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.     

The NonMSW Task Supervisor,MSW Field Instructor,and the Practicum Student

Abstract

This paper adds to the literature on field instruction and supervision of social work practicum students by nonMSW professionals. It shares insights gained from a focus group discussion of professionals' experiences with practica when there was no MSW on site. Reported findings indicate student, agency, and relational characteristics contribute to the success of these placements. The focus group and the authors conclude that active involvement of all three parties -the on-site nonMSW supervisor, the off-site MSW field instructor, and the practicum student -in a triad model of field education increases the likelihood that these practica provide students with field learning experiences that are among the very best.     

How teacher education students cope with practicum concerns

Abstract

Student teacher stress during practicum experiences has generated interest across teacher education programs. However, there is very little research on the sources of support students draw on to help them cope with practicum stresses. This study sought data directly from the students to represent the student perspective. Students ranked their five most important sources of support for coping, and they noted the strategies they used to cope with practicum stresses. Students consistently reported that seeking support from the teacher was their primary coping strategy. This finding suggests that an effective student‐supervising teacher relationship is critical for student practicum success. Differences emerged between the most and least stressed students in terms of their reported use of coping strategies. Implications of the findings for teacher education programs are addressed.     

Improving the Quality of Practicum Learning: Self-Study of a Faculty Member’s Role in Practicum Supervision

Abstract

This self-study of activities as a practicum supervisor in several secondary schools focuses on the supervisor’s contribution to the quality of a teacher candidate’s professional learning in the context of a familiar tension between on-campus courses and in-school practicum experiences. Data from both formal and informal supervisory experiences are taken from notes recorded in classes with those supervised formally, records of notes taken in practicum observations, and email messages exchanged with teacher candidates about their supervision experiences. Analysis of formal supervision experiences generated a series of insights into candidates’ experiences of the practicum, a modest innovation in supervisory practice, and important reminders arising from a significant error in personal practice as a supervisor. Informal supervision experiences involved visits arising from invitations to observe extended by candidates in the author’s physics methods course. These experiences generated opportunities to test an alternative supervisory strategy focused on candidates’ perceptions of their learning from experience. Related literature includes the topics of learning from experience, reflective practice, and the potential significance of an epistemology of practice. In closing, attention is given to trustworthiness, the personal significance of the study and connections to the teacher education literature.     

Beyond the comfort zone: A curriculum and assessment “immersion” experience in graduate early childhood teacher education

Abstract

A graduate course in Early Childhood Education assessment which combines coursework and a practicum with young children is designed and implemented using constructivist principles and practice. Teacher education is more effective when field work and coursework are combined, and when students are able to apply what they learn in class to real life experiences with young children [Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education 21 (1) (2000) 65], learning is enhanced. This course was constructed in a way that incorporated theory, application, reflection, and reconstruction, allowing students an opportunity to rethink their teaching practice through the experience of an early childhood practicum. The key components of the model — the components that are thought to most effectively help students to apply theory to practice, change some of their ways of thinking about teaching and learning are the following: the relationship of the coursework to the setting, continuity from previous courses, the laboratory school environment, the intensive faculty involvement, the co‐constructivist, collaborative nature of the faculty team, the collaborative nature of student work, the use of the three curriculum models, the use of embedded assessment, formative nature of the assessment, informed teaching (on‐going use of student feedback), the tools provided to student that assist in the process, and the practical hands‐on assessment techniques.

Changing students’ ways of thinking about the teaching, learning and assessment process is considered a vital part of the course. [Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education 17(1) (Marshall, 1996) 43] has identified constructivist principles to guide teacher education. She believes that students must experience first‐hand those behaviors that she hopes they would exhibit in their own teaching (Rand, 1999, p. 126). It is through the processes of the course that graduate students are challenged to experience the implementation of emergent curriculum, examine their own beliefs in relation to their practice, articulate why they do what they do and see how classroom assessment strategies help to support meaningful teaching and learning. Furthermore, collaborative practice is considered an important factor that encourages and facilitates reflection, supports a more multi‐dimensional view of teaching and assessing young children, and enables students to listen and observe more effectively and look for the impact of children making choices. Through participation in this course, students became more aware of the impact their view of children and respect for children has on their ability to implement effective and appropriate assessment practices in the classroom. Students gained more of a conceptual understanding of the role of assessment in informed teaching, and were better able to meet individual children's instructional needs.

