Teaching in Social Work: An Educator’s Guide to Theory and Practice 9780231550147

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TEACHING IN SOCIAL WORK

TEACHING IN SOCIAL WORK AN EDUCATOR’S GUIDE TO THEORY AND PRACTICE SECOND EDITION

Jeane W. Anastas

columbia university press

NEW YORK

Columbia University Press gratefully acknowledges the generous support for this book provided by Dr. Tony Tripodi.

columbia university press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex cup.columbia.edu Copyright © 2022 Columbia University Press First edition published 2010 All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Anastas, Jeane W., author. Title: Teaching in social work : an educator's guide to theory and practice / Jeane W. Anastas. Description: Second edition. | New York : Columbia University Press, [2022] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021036758 (print) | LCCN 2021036759 (ebook) | ISBN 9780231193085 (hardback) | ISBN 9780231193092 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780231550147 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Social work education. Classification: LCC HV11 .A56 2022 (print) | LCC HV11 (ebook) | DDC 361/.06071—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021036758 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021036759

Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to a gifted teacher and a lifelong friend, Jennifer Rochow, who first introduced me to the literature on teaching and learning in higher education from which I have learned so much. I make this dedication with thanks for the inspiration I have drawn from her life and work and for the loving support she has provided in all aspects of mine.

CONTENTS

Preface to the Second Edition ix Acknowledgments xvii

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Teaching and Learning in Social Work: The Context 1 How Adults Think and Learn 10 Teaching Courses: Methods and Modalities 30 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Classroom 62 Assessing Learning 106 Assessing Teaching 136 Online Teaching and Learning 151 Academic Jobs and Faculty Work 178 Ethical Issues in Teaching 218 Conclusions 244 Notes 257 References 259 Index 285

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

the “practice wisdom” of today’s social work educators with current theories and knowledge about students’ learning and effective teaching methods. It is designed for newcomers to teaching in social work, for those who want to refresh their approach to their work, and for those in social work doctoral programs and educational administration who want to enhance their students’ education. The book, which grew out of teaching aspiring social work educators, summarizes the existing literature on teaching and learning in social work. It also draws selectively on the literature in the field of higher education to show how what has been learned about effective teaching in general can be applied to social work education specifically. However, the literature on teaching in higher education is typically addressed to teaching in the academic disciplines and not in the professions. Thus, we must consider how this knowledge can best be applied to social work education, whose goal of nurturing student growth must be combined with ensuring that graduates will be effective and ethical service providers. In some ways, I have tried to write the book I wished I had when I began to teach students and then to teach the teachers. Like all dynamic institutions, higher education and social work education have evolved rapidly since the first edition of this book was published in 2010. Social work education remains a growing enterprise in the United States and globally. BSW and MSW education both continue to grow. The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) reports that enrollments in BSW programs have increased over 12 percent in the past ten years and the number of accredited BSW programs has increased about 16 percent. MSW enrollments have increased more than 35 percent in the past ten years, while the number of accredited MSW programs has increased about 50 percent. As in higher education generally, the number of “contingent” or contract

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faculty (full-time faculty members who are not eligible for tenure but are employed on time-limited contracts) teaching in social work programs has grown. More and more courses in BSW (33 percent) and MSW (45 percent) programs are taught by part-time or adjunct faculty (CSWE 2020). It has been more than ten years since the first edition of this book was published. In preparing this new edition, I have reviewed the literature on teaching and learning in social work with the same parameters used in the previous edition. Well-known and well-regarded books from the general higher education literature published since then have also been used. However, I cannot claim to have exhaustively searched the vast literature on teaching and learning in higher education as a whole as I did when it came to the social work education literature. Because of ongoing changes in social work education, much of the content of this edition has been changed. First, field education is now termed the “signature pedagogy” of the profession, so there are now many excellent books and new articles on the topic. In addition, it is hard to fully cover the topic in any one chapter, so the previous chapter on field instruction has been removed, and recommended resources for learning more about it have been provided at the end of chapter 3. However, education in the field context is touched on briefly in other chapters as needed. As of 2019, the use of educational technology in social work education had grown and changed. Almost half of BSW programs (47 percent) and 62 percent of MSW programs were hybrid, meaning that at least some of their curriculum was offered online (CSWE 2020). CSWE now accredits BSW and MSW programs that are wholly online. Many colleges and universities went to partial or wholly online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic, and many predict that this move will only increase the use of online classes in the future. Therefore, the previous chapter on technology in social work education has been replaced by one devoted to online teaching and learning (chapter 7). In the face of the pandemic, I like so many others have begun teaching online. Prior to that, I took an asynchronous online course in philosophy to experience firsthand what it was like for students to learn in this way. I also developed online modules in my courses and in some circumstances had students participate remotely in a face-to-face class. My own experiences and the growing literature on online teaching in social work inform discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of online learning. Another aspect of social work education that has changed dramatically since the first edition is a greater emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion. New concepts include critical race theory, racism, antiracism,

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whiteness, white privilege, and white supremacy. Cultural competence is no longer the only framework used for understanding issues of difference; an added concept is cultural humility. Addressing power and oppression and/or addressing antioppressive practices more generally has also become part of how many schools and departments of social work orient their thinking and teaching. These new theories and concepts will be explicated in chapter 4 along with more familiar ideas like cultural competence. Race and ethnicity have received the most attention in higher education and social work education, but, as in the first edition, other dimensions of diversity will also be discussed. In chapter 4, the section on older students, now a commonly accepted group, has been replaced by attention to international students, whose numbers have been increasing in social work. There is now a greater understanding of the particular challenges international students face while studying social work in the United States. In higher education and in social work education, calls for accountability through documenting learning outcomes and the quality of teaching have increased. Therefore, this second edition divides the previous chapter on assessing learning and teaching into two separate ones: assessing learning (chapter 5) and assessing teaching (chapter 6). There have been significant changes in the assessment of student learning, as in the new emphasis in CSWE’s accreditation standards on assessing student competencies, both those required of all students and those defined by the program’s own goals and objectives. New technologies for student assessment, such as the use of standardized clients, have been developed as well. Some critiques of this outcomes approach will also be briefly described. Outcomes-based evaluation of student learning is an increasing component of both regional and professional accreditation. In recent sets of accreditation standards for both BSW and MSW programs (CSWE 2008, 2015), the evaluation of student learning outcomes is required, as is making the results of program assessments available on program websites. On a daily basis, often one of the most worrisome tasks facing a beginning teacher is evaluating students’ learning, generally expressed as grading. In addition, the gatekeeping function of social work education typically competes with the helping impulse that faculty feel toward students. The premise of chapter 5 is that student assessments provide important opportunities for learning beyond what happens each day in the classroom, and examples of ways to assess learning are presented. Chapter 6 considers how faculty are evaluated in their teaching by students and others. This chapter considers common evaluation techniques, such as

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student satisfaction surveys, along with other techniques. It also covers resources that faculty members can use for both evaluating and improving their own performance in the classroom. However, as suggested by the shorter length of this chapter, less has changed in how teaching is assessed, perhaps because in many settings one’s performance in teaching can be less salient than it once was. Some topics in the book have not changed. The framework provided in chapter 1 for understanding teaching and learning in social work education remains relevant and continues to inform my conceptual approach to understanding social work education. In addition, the need to understand both learning (chapter 2) and modes of teaching (chapter 3) remains; these chapters have been updated. Since the first edition, the two leading social work education journals have published many more articles on how students learn and how best to teach; many of them, however, address how to teach specific content matter such as research, social policy, or clinical practice. The chapters on learning and teaching will not include all such articles but incorporate the new scholarship on each chapter’s topic in general. Whatever the context, learning in the end is a personal enterprise, and any significant educational experience is always, to some extent, transformative for the learner. Chapter 2 compares some of the major theories commonly used in thinking about how students in higher education learn; these theories emphasize that social work education is adult education. It also takes the position that our teaching should be aimed at helping students think in more complex and nuanced ways. Learning styles are important not only for what they say about variations in student learning but also in informing inclusive and effective teaching styles. In fact, enabling students to use a wider range of ways of knowing and styles of learning is itself an important educational outcome. Chapter 3 considers the range of teaching modalities that can be used in social work education. Social work education, like other forms of professional education, addresses knowledge, values, and skills. Teaching social work includes not only classroom instruction but also field instruction and advising. In addition, I describe the advantages and disadvantages of classroom teaching techniques such as lecturing, leading discussions, using group and individual projects, and coaching and mentoring, with an emphasis on the teacher’s ability to expand his or her repertoire of teaching techniques and to match the teaching modality to content and to students’ learning goals and styles. Many ethical dilemmas can arise in teaching and the academic setting, and the book still includes a chapter on academic ethics, addressing both

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the “shoulds” and “should nots” for both teachers and students. Chapter 9 covers these ethical issues in depth as they apply to both students and teachers. All professions are characterized by ethical commitments. In social work in the United States, the Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers (2018), designed for practitioners, is the one most often named by social work programs for students to follow. It has provisions specifically addressed to training and teaching, as well as other issues, such as dual relationships, that can arise in academia as well as in practice. While the NASW Code of Ethics provides useful guidance, specific codes relating to academic ethics are also considered. Many believe there may be more problems with academic ethics in online education, and these issues are also covered. As in all areas of professional ethics, awareness of the issues and of common pitfalls and dilemmas provides the best safeguard against ethical problems, and the chapter tries to alert teachers to potential problems and common ways of preventing or resolving them. Its placement toward the end of the book does not reflect its lack of importance; rather, it seemed better to describe all the major aspects of faculty work first—including those related to student assessment, teaching, and scholarship—in order to understand the many aspects of faculty work that have important ethical dimensions. Chapter 8 on faculty work also remains because many readers of this book are beginning a career in social work education. Given the many and far-reaching missions of institutions of higher education in today’s society, demands on faculty time and standards of excellence in job performance are limitless (Kennedy 1997). Chapter 8 describes what faculty in social work education do, including classroom preparation, student advising and mentoring, committee work and other departmental and institutional service, professional and community service, and the scholarly work that is necessary to keep one’s job and enrich one’s teaching. All make demands on a faculty member’s time. Building on this analysis of faculty work, the chapter summarizes what is known about those who are already employed in social work education. New data on the job market are presented to help in career planning, and the special obstacles that race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and other issues of difference may present to career development are discussed. Since the first edition was published, I have undertaken two surveys of doctoral students in social work, and relevant data from these surveys, such

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as what new doctoral graduates may be looking for in an academic job, have been incorporated into the chapter where relevant. In addition, the competition for full-time jobs in social work education has become more intense, especially on the coasts and at highly ranked schools of social work, and the requirements for earning tenure in these settings have also become more demanding. As in higher education more generally, the growth in non-tenure-eligible full-time positions in social work has exceeded that of tenure-eligible and tenured positions. Understanding the varying nature of jobs in social work education is even more essential now, given the range options available. Chapter 10, the concluding chapter, summarizes some main points of the book and suggests areas in which social work education could benefit from further study and development. However, much of the future of social work education will be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, as well as by what happens in politics going forward. I do not consider myself to be an expert in either area, so what is said in the chapter must be taken with the proverbial grain of salt.

LIMITATIONS Some important areas are not covered in this book. Continuing education—education and training that takes place after a professional degree is awarded—is an area important to the profession that is not addressed here. As in such professions as medicine and nursing, many states require continuing education credits for relicensing in social work. Accreditation standards require that students conduct themselves as social workers, which includes “engag[ing] in lifelong learning” (CSWE 2015). Schools and departments of social work (and other professional and service-delivery organizations) often offer continuing education courses, sometimes including certificate programs, to graduate practitioners and field instructors, as well as development opportunities for their own faculty and/or adjunct and full-time teachers. This is a topic that merits its own discussion and analysis. Another area not covered is international or global education in social work, which is being emphasized in higher education generally and in social work education specifically (see, e.g., Abram and Cruce 2007; Askeland and Payne 2006; Drucker 2003). More and more U.S. social work students are going abroad for some portion of their studies, and many schools and departments of social work have relationships with service programs

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and social work education programs internationally. There are both uncritical (“export”) and critical (e.g., “reverse mission” and anticolonial) models for this work, meaning that global education deserves attention and continuing scholarship. The omission of the topic here does not reflect a lack of interest or importance but, rather, my lack of specialized knowledge and experience in this area. An emerging concern has been decolonizing social work education (Tamburro, 2013; Gray, Coates, Yellow Bird, M. and Hetherington, 2016). Growing attention is being paid to the white Western European basis of social work education, along with higher education as a whole. Antioppressive and antiracist models of practice call this epistemic orientation into question. Some information on how these conceptualizations are changing approaches to teaching and learning about diversity in social work education is given in chapter 4. The critique of social work education as being a product of neoliberalism is also worth exploring (Heron 2019). Neoliberalism is the dominant economic and social philosophy internationally, and it affects social work and social work education, leading to the fragmentation and privatization of social services, decreased public funding for higher education, and the growth of for-profit educational and service-delivery institutions. Neoliberalism also underlies the emphasis on outcomes and sees higher education as designed primarily to prepare students for employment. This topic has not been discussed much in the U.S. social work education literature, although it has been in Anglophone nations where antioppressive practice is the norm. Interdisciplinary practice is becoming more common in social work as the health-care system has been moving toward the integration of health and behavioral-health care. Interdisciplinary practice has long been common in health care and school social work, and many are concerned that social work education has not prepared graduates with the skills needed to optimize client outcomes and for effective teamwork, which has its own set of skills. Those who are interested will find content on this topic in the recent social work education literature. Perhaps the most important limitation of this volume is that it surveys many topics rather than dealing in depth with one or two of them. For example, whole books have been written about online education (chapter 7). Similarly, chapter 8 covers common job responsibilities for full-time faculty, some features of the tenure process, and a bit about searching for faculty jobs. Entire books have also been written on the academic job search,

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although not specific to social work. The hope is that the information in this book will entice readers to learn more about specific topics of interest to them from the books and articles in the reference list and on their own. By the time any book is published, it is inevitably dated in some respects. Nevertheless, my aim in this new edition is to make this book a more timely and useful resource for beginning social work educators as well as for those interested in refreshing and renewing their educational endeavors. Along with higher education, the social work profession itself continues to evolve and change, and discussion of how these changes may, should, or should not drive changes in social work education is also beyond the scope of this book. Social work educators of the future must craft creative new ways of meeting these challenges and bringing out the best in our students. Only in this way can we ensure that those who need social work services now will get the excellent service they deserve. However, it is my hope that readers will find in this volume information that will help them begin, renew, or foster in others an effective and fulfilling approach to being a social work educator.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TO THE FIRST EDITION

late John Michel, a senior editor at Columbia University Press, encouraged me to develop a proposal for a book like this one. John was not only “my editor;” he was an intelligent, discerning, witty, and always encouraging friend. Sadly, I did not fully realize until after his passing the scope and value of his gifts to me over the years. I thank him for his role in the genesis of this work, and I hope I honor his memory by bringing this project to a conclusion. Also important to the origin of this book have been the scores of doctoral students I have had the privilege of “teaching about teaching” in two different doctoral programs in social work, Smith College’s School for Social Work and New York University’s Silver School of Social Work. What I have learned from these experienced and successful learners who are or are aspiring to be teachers has been immeasurable. The doctoral students in these seminars provide new and useful insights every time I give the course, so I have been a learner as much as a teacher. Teaching about teaching is not easy. I know that my students are observing what I do, and I am humbled by how often I have to fall back on the motto of the hypocrite and the error prone: “Do as I say, not as I do.” I thank all these students—past, present, and future—for how much they have contributed, often unwittingly, to my own teaching and the thinking that informs this book. A few other people deserve special mention and thanks. Dr. Starr Wood has read and commented helpfully on parts of this manuscript. When I came to New York University in late 1999, my colleagues Dr. Gary Holden and Dean Thomas Meenaghan generously included me in their research on educational outcomes in the MSW program, a very valuable opportunity for me. Dean Suzanne England, a great supporter of the scholarship of teaching and learning, authorized a sabbatical leave for me in 2006–2007,

YEARS AGO, THE

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much of which I spent working on this manuscript. Matt McGuirk, who worked in information technology at the school, generously helped with the final preparation of the illustration that presents the book’s conceptual framework. Anonymous reviewers provided by Columbia University Press both at the prospectus stage and for the completed manuscript provided invaluable feedback. While all of these people have contributed much, the flaws and limitations of this book cannot be attributed to anyone but me.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TO THE SECOND EDITION New work brings new people to be grateful for. Stephen Wesley, the current social work editor at Columbia University Press, has worked with me on this second edition from prospectus to publication. His wise council and encouragement have been unwavering, and the suggestions from reviewers for the edition again provided very wise and useful suggestions. Silver School PhD candidate Gerri Connaught has assisted me in many aspects of this revision and has written the description of the imposter (IP) syndrome as it affects BIPOC students that appears in chapter 4. I am grateful to her for making me aware of this new construct for understanding the academic struggles of some BIPOC students. Justin West, a friend and neighbor who previously taught media studies at Greenfield Community College, did the work of creating new versions of the visual framework of teaching and learning in context (figure 1 in chapter 1) as a volunteer. I thank him very much for his generous and excellent work. I must also thank Peg Whalen for invaluable help in preparing the manuscript for publication. Again, I thank my life partner and now wife, Janice Gibeau, for encouragement and forbearance throughout my work on this book. At the very least she has endured too many hours of, as she would say, “looking at the back of my head.” My gratitude for her unwavering love and support is beyond measure.

TEACHING IN SOCIAL WORK

1 TEACHING AND LEARNING IN SOCIAL WORK The Context

continues to grow in the United States and worldwide. The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) reported that in 2019 there were more than 250 accredited master’s programs and more than 500 accredited baccalaureate programs in the United States, with more being developed (CSWE 2020). Total student enrollment in these programs was estimated at about 56,000 in baccalaureate programs and more than 68,000 in master’s programs in 2019, all of them conducted in the classroom and/or the field and now also via the internet. CSWE (2020) also reported that there were about 5,600 full-time faculty members and 7,800 part-time faculty members in social work schools and departments. These learners and these teachers are part of a profession that is predicted to grow in an increasingly multicultural society and in a global context. These teachers and learners share the conviction that their clients need and deserve the services of social workers who are well prepared for this varied, complex, and demanding work. Just as social work education has been growing in recent years, so has our knowledge about teaching effectively. In higher education generally, knowledge about how to teach well is expanding rapidly and growing in sophistication. More campuses now have centers that study and/or teach teaching. Social work educators traditionally have used a range of teaching methods. But even though many doctoral graduates in social work become full-time faculty in social work, only about half of social work doctoral programs require or make available courses on teaching (Hesselbrock 2006). Because many doctoral students in social work decide to obtain a doctorate (PhD or DSW) in order to enter academia, more doctoral programs in social work are offering courses on and mentoring experiences in teaching.

SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION

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Drawing on a person-in-environment perspective, the framework I use for understanding social work learning and teaching could be characterized as an “education-in-environment” perspective. Davis (1993), for example, described the main factors in teaching and learning as the teacher, the learner, the subject matter, and the setting, meaning the educational institution—the department or school and the college or university. Social work education always entails two settings or contexts: the classroom that is part of an educational institution and the social service agency in which field learning takes place. For a profession like social work, we also must consider the general social context—that is, the society in which the educational process takes place and in which the students will practice and apply what they have learned. A schematic representing this framework is shown in figure 1.1. The arrows near the center of the figure represent the processes of teaching and learning that place the teacher, the learner, and what is to be learned in relationship to each other. This framework also emphasizes the settings in which they interact, and especially the processes and kinds of interactions they are engaged in.

Society Profession

Student Agency setting (field internship)

Educational setting (classroom)

Field instructor

Teacher

Subject matter

Profession Society

FIGURE 1.1 Education-in-environment perspective

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In the past, the literature in social work education predominantly addressed the subject matter of social work education, which is what the U.S. accreditation standards focused on and what both beginning and experienced teachers tend to think about most. This is not surprising. Content is important, and determining what a social worker should know and be able to do is crucial now that program accreditation requires the assessment of student learning outcomes, including knowledge, attitudes, and practice skills or behaviors. In addition, people are generally recruited to teach social work because of what they already know and know how to do. Because social work curricula differ and because curriculum content is addressed elsewhere, this book concentrates on the processes of teaching and learning and the contributions of teacher, learner, subject matter, and setting to those processes. The figure is meant to draw attention to aspects of teaching beyond curriculum that may not be considered when preparing to teach or deciding what kind of teaching job to seek and accept. Bertha Reynolds (1942/1985) began her classic book on learning and teaching in social work by defining the subject of social work. Although I will not attempt to do the same, I agree with her that much is generic to all social work. Reynolds, however, wrote only about graduate and field education, whereas this book addresses teaching and learning in both BSW and MSW programs. The educational contexts of graduate and undergraduate social work programs differ, and this affects curriculum design and the amount of control the social work department or school has over the curriculum. In addition, each college or university and each department, program, or school of social work has a mission, and these can vary. Examples include whether the institution is public, nonprofit, or for profit; whether it is religiously affiliated or secular; whether it is a “minority-serving” institution (like HBCUs); and whether it is well resourced. Some (but not all) religious institutions may affect LGBTQ content, faculty, and students (McCarty 2018). Both teachers and students bring their individual intentions, identities, and prior educational and life experiences to their interactions with each other. Issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion for students and teachers and how they may affect learning and teaching are discussed in chapter 4. However, the best teachers are self-aware of how they are teaching and who they are in the process of teaching and that students who understand themselves as learners will be able to make the most of the teaching/ learning process.

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The social work profession is a context that involves learning in both the classroom and the agency. The accreditation of social work programs is the gateway to licensing for their graduates, and accreditation standards spell out what is essential for social workers to know, value, and know how to do. This aspect of social work education is generally well understood, but there are times when educational and professional practices can come into conflict. These sometimes occur in the guise of tensions between what field internship sites and educational programs want to see in the curriculum. Field instructors may wish to have new practices addressed that are not in the current curriculum at the school. Conversely, the school’s practice curriculum may emphasize certain practice models, such as evidence-based practices, that are not in use in some agency settings. Better integration of field and classroom learning experiences is a matter that schools usually try to address. Writing during World War II, Reynolds was acutely aware of how much social change and social challenges affect professional practice and social work education. Thus, while the influence of contemporary society—its problems and needs, ideas and ideologies, and resource issues—is never far from higher education in general, it is especially felt in social work education. Much of our discourse about curriculum is addressed to ensuring that what we teach is relevant to the changing world in which graduates will practice. This connection now includes bringing a global perspective to our work (CSWE 2015), a more recent emphasis in social work education in the United States. Social work educators from other countries have written a lot about how the contexts in which they work—including where armed conflict may be taking place, the religious and cultural norms of their societies, and migration issues—can affect what they do, especially when it comes to efforts to indigenize social work practice and social work education. The social work profession itself—its purpose, mission, and ethics—is intrinsically related to social aspirations and social needs, whatever the specific form of social work practice being taught. The subject matter in social work programs must include the knowledge, values, and skills that define the scope and traditions of social work practice. Those who teach must be able to socialize students into the profession, and social work students must demonstrate that they can function as professionals with the requisite knowledge, values, and skills. Thus, teachers, students, and learning environments must respond to professional norms in addition to the usual academic ones, which can lead to some predictable tensions.

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FIELD LEARNING: THE SIGNATURE PEDAGOGY OF THE PROFESSION Education in the professions means doing as well as knowing. There is a long tradition in social work of educating in the field as well as in the classroom, and this method of teaching and learning is now being described as the signature pedagogy of the profession (CSWE 2015). As a result, social work education takes place in a variety of settings over which we, as teachers, have differing degrees of influence. While the traditional academy has been discovering the value of real-world, doing-related, and community-based service learning, social work education has always made internship learning intrinsic to its operations. Thus, social work educators and social work students must contend with at least three kinds of settings: the college or university as a whole, the school or department and its classrooms, and the field agency. Tensions between school and university and between school and agency can affect students, teachers (their careers and their roles), and the curriculum. Field learning settings are part of the larger health and social service delivery systems in which human needs and current social problems are encountered every day. Even though learning in the agency is not the main focus of this book, social work students are challenged to function in and transfer learning between both settings, meaning that classroom teachers must make what they do relevant to practice. In addition, educators and academic administrators in social work must deal with two different teaching and learning contexts, and they have much more control over one than the other. In part because we educate our students in both the classroom and the field setting, we use a variety of teaching modalities. Because we have defined social work education as including knowledge, values, and skills, we need different modes of teaching and learning to address each of them. Faculty must teach effectively, and students must learn effectively in both the classroom and the field, in classes and groups, and in dyadic supervisory and advisory relationships. We may require that students demonstrate their learning behaviorally, through examination, through performance in the field, and/or through scholarly work. Much in the general literature on teaching and learning in higher education can help us choose among and improve on our teaching in all these modalities. All economic and social institutions are increasingly affected by globalization. In social work education, students may participate in “study abroad”

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or “service learning” programs in the course of their studies, which can be part of their field learning experience. Faculty members may teach or lecture abroad. Some social work programs and educational institutions place more emphasis on international learning than others. The curriculum has varying degrees of content on globalization, and programs differ in the number of international social work students they educate. While not shown explicitly in figure 1.1, globalization is part of the social and professional context in which teaching and learning take place, affecting all the “moving parts” of social work education. Another ongoing change in the context of social work education is the widespread adoption of online or distance learning. Most departments and school of social work are incorporating new technologies that support online learning (CSWE 2020). The complex, bidirectional set of lines that join teacher, student, and subject in figure 1.1 can take on new forms in the context of online learning, and this context often requires some changes in order to teach effectively and maximize student learning.

