Social Work Students Go to Camp

Abstract

This study explored the effects of an intensive, service learning course on the perceived self-efficacy of participating MSW students. A self-efficacy scale was developed following Bandura's (1977) model, based on the goals and objectives of the MSW program and was administered pre and post. The findings indicated a statistically significant increase in perceived self-efficacy (p< .001) following completion of the course. In addition, the students demonstrated significant increases in self-efficacy related to mezzo (p< .001) and macro-level skills (p< .001). These results suggest that service learning, underutilized in social work education, may be an effective learning approach in master's level programs.     

Teaching Inferential Statistics to Social Work Students: A Decision-making Flow Chart

Given that social work research courses are typically built on modernist principles of teaching and content, it is not surprising that the majority of social work students dread these courses. Few attempts have been made to better align the modernist content of quantitative research with the postmodern philosophy and values inherent in current social work. This article presents a decision-making flow chart in conjunction with a problem-based learning framework so that students can be self-directed in the process of determining which inferential statistic to use when given a case example.     

Finding,Serving, and Housing the Homeless: Using Collaborative Research to Prepare Social Work Students for Research and Practice

Social work plays a key role in engaging with clients and communities directly affected by housing insecurity and homelessness, and advocating for the right to safe and affordable housing. This article describes methodologies of the Point-in-Time Count and Homeless Management Information Systems and proposes strategies for integrating additional content around homelessness into the social work curriculum in research courses and beyond. This integration can meet student needs regarding experiential research, as well as agency and community needs for effective collection and use of data. A case example and proposed best practices describe opportunities for university–community collaborations in homelessness research.     

Teaching MSW Social Work Practice in a Blended Online Learning Environment

Blended learning is a newly emerging trend in higher education and is defined as the purposeful integration of synchronous and asynchronous learning to provide educational activities that maximize the benefits of each. This paper describes the development of a graduate social work foundation-year practice class in a blended online environment in which both asynchronous and synchronous activities transpire online. The course's underlying pedagogical principles are illustrated, and the perceptions of instructional faculty are reported in key areas, including engagement and participation, activities, and the challenges of technology, socialization, etiquette, and nonverbal cues.     

Revisiting the Pink Triangle Exercise: An Exploration of Experiential Learning in Graduate Social Work Education

The pink triangle exercise is an example of an experiential learning exercise that creates cognitive dissonance and deep learning of unrealized internalized biases among social work students. Students wear a button with a pink triangle on it for 1 day and write a reflection paper. The exercise increases self-awareness, cultural competence, and the understanding of abstract concepts. An analysis of reflection papers over three annual courses revealed consistent themes, which were presented back to students. The thematic analyses, an application of the process of experiential learning, and the implications this exercise and type of learning are presented.     

Inspiring and Training Students for Social Action: Renewing a Needed Tradition

In social work, it is believed that certain knowledge and skills are learned more effectively through experience than through didactic classroom content. Members of the faculty of a school of social work have developed a Social Action Day to reinforce curriculum and translate into practice material about advocacy and ethical responsibilities for social action; show the breadth of social work practice; and enhance the school's sense of community. The authors share their experience to inspire other social work faculty, so that they are better able to foster student interest and passion for political action that may generate social change.     

Comparing Student Evaluations of Distance Learning and Standard Classroom Courses in Graduate Social Work Education

Abstract

This study compared the student course evaluations of standard education and distance learning courses in the school of social work of one southern university. The sample included 14 distance learning (DL) and 122 standard education courses. A 20-item quantitative student course evaluation and a 7-item qualitative questionnaire were used to compare differences between social work courses taught in a standard classroom setting with those taught using distance learning technology. Comparisons of identical courses taught in both formats found that students rated distance learning higher than the standard classroom for a course having predominantly lecture content. Conversely, ratings for clinical practice courses were just the opposite with lower ratings for distance learning than the standard classroom. Results of a qualitative survey (n = 39) of students conducted at the end of a course taught by distance learning found that 73% of the students felt that distance learning technology interfered with class participation. However, 73% of the students felt the instructor handled technological problems in a professional and patient manner. Although 54% of the students reported that they would take another course by distance learning, more research is needed to determine what social work courses can be most effectively taught by distance and classroom formats.     

Graduate Social Work Students' Attitudes Toward Service-Learning

Service-learning attitudes among graduate social work students enrolled in a course on human diversity and oppression are presented. A survey was administered at the beginning and at the end of the semester to students enrolled in the course, which was taught using a service-learning approach. Among the results were believing that service-learning aided in meeting learning goals and higher overall satisfaction with the service-learning experience. This article expands the literature on service-learning in social work education and promotes the use of this experiential method in social work diversity curricula.     

Non-Traditional and Traditional Social Work Students

ABSTRACT

Drawing on a sample of undergraduate social work students from four mid-western social work programs, this study compared perceptions of field instructors regarding non-traditional and traditional students. Field instructors rated their perceptions of the successful fulfillment of the demands of field practicum and the impact of several life characteristics for traditional and non-traditional students.

Non-traditional students were rated significantly higher on a variety of measures as assessed by field instructors. This study has implications for social work education that involves differential recruitment, retention, and support of traditional and non-traditional students.     