Finlly, students learned how to use tools inquiry, collaboration and reflection that are likely to assist them in future personal professional growth.     

Practicum experiences as sources of pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy

This study examines physical education pre-service teachers’ (PTs) self-efficacy and practicum experiences as self-efficacy sources through a mixed-method approach. For the quantitative phase, a self-efficacy questionnaire was applied to 141 PTs. Results showed a stronger self-efficacy in the relationship with students and discipline promotion. Lower self-efficacy was linked to instructional strategies. Concerning the qualitative phase, eight PTs were interviewed. PTs with higher self-efficacy reported professional experiences before practicum as mastery experiences. During the practicum they highlighted as mastery experiences: classes’ characteristics, planning and teaching practice; lesson observation as vicarious experiences; and post-lesson conversations as verbal persuasion. PTs with lower self-efficacy reported classes’ characteristics and teaching practice as failure experiences. Lesson observation was linked to negative vicarious experiences and post-lesson conversations were associated to negative emotions and the absence of verbal persuasion. This study’s results have implications inasmuch as they confirm the role of the practicum in teacher education programmes and the importance of training supervisors in the implementation and management of the training experience, thus contributing to PTs’ self-efficacy development.     

Focus Group Effects on Field Practicum Preferences

ABSTRACT

During the coming years the need for professionals to work with the nation's elders will increase several fold. This will place a great responsibility on university educational programs to prepare enough qualified future professionals to work in the greatly expanding field of gerontology. Prior research has identified several nonacademic and academic experiences that influence a student's decision to become gerontological professionals. One area that has been omitted from this work concerns focus groups. This article reports on the impact that observing a relatively simple and inexpensive focus group of professional geriatric practitioners can have on field practicum preferences among advanced undergraduate social work students at a large Texas state university. Findings indicate that observing a focus group significantly influences students' practicum preferences for working with elders, thereby setting them on a trajectory for a career in geriatrics.     

A Model for Social Work Field Practicums in African American Churches

Abstract

In this paper the authors will give an overview of the history of the African American church, discuss the reciprocal benefits of social work educational practicums in this institution for both students and the church, and give a model for practicum learning that can be met through this arrangement.     

Early Practicum Experiences: Preservice Early Childhood Students’ Perceptions and Sense of Efficacy

The current study explored early practicum experiences (those occurring before student teaching) in an early childhood birth to kindergarten teacher education program. Undergraduates enrolled in practicum courses completed questionnaires about their overall practicum experience including: socio-emotional components (their perceived fit with their cooperating teacher and intrapersonal feelings while in the classroom), overall practicum satisfaction, and their sense of teacher efficacy. Results revealed that practicum students generally reported feelings of being energized and relaxed, though some practicum students reported feelings of frustration in their practicum classrooms. Feeling energized and relaxed and students’ perception of fit with their cooperating teacher were positively associated with practicum satisfaction and practicum students’ teacher efficacy. Feelings of frustration were negatively associated with students’ fit with their cooperating teacher, practicum satisfaction, and students’ teacher efficacy. Higher levels of practicum satisfaction predicted higher practicum students’ teacher efficacy. Findings highlight the importance of understanding early practicum experiences and what factors of the practicum experience contribute teacher efficacy. Implications for future research and practice for early childhood teacher preparation programs are discussed.     

Emerging: An Art Field Placement’s Impact on Practice

ABSTRACT

This exploratory study examined the experiences of 9 stakeholders in an art gallery field placement during their social work education. The study sought to understand how the nontraditional field placement prepared students for practice. In addition, personality traits of students that best fit the placement was examined. Findings suggest that students had been prepared to engage in a variety of practice behaviors, work independently, and be more creative. However, they also felt that the field placement setting did not give them enough direct practice opportunities. The two most salient personality traits were being flexible and an initiator.     

