Improving Social Work Students' Understanding of Health and Social Justice Knowledge through the Implementation of Service Learning at a Free Community Health Clinic

Service learning is a teaching strategy that involves engaging in a mutually beneficial partnership between a community and students in the classroom. Social work education and service learning share core values of service and social justice and, when unified, can offer students unique opportunities to engage in meaningful application of knowledge and skills in a real-world setting. This article provides an exemplar describing the unique student learning outcomes that resulted from a service learning partnership between graduate-level social work students in a diversity course and a community health clinic serving Latino immigrants and Burmese refugees.     

Service Learning in Baccalaureate Social Work Education: Results of a National Survey of Accredited Programs

Service learning is neither field education nor volunteerism. Rather, it is a pedagogical approach designed to reinforce classroom instruction with concurrent service activities occurring in the local community. This service is driven by community-identified needs. Service learning supports social work values, yet the profession has been slow to embrace it in social work education. This article reports results of a national survey examining the use of service learning among baccalaureate programs accredited by the Council on Social Work Education. The majority of respondents report service learning is a required component of at least one course (generally an introductory or practice-based course) and has been incorporated into their programs for more than a decade. Results also suggest some programs may not implement service learning appropriately as it remains undifferentiated from volunteerism or field education.     

What Can I Do? Applying Classroom Knowledge to Service Work, or Doing Practice Sociology

Faculty members are frequently asked by students and parents, “what can I do with a Sociology degree?” This paper suggests ways to address the question and take action to insure that majors have the knowledge and skills to be successful in the job search and the work world. In addition, the paper indicates ways that combining service learning and applied sociology serves goals of students, faculty, universities, and communities. Approaches to teaching applied (practice) sociology in departments and to integrating service learning and course content show the “natural synergy” between the two types of learning. Finally, the article discusses practical issues related to service learning in applied settings: getting the support of faculty and administrators; convincing students of the benefits of service learning; revising curricula; and setting up the service learning experiences. The conclusion is that combining service learning and applied sociology courses has positive results for all involved.     

Listening—Ubiquitous Yet Obscure

Service learning continues to evolve as an exciting, innovative teaching tool in education. This paper defines and explains the service learning movement and details a service learning unit applied in an “Effective Listening” classroom and the mutual student, institutional, and educator benefits.     

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.     

Critical reflective thinking through service‐learning in multicultural teacher education

This paper describes and discusses the effect of service‐learning on students’ reflective thinking about their own knowledge in multicultural teacher education at a state university in Southern California (USA). Two versions of students’ multicultural autobiographies, one at the beginning and the other at the end of the course, were examined to determine their individual progress. Two classes, one with a service‐learning assignment and the other without, were involved to identify differences. Using King and Kitchener’s model of reflective judgment, this study compares and contrasts the progress of student critical reflective thinking and differences between the two classes. The research suggests that service‐learning stimulated and increased students’ reflective thinking about their own knowledge in multicultural education.     

Linking the Academy to the Community Through Internships: A Model of Service Learning,Student Empowerment,and Transformative Education

This paper provides an overview of an internship program designed to empower students and to build collaborative relationships within the local community. The structure of the internship program is designed from a combined service learning, empowerment, and transformative learning perspective. It is set up with a series of empowering activities, including preplanning, initial exploration, siteselection, and contract design. The requirements for the internship course include a commitment to academic education and skill development that are couched within an emancipatory pedagogy. Through transformative learning, students can become empowered citizens. Through university-community partnerships, the potential for ameliorating social problems is strengthened. As we create a new community of learners in the twenty-first century, the role of the university in the community may be strengthened through internship programs.     

A New Pedagogical Approach for Integrating Social Work Students and Service Users

This paper analyses recent experiences at the School of Social Work, Lund University, the first in Sweden to use an innovative pedagogical approach for integrating social service users with social work students in the classroom (an EU-funded project). The concept of gift exchange was used to make sense of the approach. Gift exchange is based on the norm of reciprocity and the principles of gift economy—to give, to receive and to return. As one of the most significant integrative relations, this exchange of gifts and courtesies serves the purpose of keeping balance in the system. The focus in this project was on the relationship between two groups of students: service user students—that is, social service users in the role of students on the course—and social work students. The experience of undertaking this project raised many questions, such as what promotes and what hinders mutual learning between two parties in the classroom. Findings show the relevance of such concepts as the gift economy and the importance of reciprocity in teaching contexts. They played an important role in the process of creating a positive learning climate and understanding the integration of social relations between the two groups.     

The Virtual Community: Computer Conferencing for Teaching and Learning Social Work Practice

SUMMARY

This author describes the use of a web-based conferencing program to augment classroom learning in generalist social work practice courses in a BSW program. This “virtual classroom” allows students to have more or less continual access to the instructor and to each other, greatly expanding opportunities for teaching, learning, and communication.     

Reduction of Face‐to‐Face Contact Hours in Foundation Research Courses: Impact on Students' Knowledge Gained and Course Satisfaction

This study investigated the impact of reducing the number of face‐to‐face contact hours in a Masters of Science in Social Work (MSSW) foundation research course in an urban school of social work on students' knowledge gained and course satisfaction. A quasi‐experimental pretest/posttest comparison group design was used to test the following hypothesis: reducing the number of face‐to‐face contact hours will not negatively impact knowledge gain and course satisfaction in a foundation research course. The findings of this study suggest that reducing the number of face‐to‐face contact hours does not negatively affect student learning as both the comparison and the experimental group demonstrated an increase in foundation research knowledge. The level of course satisfaction was influenced by the number of hours completed in the program, age, and the number of hours worked in paid employment. Students who are especially vulnerable are younger students who have completed less course hours. They tend to struggle at the beginning to get used to new technology as part of their educational experience. This paper demonstrates that it is no longer ‘if’ web‐based and distance learning technologies are appropriate for social work education but rather ‘when’ and the degree to which their integration yields greatest educational value.     

