Creating Cultural Safety as an Aboriginal Teacher in a Class of Non-Aboriginal University Students

ABSTRACT

Creating a culturally safe learning environment is critical for Aboriginal teachers in universities. This paper explores my experience as a new lecturer convening an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social work course at an Australian university. As an Aboriginal woman teaching to a large class of non-Aboriginal students, establishing cultural safety became a priority early on. Through reflecting on my journey from feeling vulnerable at the beginning of the course, to developing a safe and collaborative learning and teaching experience, this paper presents the rare perspective of an Aboriginal academic in the teaching space, and offers practical ways to develop cultural safety in university classrooms.

IMPLICATIONS

• Aboriginal social work teaching academics need to feel culturally safe in the classroom setting to sustain them in their role.

• Engaging non-Aboriginal students to feel safe through collaborative learning enhances the learning and teaching experience for everyone and contributes to cultural safety for Aboriginal academics.

• Aboriginal academics teaching Aboriginal-specific content risk being traumatised through intensive and consistent exposure to traumatic content that may be personal to them.

• Universities need to provide practical support to new teaching academics to best equip and prepare them for the role.

     

Constructing and Implementing a Web-Based Graduate Social Policy Course

Abstract

This article reports on the construction and implementation of a Web-based graduate social policy course. In developing the online teaching strategy, the framework of a constructivist model of computer-mediated instruction was used to conceptualize the design of the course. The author used formative and summative approaches in pilot testing this course in cyberspace, with the intent of teaching it online later as a regularly scheduled semester course. The author contends that careful planning and critical thinking are paramount in computer-mediated instruction, if this method of delivering courses in higher education is to be successful and meaningful.     

Teaching Note—Student-Produced Public Service Announcements: A Project to Promote Active Learning in an Undergraduate HBSE Class

ABSTRACT

Student-produced videos are assignments that can increase students’ understanding of course content. This teaching note describes how an undergraduate Human Behavior in the Social Environment I course used student-produced public service announcement videos to develop an understanding of the different life stages in humans. The advantages and disadvantages of such a project are described.     

An Integrative Approach to Teaching Family Resource Management

Abstract

Family resource management is one of ten substance areas that are required for certification in family life education (National Council on Family Relations, 2005). Unfortunately, few discipline-specific resources are available for faculty assigned to teach the family resource management course. A rich tradition of theory and practice in the field has stalled, with little conceptual development since the 1980s to guide faculty teaching the course. In response, we offer a new conceptual framework for teaching family resource management that extends previous models by integrating management with other functions of the family. Specific course objectives, methods of evaluation, classroom activities, recommended materials, and teaching strategies are provided.     

Learning risk assessment in South Africa: Issues of language power and imperialism

This article seeks to explore some of the issues that underpinned the development and teaching of a course in risk assessment in child protection in South Africa. University College Chichester and the Institute of Child and Family Development at the University of the Western Cape are involved in an ongoing programme of co-operation that began in 1997. As part of this programme the course was taught by the author, a female, white, English, ex-social-worker academic to a majority black South African multiprofessional audience. The article explores some of the issues this raises and asks whether it is possible for a white English educator to teach black South African students a western model of risk assessment using English as the language of teaching. Secondly, is there enough common ground to mitigate some of the impact of the differences of race and culture, particularly the power differences that emanate from an imperialist legacy? In seeking to address these questions the article argues that teaching methodology is crucial to the student experience. The author writes in the first person in recognition of the fact that she presents one face of a multifaceted experience and argues that, to protect children, we must learn from each other and find a way to work through history rather than be paralysed by the past.     

A Child Welfare Course for Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal Students: Pedagogical and Technical Challenges

SUMMARY

This chapter describes the development of a Web-based undergraduate child welfare course for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal learners. Rather than simply incorporate an Aboriginal perspective into Eurocentric pedagogies and course structures, the authors disrupt the dominance of Western ways of knowing in education by designing the course to situate Western knowledge as a way of knowing rather than the way of knowing and the frame from which all other perspectives are understood. In this research the authors describe the differences between Aboriginal and European thought and reveal how Web-based courses can be designed in ways that do not perpetuate Eurocentrism.     

Teaching Note—Lessons Learned From Developing and Implementing a Dementia Caregiving Graduate-Level Service-Learning Course

ABSTRACT

This teaching note delineates seven lessons learned when designing and implementing a graduate-level dementia caregiving service-learning course. The course was designed during a 1-year faculty service-learning fellowship and implemented during the summer of 2015. The course used a person-in-environment framework to explain social work practice with family systems affected by dementia. It aimed to increase students’ knowledge about dementia and improve students’ attitudes toward working with people with dementia through respite visits with families affected by dementia. Three recommendations for future course offerings are described.     

Less Pain,More Gain

SUMMARY

Applied social statistics is typically one of the most dreaded courses in a social work program. Technological advances in computer applications offer tools to lessen the pain and increase the gains associated with teaching and learning statistics. This paper reports on a modest research project resulting in a computer-based approach to teaching Applied Social Statistics. This approach makes full use of MicroCase, a statistical software package. Results of evaluative efforts which appraised the computer technology-enhanced statistics course are presented. Course format, classroom procedures, workbook and homework assignments, evaluation tools, and teaching strategies are also suggested.     

