Using a quasi-experimental one-group, pretest-posttest design with non-random convenience sampling, the researchers assessed 61 advanced standing MSW students who matriculated at a rural intermountain Northwest school of social work. Changes in students' knowledge and attitudes toward lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people were measured…

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…

Achieving foundation-level practice behaviors to develop social work core competencies involves integrating learning across a curriculum. This article focuses on two phases of foundation-level course redevelopment aimed to support graduate students in accomplishing this outcome. The first phase involved restructuring the course to become a…

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…

This article focuses on the culture of human interchange, which is included as a component of the implicit curriculum in the current EPAS. It presents the use of the implicit curriculum concept in teacher and medical education as a context for its application to social work education. The authors argue that professional behaviors taught in the…

Online social work education has grown rapidly in recent years, and practice courses now are frequently taught online. The present study contributes to the growing body of knowledge regarding best practices in online social work education by examining the effects of small-group learning communities on student learning and on student satisfaction…

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' stereotypical perceptions of excluded populations could be decisive in the way they treat those who are excluded. In an attempt to change such perceptions and enhance knowledge about how to work with an excluded population, a dialogue-in-class model was implemented between students of social work in Israel and persons with…

This paper describes a transcultural perspective, employed by one social work program, as an integrative framework for addressing diversity throughout the curriculum. The transcultural perspective incorporates five interrelated but distinct dimensions: (1) culture (recognizing the importance of culture at all levels of practice); (2) understanding…

The article describes a community organizing course that was as dynamic as community organizing itself. By employing a combination of teaching approaches, community organizing philosophy, and pedagogical and andragogical techniques for student training, the course challenged students to discover their beliefs and the role of the community and the…

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…

Social work students often have been labeled as research-reluctant. Consequently, it is important to identify effective teaching strategies. One innovative strategy is team-based learning. The effectiveness of team-based learning has not yet been evaluated with a social work research class. As a result, the current study compared the effectiveness…

Given that social work research courses are typically built on modernist principles of teaching and content, it is not surprising that the majority of social work students dread these courses. Few attempts have been made to better align the modernist content of quantitative research with the postmodern philosophy and values inherent in current…

Experiential exercises can be effectively incorporated into social work courses that focus on diversity, oppression, and social justice. This article describes three models of experiential activities, provides examples of exercises within the three models and empirical support for their effectiveness, and identifies criticisms surrounding their…

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…