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Volume 7, Number 2 Spring 2002 |
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Infusing Content on the Physical Environment into the BSW Curriculum In August 1999, the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) delegate assembly passed a major platform on environmental policy. The NASW now mandates that social workers take a proactive stand on environmental exploitation and environmental justice issues in all facets of their professional activities. This requires social work education to provide a more comprehensive view of the environment to include the physical as well as the social. The authors are faculty members of the Ramapo College Social Work Program, which has infused environmental content into all aspects of its BSW Curriculum. This article will describe how Ramapo incorporated such content into the liberal arts foundation, program prerequisites, and professional foundation areas of human behavior in the social environment (HBSE), research, practice, field, and policy. This model is offered as a guide to assist other social work programs in developing content on the physical environment in the BSW curriculum. Homophobia Among Social Work and Non-Social Work Students This study compares degree of homophobia between social work and non-social work students. The results show that although social work students are not significantly different from non-social work students in their levels of homophobia, both male and female social work students are significantly less homophobic than male non-social students. On the other hand, somewhat surprisingly, female social work students are significantly more homophobic than female non-social work students on the issues of whether homosexuality is a sin and whether homosexuality is disgusting. Implications for social work education are discussed. Teaching Social Work Values within their Historical Context Social work values have long been recognized as central to the practice of the profession, and their transmission to succeeding generations of practitioners is a standing task of social work education. Yet, in spite of their being included along with ethics as one content area in the current Council on Social Work Education Curriculum Policy Statement, social work values often receive only passing treatment in social work texts, and instructors may fail to adequately flesh tem out of students. This article proposes that social work values be presented in their historical context, giving students examples from the writings of the profession's pioneers. It then provides the reader a number of historical exemplars for some of the more commonly espoused social work values, and shows how a constellation of professional values began to emerge about the mid-point of the 20 th century. Using Professional Advisor Committees to Achieve Excellence in Social Work Education Social work programs are mandated by the Council on Social Work Education to develop and maintain ongoing relationships with social work practitioners and others involved in social services and policy making. A Professional Advisory Committee is one way for programs to receive input from community professionals to strengthen the educational goal of preparing competent, effective professionals. To date, there is little literature in social work on program advisory committees. However, higher education and management literature, along with social work literature on task groups, can provide some direction for developing, maintaining, and effectively using a Professional Advisory Committee in social work program development. A Comparison of the Critical Thinking Skills of BSW and MSW Students The Council on social Work Education's standards requires the teaching and measurement of critical thinking skills at both the baccalaureate and masters level of social work education. How to measure those skills is a difficult question for educators. Equally difficult is determining whether the skills are being taught to social work students. This research is the result of a study begun in 1998 that compared scores on the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) of recently graduated BSW students and MSW students who had completed their degree or were in their last semester. Surprisingly, little difference seems to exist between the critical thinking skill levels of BSW and MSW students. Marketing Status of Social Work Education: An Exploratory Study New competitive realities are necessitating that social work education programs design and conduct marketing as a part of their yearly departmental planning. This exploratory study identified marketing strategies most commonly used in social work education programs today. Critical findings regarding social work educators' perceptions regarding how much other disciplines understand their professions were discovered. In addition, the promotional strategies found to be most effective for student recruitment and for increasing departmental visibility within the university setting were revealed from the study. Implications for social work education are delineated along with future research needs. Teaching Generalist Social Work Practice: Students' Perceptions of the Importance of the Instructor's Practice Experience BSW and first-year MSW students from one school of social work were surveyed to determine the influence that the perception of the practice instructor's professional experience had on that individual's teaching effectiveness. Results indicate that practice experience, particularly current experience, did enhance students' evaluations of their instructor's teaching effectiveness. The perception of the instructor's practice experience also was linked to several other attributes that enhanced teaching effectiveness, most notably serving as a role model to students and engaging in classroom behaviors that helped students apply their classroom learning. The results underscore the importance of instructors being knowledgeable about the field curriculum and suggest the need for caution when interpreting findings related to teaching effectiveness in social work education Qualitative Research Habits and the BSW Student: Preparing Competent Generalist Practitioners Integrating research with practice is not common among social workers. Social work educators are challenged with the problem of teaching BSW students to include research knowledge and skills as they build their generalist practice framework. This article introduces five research habits that can easily fit into existing curricula. Developing research habits is a new strategy that may increase students' use of research knowledge and skills both during and after their BSW education. The five research habits are based on a qualitative research paradigm but are general enough that they can be woven into all BSW courses throughout the curriculum. Navigation the Social Jungle: Using Computer-Mediated Mentoring to Enhance Undergraduates' Professional Identity One of the greatest challenges to undergraduate social work education is helping students embrace social work values and develop professional identity. As undergraduates, students are at a developmental stage where the process of identity formation is crucial. This study explores the possibility of enhancing traditional teaching methods with computer-mediated mentoring. A section of graduate students in a second-year practice class mentored a section of undergraduates in a beginning practice class in a semester-long e-mail communication. Following the mentoring experience, the undergraduates demonstrated a measurably greater identification with social work values, marking a significant change in professional identity that was not matched by comparison groups. Those aspects of the mentoring experience that seemed most important to the undergraduates are reported and suggestions for replicating such a project are provided. Mastery Learning: A Promising Instructional Method for Social Work Education Mastery learning is a behavioral instructional method using additional learning time, and repeated testing opportunities to increase student learning. Although successful in higher education, mastery learning has not been studied in social work. Mastery - and nonmastery - learning instruction were contrasted using four sections of a BSW course with identical content and exams. One instructor taught two course sections with mastery learning, another instructor taught two sections with nonmastery instruction. Dependent variables included student achievement, instructional preference, and attitude toward course topic. Instructor hours spent and reactions to mastery learning were measured. |
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