WHO OUR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS ARE The literature has sometimes addressed who our students are—their prior experiences, motivations, values, and skills (or lack of them). We may be interested in what their personal histories contribute to or detract from their capacities to become effective social workers who can meet the needs of underserved populations. Therefore, most social work programs try to recruit and retain students who reflect the diversity of contemporary society in race, ethnicity, gender expression, language, religion, (dis)ability, and the like. In both undergraduate and graduate social work education, we in social work are familiar with teaching what the higher education community calls “nontraditional” students—that is, those who are older and have significant life and work experiences prior to enrolling in their programs. In fact, we tend to prefer to teach nontraditional students. This, in turn, has led to discussion of how adult education theory and models—andragogy instead of pedagogy—can be used to enhance teaching and learning in social work. Finally, our current accreditation standards, like most others, are challenging schools to examine our students’ educational outcomes more rigorously than in the past. We know something (but not enough) about the teachers who are currently working in social work education. We debate the importance and role of their post-MSW practice experience when hiring them and when

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admitting them to and preparing them in doctoral social work programs. We also know that, just as in other parts of the academy, women and faculty members from traditionally underrepresented groups, especially Black, indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC), may not fare as well in work assignments, teaching loads, publication, promotion, and other indicators of success in the academic workplace (LeDoux 1996; Sakamoto et al. 2008; Tower et al. 2019). Even though faculty diversity in social work may be better than that in other fields and disciplines, it is not yet a level playing field for all faculty, despite our ideological commitment to make it so. Finally, we can do more to develop our faculty as teachers and as scholars and to help them succeed in their academic careers.

BECOMING AND RENEWING Like responsible professional practitioners, all of us who teach should engage in self-reflection and continuing professional development and renewal. This and other books on how to teach may help in that effort. New challenges are always arising; for example, I often hear conversations among faculty about managing the presence of electronic devices (cell phones, PDAs, laptops, and live internet connections) in the classroom, keeping them available for the legitimate enhancement of learning (and not just in the online context) while effectively proscribing their use for texting, game playing, and/or personal email, all of which distract the student involved and others as well. Given current tensions in society and the academy, new ways of thinking and teaching about diversity, equity, and inclusion are also being discussed in many social work programs. A Chinese proverb that a former doctoral student, herself a gifted teacher, once shared with me is “To teach is to learn twice.” I began work on this book many years ago when I was conducting seminars on teaching for doctoral students in social work and was challenged to develop content for those courses, which I have continued to teach. At the time, more information on how to teach, as opposed to what to teach, was more available in the higher education literature than in social work, although this has changed a great deal for the better since then. The reason I developed the broad teacher-in-situation conceptual framework for this book (and in my teaching) is that my experience has convinced me that taking context into account at all levels produces the best teaching and makes career development in academia more understandable for beginning professors. Like every industry/occupation, higher education has its mores and unwritten

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rules, and whether or not one is critical of the current arrangements, it is important to explain them. Taking context into account enhances both teaching and student learning. Beginning a career as a social work educator, which is most commonly done during or after doctoral studies, is intellectually, professionally, and personally challenging (McGranahan 2008; Sussman, Stoddart, and Gorman 2004). For doctoral students who teach, stresses may arise from being simultaneously a student and a teacher. Other stresses may be specific to adapting to a research university setting in which the doctoral program is located, a setting that may be devaluing of the practice experience that may qualify one to teach (Mendenhall 2007; Sussman, Stoddart, and Gorman 2004; Johnson and Munch 2010). McGranahan’s article emphasizes what she wished she had known in conducting her first class, which she learned from a mentor and later in a course on teaching. Both Sussman and colleagues (2004) and McGranahan (2008) emphasize the importance of self-reflection in becoming a teacher. McGranahan also speaks about the joys of teaching and the passion for the material that got her through the tough times and that keep her motivated to improve her teaching skills. Perhaps the most important thing we can do in mentoring new faculty is to help them get in touch with the rewards of the work and to emphasize the assets, from both their practice experience and their doctoral education, they bring to their work. To use Bertha Reynolds’s terminology, becoming a social work educator, as in the rest of academia, used to be a matter of “sink or swim.” Fortunately, there is much more available now in the literature on social work and higher education more generally, in campus-based centers for teaching excellence, and in social work doctoral programs to help the new or renewing teacher. There is much to admire in the current state of teaching in social work, but there is also much we could improve, individually and collectively. If this book helps in this endeavor, I will have achieved my goal.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES: JOURNALS

Chronicle of Higher Education Journal of Baccalaureate Education in Social Work Journal of Social Work Education Journal of Teaching in Social Work Social Work Education

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RECOMMENDED RESOURCES: BOOKS

Fox, R. (2013). The call to teach: Philosophy, process, and pragmatics of social work education. Alexandria, Va.: Council on Social Work Education. Reynolds, B. C. (1942/1985). Learning and teaching in the practice of social work. Silver Spring, Md.: National Association of Social Workers.

2 HOW ADULTS THINK AND LEARN

Just as living involves the whole person, so does learning, especially learning to practice an art which is intimately the person, using sensitivity and judgment in relation to adapting knowledge and skills to a real situation. —B. C. REYNOLDS, LEARNING AND TEACHING IN SOCIAL WORK

is based on a sound understanding of learning. In addition, the kinds of skills needed to practice social work effectively require complex learning and thinking (CSWE 2015). Adult development is, of course, a vast field but one that has generated important findings. In recent decades, we have changed our understanding of adulthood and now think of it as a time of dynamic development and continued learning. In particular, we now know a great deal about how adults develop their thinking and learning in both educational and professional contexts. Adults do not function and learn in the same way that children do (pedagogy), so we must examine our assumptions about how to support, nurture, and enhance growth and learning in adults (androgogy). Among both undergraduate and graduate students, the greatest growth in higher education enrollment in the United States in recent years has been in nontraditional students—that is, people older than eighteen or so (the traditional age of embarking on postsecondary education) who may be returning to school many years after completing high school. These students may or may not be studying full-time and may be simultaneously holding jobs, rearing families, or both. This chapter focuses on the individual student. Our understanding of individual learners must include the society and culture in which they have developed and are currently functioning (figure 2.1). In addition, the

THE BEST TEACHING

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Society Profession

Student Educational setting (classroom) Teacher

Subject matter

Profession Society

FIGURE 2.1 Education-in-environment perspective emphasizing the student

particular demands of professional practice affect the kinds of thinking and learning that we must be educating for; CSWE now mandates that social work students demonstrate competency in certain kinds of complex thinking, including critical thinking, affective reactions, and judgment. Some works cited are based in research done some years ago, but they still inform how we think about teaching. Finally, what we know about adult thinking and learning can lead us to better teaching methods and better learning outcomes for our students. However, many studies, like that of Lam, To, and Chan (2018), remind us that learning patterns are generally not linear, whatever models of thinking and learning may suggest. At the center of our basic model are the student and the subject matter and their interaction in the contexts of the field internship and classroom. Social work education involves two settings for learning, sometimes making the integration of those learning experiences a challenge for the student,

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the classroom teacher, the field instructor, and the design of the program as a whole. In this version of the model (figure 2.1), society can represent the other social roles and social responsibilities that students are involved in beyond being a student. Understanding how adults learn and know can help us teach effectively, whether it is one-on-one, when advising or supervising, or in groups when in the classroom. As Mentkowski and associates (2000) put it, understanding learning, understanding the learner, and envisioning the learner as a mature, motivated, and self-directed person will help create learning that lasts. This chapter also covers social work–specific ideas about student learning (Farber and Reitmeier 2019). The interactions among student, teacher, and subject matter, shown by arrows in figure 2.1, are now more commonly taking place online, and much of the recent literature on learning in social work education is addressed to student learning in the online environment. That literature will be covered in chapter 7, so the research here is addressed to the more traditional faceto-face (F2F) learning environment.

DEVELOPMENT IN ADULTHOOD Much of our understanding of development in adulthood is based on stage theories that were developed from the mid-twentieth century onward. Erik Erikson (1963) was the first to write about developmental stages that extended into late adolescence and beyond. He also showed that working on such life tasks as choosing and preparing oneself for a specific vocation were essential to forming a psychological identity. Social work educators may encounter students in late adolescence and early adulthood, like traditional students in undergraduate social work programs, who, for the first time, are establishing an identity separate from that of their family. Other students may be entering the field later in life, perhaps looking for a greater sense of generativity or new purpose in their work lives. Understanding who is learning is essential (Mentkowski et al. 2000). Levinson’s (1978) classic longitudinal research on college-educated white men has also influenced our thinking about the education of adults (Tennant and Pogson 1995). Of Levinson’s major eras in life, each lasting about twenty-five years, the two that are most relevant to social work educators are early adulthood (ages 17 to 45) and middle adulthood (ages 40 to 65).

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The educational experience can be quite different for people at these two stages because of their different developmental tasks and challenges. Early adulthood is concerned with “entering the adult world” and building a life structure that includes both work and intimate or family life. Following Erikson, Levinson’s theory states that working on preparing oneself for an occupation or profession occurs at the same time as work on other major life tasks. Therefore, when students’ reactions to feedback on their educational performance seem extreme, it may be helpful to remember that a great deal may be at stake psychologically for them in what appears to the teacher to be only a simple educational matter. In addition to the psychological sense of identity, what is at stake in Levinson’s view is “the dream” that is providing the road map to an adult life course. In contrast, midlife may be a time when people try to find “a better balance between the needs of the self and the needs of society” (Tennant and Pogson 1995, 73). This may be the point at which a person decides to change careers to one that seems more rewarding or meaningful or when a person who has been largely engaged in child rearing goes back to school to prepare to enter or reenter the workforce. People at this stage of life begin their educational process with a psychological identity and life and work experiences quite different from those of a young adult. These students at different phases of life must study and work together, respecting one another while still meeting their different learning needs. Their teacher also will be challenged to teach students from these different starting points. Levinson also spoke of “normative disequilibrium” during which people are negotiating changes in life stages and the developmental tasks within them. It is often at a point of disequilibrium that people choose to enter a degree-granting program or to change occupations or professions. At such times, people may be psychologically fragile but also have the potential for rapid growth and change. Erikson’s and Levinson’s theories, however, do not take into account important contextual and social factors. Neugarten (1976) was one of the first critics to point out that the meaning of being a certain age is profoundly affected by the historical epoch in which one is living. For example, in the United States, being forty in the early twenty-first century, when the average life expectancy was in the eighties, and being forty at the beginning of the twentieth century, when the average life expectancy was in the forties, suggested quite different life chances and developmental tasks. Nor do they address the educational, social, and structural factors, including but not limited to gender, race, and ethnicity, that influence both educational

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opportunity and the social capital that students have access to during their professional education. Cultural and social context affect all human development, including adult development. For example, at age forty, an immigrant may have to repeat tasks associated with an earlier life stage, such as choosing and preparing for employment in a new context, tasks already negotiated in a different linguistic, cultural, and social context. Some people lose their previous professional status or legitimacy, which can be psychologically stressful. Depending on the circumstances of migration and the differences between the old and new situations, choosing a new occupation may be either a welcome or an unwelcome challenge. In addition, Levinson’s research involved only men, and there is controversy about how well his and other theories of adult development fit the realities of women’s lives or patterns of learning (e.g., Belenky et al. 1986; Gilligan 1982; Miller 1976). In particular, Gilligan and Belenky and her colleagues raised issues that have influenced educational practice. Gilligan, as well as Miller, pointed out that these models stress personal and developmental achievement, independence, and competition as the goals and signs of healthy adult development, which may apply more to men and to those in Western industrialized societies. The work of Belenky and her colleagues is especially relevant to social work education. Noting that ideas about development in adulthood were based on research on male undergraduate students at an elite university, Belenky and her colleagues studied a group of poor, rural women who were nontraditional students enrolled in a community college program to examine how they approached learning and how their ways of thinking developed and changed. What they discovered was different from the earlier findings on young men, and their findings have influenced the social work education literature. They described many of the women as beginning from a position of “silence,” of having no “voice” or placing little value on anything they might think, know, or say. Belenky argued that this position was found more often in women than in men because of women’s many experiences of disadvantage and oppression. Many women then moved to a position of “received knowledge”—placing value on what expert others, such as teachers or books, might have to say. They thus equated learning with listening, with “hearing, understanding, and remembering” (1986, 45). This position resembles what students and the educational process look like in the traditional “empty vessel” model of teaching and learning and also reflects dualism, or the idea that every question has a right or wrong answer.

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The concepts of “subjective knowing,” most common among the women that Belenky and her colleagues studied, procedural knowledge that takes into account how knowledge is derived and “constructed knowledge” most closely reflect the kind of complex thinking needed in professional practice. The shift out of a “right/wrong” perspective involves “the inward watching and listening” needed for the development of a social work professional, seen in the ability to be self-reflective. The ability to think critically is essential to professional practice. Social workers are “challenged, not daunted” by conflict and ambiguity and are actively concerned with the moral and spiritual as well as the pragmatic dimensions of their actions. These more complex ways of knowing are required for reconciling the specifics of a case or situation with general knowledge, for keeping the value dimension of professional practice in view, and for dealing with complex psychological, interpersonal, organizational, cultural, and social realities that must be taken into account in all social work practice. Merdinger (1991) pointed out that for women and others from nondominant groups in the society, the simple but profound act of finding “voice”—developing confidence in the value of one’s own perceptions and experiences in a situation and being able to describe those perceptions to others—must be a goal of learning. Baxter Magolda has found that self-authorship is a factor in the lives of BIPOC adults that allows them to decode and critique racist statements and actions. In fact, traditional reflective techniques often used in the classroom and the field, such as journal keeping and process recording, require students to record their personal observations, perceptions, and subjective reactions to practice encounters, readings, or classroom events. While students may regard these exercises as a way for the teacher to “find them out” as “right” or “wrong” in their perceptions or actions, they are in fact exercises in identifying and giving voice to their own experiences. This approach maintains that only from a firm anchoring in the self can one move to the multiple meanings of an interaction as various clients and practitioners (and learners) might experience them, and hence to enlarge the possibilities for actions and responses. In addition, it is essential to remember that culture influences what is regarded as appropriate behavior for a learner and that silences in the classroom may have multiple and unexpected meanings (Holley and Steiner 2005; Zhou, Knoke, and Sakamoto 2005). Self-authorship (Baxter Magolda 2008) describes another paradigm for a different form of adult knowing. Based on constructivist qualitative research, this model has three main elements: trusting the internal voice,

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building an internal foundation based in an understanding of one’s talents and achievements, and securing internal commitments to a set of values, attitudes, and actions. I am not aware of the use of this concept in the social work education literature, but this framework is implicit in thinking about developing a professional identity that is internalized and personalized.

CRITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS The pursuit of social justice is considered a defining characteristic of the social work profession (CSWE 2015). Some social work educators use Freire’s (2000) work to direct their teaching toward “conscientization,” using participatory teaching and learning processes to raise consciousness about oppression, reduce power hierarchies in the classroom, and enhance students’ commitment to antioppressive and social change activities (e.g., hooks 1994). The process of consciousness raising must be continuous because the dominant social discourses tend to obscure or “mystify” (a Marxist term) the oppression inherent in society. Consciousness raising is a group or collective process in which teachers and students educate each other equally. This model contrasts with the standard view of social work (or any professional) education in which students must demonstrate an acceptable level of expertise in the field in order to be credentialed to graduate and to practice (see the following section). Traditionally, the teachers and the program as a whole are in charge of this gatekeeping responsibility, meaning that a power imbalance is part of teaching. Freire’s critique of the “banking model” of education, in which expert teachers deposit knowledge into passive students, has had broad influence on adult education in promoting active learning and in educational efforts described as progressive (the work of Belenky and colleagues is an example). In its original form, however, this model, as exemplified in the subtitle of hooks’s widely read 1994 work, is about “teaching to transgress.” As such, it also requires critiquing and transforming the institutions and societies in which both students and teachers live and work. In this way, it is revolutionary and is identified most closely with radical social work and radical critiques of the profession and society. Feminists, antiracists, and others committed to ideas of “critical consciousness” and antioppressive practice (e.g., Sakamoto and Pitner 2005) are those most likely to use this theory of learning in their teaching.

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CSWE COMPETENCIES IN THINKING Critical thinking has always been part of CSWE’s accreditation standards, but coupled with the emphasis on learning outcomes called competencies that began in 2008, there now is also a requirement that programs assess students’ cognitive and affective processes. Thus, competence is defined as having three parts: critical thinking, affective reactions, and the exercise of judgment. The Commission on Accreditation defines the three parts this way: Q

Q

Q

Critical thinking is an intellectual, disciplined process of conceptualizing, analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing multiple sources of information generated by observation, reflection, and reasoning. Affective reactions refer to the way in which our emotions influence our thinking and subsequently our behavior. Exercise of judgment is the capacity to perceive and discern multiple sources to form an opinion. (2015 EPAS, P. 20).

The level of reflective judgment usually rises with the level of education, and it is reasonable to assume that a social work education program could improve thinking skills in general and reflective judgment in particular. Potter and East (2000) suggest several methods that instructors can use to enhance students’ reflective judgment, including framing their course contents as a series of solutions to ill-structured problems rather than as a collection of immutable facts; modeling comfort with ambiguity; refusing to oversimplify complex concepts and content; and accepting students’ varying levels of thinking skills while expecting improvement in them. Most important, Potter and East emphasize that it is the opportunity to share thoughts and to be exposed to multiple perspectives on issues and situations that best supports the development of higher levels of reflective judgment. Except when talking about teaching about diversity, there has been much more study of cognition than of affective development. Sewall (2020) discusses emotions, affect, and affect regulation. She defines affect regulation as including emotion regulation, mood regulation (mood meaning more enduring emotions), stress management, and coping mechanisms. Social work students will find learning more challenging in the face of strong emotions, so educational goals should include helping students identify

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emotional reactions, put words to their feelings and bodily sensations, use mindfulness for stress reduction, and use simulated cases and role playing to practice holistic management of emotions. Field education includes attention to students’ emotions as they do their work in the practicum, but classroom teachers can also find ways to encourage growth in emotion and affect regulation. Social work–specific models of learning, discussed below, have always included attention to student feelings, including how students feel about themselves as practitioners. Anxiety can either interfere with learning or enhance it. This section does not address students with anxiety disorders; chapter 4 has a section on student disabilities, most often a learning disability or a mental health problem. Much more common are the normal anxieties that can go along with being in a social work program. Studies of social work students’ anxiety conclude that a manageable degree of anxiety can help motivate students to learn and perform, both in the classroom and in the field-internship setting. They also suggest that educators can both offer support and normalize these common feelings. Even after becoming settled in the field internship or the classroom, students may find that new and unfamiliar tasks can reignite anxiety, but their success in overcoming initial anxiety can be used to reassure them that this new anxiety can be overcome as well (Baird 2016).

BLOOM’S TAXONOMY Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy of cognitive tasks describes different kinds of thinking and learning in educational settings. The elements of learning include knowledge (the basic facts relevant to the subject), followed by comprehension (an understanding of the subject) and application (putting that knowledge to work). For example, a practice teacher may want students to know about a specific practice technique. The technique must first be defined, then understood—knowing what it does and does not address— and then applied in role play in the classroom1 and with service users in the field internship. In analysis, a student would be called upon to take the theory or model apart—identifying, for example, its components and its history of use. Synthesis requires integrating knowledge from many sources, including ones that are favorable to the model or idea and ones that are not, forming in the end a considered opinion. Finally, evaluation would include doing research on the effectiveness of a treatment technique or performing a systematic review of all studies on a particular topic. This kind of thinking

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also involves creativity and the generation of new knowledge. Each type of cognitive work incorporates the previous ones: application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation cannot occur without knowledge and comprehension. In some cases, knowledge, comprehension, and application may be enough (think statistics or research design). However, CSWE’s definition of cognitive and affective abilities includes things like analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing, which match up well to the more complex kinds of thinking identified by Bloom.

LEARNING STYLES Another perspective on adult thinking and learning pertains to the ways people seem to learn best from experience. When it comes to experiential learning, individuals prefer different approaches when solving problems. Kolb (1984) devised a system for thinking about styles of learning that has been used in social work and other areas of higher education. It posits four ways of interacting with the world: active experimentation (testing out ideas through action), concrete experience (analyzing contextual effects), reflective observation (analyzing what has been experienced), and abstract conceptualization (using theories and models). Although everyone uses all of these learning modes, most people prefer to learn using one of these styles more often than the others. Kolb also developed a nine-item inventory to assess these preferred learning styles. Based on this self-assessment, the modes on which the highest scores are obtained (active experimentation, concrete experience, reflective observation, or abstract conceptualization) determine the learning style with which an individual is most comfortable. Assimilative learners prefer reasoning, theoretical models, explanations, and working with ideas, concepts, and precise theories—that is, using a combination of abstract conceptualization and reflective observation. Convergent learners prefer problem-solving, decision-making models, the practical application of ideas, and technical or skill-based tasks. Those who like to learn through accommodation prefer doing and acting (hands-on experience), carrying out plans, fitting theory to facts, and relying on gut feelings. Those who are divergent in their thinking and learning gravitate toward inductive reasoning (generating concepts from observations), generating alternative ideas and implications, and using brainstorming and imagination in their work (Davis 1993; Kolb and Kolb 2005). For example, some students in social work come with a history of

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success in working with people based largely on intuition. Consequently, they sometimes find the more conceptual approaches to the work that they encounter in school both a threat and a challenge to their former ways of functioning. Such students need to have their ways of learning affirmed while learning to use more conceptual approaches as well. Traditional systems of higher education tend to use the assimilative mode of learning, which emphasizes abstract conceptualization and reflective observation, but the assumption in Kolb’s model is that there is no single best way to learn. Rather, Kolb’s model suggests that an educational goal might be helping each learner broaden his or her repertoire of ways to learn. For example, a student (an assimilative learner) in a doctoral seminar in which the participants were asked to discuss the progress of their dissertations and to provide consultation to one another (a group exercise in convergent learning) was angry that the professor did not lecture more, which she said was what she most enjoyed in an educational encounter. She was not as comfortable with the practical application of ideas and problem solving with others, as she did not see how they could advance her own learning. She needed help in seeing these processes as legitimate forms of learning, even if they were not her preferred method, which in turn would help her value and use such an approach with her own future students, some of whom probably will favor learning by reflecting on experience over learning in other ways. In fact, Kolb (1991/1998) pointed out that these different styles of learning form a cycle of learning, in which one moves from concrete experience to observation and reflection to abstract generalization and then to active experimentation—that is, testing out new ideas in action. Enhancing the number of ways students can learn is thus an important goal in itself. Social work education has used Kolb’s theory. One early study (Van Soest and Kruzich 1994) showed that students at different educational levels (BSW versus MSW), field faculty, and classroom faculty all preferred different learning styles. Field faculty scored highest in concrete experience, and students’ satisfaction with their relationship with the field instructor was highest when their preference scores for concrete experience were most like that of their supervisor. Raschick, Maypole, and Day (1998) also found that field students, and especially field faculty, tended to be concrete rather than abstract and active rather than reflective in their learning styles (the accommodator constellation). They also found that the degree of similarity between student and supervisor on the active experimentation/reflective observation continuum was related to the students’ satisfaction with the learning experience in placement. All these studies recommended that field

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instructors learn how to modify their teaching techniques when needed to suit their supervisees’ preferred learning styles. Teachers, like learners, tend to prefer the styles of learning that come most easily to them (Cranton 1996). In addition, teachers tend to expect that students will learn in the same style that they do and therefore tailor their teaching methods to that style of learning. For example, a teacher who is most comfortable learning conceptually and reflectively, like the doctoral student in the preceding example, tends to think that lecturing and assigning readings are the best ways to convey knowledge. In fact, a mismatch in learning style between teacher and student is a common source of impasse in the teaching/ learning situation. The challenge for teachers, then, is to identify students’ differing learning styles and to develop teaching methods that can reach all students. The challenge for students is to be able to use a wider range of learning styles in the different learning situations they will encounter. There has been some recent revisiting of the Kolb cycle of experiential learning, in part to take into account new knowledge from the neurosciences (Kolb and Kolb 2005; Morris 2019; ). Kolb and Kolb have identified reflective observation as connected to the temporal integrative cortex, the use of abstraction to the frontal integrative cortex, active testing as involving premotor and motor areas of the brain, and concrete experience as connected to the sensory and post-sensory areas of the brain (2005, 195). Morris’s review of articles on experiential learning found that those writing about Kolb’s model defined some elements of the model differently; concrete experience, for example, was defined as “highly contextualized, primary experience that involves hands-on learner experience in uncontrived real-world situations” (2019, 7), which defines the field internship experience very well. Morris concludes that concrete experience is contextually rich and that reflective observation should be critical both of what happened and of what might have been done differently. He observes that embodiment is a central element in all types of experiential learning, tying ways of learning directly to the brain. Finally, the emphasis is more and more on becoming flexible and adaptable in types of learning styles.

