On Creating a Space: An Interview with Parker Palmer

2001 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
William E. Powell
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Academic Preparation ◽  
Late Winter ◽  
Teaching Methodology ◽  
Society Of Friends ◽  
Course Content ◽  
Social Work Educators ◽  
Courage To Teach ◽  
Teaching Learning ◽  
Parker Palmer

Increasingly, social work educators introduce the thoughts of Parker Palmer into their discussions of teaching methodology, course content, and the occupation of teaching. While not himself a social worker, Palmer's thoughts about teaching, on creating a “space” or conditions within which people can learn and change, and on the spiritual and relational aspects of human learning resonate with many social work educators. Parker Palmer is a writer, consultant, and lecturer who addresses issues in education, spirituality, community, and social change. He is a senior associate of the American Association for Higher Education, senior advisor to the Fetzer Institute, and the author of such books as To Know as We Are Known, Let Your life Speak, The Courage to Teach, The Active Life, and The Company of Strangers. Palmer has received five honorary doctorates for his writing and numerous other awards. He resides in Madison, Wisconsin where he is also a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). This interview was conducted to elicit Palmer's thoughts on teaching, learning, relating, and the academic preparation of social workers and took place on a cold and dreary late winter afternoon at his home in Madison. A range of subjects was discussed and he was quite gracious and generous with his time.

CONCEPTS OF THEORY, PRACTICE, AND INTEGRATION IN SOCIAL WORK: THE STUDENT PERSPECTIVE

2003 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTINE H. LEWIS
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Approaches To Learning ◽  
Social Work Students ◽  
Student Perspective ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Professional Literature ◽  
Social Work Educators ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Teaching Learning

The concepts of theory, practice, and integration in social work have largely been examined in the professional literature from an academic, normative approach with little attention to the student perspective. This exploratory study focused on the student voice and asked undergraduate social work students what these concepts meant to them. A knowledge of student understanding of these key concepts may help social work educators to better understand and reformulate the challenge of integrating practice and theory. The wide range of student responses were analyzed using the adult education framework of surface and deep approaches to learning. Findings carry implications for the development of more meaningful teaching-learning strategies and areas of future research to address this longstanding challenge.

scholarly journals Implications for social work teaching and learning in Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, due to the COVID-19 pandemic: A reflection

2020 ◽  
pp. 147332502097330
Author(s):  
Azlinda Azman ◽  
Paramjit Singh Jamir Singh ◽  
Ali Isahaque
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Online Teaching ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Higher Educational Institutions ◽  
Social Work Educators ◽  
Conventional Teaching ◽  
Higher Educational ◽  
Teaching Learning ◽  
Online Methods

The global lockdown due to COVID-19 is a major concern as all higher educational institutions face disruption in teaching, learning and assessment. Social work educators in Malaysia’s higher educational institutions are not spared of this disruption. Conventional teaching methods are now being replaced by non-conventional modes of teaching, which include online teaching and assessment using various platforms such as Zoom, WebEx and others. In embarking on online methods of teaching, social work educators will have to undergo many changes. It is particularly so as social work has a practice component that involves field training, which will be a different challenge to educators and students in this new and unexpected environment. This paper aims to discuss the implications of COVID-19 on the changes that have taken place in social work teaching and learning in Malaysia and potential responses.

Courage to Teach for Social Work Educators

2007 ◽  
Vol 26 (8) ◽  
pp. 810-826 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean East ◽  
Ruth Chambers
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Work Educators ◽  
Courage To Teach

scholarly journals Decentering Whiteness in Social Work Curriculum

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2/3) ◽  
pp. 801-820
Author(s):  
Stephanie Odera ◽  
M. Alex Wagaman ◽  
Ashley Staton ◽  
Aaron Kemmerer
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Social Work Education ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Critical Thought ◽  
Course Content ◽  
Social Work Educators ◽  
Racial Identities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Work Education

The social work profession has historically been dominated by the presence and perspectives of whiteness. The centering of whiteness in social work education is reflected in course offerings, course content, assignment construction, and inherent racialized assumptions about who clients and social workers will be in practice spaces. Critical race theory (CRT) and liberation theory provide a framework for considering how to make visible the ways in which white supremacy is embedded in social work education, and to identify strategies for disrupting its presence by decentering whiteness. The purpose of this project is to foster critical thought about ways to dismantle racism and white supremacy in social work educational spaces. Using the reflexive methodology of collaborative autoethnography, the four authors - two course instructors and two students - with varying racial identities and positionalities, reflected on the experiences of coming to, being in, and transitioning out of the course. Areas of convergence and divergence in the autoethnographic reflections revealed strategies such as embracing vulnerability, promoting authentic relationships, and normalizing emotional as well as cognitive engagement for decentering whiteness in social work education. Implications and recommendations for social work educators and students committed to engaging in anti-racist practice are also discussed

scholarly journals Engaged Teaching-Learning: Outcome Evaluation for Social Work Students in a Graduate-Level Service Learning Research Course

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stacy M. Deck ◽  
Phyllis A. Platt ◽  
Laneshia McCord
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Social Work Students ◽  
Outcome Evaluation ◽  
Graduate Level ◽  
Course Content ◽  
Social Work Research ◽  
Research Curriculum ◽  
Teaching Learning

The challenges of engaging social work students in the research curriculum are well-documented, and the literature supports the use of service learning to increase engagement. This study explores self-efficacy as one measure of learning outcomes. Changes in students’ (N=88) assessment of their ability to perform research and program evaluation tasks skillfully were measured by administering the Evaluation Self-Efficacy Scale (ESE) on the first and last days of a graduate-level advanced research class that included a service learning project. ESE scores on the last day of class were significantly higher than on the first day of class. The effect size was larger than in prior similar studies, suggesting that service learning contributed to students’ sense of mastery of course content. These results support the use of an engaged-learning model such as a service learning project in advanced social work research courses to improve students’ evaluation self-efficacy.