Teaching Single-Case Evaluation to Graduate Social Work Students: A Replication

A course teaching graduate social work students to use an evidence-based model and to evaluate their own practice was replicated and evaluated. Students conducted a project in which they reviewed published research to achieve a clinical goal, applied quantitative measures for ongoing assessment, implemented evidence-based interventions, and evaluated effects of their interventions with single-case designs. More than half of the students conducted self-improvement projects monitored with self-report measures, with widely varied goals and interventions. Approximately 48% of the projects showed statistically significant improvements, and an additional 10% showed statistically nonsignificant gains, suggesting the benefits of this instructional format.     

论社会工作实验室对社会工作专业发展的必要性

社会工作专业强调专业助人活动必须在尊重案主的前提下科学、人道、有效地进行。这就要求社会工作专业学生必须深刻领会和掌握助人过程中工作和案主双方复杂的情绪和态度的动态变化及这种变化对助人效果的影响。学生只有通过在实验室不断地角色扮演、分享交流才有可能达到这种专业要求。因而，实验室对社会工作专业的发展是不可或缺的必要条件之一。     

Student Writing in Social Work

Social work professors are frequently disappointed with the writing their students produce bumt feel unsure about how improvements can be made. Unfortunately, the social work literature does not shed much light on the problem of student writing. This exploratory study suggests a model that established a rationale for writing improvement, provides writing opportunities within non-threatening classroom environments, helps students during the writing process, and promotes explicit grading criteria. Preliminary findings suggest that with this model students may lower their writing anxiety, and professors could spend less time grading papers.     

The Psychodynamic Formulation of Marital Discord

ABSTRACT

This paper addresses the contribution of object relations theory to an understanding of marital pairs in conflict. Both insight-oriented and briefer, “here and now” communication skills enhancing approaches are informed by a psychodynamic formulation of marital discord model. Utilized frequently in the treatment of individuals, the relevance of a psychodynamic formulation of conflict in couples is explored in detail for complex assessment, treatment planning, and as a guide in predicting the nature of the therapeutic alliance. This model, utilizing object relations theory, is presented conceptually and clinically with reference to a marital therapy case that required a variety of treatment strategies.     

高校“网格化”社会工作实务教学模式初探

社会工作在我国属于新兴学科,自开始招生至今仅20余年。这期间,社会工作教育者们从未停止对社会工作实务教学的探索,但至今依然是教学难点,社会工作的教师身兼督导和教学双重任务往往会顾此失彼。基于此,找到一个适合于目前社会工作实务教学的场所和模式便十分重要。本文将高校作为社会工作实务教学的场所,社会工作专业学生的实务课程在教师的指导下展开,提供适当的社会工作服务以解决学生群体中存在的诸多问题,同时实现实务教学的要求。在高校实施社会工作实务教学,＂网格化＂是一种比较理想的模式。     

Teaching Social Workers About Substance Use Problems via Temporary Abstinence from Normal Mood-Altering Behavior

Abstract

Social work students enrolled in a graduate-level course in substance abuse (N = 450, over nine years) assessed their own “mood-altering” behaviors (i.e., stress-reduction strategies and leisure-time activities), abstained from one or more of these activities for one week, then completed a written summary of their personal bio-psycho-social experiences. Student papers indicate significant personal insights were gained regarding alcohol and other drug (AOD) issues, and also provide grounded-theory support for major AOD themes. This paper describes the details of this experientially based teaching strategy, and also summarizes AOD themes that emerged from student experiences, including anticipatory reward, substitution, craving, willpower, impaired control, rationalization, shame, guilt, powerlessness, and the challenges of change.     

Our Social Work Imagination

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present the case for social work, the case that the old truths and fighting spirit of an earlier day-our social work imagination-live on, even in the face of uncaring economic forces and resurrected punitiveness. Sustained by an idealism as old as humankind, members of the profession continue to advocate for the poor, the sick, and the oppressed.     

Students' Emotions as an Organizing Principle in the Social Work Curriculum

Using a quasi-experimental one-group, pretest–posttest design with non-random convenience sampling, the researchers assessed 61 advanced standing MSW students who matriculated at a rural intermountain Northwest school of social work. Changes in students' knowledge and attitudes toward lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people were measured using subscales of the LGB-KASH scale and include knowledge of LGB history, religious conflict, internalized affirmation of LGB people and issues, hatred and violence toward LGB people, and knowledge and attitudes toward extension and exclusion of civil rights for LGB people. Completion of required, highly experiential bridge course content regarding LGB history and experience appears to be significant in reducing religious conflict, increasing knowledge of LGB issues, and enhancing internalized affirmation of LGB individuals.     

Reflections on Individual Psychotherapy with University Students: What Seems to Work

The authors offer reflections on what seems to work in individual psychotherapy with university students. Discussion centers around the topics of triage and disposition, referral, crisis intervention, stress management, open-ended psychotherapy, extratherapeutic factors, and the psychotherapy relationship. These observations are not intended to be a comprehensive review; rather, the effort is to stimulate interest and dialogue on this important subject. The authors draw on their experience in working in a university counseling service, psychotherapy research literature, and what has been learned from students served.     

Integrating Education on Addressing Health Disparities into the Graduate Social Work Curriculum

The purpose of this article is to propose an elective social work course as a means of better preparing social workers entering practice in healthcare to meet the challenges of promoting health and reducing health disparities in minority and underserved communities. Course offerings specifically targeting health or medical social work training vary widely. The additional training provided at places of employment and through continuing education after the master's degree is often inadequate for competently addressing the issues clinicians face in practice.