Anti-oppression is woven throughout the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) 2022 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS). The call to action is clear; how to engage can be challenging. How do we bring anti-oppressive practice (AOP) pedagogy alive in the classroom? This article aims to create space in which Social Work educators…

Plagiarism is a continuing and growing concern in higher education and in academic publishing. Educating to avoid plagiarism requires ongoing efforts at all levels and clear policies that explain the several types of plagiarism and potential consequences when it is found. Identifying plagiarism requires complex judgments and is not a simple matter…

This teaching note reflects on the challenges we face when attempting to cultivate the seeds of social justice in our pedagogy and our engagement toward social justice. First, we situate our vision of pedagogy in a critical lens and present challenges we encounter when trying to foster activism among students. The challenges we identify allow us…

Contract grading provides graduate-level students with greater control and autonomy within the learning process. The contract grading approach requires students to take greater responsibility for achieving course learning outcomes as well as allowing learners to adjust the style and focus of assignments to meet their own unique needs and desires.…

Over the last 25 years, cultural competence education has gained prominence in various helping professions (Kaihlanen et al., 2019; Shepherd et al., 2019; Stubbe, 2020). Interestingly, there are opposing perspectives regarding whether cultural competence training is necessary and/or relevant in such fields. Examples of such divisions are captured…

It is imperative that social work programs facilitate discussions pertaining to social justice in the classroom. This gives students the space to navigate barriers to changing policy and oppressive systems. However, there are multiple barriers to having critical discussions of challenges in advocating for marginalized and oppressed groups. One way…

Simulation is well-documented as an effective pedagogy in teaching social work practice. However, the financial and human resources needed to provide simulation-based teaching in large social work programs are prohibitive. Partnering with other disciplines with established simulation programs is one way to bring simulation to social work students…

Research suggests that most college and beginning graduate students lack the cognitive complexity required to engage in effective practical and ethical reasoning. Studies on cognitive development support the view that how people approach complex problems varies significantly depending on the underlying epistemic assumptions they use to guide their…

There have been longstanding debates about Master of Social Work (MSW) Advanced Standing programs. Many schools of social work offer Advanced Standing status to students with a Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) that allows students to enter directly into a concentrated and specialized second year of the MSW program. There are arguments that BSW…

The role of religion and spirituality within social work education has varied throughout the profession's history, with recent research calling for increased attention to this area of diversity. In response, the Council on Social Work Education hosted and sponsored the 2021 Summit for Critical Conversations on Religion, Faith, and Spirituality in…

Practitioners are required to have both practice knowledge of theoretical approaches and professional competence and skills. For student social workers, acquiring the former has been traditionally associated with academic teaching. With practice placement learning, the latter has required unique consideration with the incorporation of the online…

Recent and rapid technological advances have given rise to an explosive growth of data, along with low-cost solutions for accessing, collecting, managing, and analyzing data. Despite the advances in technology and the availability of data, social work organizations routinely encounter data-related problems that have an impact on their…

Social workers are charged to work with vulnerable populations and often encounter those experiencing homelessness. Despite this fact, social workers do not typically learn about homelessness in degree programs even though the topic aligns with the educational competencies set forth by the Council on Social Work Education. This teaching note…

While psychoanalysis played an important role in social work practice and education as far back as the 1920's, the period from the 1960s through the 1990s led to its diminishing presence. We believe incorporating psychoanalytic theory into social work education is now necessary to prepare students for contemporary direct practice and should be a…

Language barriers negatively affect access to social services, particularly for D/deaf populations who use Sign Language. "D/deaf" is used to encompass both the cultural conception of capital-D Deafness and the medical conception of lowercase-d deafness. Language translation/interpretation is a common need among practitioners of social,…