Pre-practicum student reflections were studied using an Objective Standard Clinical Examination adapted for social work. One hundred and nine students conducted simulated interviews and immediately wrote answers to reflective questions. Reflections were studied using descriptive qualitative methodology. Three patterns emerged: students rely…

Historically, society has associated a visit from a child protection worker with the removal of children. In Canada in the 1960s, Aboriginal children were removed from their communities in alarming numbers and were referred to as the "sixties scoop." This may in part explain the difficulty in recruiting Aboriginal social workers into…

Social work students are witness to a variety of challenges from course content through scenarios, videos, role-plays, and field practice. Students may be vulnerable to experiencing vicarious traumatization from this exposure. Some students, however, may have personal histories of trauma and may therefore experience posttraumatic stress reactions…

This article reports on a project to sensitize graduate social work students taking courses in substance abuse to the needs of older adults. Graduate social work students at a major urban school of social work in the Northeast were recruited and trained to interview older adults with a history of substance abuse problems regarding their life…

Service learning is an educational practice that bridges the gap between academics and the real world. Knowledge generated within educational institutions is offered to a community with the goal of strengthening student learning and increasing students' civic engagement. There is a pedagogical congruence between service learning, civic engagement,…

Questions pertaining to racial and cultural identification are salient among social work educators in their role as teachers in the classroom. In the context of the 21st century, as an increasing number of people cannot be classified by race, an awareness of the complexities of cultural and racial identity is more important than ever. For social…

Teaching BSW and MSW students beginning interviewing and relationship-building skills is essential in order to prepare them for practice with clients. In social work methods courses, role plays are commonly-used instructional strategies for helping foundation-level students acquire these initial practice skills. Despite the popularity of this…

The author used a mixed methods design to assess field work-related educational disequilibrium and its effect on the self-concept and mental health of MSW students. Twenty-eight advanced, fourth-semester MSW students were compared with 37 entering, first-semester MSW students in practice-related sense of accomplishment. Compared with first-year…

This article describes the 15-year evolution of a course devoted to teaching solution-focused interviewing skills to BSW students and the role these students played in the course's design. We drew inspiration from the strengths perspective that implies that just as practitioners can learn much about how to practice from clients, social work…

This article explores the relational learning model for teaching clinical social work practice. Evaluations of a course on loss, grief, and death illustrate that relational learning methods enhanced students' relational and communicative knowledge and skills, and contributed to a transformative learning process. Relational learning is a method of…

Graduate social work students often are required to complete an evaluation or research project. Research instructors work with their students to assure that these projects are rigorous as well as ethical. This study focuses upon the relationship of student projects and the Institutional Review Board (IRB). The IRB aims to strengthen research…

This article describes the implementation of a module that utilizes drama students to teach social work students how to use active listening skills in an interview environment. The module was implemented during a semester-long micro skills practice course taught to 13 undergraduate social work seniors in a western liberal arts university. Four…

This paper presents an exploratory study of MSW students who self-identified as having political/religious world views differing from what they perceived to be dominant at their school. A goal was to learn about conditions that fostered or inhibited authentic speech for those students. A secondary goal was to learn how students dealt with their…

There is an increasing demand for social work students to be prepared to work with a wide range of involuntary groups including the more traditional court-ordered programs in domestic abuse and chemical dependency, as well as groups in mental health and schools that provide outreach to high-risk client populations. This paper introduces three…

To complement traditional learning activities in a masters-level research methodology course, social work students worked on a formal research project which involved: designing the study, constructing measures, selecting a sampling strategy, collecting data, reducing and analyzing data, and finally interpreting and communicating the results. The…