Team and Transformative Teaching in the Criminology Classroom

Since 2021 the level 300 unit at the University of Tasmania, "Working With Offenders", has been offered as a winter-school intensive. This unit is predominantly undertaken by students studying in the Bachelor of Arts specialising in criminology, but also includes students studying law, psychology, social work, meaning there is a very diverse student cohort. This unit is designed to introduce students to the issues and processes associated with working with adults in prisons or under the supervision of community corrections. The unit explores issues pertaining directly to how best to work with a wide variety of people with offending histories. In this article we present an Australian case study and discuss the ways in which this unit offers an example of team teaching between an academic and a community corrections practitioner, utilising transformative teaching practices to engage students in applied, active learning, and assesses them through authentic assignments.