The Pracademic Classroom in Criminal Justice: Learning for life 

Delegates were invited to join us for a panel discussion of neophyte, established, and expert by experience criminal justice pracademics involved in teaching in the Community and Criminal Justice Division located in the School of Applied Social Sciences at DMU. The session was chaired by the criminal justice pracademic network lead at DMU. The pracademic criminal justice panel initially explored who and what ‘counts’ as a pracademic in criminal justice, before moving on to discuss what benefits pracademics can bring to Higher Education Institutions in terms of enhancing teaching, learning and scholarship including for example, best practice for student lifelong learning in criminal justice. The panel illustrated the added value of the pracademic classroom by sharing real world examples of disruptive pedagogical teaching practices utilised on both traditional taught undergraduate campus-based, and professional (blended and distance learning) based programmes of study in Criminology and Criminal Justice at DMU. There was an opportunity to ask questions on a myriad of areas of pedagogical interest and to share ideas from delegates own disciplines. A key aim of the session was to develop pracademic networking opportunities across disciplines at DMU. Delegates also left the session with some take away hints, tips and tricks to add to their personal teaching and learning toolkits.