Critical Pedagogy in Online Social Work Education: Changing Conceptions of Time in the Neoliberal University

Somatechnics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-94
Author(s):  
Kristin Smith ◽  
Donna Jeffery ◽  
Kim Collins
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Online Education ◽  
Critical Pedagogy ◽  
Social Work Education ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Social Work Educators ◽  
Digital World ◽  
Learning Programs ◽  
Recent Graduates ◽  
Work Education

Neoliberal universities embrace the logic of acceleration where the quickening of daily life for both educators and students is driven by desires for efficient forms of productivity and measurable outcomes of work. From this perspective, time is governed by expanding capacities of the digital world that speed up the pace of work while blurring the boundaries between workplace, home, and leisure. In this article, we draw from findings from qualitative interviews conducted with Canadian social work educators who teach using online-based critical pedagogy as well as recent graduates who completed their social work education in online learning programs to explore the effects of acceleration within these digitalised spaces of higher education. We view these findings alongside French philosopher Henri Bergson's concepts of duration and intuition, forms of temporality that manage to resist fixed, mechanised standards of time. We argue that the digitalisation of time produced through online education technologies can be seen as a thinning of possibilities for deeper and more critically self-reflexive knowledge production and a reduction in opportunities to build on social justice-based practices.

"Do not Worry Your Head": The Impossibility of Indigenising Social Work Education and Practice in Africa

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kwaku Osei-Hwedie ◽  
Doris Akyere Boateng
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Knowledge Base ◽  
North American ◽  
Social Work Education ◽  
Culturally Relevant ◽  
Social Work Educators ◽  
The People ◽  
African Context ◽  
Drawing Board ◽  
Work Education

As the discussions and debates rage on about the content and direction of social work in Africa, the challenges associated with weaning the profession off its Western and North American roots become apparent. The desire to indigenise or make the profession culturally relevant is well articulated in the literature. Some efforts have been undertaken toward achieving this desire. However, it is evident that despite the numerous discussions and publications, it appears that efforts at indigenising, localising, or making social work culturally relevant have not made much progress. While what must be achieved is somewhat clear; how to achieve it and by what process remain a conundrum. The article, therefore, revisits the issue of making social work culturally relevant in Africa and its associated challenges. Despite the indictment of current social work education and practice in Africa, it appears that many academics and professionals have accepted that what is Western is global, fashionable, and functional, if not perfect. Given this, perhaps, “we should not worry our heads” about changing it. Instead, social work educators and practitioners in Africa should go back to the drawing board to determine how current social work education and practice can be blended with a traditional African knowledge base, approaches and models to reflect and align with the critical principles and ideals within the African context. This is with the hope of making the profession more relevant to the needs of the people of Africa.

Towards the Integration of Faith, Love, and Praxis

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-27
Author(s):  
Monica Y. E. Chi
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
The Other ◽  
Intergroup Dialogue ◽  
Christian Spirituality ◽  
Social Work Educators ◽  
Dorothy Day ◽  
Jane Addams ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Poor Understanding ◽  
Martin Luther King

Non-faith-based social work educators and researchers have a poor understanding of what might motivate Christians in social work and whether Christian motivations have any place in social work. On the other hand, Christians have difficulty articulating actions inspired by their faith in ways that others can comprehend despite feeling misunderstood. The focus of this article is to present the framework of faith-inspired praxis of love and lay the groundwork for intergroup dialogue. The framework draws from the works of Jane Addams, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jean Vanier, and Mary Jo Leddy, five notable leaders in Christian spirituality and public initiatives, to discuss their conceptualization of faith, love, and praxis. Practice and research implications of this framework for social work are discussed.

scholarly journals Enhancing social work education’s diversity-oriented perspective by integrating refugees into higher education: Experiences from the ‘refugee crisis’ in Germany

2021 ◽  
pp. 002087282110082
Author(s):  
Stefan Borrmann
Keyword(s):  
Applied Sciences ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Teaching Staff ◽  
Homogeneous Groups ◽  
Course Content ◽  
Global Mindedness ◽  
Universities Of Applied Sciences ◽  
Higher Education Experiences ◽  
Work Education

This note describes how integrating refugees into programs of social work education at universities and universities of applied sciences in Germany influenced the education provided, especially in rural areas where student bodies tend to be homogeneous groups. The refugees enrolled in social work courses changed those mostly homogeneous groups of students not only with their presence but moreover by introducing new perspectives on course content. As the changes prompted shifts in the global mindedness of fellow students and the teaching staff, the quality of the programs was enhanced.

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