Videotaped teaching segments and the preservice teacher: Developing reflective practice

Abstract

This article describes a project that uses videotaped segments of “best practice” teaching methods with freshman practicum students in a midsized university. The rationale, process of collecting teaching segments, and preliminary use of two tapes are presented. Initial response suggests that using videotaped teaching segments with preservice teaching majors is a positive approach to introducing students to the intricacies of teaching and learning.     

Taking the Show on the Road in Holding Academic Classes in Community Agencies: Exploratory Study Findings

Social work educators often teach students clinical knowledge within a university classroom, whereas students tend to learn clinical practice through their practicum experiences. This article describes data from a cross-sectional, mixed-method study on one way to effectively bridge the gap between teaching clinical knowledge and practice to graduate students. In this study, students participated in a newly developed and delivered 3-hour weekly course, over 12 weeks, based around students’ observation of ongoing live family therapy sessions at a children’s mental health organization. Findings suggest that this course design can fill a gap between the classroom and practicum experiences for students.     

Challenges Faced by Canadian Social Work Field Instructors in Baccalaureate Field Supervision

ABSTRACT

This article examines the challenges faced by social work field instructors in two Canadian provinces. The results are based on the responses from 239 field instructors to a questionnaire survey. Findings highlight student difficulties, administrative issues with the social work schools, and practicum setting challenges. These demands hinder the optimal implementation of social work field education, reveal the concerning gatekeeping role of schools of social work, and discourage some social workers from taking on (or continuing) as field instructors. Implications for social work student placements, supervision of students, academic programs, and directions for future research are presented.     

Peer coach during field experiences: cultivating teacher candidates’ peer feedback and reflective practices

ABSTRACT

Designing field embedded experiences for teacher candidates poses a unique challenge for large teacher education programs. Field experiences must include working with students, enhanced pedagogical coaching, and interaction within a professional community. Coursework coupled with field work should engage teacher candidates in a process of planning, implementing, analyzing and reflecting, and then modifying future teaching as evidence of reflective practice. Skilled coaching by the university based teacher educator or classroom mentor is one avenue for teaching novice educators how to analyze their classroom experiences. However, in large teacher education programs the ratio of candidates to UBTEs can make adequate coaching impossible. Thus, peer coaching can provide a feasible option for UBTE coaching. The purpose of this article is to describe the peer coaching experiences of teacher candidates and their university based teacher educators during junior level clinical block courses focused on developmentally appropriate practices for students in grades 1-3. Presented are a discussion of reflective practice, a rationale for peer coaching, and the application of peer coaching within three early childhood and elementary courses. Recommendations and challenges of peer coaching in a clinical pre-service teacher education program and implications for further studies are explored in the closing.     

Practicum teachers’ use of mobile technology as measured by the technology acceptance model

ABSTRACT

This study utilized the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to examine practicum teachers’ current use of mobile technology and their intentions of use in the future. A survey was conducted to better understand the relationship between practicum teachers and their potential assimilation of technology into classroom practice. The survey questionnaire was administered to 100 undergraduate students at [institute withheld], [country withheld]’s teacher preparatory university. The following four key constructs of the TAM were assessed: perceived ease of use (PEU), perceived usefulness (PU), subjective norm (SN), and behavioural intention to use (BIU). The impact of practicum teachers’ gender and academic subjects on their acceptance of technology were also investigated. The present study found strong links between PEU and PU. While practicum teachers perceived mobile technology as being useful and intended to use it in their classrooms, BIU was not significantly impacted by PEU, PU, or SN. The data also suggested that gender did not affect BIU while practicum teachers’ academic subjects might be an indicator of their future intentions to use mobile technology. With these findings, recommendations are made to further improve the integration of mobile technology in classroom practice.     