Using a real case scenario in teaching social work with children and families in different practice settings

Transforming classroom knowledge into practice competency is particularly challenging in social work with children and families. It involves complex, competitive practice approaches and different service settings with procedures and norms influencing a child’s wellbeing. The paper presents the content, application, and evaluation of a module based on a case scenario which considers the limitations and achievements of social work with children and families in different settings. A mixed-method approach was applied to this review process. Students were given an evaluative questionnaire based on the theoretical framework of experiential learning whereupon they wrote reflective essays describing their learning experience. Case method contributes to the acquisition of reflective, integrative, and stimulating knowledge. The participation level contributes to the students’ satisfaction during such learning. Students have learned that families with multiple and complex needs require a holistic approach that separate systems and services cannot provide. This way of learning, with certain limitations, allows activation and an intensive learning experience for large groups of students relevant for a number of social work schools.     

Deconstructing Hierarchies: A Pedagogical Model with Service User Co-Teachers

This article examines the contribution of partnering with service users to the training of health and welfare professionals in Israel. These professions, while professing a shift to the social model of disability, still practise according to a medical model, which functions to strengthen the legitimacy of the professional and sustain the dependency of their clients. In adopting the social model of disability, we present a new pedagogic model in which social work students engage throughout the course with a co-teacher service user to contest these traditional methods and deconstruct accepted hierarchies. This teaching method focuses on the development of a new therapeutic dialogue within the partnerships created in the classroom, which enables the students and co-teachers to participate in the challenging experience of integrating theoretical knowledge with lived knowledge, thereby contributing to the development of a more inclusive knowledge base.     

Teaching groupwork using the class as the group

Recently I have returned from Canada where six months were spent as a Visiting Professor of Social Work. The programme included teaching psychotherapeutic models of groupwork to post graduate students on a Masters' Degree course. I conducted three experiential learning groups using the classroom as a laboratory for improving knowledge and skills. The processes of teaching and learning are described and the risks and rewards of using these methods analysed.     

Learning from Experience: Integrating Students’ Everyday Lives into the Urban Community College Sociology Classroom

Over 40 percent of today’s college students are enrolled at community colleges. While the institutions of community colleges have been gaining national attention given this growing statistic, we do not engage in large scale conversations about teaching practices that best benefit our local populations. This paper looks at the risks and rewards of incorporating students’ everyday life experiences into the classroom in an introduction to sociology course. This course is developed in an urban setting giving students tools both to see the world as sociologists and to critically analyze persistent inequalities in society. These goals are accomplished through challenging classroom conversations and culminate in a project where students collect data through their lived experience and analyze it as sociologists. While this style of teaching provides unique and often unexpected challenges, it creates a strong active learning environment in the classroom, confronts important social problems, and holds potential for consciousness raising and social change in the local community.     

Improving School Achievement and Inter‐group Relations for Children Placed at Risk: the Roots and Wings program

Roots and Wings is a comprehensive elementary‐school program designed to ensure that all children achieve world class standards in reading, writing and language arts, mathematics, science, history and geography; and can apply their knowledge to solve real‐world problems. Critical to these goals is increasing the achievement of students placed at‐risk as a consequence of poverty, disabilities, language problems, or other factors. Roots and Wings extensively employs cooperative learning to promote student motivation, socialization, appreciation of diversity, and academic achievement. Although cooperative learning offers a variety of potential benefits, it can be challenging to use for teachers and students more accustomed to traditional methods. This paper presents research in inner‐city elementary schools using the Roots and Wings design and identifies several factors that facilitate the change process and quality of cooperative classroom activities.     

Implementation and process evaluation of a school-based drug abuse prevention program: Project Towards No Drug Abuse

The present study provides an implementation, process, and immediate outcomes evaluation of the classroom component of Project Towards No Drug Abuse (TND). This project involves development and evaluation of a school-based drug abuse prevention curriculum for continuation high school youth, who are at relatively high risk for drug abuse. Three randomized conditions were evaluated: a standard care, classroom only, and classroom plus school-as-community. The latter condition was an enhanced school-based condition which involved outside-of-classroom meetings and activities. Implementation was high in both program conditions even though this was a higher risk context. Process evaluation data were favorable and did not vary between the two program conditions. Immediate outcomes data (knowledge) was higher in the two program conditions than in the standard care condition. Regarding the classroom program, addition of extra-classroom activities does not appear to alter the quality of delivery of the program.     

Peer Teaching and Review: A Model for Writing Development and Knowledge Synthesis

This article outlines an anti-oppressive, egalitarian pedagogical approach that utilizes peer teaching, peer review, and writing activities to improve students' written communication skills and integrate core professional knowledge. This method was implemented as a pilot in a social work senior capstone and writing intensive course designed to showcase students' acquisition of and cumulative development of knowledge and skills through participation in writing an integrative paper. Pedagogical elements such as the course design, an explication of the peer review and mentorship process, and the establishment of the classroom culture and expectations, are discussed. Student responses to the model, suggestions, benefits, limitations, and potential problems are also summarized.     

研讨式教学方法在世界当代史教学中的实践与探索

在突出学为主体的教学方式的转变过程中,结合世界当代史的课程特点,把研讨式的教学方法引入到教学中来,将学生的课外学习与课堂学习结合起来,将知识理论与实际运用结合起来,可以比较充分地调动学生的积极性,培养学生研究性学习的能力,在对学生的考核评价方面采取更加灵活的评价体系,更好地发挥学生的潜能。