TRANSFORMATIONAL LEARNING Teachers, of course, wish for students who can already use complex ways of thinking and learning in their work, and some of them surely can. But using complex ways of learning and thinking should be considered an

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achievement, not an expectation of where students will begin. Learning not only encompasses what our students think and know but also helping them transform how they think: “Transformative learning occurs when an individual has reflected on assumptions and expectations about what will occur, has found these assumptions to be faulty, and has revised them . . . it has the potential to lead to transformed meaning perspectives or changed ways of seeing the world” (Cranton 1996, 2). Focusing on theories and their underlying premises is one way of becoming aware of different “meaning perspectives.” Appreciating that many perspectives can be useful in understanding an event or an interaction is another strategy that can encourage transformative learning. In fact, all teaching should be aimed at helping students move beyond their current levels of thinking and knowing to higher ones (Davis 1993). Hence, teaching about cultural diversity is not just an end in itself; it can also be a means of encouraging more complex perspectives on thinking and knowing. Because transformational learning refers to changes in how people think and learn, education that addresses ways of knowing can result in a “developmental shift (a new world view) rather than simply developmental progress” (Tennant and Pogson 1995, 119). Beginning teachers tend to think much more about content than about changes in perspective on meaning, or changes in thinking itself. In social work education, changes in thinking are sometimes referred to as the development of critical thinking skills. Sheppard and Charles (2014) argue that social work has two key elements—the interpersonal (heart) and the intellectual (head)—and they equate the intellectual realm with critical thinking. Gambrill has long promoted critical thinking as essential to social work practice, both to recognize flaws in received knowledge and to base new ideas in scientific evidence. The current CSWE accreditation standards (CSWE 2015) also define critical thinking as a necessary ability in social work students. The idea of transformative learning also contains, explicitly or implicitly, the concepts of liberation from received and preconceived ideas and the practice of critical reflection. That is, transformative learning is connected to a kind of critical thinking that can lead to social action and social change as well as personal transformation. This view of transformative learning has its roots in the work of Freire (2000) as well as that of Mezirow and others who have made the term common usage in the adult education literature (Brookfield 2000). As Mezirow (2000) observed, new ways of thinking must

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lead to action, to reengagement with the world in new ways. Daloz (2000) found that socially responsible people can be understood as having transformed themselves and their original views of the world in profound ways. According to him, a transformation in perspective that leads to the pursuit of positive social change requires “constructive engagement with otherness” (110), an opportunity for reflective discourse about these experiences, a mentoring community of supportive others to nurture these new ideas and understandings, and “opportunities for committed action,” for testing and grounding in action these ideas and commitments. Social work education uses some of these approaches to help students think critically about common or unexamined beliefs about social problems and their solutions and to adopt a different, professionally informed view of them.

A SOCIAL WORK THEORY OF STUDENT LEARNING Bertha Reynolds (1942/1985) developed a model of learning in social work education, specifically clinical social work education, which Saari (1989) reworked for clinical supervision. This model rests essentially on “practice wisdom.” In addition, although Saari suggested links between the stages and specific phases of a two-year MSW course of study, she found that students take varying amounts of time to reach each stage of development, especially considering the variation in program structures, which has only increased over time, and in the students’ earlier experiences. While the original theory sees a fixed series of progressive stages, learners may instead cycle in and out of the various stages or stances at different points or in different aspects of their work. That said, however, the stages are presented here for their heuristic value in understanding and connecting with how students think about their work. Reynolds’s (1942/1985) five stages of learning are based on how students view the work they are doing and thus how they view themselves as professional helpers. The first stage, acute self-consciousness, is reflected in students’ view that caring helps. In this stage, in a fashion reminiscent of Belenky and colleagues’ (1986) position of “received knowledge,” the teacher or field instructor is often perceived as “omnipotent and omniscient” (Saari 1989, 39). Thus, any criticism or suggestion by a teacher may be seen as an attack on the student’s motivations or goodness as a person. In addition, at this stage, students may unwittingly regard the clients

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they work with in their field placements “as need-fulfilling . . . since they provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate their caring” (Saari 1989, 38). Students therefore tend to be reassuring to clients and take an action-oriented approach to their work in order to demonstrate their caring. The best teaching strategy for students at this stage is to make them feel secure (Reynolds 1942/1985, 76), affirming their positive motivations and evident abilities. The second stage, sink-or-swim adaptation, reflects the practice idea that talking helps. It is a stage of “barely keeping up with what the situation demands from moment to moment” (Reynolds 1942/1985, 77), but also one in which the student can do less and listen more. Because the student at this stage is learning the language of the profession without entirely understanding it, the teacher may become frustrated having to deal with someone who “talks so well and does so poorly” (Reynolds 1942/1985, 77). A combination of patience, support, and reassurance, along with the gradual introduction of new ideas, is needed to help students move beyond this stage. In the third stage, students learn to understand the situation without being able to control their own activity in it, viewing practice from the conviction that understanding helps (Saari, 1989). They are no longer so absorbed in the survival of the self in the helping situation but are now focused almost exclusively on helping the “other” feel heard and understood. At this stage, students’ ability to understand the complexity of the client’s situation is better developed than the ability to translate that understanding into specific interventions. The role of the teacher is to help students think about what worked and what did not and why, and to extend new understandings of the client to the client’s experience of the worker and then to the worker and her or his actions and interventions. The fourth stage of this model is one of relative “mastery,” in which one can both understand and control one’s own activity. At this stage, students concentrate on the client, the practitioner, and their interaction, as well as on the conscious and the unconscious, the psychological and the social, and the unique and the more universal factors in the interaction. As Reynolds put it: The person can . . . see himself [sic] working as he might see another person in the situation working. He can criticize and change his approach as the situation demands something different. He has become professional in that he can apply knowledge to the solving of practical problems, using himself as an instrument, with all his acquired skills and his emotional responses disciplined and integrated to the professional purpose. (1942/1985, 81)

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Not every professional social worker reaches the fifth stage, learning to teach what one has mastered. Saari (1989) says little about this stage except that it is poorly understood. Reynolds (1942/1985) talks about being freed up enough from subject matter to consider also the complexities of learner, teacher, and learning context. Although Reynolds suggests that many social workers may not reach this stage of development, for those with graduate degrees as well as for many with a BSW, the supervision of others, a form of teaching, is an extremely common part of the work they will do sooner rather than later in their professional careers. Hendricks, Finch, and French (2013) applied Reynolds’s model to students’ learning about cultural competence in practice. Deal (2002) combined Saari’s (1989) adaptation of Reynolds’s model with several other stage theories of clinical learning in order to give supervisors a map of students’ expected stages of learning about direct or clinical practice during the two years of an MSW program. Although some evidence supports the idea that clinical MSW students typically reach Reynolds’s (1942/1985) third stage of learning at the end of their second-year field placement (Deal, 2000; Platt, 1993), there are other ways to conceptualize the observed changes and some evidence that skill and confidence can also regress sometimes (Deal 2000, 2002). Farber and Reitmeier argue that the wisdom of Bertha Reynolds, Charlotte Towle, and other mid-twentieth-century writers should be “recaptured” to address problems in contemporary social work education, especially but not only for field education. They point to Reynolds’s idea that it is the “whole person” who learns, Sophonista Breckenridge’s understanding of the need to “individualize the student as well as the client” (Farber and Reitmeier 2019, 6), and Gordon Hamilton’s statement that “learning is not a mere accumulation of knowledge . . . but is growth in understanding” (Farber and Reitmeier 2019, 7). Charlotte Towle’s influential work on the social work education system (Towle 1956) put the individual student at the center of concentric circles including the field instructor, the classroom teacher, and the “administration” or social work program (see Educational Setting in figure 2.1). As Farber and Reitmeier note with respect to Towle’s work, “the most distal—and unfortunately today least considered—level of a coherent educational environment” requires more study as an influence on student learning. This has been addressed with respect to diversity climate (see chapter 4) but not in other ways. In addition, they note that CSWE’s accreditation standards of 2015 now address “meta-competencies”—the “qualities and abilities of a conceptual, interpersonal, and

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personal/professional nature” (Farber and Reitmeier 2019, 11)—which they characterize as a welcome return of attention to the whole learner.

THE REFLECTIVE PRACTITIONER Schön’s (1983, 1987) theory of how professional practitioners function has influenced social work educators, especially those who teach practice or are involved in field learning. This theory describes a complex way of functioning that reflects may of the meta-competencies required by CSWE. Schön’s theory offers the idea of reflection-in-action to capture how all professions must deal not just with thinking but also with taking action. His theory rejects technocratic views of professional functioning. The steps in this process are (re)framing a problem, holding both the uniqueness of each practice encounter and prior (general) knowledge in mind, making a tentative experiment in action in the practice situation, and evaluating what was learned from each practice move. This process is intended to be iterative and continually evaluative. It uses both science and artistry to apply the general to the specific case. It engages both inner and outer sources of knowledge and insight, acknowledges complexity and ambiguity, and considers the contributions of both the self and others to the problem and any solutions tried. Self-awareness is central. Functioning in this way may be thought of as manifesting a high level of complexity in cognitive functioning. Whatever the professional field, Schön (1987) sees the practicum experience as central to educating the reflective practitioner, but classroom activities like role playing can also be used to teach students how to practice in this way. Classroom teachers, like practitioners, must address both content and process in real time as they unfold in interaction with others. Mishna and Bogo (2007) suggest that reflection-in-action following the Schön model (1983, 1987) can be useful for social work educators in the classroom, especially when conflict occurs.

META-COMPETENCIES: BORN OR MADE? I often ask the doctoral students in my classes on teaching what the characteristics of an ideal social work student might be. The list in box 2.1 shows some common answers to my question:

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BOX 2.1 Self-aware

Committed to social justice

Affirming of diversity

Critical thinker

Open to learning

Reflective

Compassionate

Curious/inquisitive

Motivated

Insightful/intuitive

Creative

Self-directed

ABLE TO WORK INDIVIDUALLY AND IN GROUPS/TEAMS

Obviously, admissions processes are designed to select students for undergraduate and graduate degree programs who seem capable and motivated to become social work practitioners. But academic screening and selection processes are inherently imperfect, and students arrive with differing educational backgrounds, life experiences, and personal characteristics. While my students (and most teachers) wish that all of their students had all of these characteristics, current theories of adult learning suggest that these virtues can be drawn out or enhanced in all students. It should be noted that most of these characteristics have more to do with general characteristics of the person than with specific knowledge. In a study of field instructors’ views of exemplary and problematic students, Bogo and associates began the process of defining “meta-competencies” in social work students, describing them as a constellation of personal qualities . . . perceived as affecting their approaches to learning, their interactions with others in the organization, their relationship with the field instructor, and their ability to develop relationships with clients . . . [they] were described as bright, intuitive, motivated, enthusiastic, self-directed, engaging and tactful. (2006, 589)

Most important was students’ ability to conceptualize their practice. The desirable student qualities mentioned by students in my seminars mostly consist of such meta-competencies. In 2013, Bogo and associates followed up this study with a content analysis of students’ reflections following an interview with a simulated client (see

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chapter 5). Themes in this analysis included how students conceptualized practice, whether in terms of grand theory, practice models, or only generic practice principles. As to culture and diversity, some students conceptualized and integrated them into their practice, others conceptualized them but did not integrate them, and some minimized or ignored diversity issues. There was also a range of responses describing the intentional use of self and the orientation to learning and growth. Understanding meta-competencies rather than focusing only on procedural knowledge provides a holistic lens on students’ learning and abilities.

HOW LEARNING INFORMS TEACHING Nilson (2010, 4) gives an excellent summary of what we know in general about how people learn. People are innately learners, which should give teachers optimism. People also learn best when both the head and the heart are engaged, which is one reason students’ perceptions of a teacher’s enthusiasm is so important. Understanding adult thinking and learning informs the best teaching— both what is taught and how it is taught. Many different teaching skills are needed to work effectively with a variety of learners in different situations. The models of learning presented have the following implications for teaching: Start where the learner is. When working with students in groups, vary the teaching techniques to offer learners of different styles and stages easier access to the material. When working with students individually, take into account their developmental issues and cognitive and learning styles and capacities. Engage the student in the learning process. Adult learners enjoy learning by doing and integrating their experiences into the learning process—in short, by being active learners. In addition, all the models of cognitive and professional development in adulthood stress the importance of integrating subjective experiences and emotional responses in the learning. In addition, helping students become aware of their own thinking and learning styles and needs helps support their cognitive development (Barkley and Major 2016). Be patient with the learning process. The process of learning, like all significant human development, does not always proceed smoothly. Help students understand that frustration and discomfort are inevitable and are

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signs of growth. In addition, do not become impatient when learning takes longer than you had planned. Students who seem anxious about being right or wrong or who seem preoccupied with their own reactions and experiences may be reacting to the stress of learning a new professional role and may need help reaching the next level of development. At the same time, have high expectations of everyone. Some forms of thinking and learning are more readily understood and validated in the academic context. Some learners relate more readily to a particular teacher’s style than others do. Fairness requires that as teachers, we provide a variety of learning experiences so that as many students as possible can benefit from them. The next chapter covers different modes of teaching, along with tips for using them effectively. Using a wide array of teaching techniques is the best way to ensure that each student has a chance to learn in the most effective way possible.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Barkley, E. F. and Major, C. H. (2016) Student engagement techniques: A handbook for college faculty. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Taylor, E. W., and Cranton, P. (2012). The handbook of transformational learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

3 TEACHING COURSES Methods and Modalities

Teaching is above all an interactive process: learners interacting with teachers, learners interacting with other learners, learners interacting with the material being investigated or produced, and both learners and teachers in continuing interaction with the social and psychological forces around them. —W. TENNANT AND P. POGSON, LEARNING AND CHANGE IN THE ADULT YEARS

When education is oriented to the person who is to learn plus the situation to be mastered, there is something more to teaching than proving to the learner that one knows the subject. —B. C. REYNOLDS, LEARNING AND TEACHING IN THE PRACTICE OF SOCIAL WORK

as students may or may not have prepared us well to be effective teachers of adult learners. Many of us were probably taught using some version of what has been called the “empty vessel” or “banking” model of teaching and learning, in which students sit and listen while the professor “pours” his or her knowledge into them. In this method, learning is assessed by how much the students can retain and repeat what they have heard and read. While remembering and reproducing information is recognized as a basic form of learning (Bloom 1956), teaching today tries to engage the learner in more active, varied forms of learning. The role of the teacher has moved from the “sage on the stage” to the “guide on the side.” Social work faculty members often report that they have had no training in how to teach or in theories about how students learn (see, for example,

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Varghese 2020). In Varghese’s study, only a few of the faculty members interviewed reported that they had someone in their department or school that they could turn to for advice on teaching or for consultation on dilemmas or problems that might arise in their teaching. Although more social work doctoral programs are offering courses or internships on teaching, the dominant experience is “sink or swim.” Most social workers have considerable interpersonal skills that help in establishing rapport with students, but there is no need to reinvent the wheel when the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) has so much to offer. While teaching is an interactive process, it is the teacher who is responsible for shaping the student–teacher relationship in a way that will enable students to learn. This chapter provides an overview of the major teaching methods: lecturing and explaining, reflecting on experience, inquiring and discovering, training and coaching, and using groups and teams (Davis 1993). Each of these methods has strengths and best uses as well as drawbacks. Knowing these will help teachers choose the technique(s) best suited to their goals. In addition, the use of several teaching techniques engages a wider range of learners. Many of the suggestions made for improving each kind of teaching can be considered “small teaching” (Lang 2016): making small changes in how a class is conducted can make a big difference in student learning. Finally, the chapter discusses the design of courses, the planning of course content, and selection of the learning activities that best support the learning goals. Ongoing research on adult learning shows that people learn best when information is structured for them (Nilson 2016). Designing and teaching a course can be thought of as structuring a learning experience for students. Each teaching modality structures learning in different ways. Courses work best when they are designed from the outset with learning goals and outcomes in mind. It can be helpful to tell students at the start of a course how and why you have organized the material with their learning in mind. Scaffolding learning—presenting material in manageable steps that build on each other—is a vital in all teaching modalities. Figure 3.1 shows the lines connecting student, teacher, and subject matter. While coaching may be a technique used in field education, this chapter, like the book as a whole, is focused on how connections are made in the classroom. Field instructors and field advisers should consult the section in this chapter on coaching and training as well as resources on field education listed at the end of chapter 1.

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Society Profession

Student Educational setting (classroom) Teacher

Subject matter

Profession Society

FIGURE 3.1 Education-in-environment perspective emphasizing the teacher

INTELLECTUAL EXCITEMENT AND STUDENT RAPPORT Effective teaching must create intellectual excitement and establish interpersonal rapport (Lowman 1995). The tips in this chapter on using different teaching modalities are designed to help teachers maximize both. Teachers must know and care about course content and also about how they relate to their students. One of these often is easier than the other, and teachers need not be equally good at both in order to succeed in the classroom. With practice, however, it is possible to create both intellectual excitement and interpersonal rapport, the best medium for enhancing learning. Being committed to both aspects of the teaching process is part of teachers’ professionalism. Conveying knowledge to others requires developing a new level of command of that content. Keeping current with knowledge and ideas in the content area, selecting the most salient content to emphasize, organizing

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the content in order to convey it clearly to others, putting that content into words in a variety of ways, designing activities through which students can gradually comprehend and demonstrate complex knowledge and skills, and engaging diverse learners with the material in different ways are all demanding tasks. For these reasons, Boyer (1990) spoke about the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), urging colleges and universities to understand and value the intellectual work that goes into effective teaching and to encourage research on what works best in higher education. Grise-Owens, Owens, and Miller (2018) have urged social work educators to engage in SoTL because it promotes accountability and competence by integrating the faculty roles of teacher and scholar.

MODES OF TEACHING, MODES OF LEARNING Different modes of teaching tend to be best for learning different things and for different parts of the learning process (Friedman 2008). The knowledge, values, and skills that form the content of social work education call for different learning and teaching modes, and the teacher’s role differs for different kinds of learning goals. For conveying knowledge and understanding, the teacher’s primary role may be that of an expert, using lecturing and explaining. For processing observations and exploring varying views, the best mode may be discussion leading. For learning to analyze, synthesize, and generate new knowledge, teachers can use inquiry and discovery. For teaching professional skills and values, acting as mentor, adviser, coach, or role model may be the most effective. The other teaching technique discussed in this chapter—using groups and teams—can be used with various modes of teaching. Groups and teams are most often used for inquiry and discovery and for reflection on experience, depending on the activities or tasks. These modes of teaching are also related to the kinds of thinking a teacher is trying to develop in students, as well as to the content area (table 3.1). The most obvious example of knowledge that must be recalled, comprehended, and then applied is statistics. Field education and some activities in practice classes, such as role play, are designed to teach skills. Bloom’s category of creativity is not listed in the table because one can identify it in all learning goals except recall, although it is most commonly elicited in inquiry and discovery. Research and experience show that there are proven techniques for using each teaching mode most effectively. These hints for their use are

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TABLE 3.1 Thinking skills and teaching modalities LEARNING GOAL

Knowledge

TYPE OF THINKING NEEDED*

Recall, comprehend, apply

MODE OF TEACHING

Lecturing and explaining Inquiry and discovery

Values

Apply, analyze, evaluate

Reflection on experience

Skills

Apply, analyze, evaluate

Coaching and training

* Bloom, B. S. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. New York: McKay.

designed to support active learning whatever the mode of teaching used. Nilson (2010, 103–112) has a more elaborate and detailed description of the teaching techniques that are best for differing learning goals, including problem- and case-based learning.

DEVELOPING A TEACHING PHILOSOPHY Part of what Royce calls “the mental groundwork of teaching” (2001, 1) is developing and articulating a teaching philosophy. In fact, in many settings, faculty members may be asked about their teaching philosophy when interviewed for a job or in a performance review, including reviews for tenure and/or promotion (Owens, Miller, and Grise-Owens 2014, 2018). A teaching philosophy reflects the teacher’s views of how students learn best, the most important goals for student learning, facilitating the most desirable classroom climate for learning, ethical principles in teaching, and teachers’ roles and behaviors. As Owens and associates (2014) point out, a teaching philosophy requires more than its articulation; it must also be implemented and evaluated. This is a form of evaluating one’s own practice. For many teachers, this philosophy may be implicit. However, as with all value systems, making this philosophy an explicit and considered one is essential to continuing development as an educator. Brookfield wrote about identifying one’s implicit working assumptions as part of reflective teaching practice. These assumptions can be paradigmatic, addressing the basic categories and beliefs we use to understand the world; prescriptive, defining what should be happening in specific situations (e.g., teachers’ and students’ behavior); and causal, defining what actions can be taken

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to produce certain results (2000, 528). Although this kind of self-examination can be challenging, it can help identify opportunities for growth and change in our approach to teaching. These assumptions and our general philosophy of teaching strongly influence our teaching modes and methods. Whatever the method of teaching employed, effective teaching requires authority (Banner and Cannon 1997). Authority flows from expertise in the subject matter as well as from the teacher’s conduct in mentoring and advising roles. As Banner and Cannon stated, Teachers gain authority in the classroom through practice and experience, by thinking hard about authority’s nature and use, by experimentation, and above all by their advancing self-knowledge. Although this process of learning extends over a long period, teachers . . . must strive to establish [authority] immediately, from the first moment of a class, and to evince those qualities of character that make students look to them for understanding and guidance. (1997, 26)

How one views and exercises authority as a teacher and how one addresses other ethical dimensions of teaching (see chapter 9) are critical parts of a teaching philosophy. Unfortunately, as discussed in chapter 4, BIPOC, female, and young instructors are not accepted as authority figures as easily as others, but all of those in a teaching role are there because of their knowledge and expertise and should be accepted as the experts that they are. Just as in practice, where we prefer to discuss our social justice functions more than our social control roles, social work educators generally prefer to emphasize how they are supportive to students rather than how they exercise their authority. However, students are keenly aware of the teacher’s power, and it must be acknowledged that it is a position of privilege in relation to students. Another part of self-reflection in teaching is knowing when and how different modes and methods of teaching can best be used. Using a variety of teaching methods helps engage students with different styles of thinking and learning. A statement of teaching philosophy must also address how one handles diversity in the classroom. It is also important to talk about handling the “difficult moments” in the classroom that can occur when addressing racism, antiracism, diversity, and other topics. Articulating these parts of one’s approach to teaching defines some principles to rely on when such

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moments occur. A longer discussion on teaching about diversity and handling difficult conversations in the classroom can be found in chapter 4.

CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES Teaching modes and methods are the arrows that join subject matter, teacher, and learner within the educational context—the department or school—in which classroom teaching and learning take place. However, the teaching context influences these arrows of connection in at least two ways: in the nature of the organization’s teaching culture and in disciplinary influences. Different teaching methods have come to dominate in different disciplines, fields, and professions. Field-internship learning is considered the “signature pedagogy” of the social work profession (CSWE 2015), and the benefits of experiential learning have long been evident in the field internship (Royce 2001, 138). In addition, by defining its scope in terms of knowledge, values, and skills, social work uses a greater diversity of teaching methods, such as role playing or keeping a journal, than some other fields do. Other professions have different mixes of types of teaching. Another major influence on teaching is the organizational context. Colleges and universities differ in their missions and in the relative importance that they place on research, teaching, and service. Whatever the institutional mission is, organizational cultures or subcultures affect teaching and the value placed on it. Feldman and Paulsen talked about the need for an organizational culture “in which teaching and learning are the subject of serious, sustained discussion and debate; where people talk about teaching, inquire into its effects, and work together for improvement” (1998, 687). A supportive teaching culture includes the following: Q

Q Q

Q Q Q

The administration’s unambiguous support for teaching-improvement activities. Faculty ownership of and commitment to the improvement of teaching. A broad definition of scholarship, following Boyer (1990), that includes the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). Demonstration of teaching skills as part of the faculty hiring process. Interaction and collaboration among faculty members about teaching. Availability of a faculty development program for teaching, often in the form of a campus teaching center.

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Support at the level of the department chair, program director, or dean. Rigorous evaluation of teaching as part of retention, tenure, and promotion decisions. (FELDMAN AND PAULSEN 1998).

Everyone agrees that findings from faculty scholarship should be integrated into the curriculum to provide cutting-edge content. In this way, some argue that traditional research and scholarship support excellence in teaching, whereas others argue that too much emphasis on research and scholarship can detract from teachers’ effort to improve their teaching skills. Whatever your point of view on that debate, the preceding organizational resources and practices both require and sustain teachers’ efforts to make their teaching as effective as possible. They also indicate where an institution stands in its support of excellence in teaching.

LECTURING AND EXPLAINING Despite overwhelming evidence that active learning is more effective, lecturing is still the most common teaching method employed in higher education today. Even the architecture and equipment of many college classrooms (auditoriums for very large classes, chairs in rows, projection equipment, lecterns, and the like) reflect the ubiquitous use of this teaching technique. By virtue of history and tradition, many settings seem to favor this form of teaching and student–teacher relationship over others, although lecturing is not as pervasive in social work education as in other disciplines. Bligh defines lecturing as “more or less continuous expositions by a speaker who wants the audience to learn something” (2000, 4). Even though lectures are not particularly effective at changing attitudes, teaching the values associated with a subject, or teaching behavioral skills, they are often better than other methods for conveying information and especially for explaining it—what Malik and Malik (2012) call the what, why and how. In addition, there has been extensive and useful research on how to make teaching through lecturing more effective. Principles from adult learning lead to an “ABC” of planning a lecture (Malik and Malik 2012): Activating prior knowledge; Building on it, which may involve affirming it or questioning it; and Consolidating the new knowledge. Many of the principles of effective lecturing focus on C. However,

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openly eliciting students’ existing ideas (A) at the start of a lecture or of a course is a good idea. It is vital to know where a lecture’s content fits in the continuum of what the curriculum has already provided and what will come next in their learning and practice. At the start of a lecture, it may also be useful to elicit students’ ideas on the topic (prior knowledge and experience) and to cover common “myths” or mistaken ideas. Those who have studied and written about lecturing and explaining as a teaching technique typically turn to cognitive psychology to learn how to improve their lectures (Bligh 2000; Davis 1993; Lang 2016; Malik and Malik 2012). This research suggests that how material is organized and delivered can make a big difference in the information that listeners retain and in how they rate their satisfaction with the teaching. A lecture’s effectiveness seems to depend most of all on the overall framework that the lecturer provides for its content. This framework should help listeners organize the information that is being conveyed, or that they may have read, so that it can be better retained in and retrieved from memory. Therefore, it is often recommended that the framework or outline for a lecture be provided to students on PowerPoint-type slides or on the chalkboard or whiteboard so, as cognitive science suggests, listeners can more easily follow and remember the content as the lecture progresses. This factor is so important to the success of lecturing that how well a teacher organizes information is often part of course and teacher evaluations. Lecturing can also be improved in other ways (Bligh 2000; Nilson 2010; Sviniki and McKeachie 2014). Nothing reaches long-term memory until it is noticed, enters short-term memory, and then is mentally filtered further, an active process. All the suggestions for lecturing presented here are designed to enhance these cognitive processes. Cognitive science shows that people cannot maintain full attention for more than fifteen minutes, so these techniques are designed to maintain engagement with the material as well as possible: Make the framework for the class or lecture clear at the outset. During the class, review the points covered and those still to come. Vary your delivery. Because an audience’s attention always declines over time, periodically punctuate the point-by-point flow of content with illustrations and relevant personal experiences. Visual aids not only reinforce main points, but they also break up the flow of spoken words. In addition, consider a break or some other occasion for a postural change (stretching), especially if the lecture lasts more than an hour. Moving around the room and gesturing also help lecturers maintain the audience’s attention.

