Academic Instructional and Curricular Auditing
The current state of police and law enforcement training
Most law enforcement training facilities operate with an established curricula and training program. Many are POST certified, or government sanctioned. However, in almost no cases do the programs or regulations outline the kind of teaching, the instructional methods, nor the structure of the learning within the program. As a result, there are few ways for academy personnel or instructional staff to determine the true effectiveness of training methods.
Unfortunately, student evaluation forms provide superficial feedback and do not help instructors and curricula writers learn how to adopt state-of-the-art educational methods into their programs.
The result is that we do not truly know about the current state of our own police and law enforcement training, often until after problems arise.
The purpose of an Academy/Training Center Audit
Similar to the CALEA certification process, the PSPBL Instructional Audit provides academies, training centers and instructors with objective and professional feedback from highly trained police educators. We provide verbal and written feedback in an informal setting, or with a formal evaluation program.
Our main focus is to help determine the quality of instruction using educational methodologies such as Bloom’s Taxonomy, evaluation efficiency, learning environment effectiveness, Problem Based Learning and adult learning.
Who are our auditors?
All our auditors are certified at the PSPBL Level 3 and 4 classifications. They are experts in police Problem Based Learning and adult learning methods and they have spent many years in a wide range of law enforcement training environments: police procedure, law and arrest, community policing and problem solving, officer safety, use of force, interpersonal skills, civil rights, firearms and defensive tactics, and discretion/ethics.
Our audits require two auditors to observe, interview, and review written materials before, during and following teaching periods. The length of time of an audit depends on the size and scope of the program for which you are requesting an audit. However, audits will likely take between a few days to a week.
Please contact us for more information on the PSPBL Instructional Auditing.
PBL is an approach that challenges students to learn through engagement in real problems.
The Police Training Officer (PTO) Program was designed to be a community oriented, problem-based alternative to the traditional Field Training Officer (FTO) Model.
Host a Course
Is your agency interested in hosting a PTO or PBL Instructor Certification course? If so, we can help with certified instructors and logistics. If you want to implement PTO in your agency, or keep your program strong with your own in-house certified PBL Instructors you’ll want to receive the best in training- from those who’ve created and developed the program and practitioners who have extensive experience in all aspects of PTO and PBL.
