Social Work Education and Technology: Challenges and

OpportunitiesGraduate School of Social Work

University of DenverJames Herbert Williams

April 10, 2010

Faculty Leaders

• Jean East• Walter LaMendola• Catherine Alter• Julie Laser• John Kayser• Eugene Walls• Michele Sienkiewicz

CSWEAlternative Re-affirmation Project

• A major CSWE request was to carry out a comparative study of F2F, blended, and on-line delivery of social work practice classes

• The organizing theories for our effort were those dealing with teaching and learning.

• The theories identify three important forms of presence, one of which is called social presence.

DU/GSSW Study

• Investigated student perceptions of social presence, connectedness, and learning in F2F, On-line and Blended courses

• Practice Courses– Multicultural Social Work Practice– Community I– Clinical I– Field Seminar– School Social Work

How People Learn

Good Teaching Practice

Community of Inquiry Model

Social presence in learning communities

• Social presence “defined as the ability of learners to project themselves socially and affectively into a community of learners” (Rourke, Anderson, Garrison and Archer, 2001, p.2).

• Social presence seen as a main component of community

– Affective Communication to establish trust and respect

– Open Communication– Cohesion and

Collaboration

Social presence in the classroom• Students and teachers create social presence in social work

education. Examples from good practice includeOpportunities of self disclosure

Spontaneity and humorCreating awe

Expressing emotionsForms of discussion

• Research indicates that information and communication technologies support the development of social presence

Social work distance education

• Started as off-site programs often associated with meeting the needs of isolated communities

• Now communication and information technologies are in common use regardless of distance

• Schools of social work use ICT, reaching local constituencies, isolated communities, and, in fact, students around the world

Presence

• presence, not distance, has returned to the center stage as a defining consideration in effective educational delivery.

• Presence is still the carrier of relationships, but with a much broader range.

• Presence is no longer contained by the physicality of the instructor as memorialized by terms such as “sage on the stage” or “guide on the side.”

Three perspectives examined in DU Reaffirmation Project

• Organizational Environment• Faculty Environment• Course delivery modalities, i.e.

– Face to face– On-line– Hybrid (mixes of face to face and on-line)

Organizational Environment• Study One: Leadership assessment of the organizational environment

for social work education ICT and e-learning.• Question: How are ICT and e-learning tools perceived by leaders of

schools of social work today and how is that assessment aligned with their mission and goals?

• Purpose: To report on leadership perceptions about the use and alignment of forms of distance education in schools of social work using Alan Knowles’s (2007) framework for integration of e-learning in social work education

• Method/measures: A survey of deans and directors of schools of social work was conducted on use of distance education technologies and plans in the future. Focus groups were facilitated and interviews of 15 deans were conducted at CSWE meeting in October, 2007.

Organizational environment findings/ Deans

• Themes of transformation and faculty engagement considered most difficult.

• Transformation difficult because it involved risk and required a new way of thinking.

• Faculty engagement difficult because it required new learning and organizational mandates.

• Overall, many of the deans expressed strong ambivalence

Faculty Environment• Study Two: Faculty engagement through a Learning Community approach• Question: How does the use of a blended learning approach with a

Faculty Learning Community facilitate the development of a learning environment that integrates new learning technologies in social work education?

• Purpose: The research literature indicates that Faculty Learning Community processes used with faculty consistently and over time can lead to the successful adoption of new learning technologies.

• Method/measures: Seven faculty and two staff participated in the study. The study used a blended collaborative learning process adapted from Vaughan(2004). The analysis included a case study, discourse analysis (Rourke, et al., 1999), and knowledge mapping tools (Horn, 2008; Kirshner, Shum & Carr, 2003).

Faculty development

• Community of Inquiry theory informed 2 year process

• Explored mix of presences (cognitive, teaching, social) in course development for effective social work learning

• Faculty learning community was generated that fostered practical inquiry, course development, individual accomplishment

Learning Environment• STUDY THREE: Social work practice courses in alternative course delivery

formats• Questions: • What is it that occurs in excellent face-to-face instruction that is potentially

missing in technology-based delivery of education? • How do teachers adjust their teaching approach and pedagogy to maximize

cognitive presence given different technologies of course delivery? • How do students experience online classes in comparison to face-to-face

instruction? • How do faculty experience online classes in comparison to face-to-face

instruction?• Purpose: This study directly examines the overall issue of interest to CSWE

in regard to face-to-face versus computer-mediated learning.

Learning environment• Measures/methods: Short, Williams, and Christie (1976) social

presence scale, Rovai (2002) classroom community scale, Richardson and Swan (2003) student assessment of learning environment measure, the Shea, Pickett and Pelz (2003) teaching presence measure, student course evaluations, faculty reports, and student focus groups.

• Five courses: overall N of 99 students with 19 in face to face, 27 in on-line, 53 in blended coursework.

Courses involved in study three

Practice courses can be effectively taught in any format

• social presence and teaching presence were major influences on course outcomes and student satisfaction, regardless of format of delivery

• classroom community developed in all formats and was a significant contributor to reported learning

presence, not distance

• It is critical for CSWE to assist members in their consideration of how these learning technologies may contribute to competencies.

• The expanded capacity to creatively use forms of presence for teaching and learning is undoubtedly the most important contribution of convergent technologies to social work education thus far.

Community of Inquiry

• Such a model is very useful to, and directly fits with the pedagogical goals of social work.

• It assists social work education by focusing on concepts of human presence in teaching and learning

• It assists social work practitioners by grounding convergent technologies in the “person in environment” framework.

National Leadership Needed

• Social work needs to get involved with the Sloan Consortium which helps members to improve quality, scale, and breadth of their

• Sloan-C supports the collaborative sharing of knowledge and effective practices to improve learning effectiveness, access, affordability for learners and providers, and student and faculty satisfaction.

National Leadership needed

• Social work needs to participate in the Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT)

• MERLOT is a set of partner organizations that provides peer reviewed and selected higher education, online learning materials

National Leadership Needed

• Strategies for faculty engagement need to be aggressively pursued by CSWE as an essential part of improved social work education.

• more visibility needed for social work experts at CSWE and NADD sharing research findings and models for curriculum development.

• Do not exclude new programs - share best practices, develop protocols, and establish criteria for excellence in social work e-learning.

Local leadership needed most

• faculty must have access to the tools and support systems they need

• faculty need leadership, dedicated time, and a supportive community that facilitates the transition to a new teaching and learning environment.

• These efforts must be sustained over time to be successful

Local leadership

• Increase their knowledge of the research on e-learning outcomes

• Resolve competing priorities• provide institutional support and resources• Assist with a pedagogical alignment that is

unique to a practice profession. • Knowles (2007) provides a comprehensive

beginning model to assess social work organizational environments.

Research

• need for ongoing research by social work educators to address the learning of practice skills and the development of a professional identity in an e-learning environment.

• Existing evidence indicates that practice based professions can be effective in developing e-learning models of curriculum delivery

Primary issue: How social work will…

• Address the emerging practice of intentionally blending learning technologies to best meet specific learning objectives.

• Master the expansion of human presence afforded by communication technologies

• Blend present and emerging models of content delivery to meet the needs of today’s students and tomorrow’s social workers.