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Inviting questions or comments periodically (checking in with the audience) may help. Encourage students to take notes. Writing down the main points helps students process and organize the information as they are listening, writing and seeing while they are hearing (using multiple sensory pathways). Handouts with important topics listed along with space for writing may encourage students to take notes, a practice Malik and Malik (2012) recommend. This practice is especially helpful to those for whom English is not their first language so they do not have to listen, translate, and organize their thoughts at the same time. But handing out detailed lecture notes can be counterproductive because they can distract from the lecture and do not help listeners organize the information in the best way for their own purposes. Do not write out the lecture. In most cases, it is better to lecture from an outline than to read from a prepared text. It is much easier to be animated and to maintain eye contact with the audience when you speak with some spontaneity. Sometimes reading the exact words that define a term or a direct quotation from someone else’s work is necessary and desirable. But most teachers find that, with experience, their notes become less and less detailed and that this helps rather than detracts from making a successful presentation. If the teacher finds that a specific point has been missed, the omission can be rectified through question and answer or in the next class session. Whether brief or detailed, though, lecture notes should clearly convey the logical framework for the lecture, which is what will make them usable for the listener. Use visual aids. The most common tools for making a point visually used to be the blackboard or whiteboard. These have the disadvantage of requiring the instructor to turn away from the audience in order to write (and it can be challenging to speak and write at the same time), although this change of instructor activity can actually help hold the audience’s attention. PowerPoint and other computer-generated projection techniques are now commonly used, as well as other audio, video, and animated material. Software for remote communication usually has a whiteboard function built in, which can be helpful. But when something that relies on electricity and/or technical equipment fails, the consequences are generally more disconcerting and distracting than when a piece of chalk breaks or a marker runs dry. Becoming familiar with any electronic devices and their use before a lecture or class session is always a good idea, and it is also good to have a backup plan in place, perhaps one that includes chalk, markers, or printed copies of what was to have been projected.

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Stimulate thinking rather than emphasizing facts and conclusions. For conveying facts and information, assigned reading can be just as effective as lecturing is (Sviniki and McKeachie 2014). A lecture is best for stimulating interest in the topic, synthesizing existing ideas in new ways, outlining the controversies surrounding a topic and why they are important, illustrating the implications and applications of ideas, and supplementing readings with new ideas and information not yet in texts and other publications. Some simple techniques can help students better process lectures, what Nilson calls “student-active breaks” (2010, 117). One is the “buzz group,” in which the lecturer pauses and asks students to talk to one another from their seats in groups of two or three for two minutes, like breakout rooms in the online context. The assignment may be to summarize the lecture’s main points so far or to generate comments and questions to ask the lecturer. Buzz-group comments or questions can then be shared with the class or given to the instructor in writing before proceeding with the next portion of the lecture. While these mid-lecture interactions do take time away from the lecture itself, forcing students to actively process lecture content leads to greater recall and a deeper understanding of the material. Ask questions instead of only making statements. One way to begin a lecture is to ask questions or outline a debate on which the lecture will elaborate or comment. Then, returning to these points or questions at the end can be a useful way of summing up. During the lecture, taking questions from the audience can be a good way of varying the flow of content and checking the audience’s understanding. Seek feedback on comprehension. Pop questions or mini-quizzes during a lecture can be used to check on student comprehension. There are also “clicker” techniques in which the lecturer asks yes/no or multiple-choice questions on content and students use a small device to click on an answer, with the results instantly tabulated anonymously, giving the lecturer immediate feedback on student comprehension of the material presented. Do not try to cover too much. When preparing a lecture or teaching a course, the pressure is always to try to cover more content than is possible in given period of time. Trying to do a lot can overload students so that they actually retain less. Other common mistakes are overestimating what students know or assuming that their knowledge will be equal to yours by the end of the lecture or class. We are teaching students how to think and learn so that they can remain current in the field. In fact, over time, our students may end up knowing more than we do, and indeed we hope they will. The challenge in each lecture or class session is to be selective about what you

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cover in order to stimulate interest in the content, emphasize its importance, and help students decide how to apply the content to their work. Use small groups and other techniques periodically to help consolidate learning. Students can be asked to form small groups or pairs to clarify points with each other, then share their understanding of or questions about the content of the lecture with the class as a whole. These exercises can be brief but still very useful in consolidating and advancing knowledge.

CONCLUDING POINTS

Think back to the teachers you had whose classes you most enjoyed. What did you like and not like about their lectures, workshops, and professional presentations? Although a listener’s intense interest in a topic can sometimes overcome a poor presentation, analysis of a good lecture generally reinforces the suggestions made above. In the hands of a skilled lecturer, form and content appear to work together seamlessly. Experience helps, but even beginners can learn these techniques and skills and make lecturing more enjoyable for the teacher and more rewarding for the students. Developing a framework for the content, knowing what points to emphasize, deciding which content is not as important, being able to talk about the content without a prepared text, being able to answer questions clearly and succinctly, and being able to identify and articulate the current questions and dilemmas in a content area all require a high degree of interest in and knowledge about the subject matter. Moreover, the teacher’s own learning process in preparing to teach is part of what helps make teaching a rewarding occupation.

DISCUSSION LEADING: REFLECTING ON EXPERIENCE Many models of adult learning emphasize reflecting on experience as a way of making meaning from it. The most common teaching mode that engages learners in this way is the classroom discussion. Lecturing and discussion are often combined, but in seminars, discussion may be the only or the dominant mode of teaching and learning. Discussion and the other methods of encouraging reflection on experience are driven by what students themselves contribute. Teaching using discussion and other methods that encourage reflection on experience requires skill in shaping the

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conversation in ways that will lead students toward the learning goals for the course and will do so based on the students’ expressed needs and concerns. Reflecting on experience is a more active method of learning than simply listening to a lecture. The experience in question may be previous life or work experience, current experience in the classroom (when lectures and discussions are used together), or other class-related activities such as assigned readings, experiences in the field, and internships. Reflection on experience is one of the main teaching techniques for helping students learn to think and for supporting and encouraging their cognitive development. In particular, it is related to encouraging critical thinking: “Critical thinking involves the careful examination and evaluation of beliefs and actions. It requires paying attention to the process of reasoning, not just the product . . . Well-reasoned thinking is a form of creation and construction” (Gibbs and Gambrill 1996, 3). In the liberal arts, teaching students to think critically is seen as “a liberating force, freeing the individual from the ignorance that characterizes chauvinism and ethnocentrism, from narrow self-interest and ‘small-mindedness’ ” (Davis 1993, 174). Thus, teaching methods that involve reflecting on experience are closely related to the goals of professional education that involve increasing self-awareness, incorporating professional ethics and values, identifying underlying principles, considering the source and basis for knowledge and beliefs, transferring and applying knowledge and information from one situation to the next, and equipping oneself for lifelong learning and effective practice. CSWE (EPAS 2015) defines competence “holistically” to encompass aspects of “internal processing” including critical thinking, managing affective reactions, and the exercise of judgment. Engaging students in discussion can enhance their capabilities in all of these areas.

LEADING A DISCUSSION When leading a discussion, teachers should draw out the participants and move toward the main learning goals for that class. Just as students’ critical thinking requires creativity—making and remaking ideas and perspectives—so does leading a discussion. A skilled discussion leader answers students’ questions and responds to what they say in ways that guide the conversation productively. But note that throwing a question or comment back to the group can keep student participation going productively.

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The following principles help make classroom discussion productive and effective (Davis 1993; Friedman 2008; Lowman 1995; Nilson 2016; Sviniki and McKeachie 2014): Set some ground rules for classroom interactions at the beginning of the course. Doing so at the beginning means that rules will not be made in response to a specific comment or classroom interaction. These rules can then be invoked later if needed when points of tension arise. They should acknowledge that members of the group will have different points of view and that discussing them openly is good when done with mutual respect and civility. It is also important to encourage students to ask questions not only of the instructor but also of each other. As the saying goes, students and teachers must learn “how to disagree without being disagreeable.” Above all, you should let students know at the outset that you know they will be able to contribute to the class. In a course that uses group discussion extensively, you may even have the students draw up the ground rules themselves (Brookfield and Preskill 1999). Most of the ground rules for students’ participation in a classroom discussion pertain to civility. In social work, you might talk about social workers treating one another with respect. This means listening to each speaker, taking turns in speaking, speaking courteously even in disagreement, and speaking to and about the content of what is said, not the speaker. The process of discussion can help students learn to give reasons for their opinions and to express a difference of opinion clearly without attacking person who holds an opinion different from one’s own. Reminding students that, in practice, professionals often have to negotiate differences of opinion and perspectives can show that these skills will be useful in the future. Pose specific questions or problems to shape the discussion. Posing a problem or asking a question can be a good way to open a discussion in the classroom. The problem can be a brief scenario or a description of differences of perspective or opinion for students to comment on. The problems to be used to stimulate discussion are generally best thought about while preparing for the class, although they sometimes emerge spontaneously from students’ questions or comments. Building a discussion on a student’s issues and experiences tells the whole class that their ideas are important. Asking productive questions is an art that can be learned. Studies show that most of the questions that college teachers use ask for cognitive recall (facts, definitions, or review; Barnes 1992). Such questions are useful for checking students’ comprehension of the course material, but they are not the best kinds of questions for stimulating a discussion. Questions that

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invite or elicit convergent, divergent, or evaluative thinking are more likely to enhance students’ critical thinking than questions that have a right or wrong answer (Barnes 1992). Questions about applying the concepts being discussed, the limits of an idea, the assumptions or evidence underlying an idea, and alternative views or theories all invite critical thinking. Just as beginning students learn not to ask clients only yes-or-no questions, beginning teachers can practice asking questions that go beyond just checking students’ comprehension to elicit diverse comments and perspectives. One common issue is whether to rely on volunteers to answer questions, perhaps by a raising their hands, or to call on students at random. Because some students are uncomfortable being called on, the classroom ground rules should allow students to “pass” on commenting or answering a question. Embarrassment interferes with rather than enhances learning. Nonetheless, although some students may have difficulty volunteering to speak in class, they may find that they become more comfortable once they have done so, perhaps by being called on or in a small-group discussion. Once the “ice is broken,” these students may subsequently participate more comfortably and more often. Calling on volunteers who offer to answer questions, ask questions, or comment on the discussion may be easier, but it can lead to some students— the more frequent volunteers—dominating the discourse. To avoid this, try calling first on those who are volunteering for the first time or who do so less often. There is no one right answer to whether to call on individual students or rely on volunteers, particularly in view of the overall culture and common practices in the department or school. The point is for each teacher to choose a strategy with some awareness of its risks and benefits. Show respect for all students and their contributions, even if they need to be reinterpreted. Part of the art of leading a productive classroom discussion is to shape the participants’ contributions to the class’s learning goals. This may mean asking for an elaboration, clarification, or explanation of the question or comment to elicit a clearer articulation or to reframe the underlying idea. You might also ask the other students what they think about what has been said. Humor and other responses designed to defuse tensions should be used sparingly, however, as students may see them as dismissive. Studies of teachers’ behavior in the classroom have repeatedly shown that, despite what teachers themselves believe, some students’ contributions are more regularly noticed and acknowledged than others. Male students more often make comments, which are more often recognized and more

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often answered positively than female students’ comments are. BIPOC students can be called on too often as “experts” on their groups, they can be ignored when volunteering to speak, or they may silence themselves if they do not feel affirmed in the classroom. Where a student sits in the room can also affect the teacher’s attention and response. To the extent possible, try to arrange the room so that the teacher can make eye contact with as many students as possible. A classroom observer can give the teacher useful feedback on these issues. Consider how active you should be as the discussion leader. All studies of teachers show that they talk for much more of the class session than they think they do. Even studies of teachers’ questions show that interactions between teacher and student take up much less time in the classroom than does the teacher’s lecture (Barnes 1992). Walking through the halls of a school while classroom doors are open, does one more often hear the voice of the teacher or the students? One way to increase student participation in a classroom setting is to be willing to tolerate silences. While they may feel endless, it usually takes much less than a minute for someone in the class to speak. To expect immediate responses to discussion questions does not take into account the need for students to formulate their question before speaking. A discussion leader must decide how much to allow the conversation to flow on its own and how much to intervene to shape it. You might also consider letting students respond to one another rather than answering every question or comment yourself. Although most of us, myself included, tend to be too active, if students do not feel that the interaction is being managed by the teacher to keep it relatively productive and “safe,” they will not feel free to talk openly or even at all. Consider using small groups for discussion. A useful technique for getting more students to participate in classroom discussions is to form small groups for discussion of a specific question, problem, or scenario. When using this technique, the teacher may circulate among the groups to get a sense of the issues that are emerging but must not dominate these interactions. The first time a quiet student speaks in class can be important, and a small-group discussion may provide that opportunity. Asking each small group to select a spokesperson to report to the class on what was discussed and the issues or questions that emerged can help the group stay on task and ensure that the whole class profits from the discussion. Students can contribute a great deal to each other’s learning, and this kind of peer interaction may be easier in a small group than in a large one.

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Anticipate the kinds of problems that can occur in classroom discussion and plan strategies for handling them. Many kinds of problems can arise during a discussion because students (and teachers) may not understand or possess the skills required for constructive participation. These skills include overcoming the habit of being passive in the classroom and the fear of being judged negatively for one’s ideas and opinions; expressing oneself clearly and giving reasons for one’s ideas and opinions; listening carefully and with an open mind; responding to ideas that are different from one’s own without hostility; tolerating silence; having an awareness of and tolerance for complexity and ambiguity; and exploring alternative ideas without rushing to a conclusion or simply searching for what the professor wants to hear (Brookfield and Preskill 1999; Sviniki and McKeachie 2014). Developing these skills will be useful in many professional contexts, such as staff meetings and case conferences. Specific strategies can be used to deal with some of the most common problems. One is the student who tends to dominate or monopolize the discussion. If the classroom ground rules include signaling a willingness to speak (e.g., raising a hand and waiting for recognition), the instructor can exercise some control over the situation by calling on those volunteers who have not yet spoken or who speak less often. Emphasizing the importance of listening as well as speaking may help. But if the student who speaks too much does not respond to these and other suggestions, it may be necessary to meet with the student outside class. Often students equate achievement with giving right answers, and they may need to be helped to see how all group members can learn from the process of discussion. You could then suggest that a goal for this student is to learn to listen and to trust in the group process, emphasizing that learning can and often does take place best in this way. Techniques for dealing with dominating voices also help draw out the quiet students. Whether or not to call on students who do not volunteer has already been discussed. During a classroom discussion, a “fishbowl” technique can be used in which a small circle discusses a topic with the requirement that every member participate; only after a certain period of time is the rest of the class, who are observing their discussion outside the circle, invited to comment and join in. Other group techniques include requiring every member of a small discussion group to speak in turn without interruption or response (for several suggestions, see Brookfield and Preskill 1999). Many of these group techniques can help get quiet students to speak for the first time, which makes the next time much easier.

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Some students may not participate regularly in discussions, no matter what techniques are used. If you are concerned about how well such a student is learning, you might arrange a meeting to discuss his or her experiences in the classroom. Students are usually able to tell you whether this is their general learning style or they have a particular problem in this class. An often unspoken fear about opening some subjects to discussion is that strong opinions, feelings, or conflicts will emerge. Social work educators can use their practice experience to help them with this challenge; often the instructor simply showing comfort with the group’s feelings has a calming effect. Teachers must also be prepared to help students who may say too much to maintain more appropriate boundaries and to invoke the class’s ground rules about how feelings and opinions should be expressed in the classroom. Students can share their feelings and opinions more readily if they have the sense that the teacher can bear them and believe that the teacher will help maintain control and boundaries. However, in some classroom discussions, a student may clearly be having some emotional difficulty; in that case, the teacher should talk to the student outside of class to see whether he or she needs help. Another fear about discussion is that it will deviate from the planned content for the class session. Here the teacher must be prepared to redirect the discussion when needed, perhaps by posing a new question or remarking that new topics have emerged and then considering with the group when and how they might be discussed in the future. Even if some students resist this refocusing, others will be relieved to return to the planned topic of the day. However, a discussion that goes off on a tangent may be revealing content that should have been included in the course or that can be addressed in another course or at another time. A teacher can learn a lot about students’ concerns and learning needs by observing where classroom discussions are leading. Sometimes I list for myself key terms and concepts that should be covered, using my concluding remarks for that day to say a few words on each or to plan when to discuss them in the future. My experience has been that most or all of the items on the list have been addressed through the discussion.

KEEPING A JOURNAL In addition to discussion, some forms of writing can encourage learning through reflection on experience. Writing is currently regarded as an

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important tool for enhancing students’ thinking in general. The process of committing ideas to paper usually forces the writer to clarify his or her thoughts. McKeachie and Svinicki (2014) talk about the usefulness of “low stakes writing”—that is, writing assignments that are not graded. For example, keeping a journal can be a course requirement, with credit given for completing the assignment but with the content itself not graded or evaluated. Journals can be based on experiences, past or present, required or independent reading, or both. It has the advantage of forcing the student to think about a course’s content outside the classroom. The assignment usually invites students to connect their experiences with concepts or content covered in class or in the required reading. Because a journal reveals how students think and write about their experiences and ideas, it can motivate them to learn about what the course offers (Sviniki and McKeachie 2014). Courses on diversity often require keeping a journal because they reveal not only thoughts and ideas but also attitudes and values and how they change over time.

INQUIRY AND DISCOVERY Another teaching technique that encourages critical thinking and the development of problem-solving skills is independent inquiry and discovery. Many of the course-related assignments used in advanced undergraduate and graduate education, like research papers, use these methods. Classroom activities can also encourage inquiry and discovery.

STUDENT PRESENTATIONS

The most common way to bring inquiry and discovery into the classroom is through student projects and presentations, individual or group. Because I talk about using groups and teams later, my comments here relate to class presentations by individuals. The assignment to prepare a class presentation can vary from reporting on information already identified, such as a critical analysis of an assigned reading, to reporting on a project or professional activity outside class, such as a case presentation or an analysis of a policy or an organization, to generating information independently and then sharing it with the group. In any case, the student, rather than the teacher, must identify and decide on the important points to talk about. Critical thinking

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and an analysis and synthesis of information are needed. The student is also taking the role of the expert, and class members learn to learn from one another. These skills are essential to practice and can be reinforced in the classroom in this way.

RESEARCH

The most common form of learning through inquiry and discovery in social work education is research. It can be scholarly, as in a review of the literature, or empirical, as in a research project. Often students are required to write a literature-based research paper as a means of assessing their performance at the end of the course: the “term paper.” These methods of encouraging inquiry and discovery are discussed in chapter 5, on assessing students’ learning. Other ways of reinforcing the importance of inquiry and discovery involve using assigned readings that are based on others’ research and using research findings and current scholarship in the lecture content. Class activities can also model and encourage the habits of mind—curiosity and critical thinking—needed for research. Students need many skills to learn through inquiry and discovery, from accepted research methods to a constructive use of existing information and information technologies. When a course assignment requires research, teachers should ensure that their students have the relevant skills to do the research and help them with any questions about how to do the work as it proceeds. Using the beginning or end of class to ask students about their progress with the assignment can help students do their best work and clarify the kinds of thinking and learning needed to succeed.

TRAINING AND COACHING Training and coaching are teaching techniques used primarily with individual students (Davis 1993). This kind of teaching can take place in individual academic advising as well as in field instruction and field advisement. Social work has a vast literature on supervision, including supervising students in both practice and educational situations. It is not the purpose of this section to try to summarize that literature, which is well covered in the references provided on field education. Rather, I define coaching, mentoring, and role

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modeling as they are discussed in the literature on higher education and show how they can be used in contexts other than student supervision in the field.

MENTORING

Mentoring is an intense, long-term relationship that sometimes develops between someone more senior in a field and a student, a partnership designed to help the student’s career advance. As Kennedy pointed out, “It is through those relationships that the academy reproduces itself” (1997, 97). These relationships are mutually chosen, usually based on shared practice or scholarly interests. They can be gratifying for both the mentor and the mentored, but they can also be problematic. However, there are elements of the mentoring process in many less intense or long-term one-onone relationships between students and teachers. A classroom teacher who spends time with individual students, helping them understand course content and develop the skills to succeed in the course, is mentoring. Being a student adviser, formally or informally, is also mentoring. Mentoring in this more limited sense means forming a relationship with an individual student to advance the student’s learning and professional development. For example, a student may serve as a research assistant to a teacher, who teaches research skills and provides opportunities for increasingly independent work. The teacher may hope that he or she is investing in someone who will continue in this role and thus help with the teacher’s scholarly productivity. But the student may decide to use these new skills in another area of interest. It is the mentor’s responsibility to put students’ learning and professional development needs first and to help them succeed in the new endeavor. In fact, sometimes a coach or a mentor’s greatest contribution to a student’s development is pointing out that a different area of activity or career may be a better choice for them. The term coaching implies teaching skills, through instruction and other techniques such as demonstration, as when the student can observe the coach performing the task or function that the student is trying to learn (sometimes called shadowing). In social work education, advising in the field and practice teaching through role playing or demonstration of a specific technique include activities that would be termed coaching in other contexts. Mentoring may include coaching, but the term is used in a more general way to encompass a range of teaching activities and aspects of a

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relationship. Like a mentor, however, a coach can be a role model and provide a more general orientation to a profession or field, including its attitudes and values, as well as specific skills.

ROLE MODELING

Whether or not teachers want or expect it, students will often see them as a role model. In the professions in particular, there is an unwritten curriculum that has to do with being socialized into the profession in question. Students are learning how to behave like a professional social worker, explicitly and implicitly, and social work educators have long been aware of this part of social work education. An unspoken aspect of teaching is that the teacher is always being very carefully observed. Students learn from what teachers do at least as much as from what they say, even though teachers may be concentrating more on the latter than on the former. Students study teachers in order to decide what to do or how to be, as well as what not to do and how not to be. Their images of the profession and of what may (or may not) be possible for them as professionals (and people) are based, at least in part, on their teachers. Teachers observe students as well, of course, in part to evaluate whether their students are being socialized to the profession. Although teachers cannot entirely control the messages or lessons, intended or unintended, that students may infer from observing them, they should try to embody the norms of respectful, inclusive, and professional behavior that they want their students to learn.

USING GROUPS AND TEAMS Working in teams is now a common feature of social work practice in many settings, and although social work education often has not emphasized working in teams (Opie 2000), a recent emphasis on education for interprofessional practice is bringing teamwork to the fore. Especially in this age of interdisciplinary practice and service delivery, we must prepare students to work well in groups and teams. Every class is itself a group, of course, with a shared purpose, interactions among members, and a tendency to act or react together (Davis 1993, 243). Using groups and teams also applies to teaching techniques that create subgroups within a class—pairs, triads,

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and larger groups—specifically for completing structured learning tasks (Nilson 2016). Using groups and teams is related to educational philosophies and movements that emphasize cooperative and collaborative learning (Steiner et al. 1999). Royce (2001) defined the difference between cooperative and collaborative learning in terms of the degree of structure and control provided by the instructor. Cooperative learning is designed to reduce competition among students and to enhance their skills for working in groups or teams by having them work together and support one another’s learning in the conduct of a specific task or project designed by the teacher. In collaborative learning, the teacher cedes more of the responsibility for the design and even the evaluation of the work to the group members. These approaches call for designing tasks or projects that allow different solutions or approaches to the work, in order to stimulate collective creativity. Often, they also require applying, synthesizing, or conveying complex information to others. Peer evaluation (among small-group members or among groups) is often part of the task (Steiner et al. 1999). Even if the task includes work done outside the classroom, time must be allowed in class sessions for the groups to organize and to ask questions about the assignment. For example, in a doctoral seminar on teaching, I divided a class into small groups, assigning each to prepare and teach the material on handling different diversity issues (race and ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and gender expression, disability, age, and the like) in the classroom. Although I listed some readings for each topic, the groups typically identified additional resources on their own. Each group or team must decide on the role of each member when they make their presentation to the class (e.g., they either designate one or two speakers for their presentation or have everyone present some part of the material), and they decide on the content and the best ways of conveying it to other class members. They may use skits and videos as well as handouts and other more conventional teaching materials (see, for example, Christensen 1995; Winston 1997). After the presentation in class, each group is asked to discuss the challenges they faced in preparing to teach—in other words, to reflect on both process and content issues. Steiner and colleagues (1999) give many more structured examples of using cooperative learning in a range of social work courses, such as jigsaw, structured controversy, and write–pair–share exercises. Many teachers are reluctant to use groups, worrying about how much they should monitor and/or help the groups in the assigned task, whether all the group members will contribute equally to the work, whether and how

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to evaluate the individual members’ performance and contributions, the noisiness and lack of control of the process, and, most of all, whether the content can be conveyed as effectively as in a lecture (Royce 2001). Steiner and colleagues (1999) point out that cooperative learning emphasizes such skills as effective communication, interpersonal skills, and critical thinking, as well as the benefits of empowerment, interdependence, and diversity that come from working in heterogeneous student-led groups.