Teaching Community Organizing

Abstract

In this article, our experiences as professor and students will form the basis of reflection on the use of innovative teaching methods in a community organizing course. Based on student evaluations and participant observation, we discuss the role of creativity in enhancing the learning experience in a case example of this one course. Findings indicate that reliance on innovative teaching methods provides students with the opportunity to exercise their creativity. In turn, this creativity has a potentially positive impact on community practice.     

Teaching Social Work Research: A Comparison of Web-Based and In-Class Lecture Methods

ABSTRACT

Like many other disciplines, Social Work education programs are increasingly including on-line classes in course offerings. Despite the rapid and widespread proliferation of web-based courses there is little data in the social work literature to inform educators about this teaching methodology. Using a quasi-experimental design this study examines the performance of 73 MSW students on objective measures of learning in a social work research course. Findings reveal that performance of students in lecture only and lecture with Blackboard supplement sections of the course was significantly better than performance of students in the on-line course.     

Reflections on Introducing Students to Multicultural Populations and Diversity Content

SUMMARY

The aim of this article is to identify factors the author feels facilitate learning in introductory courses focused on multicultural populations and related issues. These are reflections based on observations of patterns over a number of years, in a variety of teaching settings and structures, and with a very diverse body of students, and include the characteristics and behavior of the teacher and the students, the course structure, and important considerations with regard to course content and methods.     

Teaching Note—Reification and Recognition in the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program

ABSTRACT

At an Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program course in a correctional facility, roughly half the students are from the university (outside students) and half are residents of the facility (inside students). I participated as a teaching assistant in an Inside-Out social work course on drugs and crime that was offered in a prison for men and interpreted the observed and reported experience of students using Lukács’ concepts of recognition and reification as discussed by Axel Honneth. This teaching note explores the implications of the Inside-Out course for outside students’ reification and recognition of people who are incarcerated, and by extension, members of groups that typically receive social work services. The pedagogical elements of Inside-Out courses that promote recognition and the limitations of the program are discussed.     

Internet-Based Instruction as an Innovative Approach to Managing Prerequisite Curriculum Content in a Graduate Social Work Program

SUMMARY

Students admitted to graduate social work programs possess varying levels of understanding of prerequisite curriculum content. Compounding this situation is that social work educators teaching at the foundation level are now required to provide an expanded array of curriculum content in their courses. This article conceptualizes an Internet-Based orientation course as a unique tool for preparing students with prerequisite curriculum content necessary for successful integration and mastery of a graduate curriculum. Several steps are presented in the design and development of the course: obtaining support and approval, identifying and collecting data, designing and developing course components, and implementing and evaluating the course. Although course development occurs within a social work education setting, findings from this Internet-Based orientation course are applicable to other educational and human service settings.     

Teaching Note—Tweeting Macro Practice: Social Media in the Social Work Classroom

ABSTRACT

Despite its ubiquity, social work educators are just beginning to harness social media in teaching. In this teaching note, we discuss our use of Twitter in a bachelor’s-level macro Human Behavior in the Social Environment course. We present results from a survey of 45 students designed to assess their perceptions of Twitter use in the classroom and, in particular, as a macro social work learning tool. Students appreciated using social media in the course and reported that Twitter was a valuable professional social work tool. We explore how social work educators can provide an innovative classroom experience that incorporates ethical and professional use of social media and demonstrate how we used Twitter to apply macro practice competencies.     

What I do I understand: Teaching community work in the Australian Capital Territory

Abstract

Social work students need to develop both theoretical and practical foundations of knowledge. In a period where community practice is becoming more marginalised the Australian Catholic University subject Social Work Practice with Communities is a core component in the two year professional degree program. It combines an experience based learning approach with traditional teaching methods. Through community projects students learn real-life problem solving and gain confidence in their abilities as community workers. The paper focuses on the relationship between gaining knowledge of conceptual frameworks for community work practice and learning skills. It reviews educational considerations in teaching a subject where conceptual, practical and theoretical components are equally important for competent practice. It demonstrates how the School promotes community work.     

Establishing a valid focus for work

Abstract

In this case study, I intend to illustrate how I have applied the social work teaching of the course to my practice on placement with the L. family.     

The Use of Simulations,Writing Assignments,and Assessment Measures in Family Social Work Education

ABSTRACT

The focus of this article is on the applied aspects of practice and research in family social work education. Particular attention is given to the integration of writing assignments and assessment instruments with family simulations. A review of a family social work course is presented. The advantages and limitations of using multiple teaching methods are discussed with respect to preparing students for field placements and professional practice     

Panic and the Breakdown of Social Order: Popular Myth,Social Theory,Empirical Evidence

Abstract

The academic public that I encounter at my lectures always show surprise when I speak intimately and deeply about the classroom. That public seemed particularly surprised when I said that I was working on a collection of essays about teaching. This surprise is a sad reminder of the way teaching is seen as a duller, less valuable aspect of the academic professions. This perspective on teaching is a common one.     

Teaching Note—Developing an Online Blended Learning Course on Psychiatric Diagnosis

ABSTRACT

It has been suggested that the task of teaching and learning social work practice in an online environment can greatly be facilitated if thoughtful attention is paid to course design. This article details the design of a blended-learning online course to teach MSW students the process of psychiatric diagnosis. First, the development of the course philosophy is discussed. Second, the choice of the VARK (visual, aural, read/write, kinesthetic) learning model is explained. Finally, the design of the course consistent with the philosophy and learning model is presented.