Although several studies highlight the benefit of short-term immersion programs abroad among social work students, few studies have examined their transformative nature. In response, this study aimed to describe the transformative change experienced by MSW students from the Southwest USA who participated in a short-term, immersion program in…

Reflective practice emphasizes the importance of providing practitioners with opportunities to reflect on their work in order to manage the complexity of day-to-day practice. This study found that graduate students who engaged in a reflection-centered educational model reported enhanced practice through reflection-on-action, reflection-in-action,…

The Zeitgeist of our time calls on social workers and the social work profession to reconsider the ways in which we practice, teach, and learn. The COVID-19 pandemic and the 2021 reawakening of the racial and social justice movements profoundly influence how social workers approach the directive from our accrediting body (CSWE) calling on us to…

This qualitative study was undertaken to explore what undergraduate students reflect on during their learning to practice social work in the field. Reflection is essential in the social work field practicum where students learn the practice of social work by doing. Seventeen BSW students' final field practicum learning papers are analyzed. Four…

Self-awareness is important in social work education because it promotes knowledge, skill, and value development. However, little is written about the ways in which educators facilitate this process. A project was undertaken to design a new self-awareness assignment (SAA) and examine its value. The SAA's development, which relies on role-plays, is…

In this paper, we review the results of a qualitative thematic analysis exploring student reflections during an Objective Structured Clinical Examination Adapted for Social Work (OSCE-SW). Students interfaced with embedded participants representing either a parent-bisexual child or parent-transgender child dyad during a study examining learning…

Eleven doctoral interns and 9 faculty mentors participated in a two-year Teaching Mentorship Project (TMP). Qualitative analyses of 20 interviews and reflective writing by the interns resulted in six themes: preparation and guidance from mentors; teaching innovation; teaching rehearsal with intern peers; mentor-intern reciprocal support; teaching…

COVID-19's unprecedented effects on the world emphasize the minimal exigent research on best practices of social work pedagogy during crises. The purpose of this paper is to inform this research and our understanding of social work education's shift at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study draws upon the narratives of four key…

Research in distance education has investigated student satisfaction and learning outcomes, comparing face-to-face with online delivery formats, and tested various technological tools, but has yet to consider alternative pedagogies. Liberatory pedagogy facilitates critical thinking, awareness, reflection and social action around constructs such as…

Many social work students approach the end of their formal training unprepared to utilize self-care approaches to prevent burnout. Providing students more comprehensive self-care training can help address this issue. One approach to fostering self-care and addressing stress and burnout in social work students is the attitude and practice of…

The movement towards competency-based education in social work has required a shift in delivery to more experiential learning opportunities for students. Looking forward, the Council on Social Work Education [CSWE] has instituted a Futures Task Force, exploring roles social workers may play in the future, with particular attention to the evolution…

The development of new e-technologies and an increased focus on developing distance social work education programs has created the impetus for social work educators to consider the tools they can employ in delivering distance courses. This article reflects on an action learning research project involving the development of an online toolbox of…

Professional leaders have identified clear roles for social workers involved in advance care planning (ACP), a facilitated process whereby individuals identify their preferences for future medical care; yet information about effective teaching practices in this area is scant. This study reports on the experiences of 14 social workers who…

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…

Utilizing the conceptual framework of Garrison, Anderson, and Archer for critical inquiry, this paper outlines the importance of the community of inquiry (COI) model and how it may inform online social work education. Integrating the COI model, we discuss how online learning in the classroom with a hybrid approach has been used to facilitate…