PLANNING A COURSE Beginning teachers often assume that their first job will be designing the courses that they teach. But beginning teachers are often hired, full-time or part-time, to teach sections of required courses that have already been developed. Even though this reduces stress and work at the beginning of the course, it also means that teachers must learn how to deliver course content that may not be what they would have designed on their own. Adapting a course design to build on one’s strengths may be an option. In many situations, however, it is up to the instructor to prepare and design a course. McKeachie and Svinicki (2014) suggest a timeline for course preparation, which always must begin well before a class first meets. The course syllabus is the document that shows the design of any course. Its major elements are the course title, the course description, the course’s learning objectives, its assigned readings, and the assessments of students’ learning that will be used (required assignments and rules for grading; see chapter 5). The course syllabus can be considered a kind of contract between the student and the department or school covering what will be taught, how it will be taught, and what will be expected of the student in order to succeed in the course. Together, this profile of the course content and the performance requirements add up to the learning outcomes for the course of study as a whole. One technique I have used to enhance student engagement is to allow students as a group to have input to the content of a course. For example, when teaching an MSW course, I have covered required course content, such as the history of social work and social welfare in the United States, elements of policy analysis, and the like, in fewer than all of the available class sessions. When we get to the part of the course covering current social policy issues relevant to social work, I have allowed students to nominate issues they would like to have included. Students always suggest more policy

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areas than there is time for, so the class votes on the topics to be included. Individual students are disappointed when a topic they care about is not included, but they like the fact that they can have input into at least some aspects of the course. Although not possible in all instances, this technique has worked for me in other courses as well.

PUTTING A COURSE IN CONTEXT Before designing a course, teachers must know where it fits in the students’ curriculum. What can they assume that students will know from previous courses? What content will be covered in other courses to be taken along with or after this one? Horizontal integration of curriculum refers to how the content of courses and other learning experiences coordinate with each other at any one time in the students’ program of study. Vertical integration of curriculum refers to how content is staged over time—what will be taught and learned first, and what later. No course can be planned and taught effectively without knowing where it fits in the overall curriculum design. Course prerequisites cover only the basics, especially when students can choose different ways of completing their degree, such as through part-time study. Unfortunately, beginning teachers are not always given as much information as they need about where their course fits into the whole. They should ask for this information when it is not offered, although much of it is usually available on websites or other publications for students. Students will be frustrated if they feel that a course is repeating what they already know or is not connecting well to the rest of their learning.

LEARNING GOALS AND EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES Every course, required or elective, has a few key learning goals. The teacher’s and the students’ activities are designed to help students meet specific objectives for the course or for segments (units) of the course (McKeachie and Svinicki 2016; O’Brien, Millis, and Cohen 2010). Defining learning goals and objectives for each course helps students select courses, understand what is expected of them, and hence meet course expectations; it helps teachers prioritize course content and select appropriate teaching methods and learning activities; and it helps departments and programs monitor and develop curricula to ensure that students obtain the education

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needed to achieve the competencies that CSWE accreditation standards require. That is why in some schools and departments each course syllabus identifies the required competencies addressed in the course. It is important to note, however, that the current emphasis on competencies and demonstrated skills is not without its critics. Those who approach teaching and learning from a constructivist or critical standpoint find this emphasis to be at odds with their philosophies of teaching and learning (Graham 1997). The current approach to learning outcomes fits best with a positivist or postpositivist viewpoint. In these views, there is an objective reality—the “facts” of student knowledge—that can be known and described. Those working from a constructivist or critical standpoint and those who favor cooperative learning (Csiernik 2021) are working to achieve changes in students’ approaches to knowledge rather than a command of specific knowledge and skills. This discussion of learning outcomes is based in the dominant postpositivist view of learning outcomes. Different educational settings have different requirements for course syllabi, but a well-designed syllabus always states the course’s learning goals (Grunert 1997; Sviniki and McKeachie 2014). These objectives should be stated in terms of what students should know and/or be able to do at the end of the course. The goals should encompass the range of content to be covered, but there should not be so many that it would be difficult to determine whether every student has achieved all the goals. For every goal on the list, there should be a corresponding activity or activities, either in the classroom or in assignments completed outside class, that allow students to demonstrate that they have achieved it. For a practice class, a goal might be demonstrating knowledge of specific principles of practice and perhaps application of this knowledge to written case materials; in a field practicum, demonstrating specific skills in actual practice with clients might be a goal. In addition to (and often preceding) a list of learning goals, a syllabus describes the course and its content, stating any prerequisites. It may also say a little about the educational philosophy underlying the course to help students understand what will be expected of them. It is difficult to reduce complex ideas to a brief (usually one or two paragraphs) statement, and it generally requires several drafts and revisions to develop such a description. For required courses in social work programs, a curriculum committee and/or the program faculty often write the course descriptions and learning goals. Each instructor then draws up a plan of teaching that will help students achieve those goals. For further discussion of learning goals and assessing educational outcomes, see chapter 5.

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SELECTING COURSE CONTENT In designing a course, as in lecturing, the most common problem is trying to cover too much content. One way to avoid this is to map out the number of class sessions in advance, first sketching the beginning (getting oriented to the course) and ending (course wrap-up) sessions. Given the learning goals for the course, the rest of the course calendar can be filled in topically according to the amount of emphasis on each subtopic and the time needed in class for specific teaching and learning activities. This procedure may quickly show that the list of goals and objectives for the course needs to be more realistic. Or it may suggest that some class activities need to be dropped in favor of others that better meet the students’ learning needs. Ideally, one class session should be left unscheduled (Sviniki and McKeachie 2014) because, even with the best planning, no two groups (or classes) are the same and hence getting off schedule at some point is usually unavoidable. This unscheduled session is a comfort to both faculty and students, enabling the teacher to follow the order of topics without worrying that some essential content may be dropped. Always plan for a midcourse check-in with students for feedback. In fact, some instructors like to do this more often—after the first three or four sessions, for example, and again a bit later. Planning for feedback also means that students do not have to initiate the conversation about how the course is going. Students appreciate their instructor’s interest in their views of the course. It is also helpful to ask for feedback before any big problem or crisis has developed, because problems are usually more easily solved early. This course planning—defining course goals and objectives and setting up a general course calendar—is best done about three months before the class is scheduled to begin. Some colleges may have even more stringent requirements for advance planning. In part, early planning is needed because of the next step—getting course materials together—when timing may be beyond the instructor’s control. The other main element of planning a course is assessing what the students have learned. Again, some major parameters of this part of course planning are determined by the institution, such as the grading system, the academic requirements for the program as a whole, and the number and timing of formal assessment points. How the students’ learning will be assessed—the course requirements—are important to grading, and they should also be designed to engage students in specific activities that in themselves can be significant opportunities to learn. This aspect of teaching—student

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assessment—is so important that it has a chapter of its own (chapter 5). The short discussion here is meant to underscore that when planning a course, students’ learning goals are met through assessment and other course activities. In fact, a syllabus may explain how assignments can help students achieve specific learning goals (O’Brien, Millis, and Cohen 2008). O’Brien and associates also recommend “backward planning” the content of a course. This practice involves starting with desired student learning outcomes and then working backward to plan the content for each class session around what students will need to know and know how to do in order to succeed in the class. This technique supports what O’Brien and associates refer to as “a learning-centered approach” to creating a syllabus. The principal method of assessing students should not be an examination (in-class or take-home) or a paper simply because of custom or tradition. If self-reflection on certain issues is an important learning goal in the course, then a required assignment should be self-reflection. Skill in applying theory to practice situations, skill in oral communication, writing skills, critical thinking skills, the ability to collaborate, and the ability to gather, analyze, and synthesize existing information each require different kinds of assessment. Required and graded assignments would likely be quite different in each case. Finally, the course syllabus should clearly spell out the course requirements. Students need to know what the assessment of their performance will be based on, for both performance feedback and evaluative (grading) purposes. For transparency, the percentage of a course grade that will be based on each requirement or assignment is commonly given. In some cases, grading rubrics—the features to be evaluated and the weight assigned to each—are also used (see chapter 5). Specific ratings on different aspects of the work can offer students feedback for continued growth and development while fulfilling the demands of grading systems. The national problem of grade inflation suggests that colleges and universities have not addressed this problem well. Making performance expectations and standards for a course explicit does not resolve the problem, but it protects both students and instructors and can reduce students’ anxiety so that more effective learning can take place.

MECHANICS AND MATERIALS One reason for making a course’s learning goals as explicit as possible is that you can then plan the use of specific teaching modalities, as illustrated in table 3.1. In addition, because students’ learning styles differ, it is generally

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a good idea to vary the way classes are run. Even watching videos can get boring if they are shown every week. Planning course sessions also requires arranging for the materials needed by the instructor and/or students each week. Required texts must be selected with enough time to arrange for hard copies of books to be obtained (purchased or rented), noting that electronic copies of readings are made available more quickly. Copyright permission must be obtained for published materials to be shared with or duplicated for students. Reading materials must also be made available to students in the library and/or electronically, frequently using courseware. If videos, PowerPoint presentations, Zoom conversations, access to clickers, or other electronic media are used in class or in laboratory sessions, arrangements must be made for the needed equipment. Most social work programs use “smart” classrooms where everything needed for the use of electronic media is already present. Teachers need to learn to use any new teaching technologies and should have access to technological support in advance and during class. Finally, every university and department has its own methods of assigning space to courses. In the week or two before a class meets for the first time, it is a good idea to visit the assigned classroom and get a sense of its assets and limitations. How the furniture is arranged—chairs in rows (“theater style”) or in a circle, whether a lectern is present—indicates how the class has been conducted and what will be expected of the participants. If additional resources are needed, they can be identified before the first class.

BEING PRESENT TO ONE ANOTHER One element of a course syllabus is information about the instructor’s availability, which might be during office hours and by telephone and/or email. In addition, a syllabus may outline the teacher’s basic expectations about attendance, timeliness, permissible absences, participation in class discussion, and the ground rules for class discussion and debate. Specifying these establishes a working contract between the teacher and the students by making explicit the mutual obligations that all class members are undertaking (O’Brien, Millis, and Cohen 2008). Even in face-to-face teaching, the use of electronic devices during class is a big source of distraction for those using them and for others in the class. However, it is neither feasible nor desirable to limit their use entirely as students may use them for taking notes, for looking up course-related

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information, and for urgent work-related or family-related communications. However, when a student is using electronic devices for other purposes (messaging, keeping up with email, or playing games), they are not fully present in the classroom. Personally, at the start of a class, I make it part of the learning contract that electronic devices are to be used only for class-related purposes or emergency situations. In the face-to-face classroom, I also ask that any student who must answer a work- or family-related call or message step out of the room while responding. I formally invoke the need to be present to each other as the reason for these restrictions, which also implies that every student has something to contribute to the class. Finally, experienced teachers always recommend that the instructor arrive in the classroom a little early and perhaps linger a short time afterward (Lang 2016). Greeting students as they arrive for class may encourage them to participate in class discussions. Because it is generally easier for students to talk with teachers informally than formally, the before- and afterclass contact can get questions answered and pave the way toward a more extended conversation in class or at another time.

CONCLUSIONS Effective classroom teaching requires consideration of not only what but also how. Planning a course therefore also includes considering the various teaching modes that might be used to address students’ learning goals. These modes of teaching, especially inquiry and discovery and reflection on experience, are also related to the kinds of assignments and student assessment methods that you use. Not every teacher finds every teaching mode equally appealing or effective, and personal style and preference help determine how each person teaches. However, efforts to expand your repertoire of teaching methods and skills will pay off in keeping your time in the classroom lively and interesting as well as in engaging a greater variety of students in significant learning. Incorporate opportunities for active learning. Although this may be more difficult in large classes, try to find ways to encourage students’ active participation in learning. Sometimes this can be as simple as pausing for students to write down thoughts, comments, or questions. Students’ discussion of course content or reactions to it among themselves should also be encouraged. Even simply “checking in” with a class about unanswered questions or the pacing of the material indicates that you are interested in your students

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and are asking them to reflect on and be responsible for what they are and are not learning. Vary the teaching modalities and learning activities within a course whenever possible. While there is comfort in having a classroom routine, using different learning activities (e.g., instructor presentation versus student small-group discussion) and modes of communication (e.g., visual and aural, talking and listening) over time both keeps up interest and reaches students with different learning styles. It is generally better to plan for this kind of variation before a course starts—when constructing a syllabus—to ensure that the modes of teaching employed are best suited to the course’s learning goals. And don’t forget that the kinds of activities required for course assignments count as well. Encourage higher-order thinking and learning. Some situations require the recall of facts, but most professional education involves synthesizing knowledge and applying it to complex and unique situations. Case-based learning has therefore been important to social work education since its inception. Critical thinking and questioning are skills that students should practice regularly if we expect them to graduate with these abilities. Some teachers, myself included, think that more inquiry and discovery would improve the rigor of social work education and enhance the field as a whole. Mentoring and coaching are also teaching. Various advising assignments, even working with student assistants, are not just administrative tasks but also teaching activities. Such interactions produce many “teachable moments,” which can make them more interesting and rewarding. Effective teaching includes continual self-reflection and self-evaluation. Some gifted teachers may be able to rely wholly on improvisation, but most good teachers spend a lot of effort planning and organizing their materials, from readings to videos to internet resources, as well as the methods they use in their teaching. Knowing where each course fits into the curriculum as a whole and where each student is in his or her studies helps. Every class is different, requiring the ability to adapt one’s original plans. For most of us, having a plan for both content and process provides a structure within which we can spontaneously do our best work. Student evaluations of teaching regularly show that organizing course content and coming to the classroom well prepared are much appreciated. Choose and prepare to teach in content areas that you care about. This may be the most important suggestion, since being knowledgeable and enthusiastic about what you are teaching generally leads to the best learning outcomes. This does not mean, however, that you always teach just courses

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in your area of specialty. It does mean that you should choose among the core required courses the ones you feel best equipped to teach and adapt the required syllabi to incorporate your strengths. Renewing the curriculum with your colleagues can help keep alive your passion for the content. Teaching can be a great joy and a source of deep professional satisfaction. These pleasures do not come just from the authority, status, and positive regard of others that can go with the role. The greatest pleasures are in observing students’ excitement and growth when they learn the material and their insights and abilities grow. Learning “teaching tips” and using a variety of teaching modes and methods increase the odds that significant and gratifying student learning will take place.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Lang, J. M. (2016). Small teaching: Everyday lessons from the science of learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Nilson, L. (2016). Teaching at its best: A research-based resource for college instructors. 4th ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. O’Brien, J. G., Millis, B. J., and Cohen, M. W. (2008). The course syllabus: A learningcentered approach. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Svinicki, M., and McKeachie, W. J. (2014). McKeachie’s teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers. 14th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

4 DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION IN THE CLASSROOM

the U.S. population is increasing, requiring that social work professionals be prepared to work effectively with a wide variety of clients and communities like or unlike themselves. Diversity within higher education is increasing as well, although more slowly. In their social work courses, teachers encounter diversity among their students in ethnicity, culture, language, national origin, and religion; age, life experience, and class background; sexual and gender identity; abilities and disability status; nationality and immigration status; and many other characteristics. Efforts to lessen marginalization and enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion affect all aspects of teaching and learning, which affects who students are, who teachers are, and the content of the curriculum—explicit and implicit. In many sections of this chapter, the reader will find principles and examples on race and ethnicity and on gender identity and sexual orientation because there is more writing in the social work education literature about those specific dimensions of diversity than others. Some information is also provided on disability, first-generation students, and international and immigrant students. The purpose of this chapter is to inform the reader about selected diversity issues as they affect the processes of teaching and learning in social work (see box 4.1). The question of what curriculum content to include is often specific to a program’s location and the populations served by the agencies used for field instruction. Therefore, with the exception of a brief section on general versus specific approaches to diversity content, this chapter will focus instead on diversity issues as they can affect teaching and learning processes in the classroom. It should be noted, however, that having course content produced by BIPOC scholars, including knowledge about BIPOC people and communities, and including the histories and

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BOX 4.1 SELF-DISCLOSURE

In the spirit of self-examination and so that readers will know the standpoint from which I write, my own understanding of dealing with diversity issues in social work education is affected by my identities as an old, white woman, a feminist, a lesbian, and a first-generation U.S. citizen. I was raised in a white, middle-class, suburban environment. I am also the child of European immigrants, one of whom was a Jew who fled the Nazis. Throughout my life, I have benefited from white privilege and systems of white supremacy in many more ways than I am aware of. In striving to improve my own teaching, especially in the areas of race, culture, and ethnicity, I have been aided by antiracist and other diversity training I have had at various stages in my social work education career, by formal faculty development experiences, by informal conversations with faculty colleagues, and most of all by the generosity of countless students who have shared their personal experiences with me and who have offered candid and thoughtful feedback in the classroom and elsewhere. Feminist consciousness raising and scholarly work in feminism and on LGBT issues have provided some intellectual tools that also help. In teaching and learning about diversity, all should consider the personal standpoints from which they experience and understand issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

structures of oppression in the United States are essential to ensure that BIPOC students feel included in the educational experience. Becoming effective in addressing diversity issues requires of each teacher an ongoing individualized project of self-reflection and growth for which no road map exists. It may also turn out to involve unanticipated projects of organizational change. Increasing diversity in society has an impact on all elements of teaching and learning, including: Q Q Q Q Q

Q Q

Who the students are Who the teachers are What the subject matter is What the attitudes and beliefs of students and instructors are Who the internship agencies serve, who staffs them, and the organizational culture of field-internship sites What the makeup and organizational culture of the educational institution is What the needs and requirements of the profession are

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Each of these, of course, has a recursive effect on all the others, and when one element changes, the others will be affected too. In addition, all are affected by the changes and unresolved tensions in society. However, some believe that there is an “illusion of inclusion” in social work programs, especially in some predominantly white institutions (PWIs), “in which the curriculum, the personnel, and students reflect some level of diversity, but the organization itself is not transformed” (Roberts and Smith 2002, 196). Many dimensions of human identity can be incorporated under the term diversity, but, as Roberts and Smith note, “a definition which includes everything is in danger of meaning nothing at all” (2002, 197). Given the social justice mission of the social work profession, the aspects of diversity most important to social work education are those addressing the needs of groups that experience marginalization and oppression within society. The ones addressed in this chapter are those that (1) are associated with oppression and discrimination and (2) have received some attention in the literature on social work education, although the degree to which each has been addressed varies greatly. These dimensions include race, ethnicity, national origin and citizenship status, language, and culture. They also include gender, sexual orientation and identity, and (dis)ability. Not every relevant dimension of human diversity can be addressed in one chapter. For example, while there has been discussion of the place of religion in social work education and how to deal with students’ differing religious beliefs, this topic will not be addressed here; the general literature on spirituality in social work should be consulted. In addition, for lack of new and supporting literature, aging faculty and issues affecting older students are not addressed; content can be found in the first edition of this book.

POPULATION DIVERSITY IN THE UNITED STATES In 2019, it was estimated that the U.S. population was composed of the following races: 60.1 percent non-Hispanic whites, 13.4 percent Black, 18.5 percent Hispanic (per U.S. Census language), 5.9 percent Asian, 1.3 percent Native Americans and Alaska Natives; 2.8 percent identifying with more than one race (U.S. Census Quick Facts, census.gov)1. Among U.S. residents under the age of five, non-Hispanic whites no longer constitute the majority (Kaiser Family Foundation 2021). The projections are that whites will no longer be the largest population group among adults in the United States by the mid-2000s; this is already true in some states and localities. The result is often spoken of as a “minority majority” nation, but there are

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significant differences between and within these racial and ethnic groups, just as there are differences among whites. In addition, the number of those identifying with more than one racial group is expected to continue to rise. As to gender, 50.8 percent of the population is female. One factor that contributes to this ratio is the longer life span of women, so that there are many more women than men among the elderly, especially the oldest old. White women still earn only 79 cents for each dollar earned by white men, but the situation is worse for women of color: for each dollar earned by white men, black women earn 62 cents, Latinas 54 cents, and Native American women 57 cents. Even among Asians in the United States, who earn more on average than whites, Asian women earn only 90 cents on the dollar compared to white men. In addition, “people living intersectional realities—such as transgender women and immigrant women—also experience the compounding negative effects of multiple biases on their earnings” (Bleiweis 2020, 2). The wealth gap is even greater: in 2015, the median wealth of single white women was $3210.00 compared to $10,150 for single white men, but it was only $200 for African American women and $100 for Latinas (Inequality Organization 2021). In most contexts, women enjoy less access to power than men. At this writing, women still constituted only 23 percent of members of the House of Representatives and 2 percent of the Senate. Women of color fare even worse, constituting only 9 percent of the total number of people in Congress. Many more gender differences in access to power and privilege can be identified. The U.S. Census does not collect data on sexual orientation (gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer) or gender expression (i.e., transgender); it does count same-sex households but thereby misses all LGBTQ+ people who are not cohabiting. It is estimated that 4.5 percent of the U.S. population identifies as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender (Conron and Goldberg 2020). This 4.5 percent translates to about 1 in 22 people. About half of LGBTQ+ people are raising children. It is estimated that 58 percent are white, 21 percent are Latinx, 12 percent are Black, and 5 percent are of more than one race. If one includes relatives and friends of LGBT people—their parents, siblings, and children—the proportion of the population that confronts LGBTQ+ issues is substantial. It is still newsworthy when an individual gay or lesbian CEO, sports figure, or elected official “comes out,” although the number is slowly increasing in politics, business, and sports. In terms of immigration, in 2018, foreign-born people comprised 14 percent of the U.S. population. Many people born in the United States identify as first-, second-, or third-generation descendants of immigrants who identify with the nation or culture of origin of their families—another

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12 percent of the population. The vast majority of immigrants (92.9 percent) arrived before 2010. In 2016, there were an estimated 11.3 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, representing 3 percent of the U.S. population; after growing for many years, this number has stabilized. It is also important to know that between 2010 and 2014, 1 in 12 children who were citizens had at least one undocumented parent (American Immigration Council 2020). With respect to disability status, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that in the civilian population, 4.1 percent of those under eighteen years of age have a disability, 10.2 percent of those ages eighteen to sixty-four have a disability, and 36.3 percent of those sixty-five and older have a disability. Among adults, 26 percent report having some type of disability: 14 percent have challenges with mobility; 10.8 percent have challenges in cognition (which includes dementias); 5.9 percent have significant hearing loss; and 4.6 percent have significant challenges with vision. Adults with disabilities are more likely to have other health problems, such as obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. Combat in the Middle East, in which U.S. armed forces have participated since the beginning of the twenty-first century, has resulted in disabilities including hearing loss, physical and mobility problems including paralysis, brain injury, and trauma-related mental health problems among service members and veterans. When you also consider the family members of those with disabilities, quite a number of people are affected by disability, and family members generally provide the majority of necessary care and assistance.

REQUIREMENTS OF THE PROFESSION While diversity in higher education has received a lot of attention of late, there are reasons why this content must be taught that rest not just in social work ethics but also in other areas essential to the growth and success of the social work profession. Social work education socializes students to identify with the profession, and they should understand what the needs of the profession are related to diversity. The commitment of the social work profession and of social work education to addressing race, ethnicity, culture, and the problem of racism has been strong in recent years, at least in stated goals and aspirations. Over the years, the National Association of Social Workers (2015) has published practice standards related to cultural competence. Since 2007, NASW has

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also called upon the social work profession to understand and work against institutional or structural racism within the profession and beyond. However, understanding racism as involving issues of power and oppression is sometimes hard for whites to accept (Hoyt 2012). Perhaps the biggest problem facing the social work profession is that the racial and ethnic diversity among social workers and social work students has not kept pace with the numbers in the population and the numbers of clients seen by social workers. However, data on recent MSW graduates suggest that the percentage of graduates of color has been increasing: 57 percent of respondents in a recent 2018 workforce study were non-Hispanic whites (George Washington University Health Workforce Center 2019); females constituted 88 percent of graduates, and a similar percentage identified as straight or heterosexual. The majority of all respondents in all practice settings and of all races were routinely providing mental health services. There is much more in this workforce report about the kinds and locations of jobs graduates held and their satisfaction with them, but the usefulness of these data is limited because the racial categories are not broken down by gender. As in many areas of social work practice and education, there is little empirical evidence on what does and does not work in culturally competent and antiracist practice and education. The prior experiences and the comfort level of white social work students with clients and fellow students of color and with race-related issues vary greatly. Aversive racism (Rodenborg and Boisen 2013) is likely to be common among white liberal students and faculty. However, recent writings in higher education on antiracist teaching describe teaching practices that are useful, and some of them are used to inform this chapter. Gender. It has long been acknowledged that the majority of adults who use social work services are women. From a biopsychosocial perspective, a person’s gender affects health risks from birth to old age, many aspects of identity and psychosocial development over the life course, schooling, family formation and family roles. employment opportunities and patterns of employment, and retirement and aging. Gender shapes how people view and can participate in group, organizational, and community life, including political activity, access to political positions and power, and engagement in social movements and social change. There are significant gender disparities in health, mental health, and substance use/abuse over the life course, as well as in longevity. Therefore, knowledge about gender issues must permeate our understanding of human behavior and the social environment, social policy, and the interventive methods used in the profession.