Using Cognitive Interventions With Counseling Practicum Students During Group Supervision

The authors argue that students in counseling practicum courses experience many self‐defeating thoughts and anxieties. These worries can impede their performance as new counselors and can have a negative impact on the supervision process. The authors outline innovative methods used by cognitive therapists to address this anxiety. In addition, a model is presented for counselor educators to use cognitive restructuring techniques as a supervision tool. Summary Throughout their studies, counseling graduate students face many possible fears and anxieties that arise from their classroom experiences. The greatest fears and anxieties seem to be related to the counseling practicum experience. This experience is one in which students may feel incompetent, vulnerable, and unskilled as they begin to put their classroom knowledge and experiences into practice. If these fears and anxieties persist, students have a hard time making progress in the area of the counseling relationship and skill building. We have examined how practicum students' fears and anxieties might be addressed, using cognitive interventions. Such interventions allow students to take irrational thoughts and change them to rational thought patterns. This is accomplished by asking students to state their fears verbally, to think about the effects of the fears and the consequences, to think about intervening beliefs and thoughts, and to restate the fears in a rational manner. Our experience suggests that cognitive interventions are useful strategies to help practicum students combat fears and anxieties. Further research might examine the use of other behavioral interventions to address these fears. For example, does role‐playing a counseling technique in supervision make a student less anxious about applying it in a real counseling session? In summary, fear and anxiety can impede the preparation of counselors during their practicum experiences. Understanding the underlying thoughts that cause these fears can help students overcome self‐defeating thought patterns. Cognitive restructuring techniques have been shown to reduce tension and can be used with counseling practicum students to help relieve performance and supervision anxiety.     

Testing a Curriculum to Teach Cultural Competence to Non-Mainstream College Students Interning in Mainstream Agencies

ABSTRACT

Cultural competence, from the perspective of students of color interning in mainstream agencies, was emphasized in a curriculum piloted in an undergraduate practicum seminar. Student interns who read a chapter on cultural competence in a standard textbook in lieu of receiving the curriculum served as the comparison group. Results indicated that student interns who took the curriculum were more prone to see problems in intercultural communication as systemic and more likely to feel competent handling possible racial discrimination in their field placement than were students in the comparison group.     

The Curriculum and Pedagogic Properties of Practice-based Experiences: The Case of Midwifery Students

This paper outlines curriculum considerations for the ordering, enactment and experiencing of practice-based experiences (e.g. practicums) in tertiary education programs developing occupational specific capacities. Increasingly, these programs are engaging students in practicum experiences (i.e. those in the circumstances of practice). These practice-based experiences require considerable investment on the part of all involved and so need to be used in ways that do justice to those investments. However, such experiences are often provided and engaged in by students without consideration being given to their educational purposes; their likely contributions and how they can be sequenced and utilised to achieve those purposes. Here, the specific concern is to identify bases for considering these purposes and how these might be realised through the selection and sequencing of student experiences. A case study of two practicum experiences comprising midwifery students’ ‘follow-through’ experiences with birthing women and clinical placements is used to identify the kinds of learning that can arise through different kinds of practice-based experiences and how they might be most effectively organised. The concern, therefore, is to identify how the midwifery curriculum (i.e. pathways of experiences) can be ordered and augmented by particular pedagogic practices that assist realise the program’s intended learning outcomes. The two different practice-based experiences are found to generate distinct learning outcomes for the students. The follow-throughs generate understandings about the birthing process from the birthing mothers’ perspectives and provide goal states for midwifery work and understandings about midwifery practice, whereas the development of clinical capacities that arise through clinical placements. Consequently, the formers kinds of experiences might be best provides before, or in conjunction with second. Importantly, rather than viewing these experiences as being supplementary to what is provided within tertiary education institutions, they need to be consider as particular kinds of experiences on their own terms and engage with and utilise their contributions accordingly.     

Developmental practicum experiences of preservice teachers in deaf education: implications for practicum placement and faculty-student collaborative research

The study examined the developmental practicum experiences of second-year graduate students in deaf education. Participants in the study consisted of a convenient sample of five practicum students. Triangulated data for the study came from the researcher's observational notes, e-mail correspondence with participants, and participants' journals. Inductive analysis was used to analyze the data. Results of the study evinced developmental experiences that are different from those reported in previous studies. The results of the study have significant implications for (a) practicum placement of graduate students in deaf education in terms of site-based orientation, use of the clinical model of supervision, opportunities for self-reflection, and periodic practicum seminars; and (b) faculty-student collaborative research in terms of planning, ethical issues, students' time needs, and training.