a certain benefit to letting the students get bit by the shark, so to speak, so that they know the waters better. The textbook assigned is not helpful, and actually contradicted what the professors told us at times. I think I would have preferred a little bit more lecture about what was expected for each week as a wrap up at the end of each class. Or even a recorded lecture in place of a reading would have been preferable. I also would have appreciated that the roles were more evenly distributed. The same people often had some of the heavy lifting every week, whereas other students only went two or three times. I can not think of anything. This class was well thought out before our first class meeting. Excellent job!

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