This article evaluates the effect of a community project that was adopted by the students of a school of social work in Israel. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design was used. The pretest was administered during the planning stage of the project and the posttest a year later, during the implementation period. The findings show a significant…

This article addresses the challenging task of preparing baccalaureate social work students to master proficiency as first responders in stress and trauma situations. We begin with a brief description of the context, goals, admission procedure, structure, and process of a stress and trauma studies (STS) program. We then compare the development of…

This article is an examination of strategies for engaging students in programs of human services education. We describe an in class mask-making activity, used by three human services instructors at an undergraduate university in western Canada, as a means of engaging students to grow in individual and collaborative awareness and skills. We present…

Teaching for diversity and social justice is the teaching of complex abstract ideas about privilege and oppression, such as the social construction of social groups and identity. An effective way to teach this material is with experiential learning, but this approach requires much more than exercises and activities. Courses must be consciously…

This article includes a review of the literature on personal epistemology and the reflective judgment model and applies these theoretical concepts to undergraduate students who engage in service-learning projects. The application will provide instructors with greater understanding of students' abilities and limitations in their…

The implicit curriculum, which refers to a student's learning environment, has been described as an essential feature of an integrated professional social work curriculum. Very little is known, however, about the heterogeneity of students' experiences with the implicit curriculum, how this heterogeneity may be distributed across groups…

The trend toward the use of distance education in teaching social work students has been rapidly growing over the past two decades. A constant issue of concern is related to student outcomes. This paper reports on a longitudinal quasi-experimental study assessing the differential knowledge and attitude toward research between social work students…

This paper reviews the student perspectives of an online BSW program. The structure of this program is presented, along with findings from a mixed-method evaluation of four matched BSW courses where each instructor taught both the online and face-to-face sections. Although there are no identified differences in performance, grades, or retention,…

Social work educators have been grappling for years with the continually challenging notion of the "integration of theory and practice" and the converse concept, the "gap between theory and practice." This article posits the utility of a theory-mindedness approach to learning and practice as an alternative conceptualization…

Changes in the demographics of American undergraduate students must be addressed by changes in delivery of the curriculum. The learner-centered approach to education helps to recognize and integrate student diversity with class exercises and assignments designed to help students meet course learning outcomes. This article applies the American…

This study compared 248 graduating seniors with 301 beginning juniors at 10 bachelor's-level social work programs in the Northeast concerning their knowledge and attitudes regarding working with substance-abusing clients. Graduating seniors demonstrated modestly higher levels of knowledge and only slightly more positive attitudes toward…

Social work's professional commitment to working toward social justice for vulnerable groups is well known. However, as a profession, social work has been criticized for proposing professional perspectives that may be interpreted by some as political indoctrination. The purpose of the current study was to examine social work students'…

Social work students have few guidelines to help them evaluate the implication of their posted information on Internet-based social networking sites (SNSs). There is a national trend among employers of human services to cross-check publicly available online information on applicants. Based on data from a survey of 105 baccalaureate and master's…

The current study examined student experiences (n = 111) in an undergraduate social work (BSW) research seminar in which a service learning (SL) project was the primary focus. Student groups of approximately six or seven worked with local agencies to develop a research plan for the agency. Students found the SL project to be a positive experience.…

The use of fiction and autobiography in social science course work has been shown to enhance students' learning experience. Using the novel PUSH, by Sapphire, we designed a curriculum supplement for the social work course, human behavior and the social environment (HBSE) that encourages students to integrate course content in an innovative way and…