PSCI 22
Learning Intervention for Teens Winter 2020

This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

This course pairs Williams students with adolescents involved in the juvenile court system of Berkshire County. Judges assign teenagers (ages 13-17) to this program, an official Commonwealth of Massachusetts probation program. Our goal is to empower the teenagers through positive peer mentorship and allow them to take ownership of an independent project of the teen’s choosing. The project and other program activities aim to cultivate initiative, creativity, focus, and skills in areas such as goal-setting and communication, which the teenagers can transfer to their school, work, and home lives. The course ends with a presentation in which each adolescent/Williams student pair formally presents its work to an audience that includes the employees of the juvenile court system, elected officials, chiefs of police, district attorneys, the teens’ peers and families, and Williams faculty and community members. Williams students learn to mentor teenagers and gain insight into the juvenile justice system. Williams students are expected to attend trainings, meet with their teens three times a week, co-give a final presentation, and keep a weekly journal detailing their meetings. This is a student-led course, sponsored by Police Chief Mike Wynn and Professor Cheryl Shanks but entirely run by trained Williams students who have served as mentors in the past. Because Learning Intervention for Teens is an after-school program for the teens, this course meets Tuesday through Thursday from 306pm. In order to enroll in the course, when preregistering, all students must write a paragraph explaining why they believe they’d be a successful mentor in this program. Students should email their paragraphs to student coordinators Rebecca Tauber at [email protected] and Jamie Nichols [email protected] and cc: [email protected].
The Class: Format: lecture; afternoons
Limit: 10
Grading: pass/fail only
Requirements/Evaluation: journal and final reflection totaling 10-15 pages, final project with teenager
Prerequisites: none
Enrollment Preferences: by paragraph of interest
Materials/Lab Fee: none
Attributes: EXPE Experiential Education Courses

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