Author: Brett Shipton
Charles Sturt University

Edition: Volume 62, Number 1, April 2022

Introduction: Historically, police educators delivering academy programs have overused traditional or teacher-centred methods as part of an authority driven command and control culture. In addition to being educationally unsound, this teaching approach has limited the development of the critical thinking skills needed for effective reform in the community
policing era. Problem-based learning (PBL), a teaching method linked to social constructivist theory, has been widely advocated in recent years as an alternate teaching method in police academies to promote deeper and integrated learning of content, with the benefit of also developing the problem-solving and teamwork skills. However, implementing learner-centred methods such as PBL can be challenging as it runs counter to traditional teaching cultures. Recent research into
the teaching and development experiences of police educators by the author has discerned aspects of the facilitator role that can inform and maximise the impact of methods such as PBL. This paper synthesises an understanding of the facilitator role as described in these experiences with the underlying learning theory of Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (ZPD). This theoretical discussion is then applied via a proposed model of police learning to highlight the facilitators’ role in
developing problem-solving within a policing context.

Keywords: police education, police academy training, community policing, teacher development, problem-based learning

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 62:1. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.