Intro to Criminology Theory.

Short Hand Syllabus

Important: The readings I compiled in this list does NOT represent my selections of the most important/best/influential works in the theories covered in my class. Rather, many of the articles are excellent representations of the applied work for those theories. There are also articles challenging the current state of thoughts in most textbooks. Students found these articles particularly helpful in helping them better understand the merits and pitfalls of those theories, as well as sparking their interests in reading more. I arbitrarily chose those articles with less sophistication in quantitative framework to keep intro-level students interested.

Course Description: PSU Official Course Description: SOC/CRIM 012

Credit Hour: 3.0

Overview:

My teaching has received high remarks from the faculty member who oversee my teaching progress. His teaching evaluation is available here. In addition, my teaching evaluation received a 4.7/5 for helpfulness and 3.7/5 for clarity while the course remains rigorous and even more demanding (the easiness is a 2.0/5, compared to a ~ 3.5 average, means I got 4.7/3.7 (an overall 4.2) in spite of a very difficult course setting).  I placed great emphasis on the student review and continuously improved from their suggestions. I am proud that, under this level of difficulty, I still received very fair reviews from my students, both quantitatively and qualitatively (see below). The graph below is the screenshot of my anonymous teaching evaluation score. This is my first teaching experience.

My teaching philosophy can be found here.

Anonymous Student Review:

“I think Zhihang is very, very dedicated to his work and ensuring the students understand the information he is teaching.”

“Zhihang is a great guy and he is very nice to talk to. He is very willing to help students and explains things very well. He requires us to read a lot of material, but he always tells us what pages we can skip over and which pages we should pay close attention to.

“I enjoy having Zhihang as a TA. He is knowledgeable on these theories. Maybe a little too knowledgeable though. I like that he offers office hours which helps.”

“Zhihang is extremely committed to doing what is best for his students and helping in any way he can. I am extremely impressed with his level of care and dedication to the class and its students.”

“He is very thorough when explaining theories, and providing examples. He treats all of the students with respect.”

Previous Homework/Exam/ Quiz Questions:

Notes: Please request the approval of using these material by email before using them. Absolutely NOT allowed for business use. Violations will be pursued to the maximum extent.

Quiz 1 | Quiz 2 | Quiz 3 | Quiz 4 (Only Partial Questions are Available). | Quiz 5 (Partial) | Quiz 6 (Partial)

Homework 1 | Homework 2

(For a complete version of quiz  4-6, please contact me.) | Final Review: Practice Questions