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Gender inequities persist within the social work profession (see, for example, Anastas 2007; Barsky et al. 2014; McPhail 2004; Whitaker, Weismiller, and Clark 2006). Women in social work practice and in social work education earn less than their male colleagues, and they are also disadvantaged on many of the factors that determine earnings and the potential for advancement in their careers. A numerical majority of women within the profession has not eliminated disadvantages for women, as men still occupy a disproportionate share of the leadership positions in both the practice and academic realms. This problem is generally not addressed in what is taught in social work programs. Gender identity. Gender identity is now understood to consist of more categories than the traditional and heteronormative use of the male/female binary. Government data and the social work literature still rely on the binary to describe people unless they are talking about those who are queer, which is why this book continues to be written in those traditional terms. Sexual orientation and gender expression. The general public in the United States has become more accepting of gays and lesbians over time, especially when questions about equal opportunity or nondiscrimination in employment and housing are asked (Avery et al. 2007; Newman, Dannenfelser, and Benishek 2002). The National Association of Social Workers continues to advocate for full rights for and affirmative practice with gay and lesbian people in the context of a heteronormative and heterosexist society (Crisp 2006; Hunter and Hickerson 2003). Childbearing and child rearing by gays and lesbians have also become more common and more widely known, with all of the attendant debates about related child welfare and family policy. As the proportion of elders in society increases, issues related to the aging of gays and lesbians are also now being addressed. Thus, it is likely that social work professionals will have to remain knowledgeable about and engaged with issues of sexual orientation and gender expression. However, problems for the social work profession remain, as in the continuing practice of conversion or reorientation therapies (see, for example Spitzer 2003) despite evidence that they are ineffective and even harmful (Jenkins and Johnston 2004; King, Smith, and Bartlett 2004; Shidlo and Schroeder 2002). While reviewing the current debates about conversion or reorientation therapies is inappropriate here, the social work profession’s position on these “treatments” is clear: they are “misleading therapies” (NASW 2001, 1) that “cannot and will not change sexual orientation” (2001, 2, emphasis in the original). The American Psychiatric Association (1999) and the American Psychological Association (1997) earlier reached the same

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conclusion and made similar statements. Even if one accepts the evidence that a very small number of people may benefit from such “treatments” (Spitzer 2003), the great majority are not helped, and many are harmed by these methods. Thus, challenges for social work practice and education lie both in what to do and teach and in what not to do or teach. Disabilities. Assisting people with disabilities and their families has also been a core concern of the social work profession since its inception. This commitment includes working in medical settings, early intervention programs, in schools with students with identified special needs, and in other service settings designed to meet people’s needs across the life span. Along with supporting the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), social workers must advocate for federal and state benefits for people with disabilities, such as those under Medicare and Medicaid, and in any new national health insurance programs that may emerge. As discussed below, there needs to be more content on disabilities in social work education to support competent practice with people with disabilities and their families.

ACCREDITATION STANDARDS One description of the needs of the social work profession with respect to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) can be found in the accreditation standards that apply to all CSWE-accredited social work education programs. These standards also use the concept of the implicit curriculum to address the general climate of each program with respect to DEI. Accreditation standards in social work (see box 4.2), as well as federal, state, and local law, require that a social work program must not function in a discriminatory fashion toward any student or group of students based on race, culture, language, or national origin. In addition, many social work programs are housed in colleges and universities that have affirmative action policies in place. Given some widely publicized court decisions, affirmative action policies have been reexamined in some contexts. However, in most places, the goals of affirmative action remain even if the ways such policies are being implemented may have been altered to conform to current legal opinion. CSWE’s list of diversities to be addressed is long: “age, class, color, culture, disability and ability, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, immigration status, marital status, political ideology, race, religion/spirituality, sex sexual orientation, and tribal sovereign status.” Intersectionality—the

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BOX 4.2 ACCREDITATION STANDARDS

The current statement on educational policy and accreditation standards from the Council on Social Work Education (2015) addresses diversity in several ways. First, under the broad category of implicit curriculum, there are accreditation standards that call for social work programs (BSW and MSW) to “provide a learning environment that models affirmation and respect for diversity and difference” (3.0.1); to show how the program “provide[s] a supportive and inclusive learning environment” (3.0.2 ); and to describe “specific plans” to continue to improve the learning environment “to affirm and support persons with diverse identities” (3.0.3). When it comes to the explicit curriculum, accreditation standards are based in a competency model. “Each competency describes the knowledge, values, skills, and cognitive and affective processes that comprise the competency” (CSWE 2015, 7). Competency 2 requires that students demonstrate that they can “engage diversity and difference in practice.”

understanding that many people identify with two or more of these dimensions of diversity—must also be addressed. One reason for social work educators to pay attention to affirming diversities in their teaching is survival—ensuring that one’s social work education program attains or retains accredited status so graduates can be eligible for licensing. The second way the 2015 accreditation standards address diversity is by including in the assessment of school climate measures of “the inclusive and supportive learning environment.” The current statement on accreditation from the Council on Social Work Education requires that programs provide “a learning context in which respect for all persons and understanding of diversity (including age, class, color, disability, ethnicity, family structure, gender, marital status, national origin, race, religion, sex, and sexual orientation) are practiced,” in a context that is “nondiscriminatory” (2015, 16). This context includes “faculty, staff and student composition; selection of agencies and their clientele as field education settings; composition of program advisory or field committees; resource allocation; program leadership; speaker series, seminars and special programs; research and other initiatives” as well as curriculum (2015, 16–17). All of these aspects of a social work program are enjoined to “model understanding of and respect for diversity” (2015, 17).

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Even when it comes to the mission and goals of a social work school or department, diversity comes up. Each school, department, and program must demonstrate that its mission and goals are compatible with CSWE’s (2015) definition of the purpose of the social work profession. This statement of purpose includes the phrases “respect for human diversity” and “a global perspective.” Although accreditation standards must be revised every seven years, the specifics in the standards may change but core issues like diversity, equity and inclusion will remain.

DIVERSITIES AMONG SOCIAL WORK STUDENTS Race and ethnicity. Nationally, in 2019, close to 59,000 students were enrolled in BSW programs (CSWE 2020). There have been many efforts in recent decades to recruit, admit, and retain students from traditionally underrepresented races2 at both undergraduate and graduate levels in social work education. The 2018 CSWE data show that white students comprised 49 percent of enrolled junior and senior undergraduate social work students. About 23 percent identified as Black or African American; 17 percent as Hispanic or Latinax; 1.5 percent as Native American/Pacific Islander, and 2.2 percent as Asian (CSWE 2019). Most BSW students (74 percent) were enrolled in predominantly white institutions (PWIs). There is some indication that retention through graduation may be an issue for Black students: Among BSW graduates in 2018, 50 percent were white, 20 percent were African American, 18 percent were from various Hispanic groups, and 2.1 percent were Asian.3 In 2018, more than 68,000 students were enrolled in MSW programs (CSWE 2019). Non-Hispanic white students comprised 50 percent those enrolled. The rest were Black or African American (20 percent), Latinx/ Hispanic (16 percent), Asian (3.2 percent), and Native American or Pacific Islander (1.2 percent). Most MSW students (78 percent) were enrolled in predominantly white institutions (PWIs). As to reported race and ethnicity among MSW graduates in 2018, 53 percent were white, 16 percent were African American or Black, 16 percent were Hispanic, 2.6 percent were Asian American or Asian, and less than 2.6 percent were Native American or Pacific Islander. It is easy to see that Asian and Hispanic and Latinx people are underrepresented in social work education. As an example of the ongoing challenges in this area, Hendricks (2003) documented the pervasiveness of the problem of recruiting Latinos to social work programs in New York despite the acute

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need for social workers to serve the growing Hispanic4 population in New York City and its surrounding areas. As in higher education generally, the number of students of color in baccalaureate and master’s programs in social work depends at least in part on the “pipeline” of high school graduates. In the United States, this poses a special problem for Spanish-speaking students as school graduation rates are lower for them nationally than for other groups. In addition, at the college level, attrition rates are higher for BIPOPC students than for white students for reasons that are complex and poorly understood. In addition, the majority of social work students are enrolled in PWIs, where comfort levels for BIPOC students may be lower. Despite the challenges that many students from traditionally underrepresented groups may face in obtaining the schooling they desire, it is likely that their numbers will increase in social work programs over time as they increase proportionally in the U.S. population s a whole. However, the concern is that the diversity of the populations served in social work agencies is increasing faster than it is among undergraduate and graduate social work students. For this reason, many social work programs make specific efforts to recruit racially and ethnically diverse students, including those who can speak languages other than English, often with a focus on the races and ethnicities in their geographic areas. Although not yet studied among social work students, implicit bias is common among whites, including college students (Staats 2015–16). So is aversive racism (Rosenborg and Boisen 2013). Many accounts of difficult conversations about race or difficulties in teaching about race in diversity courses suggest that one common reaction among white students is white fragility (DiAngelo 2018). There has not been much empirical study of social work students’ attitudes on race and ethnicity, but more specific information about these attitudes is given below. Gender. Male social work students experience being in a numerical minority at both BSW and MSW levels. In 2018, men constituted 12.4 percent of enrolled BSW students and 13.3 percent of enrolled MSW students. These enrollment proportions are close to that within the practice world, but note that men in social work earn more and are more likely to be promoted in administrative roles than women, a phenomenon common in female-dominated professions, sometimes called the “glass escalator.” One indicator of this is the proportion of males in PhD programs, which is about 25 percent, almost twice what it is in MSW programs (it was 17 percent in DSW programs; CSWE 2019).

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Many areas of diversity are not counted in CSWE’s annual statistics, including disability, (im)migration status, and international students. It is likely that the numbers of international students have been increasing, as they have in U.S. higher education generally. The sexual orientation and gender expression of social work students are also not tabulated, although there is now the option to describe a student’s gender as “other”; this was 0 percent among BSW students and 0.1 percent among MSW students (CSWE 2019). Without federal civil rights and universal state-level protections, there is great reluctance to ask students (and other social work professionals) to report this information and for social work programs to collect it. Anecdotally, it is believed that LGBTQ+ students are present in some numbers in many departments and schools of social work. Social workers’ and social work students’ attitudes toward gay, lesbian, and bisexual people have been studied since the mid-1980s, and at least some social workers and some social work students report homophobic or heterosexist attitudes (a good review of earlier findings is presented in Brownlee et al. 2005). A large-scale study of first-year graduate students in social work and counseling found that only small numbers of students in the two disciplines (6.5 percent) expressed negative attitudes on the self-report scale (Newman, Dannenfelser, and Benishek 2002, 278). This percentage translates to 1 in 16 students. Self-reported sexual orientation and religious identity were the two strongest predictors of variance in attitudes, with conservative Protestants expressing the most negative attitudes and gay, lesbian, or bisexual respondents expressing more positive attitudes than heterosexuals. Some of the items on which homonegative attitudes most often appeared concerned adoption by gay men, male homosexuality as a “natural expression” of human sexuality that should not be condemned, and female homosexuality being a sin. Similarly, Cluse-Tolar and associates (2004) found that undergraduate social work students had more positive attitudes than other undergraduate students did. However, some social work students expressed negative attitudes that, depending on the specific item, ranged from 2 percent (not “willing to accept a job with gay or lesbian customers”) to 27 percent (“I feel that homosexuality is wrong”) and 33 percent (“I would be uncomfortable with a gay or lesbian roommate”). Gender, political party affiliation, and religiosity were correlated with views of gay and lesbian people, willingness to socialize with them, and support for rights for gays and lesbians. The challenge in working with students’ attitudes about sexual orientation and gender expression is therefore likely to be in helping the minority of social work students with negative attitudes

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to differentiate between their personal, often religiously based, beliefs and convictions and the professional stance required for ethical professional practice. Brownlee and associates (2005) reported similar findings among Canadian students. Attitudes toward transgender students and others who present in gender-nonconforming ways are often more negative than toward other LGBTQ+ people. Teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity may generate tensions based in differing student attitudes. Students with disabilities. Because of the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) and related legislation, there are particular responsibilities that colleges and universities, all social work departments and schools, faculty members, and students with disabilities must meet. Every educational setting must be “handicapped accessible,” so that those with mobility limitations can be physically present in the space. In addition, any student with a documented disability of any kind must be provided with “reasonable accommodation.” This responsibility applies to the setting for field internships as well. Campuses generally have centers for students with disabilities; students who are requesting accommodation have the responsibility to register with that center, where the specific needs of each student are evaluated. Accommodations recommended by the center are then confidentially communicated to responsible department or school personnel as well as to a student’s instructors, and these recommendations must be implemented. Arrangements for meeting the costs of these accommodations are handled differently on different campuses, with funding coming from the college or university level (as when they are paid for by the disability center), from the department or school, or some combination of the two. I mention the money because knowing who is covering the costs of accommodations can help in advocating for a student whose needs are not being met. In terms of the classroom, there may be deaf or hard-of-hearing students in the group, along with the signers or transcribers who assist them, or a teacher may be asked to wear a dedicated microphone transmitting directly to the student. There may be students whose vision limitations do not allow them to use the usual course materials or who travel with a trained dog to assist them. Other technologies are also available for blind students. Depending on the level of functioning of students with a mobility challenge, they may use a wheelchair or another device, such as a walker, cane, cart, or crutch. Students with paralysis or brain injury may require a personal assistant to be with them at all times in order for them be part of class activities. There may also be people who have a service animal always with them. In some cases, the arrangement may be obvious, as when a blind student uses a guide dog, but anyone who brings a service animal into the

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school setting should be able to produce documentation that their companion animal is registered as such. Aside from the types of disability just discussed, chronic and severe illnesses are also covered under the ADA. Many of these are invisible but must be accommodated if the student is known to the disability center. For students with a documented learning disability, accommodations may include extra time to complete examinations or paper requirements. For those with mental illness, accommodations may be similar and may include arrangements for absences when intensive treatment is needed. Applicants to a social work program must by law be evaluated for admission on the same basis as other applicants if there is reason to believe that the student will be able to meet its requirements and if providing the necessary accommodations will not impose an “undue hardship” on the program. However, it does not seem that any programs actively recruit applicants with disabilities (with the exception Gallaudet University serving the Deaf community), and the number of students with known disabilities enrolled in social work programs seems to be low (Pardeck 2003). Pardeck’s small-scale study found that a variety of accommodations were offered to students with disabilities, although their right to these was not always well publicized. I vividly remember the first time I had a Deaf student in class who, in addition to signing, had the ability to read lips, and how hard it was to remember not to speak to the class while my back was turned to write on the blackboard. However, making this adjustment actually benefited all students. I wrote on the board more judiciously and even in advance of class, a recommended teaching method, and I was probably more audible to all when I spoke facing the class. This illustrates why many people embrace the concept of universal design, because the adaptations that help those with disabilities are often enhancements of general benefit to all. For example, I personally appreciate the ramps and curb cuts for wheelchairs when I use a briefcase on wheels to carry a heavy load of books and papers to and from my office. To ensure that students know that help is available, it is recommended that teachers and programs make universal and repeated announcements about students’ rights to reasonable accommodation, as well as about the procedures needed to document a disability and to obtain suitable help (Cole and Cain,1996). Individual teachers are encouraged to work with campus experts in disability services, who have the knowledge and experience needed to determine the accommodations that might work best and who can also support an instructor or a program in adhering to those requirements that truly must be met by all students, whether or not they

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have a documented disability, because they are essential to the program and to the qualifications needed to function as a social worker. Another faculty survey found that most social work programs encounter students with psychiatric disabilities, although their strategies for addressing the problem varied (GlenMaye and Bolin 2007). Students with psychiatric disabilities can encounter performance problems both in the classroom and in the field practicum (Mazza 2015). Concerns were expressed about interactions with clients (and supervisors) in the practicum and about behavior in the classroom (and with teachers). Those who had experienced such problems reported that the most common methods of addressing concerns involved individual conversations with the student or with the student and an advocate (perhaps someone from the campus disability service). This survey addressed issues involving students who disclosed such a disability and who sought accommodation from the social work program to support their learning. However, there is often reluctance to disclose a psychiatric or learning disability (Cole and Cain 1996), which hampers a program in providing accommodation that would help. Mazza’s more recent qualitative study found that faculty members and field supervisors often experienced difficulty knowing how to proceed when a student is suspected of having a psychiatric disability or other emotional problems (2015a, 2015b). Many recommended speaking to a student who was chronically late to class or to the agency, who missed classes or was frequently absent from the internship, or whose work showed great inconsistency in quality. Discussing the situation one-on-one was considered the best first step in addressing such a problem, although the process of doing so was difficult. However, when a psychiatric, emotional, or behavioral problem results in attendance problems, failing grades, or unsafe practices with a client, gatekeeping procedures are needed to make a plan for improved performance. Faculty members who participated in this study were quite willing to encourage the student seek help from the campus disability center, but many did not think that the usual accommodations offered were adequate to address the problem. However, as the recovery movement reminds us, most students with a disability, including a psychiatric one, succeed in both the academic and professional setting.

INTERNATIONAL AND IMMIGRANT STUDENTS Except for nationality, these two groups are quite different from each other in terms of challenges and needs. Immigrant students and their families

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may have left their previous countries of residence, voluntarily or not. Even those who arrived voluntarily usually face challenges in adapting to life in the United States, including perhaps learning a new language and the separation from family members, friends, and familiar ways of life “back home.” Also among new arrivals are refugees and asylum seekers, meaning that they are seeking to stay in the United States because of documented problems, either general (refugees) or personal (asylees), where they lived previously. Their visa statuses are then based in different systems. International students often come from countries whose social welfare systems are very different from those in the United States or whose nations are only now developing systems like those in wealthy nations. It is important that a social work department or school consider how best to orient international students to the social welfare system and service delivery systems that they will be studying and in which they will be having their field-internship experiences. Any student, international or not, who is fluent in a language such as Spanish, Mandarin, or many others will be in great demand by U.S. agencies who serve people who speak those languages. Students’ professional goals must be considered when deciding about placements in such specialized settings or in “mainstream” social agencies. Being “undocumented” or “unauthorized,” meaning without a valid visa, creates many problems for students. They (or their family members if a parent is undocumented) are at risk of deportation. They and their families may also lack access to the formal labor market. This situation creates stress and financial strain, including those related to financing their higher education. Since the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, federal law has required that institutions of higher education closely monitor the visa and work status of international students. International students (those on student visas) are limited in the hours they can work and the nature of that employment (it must be education-related). They are also excluded from any government financial aid, which of course contributes to financial strain. Whether immigrants or born in the United States, students for whom English is a second language (ESL) often face difficulties in speaking without accents that are hard for others to understand as well as in writing skills. Any school or campus resources for such students should be recommended to them. A social work faculty should consider how writing issues for ESL students should be addressed in reading and grading their work; the challenge of handling such situations should not fall only on the individual instructor. There may be more resources available in larger school and university settings than in smaller ones. New York University, which has a

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large number of international students in all of its schools, has a center for international students where, among other resources, weekly conversational groups are available for students to practice speaking English together. Campus writing centers are usually quite experienced in working with ESL students. However, with growing numbers of international students on all campuses, social work programs may find that there are not enough of these resources to meet all students’ needs.

DIVERSITIES AMONG SOCIAL WORK FACULTY Just as there are fewer students from traditionally underrepresented groups enrolled in social work programs than is desirable, there are also fewer faculty members from these groups than is needed. In fall 2018, there were more than 5,600 full-time social work faculty members—about 58 percent employed in MSW programs, 37 percent in BSW programs, and 28 percent in doctoral programs only. The majority (73 percent) were female and 28 percent male. Previous research has shown that women are more likely to be at lower ranks and in pre-tenure or non-tenure-bearing positions (Sakamoto et al. 2006: Tower et al. 2018). Among full-time faculty, 61 percent were white, 18 percent were Black or African American, about 7 percent were Asian, and another 8 percent Hispanic/Latinx. Hispanic/ Latinx faculty members are clearly underrepresented compared to students. Those counted as full-time faculty (15 percent) were not in tenured or tenure-track positions; 42 percent were tenured (CSWE 2020). In addition, there were more than 7,800 part-time faculty members in the programs reporting data to the Council on Social Work Education (2020)—58 percent nonHispanic whites, 17 percent African American or Black, 8 percent Hispanic or Latinx, and 2.4 percent Asian. A majority of them were female (68 percent). It is essential, however, to distinguish between who faculty members are and what all faculty members must know and be able to teach. The widespread demand for faculty who know about cultural competence and diversity issues has been reflected in job advertisements for social work faculty (Anastas 2006; Barsky et al. 2014). Ongoing faculty development efforts are also needed to enhance the skills and confidence levels of faculty in this area. “The power relationships that structure social life do not stop at the classroom door” (Brown, Cervero, and Johnson-Bailey 2000, 273), and this affects teachers as well as learners. Teachers of color often find their credibility, authority, and expertise challenged by students, and they must

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develop strategies—from the use of humor to finding ways to defuse tension and exert control in a nonconfrontational manner—to establish themselves as effective instructors. Roberts and Smith report that African American faculty members worry about the terms that may be used to identify them, are concerned about how they dress or wear their hair, and experience various forms of invisibility and discounting of their theories, opinions, and/ or expertise (2002, 201–203). In addition, they often find themselves sought out by students of color for mentoring and support as well as being called upon for heavy amounts of committee and other service work because of who they are. As a result, they often face extra responsibilities on the job and heavier workloads than their white colleagues (June 2015). Students of color may choose one kind of setting or another in which to pursue their social work degrees and will likely experience different levels of comfort in these different settings. Being one of the few among many will affect the educational experience in many ways. For example, as one of a few in a PWI, a student may feel called upon to speak for the group in the classroom, in the internship agency, and in many other areas within the setting. Organized student groups and/or assigned faculty mentors are common methods programs use to reduce the sense of isolation that students may feel and to provide social and emotional support.

RACE AND ETHNICITY CSWE accreditation standards require that schools and departments of social work operate without discrimination based on race, ethnicity, or national origin. One simple way of assessing equity is to examine whether BIPOC students have equal access to admissions and financial aid. Also important are graduation rates for students and how BIPOC faculty are doing with respect to rank, tenure, promotion and compensation. How students and faculty of color perceive the climate of the program should also be examined. BIPOC students may feel that they and their communities are invisible in the curriculum. For example, courses on diversity, equity and inclusion are generally focused on white students, and the experiences of BIPOC students in them has apparently not often been studied in social work (See Curtis-Bowles and Bourge 2010 for a such a study in another context). A program’s curriculum should also be examined for its inclusion of historical and present information about the oppression of BIPOC, which has been

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found to affect racial attitudes among students (Davis 2019). In terms of student support and student government, the availability of affinity groups should also be assessed. In addition, are BIPOC represented in both faculty and student leadership positions?

GENDER CSWE accreditation standards also require that schools and departments of social work operate without discrimination against women. As with race and ethnicity, this mandate is usually evaluated by examining gender differences with respect to admissions, financial aid, and/or graduation rates for students, and promotion, rank, tenure status, and compensation with respect to faculty. Issues for staff and “softer” employment data, like working conditions for faculty, are less frequently considered. Another indicator of sensitivity to gender is the presence and publication of sexual harassment policies to protect students and faculty on campus and in the field. There is still a problem with gender in higher education generally—that is, a continuing underrepresentation of women at the highest levels of faculty rank, seniority, and within academic administration (Petchers 1996; Sakamoto et al. 2008).

SEXUAL ORIENTATION AND GENDER IDENTITY Although the profession’s ethics and policy statements are unambiguous, there may not be as clear a consensus on the importance of nondiscrimination policies with respect to sexual orientation as might appear (Van Soest 1996). In fact, a study of social work textbooks not only documented lack of inclusion of material on gays and lesbians but also found that about onefifth of the texts studied presented the content with negative connotations (Morrow 1996). In a study of homophobic and transphobic microaggressions in social work classrooms, one was the absence of content on diverse genders and sexualities in courses (Byers et al. 2020). Challenges for social work education lie both in what to teach, especially with respect to inclusion, and what not to teach. Through student government, many schools and departments of social work have voluntary organizations for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and/or queer-identified students and their allies. In these groups, students

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can provide social support to each other as well identify any concerns about curriculum content (or its absence), field-internship experiences (positive and negative), or other aspects of school or campus life related to sexual orientation and gender expression. Many self-identified gay and lesbian students have experienced sexual orientation issues in their field-placement experiences (Messinger 2004). They report facing individual issues, such as wanting more advice and support in managing the disclosure of sexual orientation to colleagues and/or clients or in dealing with the pressures of hiding it. They also report encountering heterosexism and/or homophobia from staff and even in agency policy; while some agencies were characterized as “gay friendly,” others were described as “gay tolerant” or even “gay ignorant.” Problems can be especially acute in some religiously affiliated agencies. Every department or school of social work must examine its field-placement settings with a sexual orientation lens to ensure not only that LGBT students are not placed in intolerable situations but that all students are afforded gay-affirming education in the practice setting.

STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES Passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990 has had far-reaching effects on higher education. The law mandates reasonable accommodation of students with disabilities in all educational programs in order to give them a meaningful opportunity to “perform the essential functions and/or requirements of the program” in which they are enrolled (Cole and Cain 1996, 343). However, such requirements may not simply be traditional; they must be essential to the curriculum and to the education needed for professional practice. Since passage of the ADA, the number of students with identified disabilities enrolled in higher education has been increasing. The greatest increase has been students with so-called invisible disabilities, including learning and psychiatric challenges (GlenMaye and Bolin 2007; Mazza 2015a). Other conditions that may require accommodation include vision and hearing impairments, speech and communication problems, mobility limitations, and chronic health problems that might require periodic or ongoing monitoring, medication, or limitation of some activities or exposure to certain environments. What the various applicable laws require of institutions of higher education is well understood in some areas but not in others (GlenMaye and

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Bolin 2007; Gordon et al. 2002; Thomas 2000). These requirements are also subject to continuing interpretation through case law. It is unrealistic to expect that every faculty member will be knowledgeable about all disabilities, all available assistive technologies and possible accommodations, and evolving law. Therefore, it is best to rely on college- or university-based experts, usually based in a center for students with identified disabilities, for advice on implementing nondiscriminatory procedures, for the determination of an individual’s disability status, and for recommendations for reasonable accommodation. This practice also helps safeguard a student’s privacy with respect to details about their disability. The most important organizational factor, then, is likely to be the existence and effectiveness of campus-based centers for disabled students. Student (and employee) health and mental health services, accessibility arrangements on campus and in the community, and state and local benefits available for people with disabilities also play a role. Inclusion of people identifying as having a disability is one thing, but knowledge and recognition of disability culture is another (Dupré 2012) is another. This anti-assimilationist idea includes critique of the structures and attitudes that influence the lives and perceptions of people with disabilities and objects to the stereotypes of deviance and inferiority. It is not just content on disability that is needed; we also need critiques of the standard ways of understanding disability that marginalize and denigrate people with disabilities.

FIRST GENERATION STUDENTS Another group of students at risk in higher education are those called “firstgen” students, meaning they are the first in their families to attend college. One study of first-gen students in a baccalaureate social work program found that they had academic success equal to that of others, which has not been the case in other studies (Hodges 2000). The first-gen students in this setting were older, male, Latinx, and had one or more parents who were undocumented. Although social work has tended to be a profession of upward class mobility, we do not know how many social work students are first-gen or what is needed to help them thrive. Although first-gen students can be of any race or ethnicity, at least at this time, BIPOC students may be more likely to be the first in their families to earn baccalaureate or graduate degrees.

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ORGANIZATIONAL AND INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT Social work education has been university-based for nearly one hundred years in the United States, and some social work programs are housed in colleges and universities even older than that. Old or new, educational institutions, like all complex organizations, have histories and cultures that affect their climates and current practices. This happens overtly, through mission statements and organizational structures, and also subtly in unwritten organizational norms and cultures. Campus climate. Starting in the 1990s, institutions of higher education began to examine the general atmosphere in their institutions and to develop instruments, usually surveys, to measure it. While a variety of factors supportive of student learning and growth are usually assessed, much of this climate assessment is focused on students of color because they tend to feel less of a sense of belonging in most institutions of higher education. When EPAS standards began to address the implicit curriculum, people used climate surveys to assess it. Grady and associates (2011) developed a comprehensive measure of the implicit curriculum, which is related to the climate of a program, at their school of social work. Students were asked to rate their satisfaction with advisement, teaching, and the general atmosphere at the school. They also answered questions about diversity, specifically about race and ethnicity, which allowed comparison of comfort levels expressed by white, Black, and other groups of students. Most students (68 percent) were female. Among the students surveyed, 58 percent identified as white, 17 percent as Black or African American, 8 percent as Hispanic or Latinx, and 2 percent as Asian. Since the sample was drawn from a PWI, not surprisingly whites rated the climate as more positive than others. If they are not already doing so, social work programs should consider regular assessment of their climates to identify where actions to enhance equity and inclusion are most urgently needed. Using the same instrument, Peterson and associates (2014) found that students differed in their ratings of the climate in the classroom and in the field setting, meaning that it could be high or low on one or the other or both. Race. Some colleges and universities with social work programs have missions specifically directed toward the education of people from traditionally underrepresented groups. However, most are historically and traditionally white, the oldest ones sometimes with a history of segregation or even a legacy of having been built with the wealth generated by slavery or with slave labor. Some of these institutions are more engaged with equity and inclusion

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for students of color than others; sometimes their departments and schools of social work are called upon to help in such efforts because social justice is an emphasis in the profession. Efforts to enhance equity and inclusion should also include staff, but the emphasis here is on students and faculty. Saunders, Haskins, and Vasquez reported on a multiyear effort to “develop a more culturally competent organization (its environment, faculty and students)” (2015, 19). This project later expanded to encompass the larger college and the university in which the program was housed. Oddly, the article never defined cultural competence, even while saying that defining the concept was an important stage in the process. The important point here is that one can only go so far in making changes within a program without addressing its organizational context. Like all social work students, students of color relate to two organizational settings: the college, university, and program; and the field placement agencies. A student who identifies with any racial group may experience problems in the agency setting; in one instance, a study in Australia found that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students experienced many forms of racism during field learning (Gair et al. 2015).

GENDER CSWE accreditation standards require that schools and departments of social work operate without discrimination against women. This mandate is usually evaluated by examining gender differences with respect to admissions, financial aid, and/or graduation rates for students, and promotion, rank, tenure status, and compensation with respect to faculty. Issues for staff and “softer” employment data, like working conditions for faculty, are less frequently considered. Another indicator of sensitivity to gender is the presence and publication of sexual harassment policies to protect students and faculty on campus and in the field. There is still a problem with gender in higher education generally—that is, a continuing underrepresentation of women at the highest levels of faculty rank and seniority and within academic administration (Petchers 1996; Sakamoto et al. 2008). Similarly, Tower, Faul, Chiarelli-Helminiak, and Hodge (2019) found gender disparities in age, rank, base and total salary, and length of time as faculty members, all favoring men. Women also rated the climates of their universities as less positive than men did, both overall and on specific items addressing aspects of gender discrimination.

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Social work education, except at the doctoral level, is not aimed specifically at producing future academics. Although specific effects of male dominance in academic leadership on the performance of female students and faculty in social work have not been studied (Holley and Young 2005), it is likely that students derive meaning from the absence of women in leadership in ways that make it hard for them to reach their full potential.

LGBTQ+ PEOPLE The challenges gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students may face go far beyond the social work program’s context (Cramer, 2002). For those who live in college or university residences, there can be concerns about comfort and safety in everyday living. Because of the prevalence of violence against gay, lesbian, bisexual and “trans” individuals, many campuses have been establishing “safe zones” and ways to identify “allies” (Draughn, Elkins and Roy, 2002). Ongoing training and support of residence advisors and of participants in campus-wide safety and support programs is likely necessary. Both campus-wide educational events and the inclusion of curriculum content on LGBTQ+ issues in the curriculum (in queer studies, gender studies programs and elsewhere) convey a message that the people and the concerns are important to the college community as a whole. How gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender social work students feel in the social work classroom can depend a lot on what is and is not done to address their concerns on the campus as a whole. In addition, LGBTQ+ faculty members in social work do not always feel safe or empowered to disclose their identities in the classroom and elsewhere in the work environment (Prock et al. 2019). Those interviewed described the risks, rewards, and responsibilities related to coming out. Risks included fear about safety and experiences of exclusion; rewards included authenticity and new connections; and responsibilities included promoting diversity, supporting others, and modeling social work values (2019, 189). Finally, colleges and universities vary greatly in how affirming they are of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in all roles on campus (Sears, 2002). In addition, basic civil rights protections for LGBT people are only available in a relatively few states and localities (National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 2014). For a long time all LGBTQ+ relationships were only recognized as “domestic partnerships” in some states, but in 2015 the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage must be recognized by ALL

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states, legalizing it. However, it has not yet proven possible to enact federal legislation narrowly focused on ending workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation (ENDA), although equal rights for gays and lesbians in the workplace has widespread support in the U.S. population. Civil rights and other legal protections are only the beginning of ensuring social equity for oppressed groups. It must be remembered that students, faculty and all social work professionals are dealing with diversity in sexual orientation and gender expression in a legal context that does not provide the same supportive legal framework—civil rights—that exists for addressing other aspects of diversity.

DISABILITY The responsibility for making social work programs accessible to students (and others) with disabilities lies mostly at the level of the college or university. If changes to the architecture are needed to provide access to those with mobility issues, this kind of expenditure comes out of the capital budget. Centers for students with disabilities serve all departments and schools, and it requires money for these centers to provide sufficient high-quality service, but this funding is not the sole responsibility of the social work department or school. Library funding may also support access to materials for those who are deaf or visually impaired. Along with adequate curriculum content, it is the responsibility of a social work program to foster a culture of inclusion for students, staff, and faculty with disabilities. Finally, it may be social work students and faculty who advocate for increased services and funding on campus if they are not adequate.

THEORIES, CONCEPTS, AND DEFINITIONS In social work, the goals for diversity education are stated in different ways. When teaching about diversity, it is important to identify the core concepts that will inform learning goals and the content of a diversity course or infused course content. When beginning to teach in a new setting, the existing orientation to student learning in this area must also be identified. However, it is sometimes useful to introduce students to more than one approach to diversity content and how these approaches can be used in practice. I do this in my doctoral-level seminar on teaching because doctoral students do not yet know where their full-time faculty work will take place.

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The most common framework for addressing diversity in social work education has been the concept of cultural competence. Kohli, Huber, and Faul define cultural competence as the ability of professionals to function successfully with people from different cultural backgrounds, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, culture, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, physical or mental ability, age, and national origin. . . . This involves awareness of one’s own biases or prejudices and is rooted in respect, validation, and openness to differences among people. [It] begins with an awareness of one’s own cultural beliefs and practices, and the recognition that others believe in different truths/ realities. (2010, 257)

This language suggests that people who differ from one another (in this case, social workers and the people they serve or social work educators and their students) need to learn about those who are different from themselves to make communication and interaction as affirming as possible. Achieving some degree of cultural competence is seen as a challenge for white or other less oppressed social workers (e.g., white, able-bodied, U.S. citizens) when relating to service users or students who differ from them on some dimension of diversity. According to Garran and Werkmeister Rozas, “cultural competence has concerned itself with the accumulation of information about the particular norms, behaviors, and practices that exist within a particular social group” (2013, 100). This practice is designed to increase social workers’ sensitivity to clients with social identities that differ from their own. Garran and Werkmeister Rozas also note that few faculty members get the support they may need to address diversity issues adequately. The term cultural competence is also used as a goal for service delivery organizations, as in the NASW standards. Other organizational assessment tools have also been developed using this construct. Krentzman (2006) has analyzed a range of measures of cultural competence used in social work and related professions for their content and possible use in social work education and recommends developing a measure of it based on NASW’s practice standards in this area. People of color are often considered to have a “double consciousness” (DuBois 1903/2014), meaning that they have knowledge of their own group culture but also of white culture, which they need for survival in a white-dominant, or white supremacist, culture. Students of color also need to be educated about the specific challenges they may face as students and

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then in professional life so that they can prepare themselves for how they will respond. Some use the term cultural sensitivity as an alternative to cultural competence. This term implies that diversities, visible or not, must be recognized and valued. Without cultural sensitivity, a social worker may not recognize how gender, disability, or citizenship status is affecting a client or family. Being culturally sensitive is considered necessary for effective helping relationships. Multiculturalism is another way that teaching and learning efforts to address diversity, oppression, and privilege in social work have been characterized. Daniel (2011) defines multicultural education as including understanding and valuing one’s own and others’ cultural heritages, understanding the oppressions that are frequently experienced by those from nondominant cultural groups, recognizing the privileges (McIntosh 1988) that dominant groups in society enjoy, and developing practice skills that address these. Helpful as they are, concepts like multiculturalism, cultural sensitivity, and cultural competence are addressed to professional functioning within a racially and culturally diverse but white supremacist society. Some use the term white supremacist to apply only to those who engage in hate speech and violence directed at BIPOC, unlikely to be found among social work students or educators. Others, like myself, use the term more broadly to categorize the racial dynamics in society as a whole, especially when it comes to the many forms of structural racism embedded in a society whose arrangements have always benefited white people socially and economically at the expense of people of color. The terms cultural sensitivity, cultural competence, and multiculturalism describe processes that improve cross-racial interactions. These concepts all suggest that a social work professional should have knowledge about the problems people face because of structural and social inequalities. However, they do not, by definition, incorporate a mandate for change in unjust social arrangements. In health and public health, the term cultural humility is often used (Fisher-Borne, Cain, and Martin 2015). Given the many diverse groups in our society, this perspective suggests that no professional will be able to know enough about all of them to be considered “competent” in their understanding. The goal instead is to be humble in the face of this lack of knowledge while encouraging those receiving services to be the experts about what they most need or what they need the helping professional to understand about them. It requires (self-)reflection on the power imbalance

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between helping professionals and the people they serve. It also frames learning about diverse races and cultures as a lifelong process rather than a competence that can be achieved. In contrast to cultural competence, cultural humility also insists that not only individuals and families but also organizations and communities be addressed. The commitment is to address organizational and societal injustices, working toward making changes in the systems of oppression that are part of the context of education and of practice. Critical theories addressing issues of race (critical race theory), gender (feminism), gender identity and sexual expression (queer theory), and disability (critical disability theory) are aimed at identifying interpersonal, social, cultural, and political mechanisms that support inequality, marginalization, or exclusion in order to change them. Critical race theory (CRT) in particular is making its way into social work education (Abrams and Moio 2009; Ortiz and Jani 2010). Ortiz and Jani emphasize that the assumptions behind CRT are that race is a social construction that has profound effects on all aspects of life. Kendi (2019) asserts that the concept of race was developed specifically to justify race-based oppression. The basic tenets of the theory are described a bit differently in different sources. Abrams and Moio list six: that race is a social construction; that racism is an “ordinary everyday occurrence for people of color”; that different racialization is applied to different nondominant groups; that the majority race enjoys “material and psychic” advantages; that history silences and marginalizes the voices of people of color; and that there is variation in how race-based oppressions are experienced in different groups of people of color (the “intersectionality of various oppressions”). Critical race theory also involves questioning whiteness and its privileges (Hurtado 2019). Social work practice and education using CRT differs from that based in concepts like cultural competence—long the most common approach taken in social work education—because of a social justice orientation that calls for action to dismantle systems and structures that lead to race-based oppression. Koviloski and associates (2014) mention disproportionality in the child welfare system and racial disparities in access to mental health care as areas of social work interest that may be understood best using CRT. In another example, critical disability theory changes the perspective on people with disabilities in important ways. The dominant Western framework for understanding and working with people with disabilities reflects the medical model, which holds that differences in functioning should be

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remediated for each person as much as possible. Critical disability theory, by contrast, holds that negative social attitudes as well as marginalizing and exclusionary physical and social arrangements explain much of the difficulty that people with disabilities experience (Dupré 2012). Current thinking about disabilities holds that both the functional and structural aspects of the disability and ableism must be addressed, as expressed in the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities first promulgated in 2006.5 Antioppressive ideas are frameworks that explicitly call for social work practices aimed at identifying and changing oppressive conditions affecting diverse individuals and communities (Sakamoto and Pitner 2005). In the English-speaking world, models of antioppressive practice have been more widely embraced in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada than in the United States. The literature on antioppressive practices is vast and is mostly addressed to social work practice, rather than social work education, except as a content area needed in the practice curriculum for social work to fulfill its social justice aims. Racism itself is a complex and contested term (Hoyt 2012; Kendi 2019). All agree that it can be manifested at individual (personal) levels and at structural levels, as it is related to power and powerlessness and to oppression. One subtle form it can take is “race blindness” (Bonilla-Silva 2006), a discredited point of view but one that some social work students (and faculty members) hold (Danforth, Hsu, and Miller 2020). Antiracist ideas have been gaining recognition in the United States and globally. A similar idea is to commit to undoing racism (NASW 2020). Prominent theorists in antiracism include Kendi, a historian, who defines racism and antiracism this way: A racist is someone who is supporting a racist policy by their actions or inactions or expressing a racist idea. An anti-racist is someone who is supporting an anti-racist policy by their actions or expressing an anti-racist idea. (2018, 22–23)

Kendi calls being racist a “peelable nametag” to be applied to a person depending on what they are doing or saying. Racist attitudes, beliefs, and personal actions can be seen when white supremacists attack and kill Black people, in collective actions as when banks red-line Black neighborhoods, and in policies that have been part of the legal structure in the United States since colonial times (Kendi 2016). In addition to this kind of structural racism, there are of course personal acts of

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racism as well, conscious and unconscious. However, in Kendi’s view, being racist is not an immutable identity. Since the concept of race was invented to justify racism, and since everyone can be influenced by it, what matters is whether one’s thoughts and acts are antiracist or not. In sum, not being racist is good, but it is not enough for being antiracist. Saad’s (2020) book and workbook on being and becoming antiracist are rooted in making personal change. Saad’s work comes out of long practice as a diversity consultant to organizations, so it makes sense that its content, aimed at whites, would emphasize overcoming subtly racist attitudes and behaviors. For example, she asks the reader to engage in sustained self-reflection on past and present behavior, such as considering when one may have talked over or in other ways silenced people of color. Some people term these interactions microaggressions: Microaggressions are the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory or negative messages to target persons based solely on their marginalized group membership. (Sue 2010, 10)

Microaggressions are most often studied with respect to race and racism, but it is important to realize that the content of the microaggressions differs depending upon whether they are directed at Black, Latinx, Asian, or other racial/ethnic groups. Microaggressions are also directed at women; people who identify as or are taken to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (Byers et al. 2020), or gender nonconforming (Turner, Pelts, and Thompson 2018); and people with disabilities, international students, and others (Sue 2010). Microaggressions can be classified into three main types: microassault, microinsult, and microinvalidation (Sue 2010). Microinvalidations are often unconscious and consist of messages, verbal or nonverbal, that exclude or negate the person’s group or the experiences within that group, as when a course on the history of social work and social welfare excludes content on the Black leaders who, sometimes because of segregation, pioneered in developing community services for Blacks (SenGupta 2009). Microinsults are often unconscious and convey insensitivity toward or demean the group or members of the group being discussed. Microassaults are often conscious and consist of direct verbal or physical attacks that can include name-calling, avoidant behavior, or acts of discrimination. The cumulative effects of microaggressions are thought to contribute to health disparities affecting people of color, women, and LGBTQ+ people over the life span (Sue 2010).

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These health disparities can affect mental health and mental illness as well. Targets of microaggressions have the challenge of assessing what just happened and deciding how to respond in the context of ongoing interactions. Classroom instructors may be similarly challenged to identify a comment or an act as a microaggression and decide how to respond to it. However, it is essential that instructors commit to remarking on and interrupting microaggressions in the classroom to make the learning environment as comfortable as possible for those who are targets of them.

WHITENESS AND WHITE PRIVILEGE In the past, white people were not considered to have a race, implying that they were simply “humans,” with other racial groups differing from them. However, whiteness studies are now pursued in academia, and there has been some mention of it in the social work education literature as well (Jayasingham 2012). Because whites are the dominant group in Western societies, white people do not confront race-based oppression. Rather, they enjoy white privilege that confers many unearned and unseen benefits in all aspects of life, although Blacks and other people of color are very aware of them. Western societies have also been called white supremacist, which may be especially evident in their histories of colonization and slavery. Martinez defines white supremacy as “an historically based, institutionally perpetuated system of exploitation and oppression of continents, nations, and peoples of color by white peoples and nations of the European continent, for the purpose of maintaining and defending a system of wealth, power and privilege” (n.d., 1). The term systemic racism contains similar ideas, but the term white supremacy makes the element of colonization evident, bringing what has happened to indigenous peoples around the world to the forefront. I first read about white privilege when McIntosh’s description was published in 1978. It had a tremendous impact on me at the time because it described things my Black friends had mentioned to me in reverse, such as having one’s affluent Black sons under security surveillance at the local department store or finding it hard to rent a desirable apartment. It made me acutely aware of many other ways people of color were affected by lack of privilege in all aspects of everyday life. Now when I consider white privilege, however, I see it as something about me. Recognition of my white privilege now serves to illuminate the many taken-for-granted things and

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arrangements I benefit from every day and in many ways. I did not ask for these privileges, but they have made me what I am. White fragility describes the defensive moves white people often make to distance themselves personally from the painful consideration of white racism (DiAngelo 2018). In the United States, the history of European colonizers in the Americas resulted in the displacement and genocide of indigenous people and in Black chattel slavery. It is disconcerting to many white people, including white social work students, to learn more about this part of the history of white people in the Americas. They may then employ a variety of strategies to ward off guilt (“I or my ancestors did not do it”) or to interrupt the discussion (crying or saying “this is too painful for me to hear about”). These are generally ways to deflect any suggestion of personal racism and to avoid responsibility for making changes to reduce personal and structural racism in the present. Implicit bias is considered the basis of individual and institutional racism (Staats 2015–2016), and if one lives in a racist society, everyone inevitably takes in racist biases. Fast thinking (called system 1) produces unconscious stereotypes, whereas slow or rational thinking (system 2) can reduce them. In sophisticated psychological testing, whites take longer to respond to statements based in common negative stereotypes based on race and ethnicity because they need some slow thinking to overcome an initial response. Unconscious implicit bias can affect teachers’ behaviors in the classroom, such as who gets recognized to answer a question or how student behavior is interpreted. Students also have implicit biases that may affect how they relate to a BIPOC instructor and to BIPOC fellow students. These implicit biases can underlie unconscious microaggressions. Training in discrimination, equity, and inclusion often includes addressing implicit biases because becoming conscious of them can reduce the occurrence of behavior based in them. Aversive racism is a subtle form of racism that derives from our segregated society (Rodenberg and Boisen 2013). Often whites have very little contact with BIPOC in their neighborhoods or in any other aspect of daily life. There is then little opportunity to overcome preconceived and prejudiced ideas. Those subscribing to the idea of being color-blind and those who see themselves as unbiased often exemplify aversive racism. Teachers are called upon to judge student performance and behavior, and aversive racism can influence those processes. Rodenberg and Boisen (2013) consider our teaching about cultural competence to be undertheorized, suggesting that aversive racism and intergroup contact theory (ICT) can usefully inform how we design such courses. Others in social work have written about using ICT

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in teaching about diversity, equity, and inclusion (see for example Werkmeister Rojas, 2007). Addressing cultural competence, cultural humility, racism, antiracism, and any other kind oppression and privilege requires an ongoing project of self-reflection. Working in an affinity group is an excellent method for enhancing such self-reflection, as one learns not only from what emerges from selfreflection and reading but also from what others may share about themselves and from feedback provided by group members. Affinity groups, whether for BIPOC or white people, are also sources of support for their members.

INTERSECTIONALITY Addressing racism as a primary driver of oppression and exclusion in U.S. society makes sense. However, those concerned with intersectionality argue that race, ethnicity, language, culture, national origin, immigration and citizenship status, gender identity and (nonconforming) gender expression, and (dis)abilities have unique as well as interactive effects. These effects may be additive, or they may affect each other in more complex ways. Crenshaw (1993), a critical race theorist, has used the term when describing the special and unique challenges faced by Black women. To be a white trans woman differs from being a Black one (DeVries 2015). DeVries uses the situation of transgender people of color to propose twelve dimensions of intersectionality (2015, 11). Considering intersectionality is also a way to capture within-group differences. Most people have some characteristics that are usually related to experiences of oppression and some that are related to power and privilege. In my life, I have faced sexism, heterosexism, and homophobia, but I am also white, female (women may be less strongly condemned for being gay than men), highly educated, relatively affluent, and enjoy a great deal of cultural capital, all of which have conferred many unearned benefits on me. No one asks for these privileges, which are normally invisible, but they exist.

STUDENT CHANGES IN CULTURAL COMPETENCE Students may enter graduate programs in social work thinking that they are already quite culturally competent in dealing with diversity issues (Holden et al. 2002, 121). In fact, learning about these issues often means revising what

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one thinks one knows (Garcia and Van Soest, 1997); in retrospect, at graduation, MSW students have appraised their abilities in these areas as less than they had thought initially (Holden, Anastas, and Meenaghan, 2003, 2005). On average, MSW students can improve in their sense of competence in dealing with diversity issues by program completion (Holden et al. 2002, 121). Hendricks (2003) used Reynolds’s (1942/1985) classic formulation of stages of learning and teaching social work practice (see chapter 2) to delineate stages in the learning of cultural competence. The “acute consciousness of self” stage is equated with developing new areas of cultural self-awareness, often involving embarrassment or avoidance along with self-examination. The second stage, “sink or swim” adaptation, has its parallel in “cultural sensitivity,” when the learner or worker takes the risk of getting involved with new situations and improvising ways of proceeding but with anxiety because she or he is not yet predictably able to deal effectively with cultural differences. “Beginning cultural competence” is the third stage, in which there is more confidence in the ability to handle cross-cultural situations and diversity issues without being able to articulate exactly how, followed by a stage of “relative mastery of cultural competence” in which, in Reynolds’s terms, social workers can both understand and control their own activities— in this case, their methods of enacting cultural competence—quite consistently. The final stage is learning to teach what one has learned, and to do so effectively. These stages may also be useful in considering how classroom teachers and field instructors function with respect to cultural competence as well as for considering and responding constructively to where students may be located on this continuum of learning. The social work education literature has not yet addressed the process by which students may change in learning about diversity using other constructs, but this model based on Reynolds’s work could be useful.

DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS

Perhaps the greatest challenge in addressing diversity in the classroom is handling the differing points of view that students bring to the topic. Some students may already have experienced, be working in, or plan to work in diversity training, or to practice with a specific marginalized population or community. Those committed to one particular diversity issue—such as race, ethnicity/language, gender, gender identity and sexual orientation (which includes transgender people), or (dis)ability—may protest that the

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content of the curriculum lacks attention to “their” issue. In my experience, however, students committed to one diversity “cause” are more often inclined to ally with one another when advocating for greater equity and inclusion (Hurtado 2019). One study of social work student and faculty perceptions of difficult conversations found that students less often felt safe in speaking up about microaggressions than faculty and that faculty members rated their competence in handling various aspects of difficult conversations higher than students rated them (Werman et al. 2019). They describe such difficult conversations as teachable moments that can best be handled by depersonalizing and generalizing the issues, preserving the dignity of all parties, explicating the attitudes of people on different sides of an issue, and emphasizing the need to disagree without being disagreeable. One set of techniques for addressing microaggressions in the classroom is the NAME model—an acronym for the steps needed to engage in the needed in the difficult conversations that must follow (Byers et al. 2020). First, instructors or a student must Notice that a microaggression has occurred. When this happens, what has been going on must be paused in order to name the microaggression and discuss it within the group. This means Acknowledging the accountability of the instructor for building and maintaining an inclusive classroom environment. Then one must Make space for discussion of what has just occurred, which may in some cases involve explaining what microaggressions are as well as why the comment made, even if it is your own, constituted a microaggression. This discussion must happen, even though it may interfere with the planned progression of course content, because bystanders as well as those making or targeted by the microaggression have been affected. The final step is to Enlist the group in planning how to go forward, which could include adding future content on the issue involved, setting ground rules for future class interactions, or discussion of how the group can work together to respond to future microaggressions that may occur. If the Noticing does not occur until after the class session has ended, it is essential that the issue be brought up at the start of the next class session and the steps outlined above followed. Although it is difficult, the instructor must strive not to be defensive. Thurber and DiAngelo (2018) give three examples of facing microaggressions, with helpful suggestions in each case, all of them characterized as being grounded in both care and accountability while emphasizing that there is no one recipe for dealing with these problems. Khang and Garran (2018) recommend faculty peer-support groups and also provide case-specific suggestions for handling microaggressions in the classroom.

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MORE ON SELF-REFLECTION

As social work education addresses diversity issues, it has become clear that the interactions among students, teachers, and others—the teaching/ learning process—must incorporate and foster self-awareness if they are to be effective. Continuous self-examination is required of students, teachers, and other actors in the educational situation. In addressing the systems of domination and subordination that are attached to these aspects of diversity, discomfort can arise in several areas (Garcia and Van Soest 1997): acknowledgment of unearned privileges that have come at the expense of others; grief over loss of a prior assumptive world; acknowledgment of multiple aspects of identity, some perhaps associated with privilege and some with oppression; and the need for a safe-enough space in the classroom in which to explore these issues (Holley and Steiner 2005). It is only recently that teaching about whiteness and issues of privilege is found in the social work education literature, which has improved the understanding of and teaching about diversity issues (see, for example, Jayasingham 2012). Because every society and every educational institution has issues of diversity with which it is still struggling, increasing one’s attention to diversity issues in teaching and learning will likely involve facing some degree of discomfort and conflict. However, such a project is an opportunity for professional and personal growth that can be very rewarding. Self-reflection is considered essential in student learning about all aspects of diversity. Comerford (2004) reported on having students write personal narratives about their identities and their experiences of both privilege and oppression to be shared in small groups at off-campus retreats as a way to support the affective and self-reflective dimensions needed for effective classroom learning about diversity, but such sharing could occur in classroom small groups as well. Teachers must also engage in such reflections, on their own and with others, perhaps within affinity groups (Khang and Garran 2018).

EXTRA CHALLENGES FOR WOMEN AND BIPOC STUDENTS AND FACULTY The difficulties that may occur when a student of color is the only or one of a few in the program or the classroom were mentioned at the start of the chapter. Even if this is not the case, there is evidence that the experiences of students of color in social work education programs can be difficult. For

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example, Native American students report a lack of attention to Native people and issues in the curriculum, which they experience as invalidating their interests and communities (Weaver 2000). Those from other racial and ethnic groups often have the same complaint. Although all social work students share many interests in common, motivations and career goals may differ for students from traditionally underrepresented groups, as in their desire to meet specific community needs (Limb and Organista 2003). In addition, students of color and women may perform down to stereotypes held about them with regard to their abilities compared to whites or to men (see box 4.3). The effect is strong enough to cause actual performance to decline, especially when students are reminded that they are students of color or female. Extensive research, although not yet among social work students, shows that students of color often feel less of a sense of belonging in higher education generally, but especially in four-year degree programs and graduate programs. In addition, there are some subtle ways in which long-held stereotypes about people of color and women can create psychological barriers to academic

BOX 4.3 STEREOTYPES CAN BE SELF-FULFILLING IN ACADEMIA

As Bain points out, research in social psychology can “help us understand the extra burdens faced by anyone who has been the target of some negative pervasive stereotype, and the especially onerous burdens female students encounter in certain subjects and African Americans and some other minority groups carry in all academic pursuits—burdens that white males in our society do not experience” (2004, 72). The concept of stereotype threat (Steele 1997) or stereotype vulnerability posits that people who identify as members of stereotyped groups, when the stereotype is triggered, will tend to perform in a way that fulfills the stereotype, such as on tests of mathematics for women and any form of academic aptitude test for Blacks. This effect occurs most strongly when the person cares about performing well, thus differentially affecting the most able and ambitious. The effect seems to operate both on conscious (“hot”) and unconscious (“cool”) levels (Wheeler and Petty 2001). While the exact cognitive and emotional mechanisms that produce this effect are still being argued about, ways that teachers can reduce the effects of stereotype threat in educational settings include conveying positive expectations of potential and achievement, providing an appropriate and progressive level of challenge, stressing the expandability of aptitudes, affirming that nontraditional students indeed belong in the setting and among the high achievers, valuing multiple perspectives on what is being taught, and providing positive role models (Steele 1997).

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achievement: stereotype threat and the imposter syndrome. However, as Bain suggests, teacher expectations have a strong influence on performance as well. Teachers should convey confidence that all students can succeed and provide the supports needed to bring out each student’s full potential. The imposter phenomenon (see box 4.4) also arises from a common general stereotype: that white males are considered the most academically able

BOX 4.4 THE IMPOSTER PHENOMENON

Various aspects of the college experience can be difficult for students of color to navigate. One of these can be feelings of phoniness and inadequacy that can influence the way students of color view themselves and their achievements, an experience known as the imposter phenomenon. The concept of the imposter phenomenon was first introduced by Clance and Imes (1978), who found that high-achieving white women in various career fields expressed an “internal experience of intellectual phoniness” despite their many accomplishments. The imposter phenomenon is characterized by feelings of inadequacy despite one’s achievements, as well as a fear that others will find out one is unintelligent or incapable. Over time, research on the imposter phenomenon has expanded to include students of color. Ewing, Richardson, James-Myers, and Russell describe individuals who experience the imposter phenomenon as those “who despite objective evidence of competence, feel that they have fooled everyone into thinking they are smarter or more capable than they are in reality” (1996, 54). Studies of the imposter phenomenon have found that it can negatively impact self-esteem, mental health, and a sense of belonging among students of color in higher education settings (Peteet et al. 2015). In addition, experiences of racism and discrimination on college campuses can lead to feelings of isolation and ostracism for students of color, heightening their feelings of not belonging and of being an imposter (Lige, Peteet, and Brown 2017). While the imposter phenomenon is often described as an internal experience, there are external signs that educators can recognize in students. Characteristics include spending more time on assignments than necessary, displaying workaholic and perfectionistic tendencies that lead to burnout or exhaustion, frequently making comparisons to their peers, and dwelling on negative feedback as they believe it to be a reflection of their own personal failure (Parkman 2016; Ramsey and Brown 2018). Ways that educators can help students of color deal with the imposter phenomenon include encouraging them to find support groups on campus in which they can share their experiences with other students of color. In addition, educators can work to create inclusive classroom environments by creating ways for students of color to safely express their opinions and perspectives during class discussions (Trotman 2009). GERRI CONNAUGHT, PHD CANDIDATE, SILVER SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

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and desirable students, especially in higher education (Parkman 2016). Students of color who are in college or graduate school may think, consciously or unconsciously, that they are there under false pretenses, that they are “imposters.” Another group at risk of feeling like imposters are students who are the first in their families to attend college or graduate school (first-gen students). Some consider this a proxy measure of class, but it also reflects a lack of family cultural capital in the form of knowledge about how to negotiate higher education systems and family role models of success in higher education. Students are more likely to talk about feeling like an imposter with peers than with faculty members, making student support groups vital for coping with this issue. Parkman notes that female faculty members and those of color can also experience the imposter phenomenon, especially when under high “publish or perish” demands. Faculty members of color also face extra burdens in their work (June 2015), some specific to women of color (Vakalahi and Starks 2010). Students of color, including those who are not in their classes, often turn to them for advisement, support, and advocacy. They are also often called upon for committee service. This invisible workload may leave less time for the research and scholarship needed to retain and advance in their jobs, which has been called being “sucked into the workhorse role” (Vakalahi and Starks 2010, 115).

GENDER IN TEACHING AND LEARNING Men and women on the faculty may not be experienced in the same way in the classroom by students. The authority and expertise of female teachers, especially young ones, may be challenged more often. Women on faculties may also be more compliant with expectations to advise students and/ or to serve on committees or do other uncompensated work. They may also encounter subtle and not-so-subtle experiences of male dominance among colleagues, such as males who talk over them in meetings (Holley and Young 2005). Institutional barriers surely play a role in this outcome (Petchers 1996). Inclusion of curriculum content on women has long been mandated by CSWE in its accreditation standards. How well such content is conveyed and how women are faring in the social work classroom are not often discussed. Based on broader studies of gender in higher education, DeLange invites us to ask: “Do faculty call on male students more than female students? Do male students talk more frequently and longer? Are female students

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reinforced for speaking? Do any of these patterns change based on the sex of the instructor?” (1995, 80). Based on an analysis of more general gender differences in communication, DeLange suggests that cross-gender communication problems likely occur between teachers and students as well as among faculty. In addition, as in “women’s studies” more generally, there is debate about whether to frame the content as “women’s studies” or “gender studies.” Because it is well known that the traditional classroom is not always hospitable for women, some in social work have talked about using feminist methods in their teaching (e.g., Phillips and Cree 2014). Chapter 2 has already described the influential theory that women may think, learn, and develop cognitively in ways that differ from men (Belenky et al. 1986). Belenky and associates call for “connected teaching” (214), a kind of teaching that “supports the evolution of . . . students’ thinking” (218) and is focused not on the display of the teacher’s knowledge (218) but rather its use in “put[ting] the students into conversation with other voices—past and present—in the culture” (219). In addition, “connected teachers welcome diversity of opinion in class discussion” (223). All students, male and female, are likely to find that this style of teaching enhances their learning and critical thinking—their professional growth. Feminist teaching has been viewed as a tool for teaching key social work practice principles, especially empowerment, more generally (Dore 1994; Lazzari 1991; Parnell and Andrews 1994; Phillips and Cree 2014; Raske 1999). Discussions of gender discrimination and curriculum content in social work are still largely framed around male/female differences. However, gender theory and queer theory in the humanities and social sciences have also included consideration of transgender and intersex phenomena (McPhail 2004), in part to be inclusive of the realities of human life in this culture and cross-culturally. Queer theory questions dominant heterosexist norms, providing an important perspective on what can otherwise be unexamined assumptions (Turner, Pelts, and Thompson 2018). In fact, students today can and do interpret the invitation to discuss “gender” as being about how content on transgender and other gender expression issues is or is not addressed, which, as of this writing, the social work education literature has not yet addressed.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION AND GENDER EXPRESSION

Mackelprang and associates found that deans and directors of social work programs reported much less emphasis on sexual-orientation content in

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their curricula than on content addressing race, ethnicity, and gender (1996, 23). Social work texts are only rarely “fully inclusive” of content on gays and lesbians (Morrow 1996). In addition, the mainstream social work journals have published relatively little in this area except in the area of AIDS and HIV (Van Voorhis and Wagner, 2001). Those who address LGBT content in their classrooms, then, cannot assume much about what students may have learned elsewhere in their studies. Turner, Pelts, and Thompson (2018) analyzed doctoral student and faculty narratives to identify the microaggressions they had experienced related to being queer. They reported experiencing microinvalidation leading to a repeated need to interrupt heteronormativity; microassaults consisting of condescending or disapproving gazes or remarks; and microassaults such as being criticized by students for being “too queer.” Byers and associates (2020) found that students complained of lack of content on nonnormative sexual identities and gender expression; instructors’ inability to handle discussions of diverse genders and sexualities; overgeneralization, which includes failure to acknowledge differences within nonnormative groups; tokenizing of LGBTQ+ individuals; and difficulties negotiating religious and “freedom of speech” rationalizations for what has occurred. They recommend that programs regularly assess their climates with respect to LGBTQ+ equity and inclusion. One of the issues faced by LGBT faculty members in teaching LGBTQ+ content is identity management—that is, whether and/or how to disclose their gay, lesbian, bisexual, or trans identity in the classroom (Cain 1996; Lovaas, Baroudi, and Collins 2002; Martin 1995). Student reaction to such disclosures varies, with some finding that it adds to their comfort and thus enhances their learning, while others experience the opposite effect. In particular, LGBTQ+ students who have not elected to disclose their sexual orientation may feel pressured to do so when an instructor “comes out.” There are also institutional contexts in which all faculty members must commit to teaching only content consistent with the religious beliefs endorsed by the institution, which is likely to be an inhospitable environment for a faculty member who is openly LGBTQ+ or whose scholarship addresses LGBTQ+ issues (Anastas 2006).

DISABILITIES Curriculum content on disabilities has apparently been lacking in many social work programs (Mackelprang et al. 1996; Pardeck 1999; Quinn 1995),

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even though many social workers practice with people with chronic and disabling conditions, physical and mental, and with their families. Quinn’s review of program catalogues and survey responses found that self-reported inclusion of disability content was far higher than that shown in catalogue content. Disability content was most often found in micro practice courses and least often in the research curriculum, although its inclusion was not universal in any area. Response rates to the survey were low, the disabilities that were or were not addressed were not specified, and the field-internship component of the programs was not studied. Nor was inclusion of content on habilitation/rehabilitation or recovery models addressed, despite their importance in social work practice (see, for example, Stromwall and Hurdle 2003). Critical disability theory and the acknowledgment of disability culture need to be informing social work education (Dupré 2012). Finally, there is not yet much discussion in the social work education literature of the attitudes that nondisabled students must overcome or of teaching techniques that have been especially helpful in promoting the inclusion of students (and faculty members) with disabilities. For the social work educator, the social work rehabilitation role and the professional gatekeeping role can be in conflict (GlenMaye and Bolin 2007; Mazza 2016). Legal regulation can also conflict with preferred professional practice, as when placement agencies cannot be informed of a student’s disability by the program (only the student has the right to share this confidential information). Having a disability cannot be taken to mean that the person cannot perform adequately, especially when reasonable accommodations are made, but client service and the nature of a student’s interactions with clients and colleagues are legitimate areas of evaluation for all students, including those with disabilities. The courts do support the right and responsibility of programs and faculty to make these judgments of all students’ performance, but they also require that programs make those needed accommodations that would not constitute an undue burden in order to give students with an identified disability a chance to prove themselves—to succeed or to fail.

CONCLUSION Diversity, equity, and inclusion are increasingly emphasized in higher education, although goals in these areas have not yet been achieved. Structural discrimination affects every part of figure 1.1, from the social, institutional,

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and professional contexts to the immediate interactions among student, teacher, and subject matter. Political debates about many of these diversity issues, often termed the “culture wars,” have been ongoing for several decades. This is the fraught context in which teaching and learning about diversity in social work education take place Following are some important “takeaway” points from this chapter: Q

Q

Q

Q

Q

Continue to learn about the diversities in the population. This chapter has given national data on the population, but populations of states and localities differ greatly with respect to race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation and gender expression. While immigrant populations used to be concentrated in “gateway” cities, they are now spread throughout the United States. However, each program and school should concentrate on the populations in their areas so that students will be equipped to practice with them. The American public has differing views on dimensions of diversity such as race, immigration, and sexual orientation and gender expression. While social work students tend to be oriented toward social justice, they will have widely different levels of understanding of and opinions about diversities. The ability to hold difficult conversations in the classroom when tensions arise—and they will—is an essential skill. The goal is to help all students feel included in the work and within the program. Different concepts are used when teaching about race and ethnicity. Not all schools will approach the content in the same way; approaches range from emphasizing cultural competence and cultural humility to those based in antioppressive practice, such as antiracism. Be conscious in choosing your own approach, knowing that at least some students may come from a different one. Teaching about diversities require continuous learning and self-reflection. The discourse in academia about diversity, especially race, has changed entirely since the first edition of this book. In areas such as disability, because it is a topic highly stigmatized in society, students (and faculty members) may not know much about how common disabilities are, especially invisible ones. This is just one more way in which teaching involves the responsibility and pleasures of learning. All students, including those from oppressed and marginalized groups, thrive when their teachers expect them to succeed and provide the supports and encouragement needed for them to do so. These attitudes are especially important for diverse students, who may feel less of a sense of belonging and who may doubt their own abilities to succeed because of stereotypes and past experience.

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One theme that has been common to discussion of teaching and learning about all dimensions of diversity is the need for a classroom climate in which both critical thinking and self-reflection can occur. However, the needed teaching/learning interactions can take place most constructively when there is support for the importance of the process in the surrounding institutional environment—from the department, school, college, and/or university. In social work education, being able to articulate the requirements of the profession in each area, including the ethical mandate of professional social work to advance social justice—perhaps unique among the helping professions (Payne 2006)—requires that oppression and social exclusion be addressed and supports curriculum development and the inclusion of diversity content. However, the institutional and organizational context, in the classroom and in the field-education setting, can present resources or obstacles, and addressing any contextual barriers to significant change is necessary to avoid the “illusion of inclusion.” Diversity in who our students, teachers, and educational leaders are is one sign and signal of commitment to diversity, but it is not sufficient. What all students know and are able to do, when it comes to their practice with diverse clients and communities, is the most important outcome.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES Social Work Journals

Affilia: The Journal of Women in Social Work Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in Social Work Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services Journal of Social Work in Disability and Rehabilitation

5 ASSESSING LEARNING

for measurable educational outcomes have become nearly universal watchwords at all levels of education in the United States, affecting models of accreditation and professional education in social work and other fields (Baskind, Shank, and Ferraro 2001; Palomba and Banta 2001). This emphasis on the assessment of educational outcomes has both progressive and regressive possibilities. The well-known debate about using standardized tests of student achievement to evaluate teachers and public schools at the elementary and secondary levels illustrates these progressive and regressive possibilities. “Blaming the victims” in overcrowded, underresourced, and underfunded classrooms and “teaching to the exam” are negative consequences. Inspiring teachers and schools to find ways to bring out the best in their students by developing and disseminating educational practices that improve academic performance are positive possibilities. Because this book is aimed at social work educators, the emphasis of the chapter will be on how individual teachers can assess the work of individual students. Although we generally assume that completion of a degree program will improve practice skills and abilities, we should examine this assumption empirically. For psychotherapy, Dawes (1996) famously reviewed the evidence and found that educational qualifications and postgraduate experience did not convincingly translate into improved outcomes for the people served. In social work, Wodarski, Feit, and Green (1995) found evidence that aspects of MSW social work students’ “interpersonal helping skills” might actually decline from baseline or, when improved, these skills have not been shown to generalize to real clients in the agency setting. The research they reviewed on outcomes in other areas, such as teaching policy practice skills, was quite promising, but in still other areas, such as the ACCOUNTABILITY AND CALLS

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human behavior and social environment curriculum, there were almost no studies. Since the research they reviewed is now quite dated, it is clear that more and better research assessing student learning in a range of areas is needed. The assessment of learning is sometimes assumed to be an assessment of the effectiveness of teaching, or some combination of teaching and curriculum (“subject matter” in figure 1.1). Teaching can be defined as creating the conditions in which learning can take place and in which students are inspired to succeed. Even if we assume that the quality of teaching is related to student learning, it is still useful to assess teaching input directly. Therefore, I look at the assessment of teaching (see chapter 6) separately from the assessment of learning, despite the obvious relationship between the two. In addition, while a lot can be said about assessing students’ performance in the field setting, this chapter will not include that. Assessing students for admission to degree-granting programs in social work is another important issue that will not be covered here, because admissions processes in social work programs are often greatly constrained by practices in the college or university as a whole. Admissions issues have not been extensively studied, with some notable exceptions (Fortune 2003; GlenMaye and Oakes 2002; Miller and Koerin 1998; Nelson and Cowburn 2010; Pardeck 2003). Comparative data on selectivity in graduate admissions suggest that many MSW programs are not very selective in their admissions (Howard and Garland 2011; Kirk, Kil, and Corcoran 2009), although many complex factors influence these figures in ways that are hard to assess. Any admissions screening system can only imperfectly predict students’ success, meaning that gatekeeping unbiased student evaluation within social work degree programs remains an important issue. This chapter focuses on the learning of the students who have been enrolled in the program.

A WORD OF WARNING The current systems of empirical assessment are predicated on positivism or postpositivism (Walker 1997). Those whose philosophies of teaching and learning are based in constructivism, critical theory, or decolonization will find that this approach does not serve them well. For example, the ability to engage in critically reflective analysis (Campbell and Baikie 2013) may be the learning outcome that is most desirable. Hillock (2021) describes the aims of “femagogy,” and Baskin and Cornacchia (2021)

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describe practices based in indigenous worldviews. The social work curriculum, its methods of teaching, and its methods of assessing learning are based in white, male, Eurocentric, and colonialist views. Those committed to antioppressive practice often find the current views of student assessment to be incompatible with their approaches, and to teach from an antioppressive standpoint will ultimately mean challenging existing systems of licensing, accreditation, and student assessment. However, it is required that accreditation standards be periodically revised—once every seven years in social work. As of this writing, new standards will be published in 2022. Members of CSWE are invited to comment on drafts of new standards, and those who would like to see them changed should take advantage of this opportunity for input in future. Nevertheless, this chapter covers traditional methods of student assessment because that is the educational context in which most social work academics practice, including accreditation and credentialing.

TYPES OF ASSESSMENT The assessment of student learning takes place at many levels: for the BSW or MSW program as a whole, as in professional accreditation; at the level of the course, as in grading; and on the level of student assignments and other course requirements. Assessments of learning also have different purposes: their uses may be formative, to provide feedback on learning in order to improve performance. These uses have no implications for recorded judgments of learning, such as grades, but are meant for use in student self-improvement. Sometimes these are called low-stakes activities or assignments. Other uses of assessment are summative, as in contributing to a grade, which sums up how well a student is doing or shows who is not performing up to standards. Summative evaluations work best when connected to learning and professional growth. This chapter covers both uses of student assessment. Meaningful assessments of learning can be elicited from a variety of sources: students, classroom teachers, advisers, trained observers, and clients and/or employers. Assessments can use many methods, which should ideally relate well to what is being assessed, although feasibility and costs often limit the options. Grading, which is not always a good method of assessing students’ performance and is a source of anxiety for many beginning teachers and for students, will also be assessed.

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AUDIENCES FOR ASSESSMENT The calls for accountability in higher education suggest larger audiences for the assessment of educational outcomes: legislators who fund public higher education; donors who help support public and private colleges and universities; prospective students and their families faced with paying for quality undergraduate and graduate education; alumni invested in the prestige of the institutions from which they obtained their credentials; and, in the end, the general public. College and university administrators seek reasons to invest (or not) in specific programs and units on their campuses. Accrediting bodies, charged with maintaining minimum educational standards on behalf of this public interest, now stress accountability for student learning outcomes. Perhaps the most important audiences for the assessment of learning are the most immediate ones—teachers and students. The other audiences are usually concerned with summative assessments. Teachers and students can and should use assessments not just to ensure that educational goals are being met but also to inform their own efforts to learn. In other words, formative assessments of teaching and student learning can be used for developmental purposes. Assessing student learning effectively does require work, but it is critical to the education of social work professionals. Making assessments meaningful and useful to the learner is the only way to ensure that the feedback provided is valued and used.

THE WHOLE PROGRAM: PROFESSIONAL LICENSING The licensing of social workers, which is a system designed to protect the public from ill-trained, incompetent, or unethical professional practitioners, is now in place throughout the United States. All licensing systems have at their core the mission of protecting the public by setting minimum standards for professional practice. However, pass rates on state licensing examinations have become another standard measure of outcome for master’s and baccalaureate programs in jurisdictions that require licensing at that level. The Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB, http://www.aswb .org/) represents all states’ regulatory bodies and is a good source of information about the examinations and other requirements for licensing. State and local chapters of the National Association of Social Workers also provide

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information and assistance with licensing to their members. Levels of licensure vary from state to state and can range from an associate-level license to a doctoral-level one. Not all levels of licensure are available in every state, but all have a system of licensure for master’s level generalist practice and master’s level independent or clinical practice, which is required for thirdparty (insurance) reimbursement payments. While the range of credentials that exist or should exist for social work professionals is beyond the scope of this chapter, through state legislation and the mechanism of licensing, society now exercises some control over who can practice professional social work by defining the nature and scope of social work practice. Licensing boards can also discipline social workers found to have violated ethical or other standards of practice in order to protect those they serve and the general public interest. MSW programs and BSW programs in states with baccalaureate-level licensure use graduates’ pass rates on licensing examinations as an outcome measure, and the adequate preparation of students for licensing examinations is viewed as a legitimate service to students and graduates. However, Noble and Stretch—who advocate a standardized examination system at the graduate level—have pointed out that social work has had the highest pass rate and the lowest required passing score on licensing examinations among the helping professions (2002, 229). There are some inevitable tensions between the licensing system and educational programs. Academic institutions have the sole legal and moral authority to determine curriculum content and degree requirements in all disciplines and professions and hence do not allow licensing examinations to determine the curriculum. To ignore them entirely, however, risks ignoring what others in society believe to be relevant to professional practice. The relationships between the legal regulation of practice and the assessment of social work educational programs and how both are (or are not) relevant to what defines social work practice require more study.

THE WHOLE PROGRAM: ACCREDITATION Institutions of higher education are accredited at the college or university level through a regional accrediting system. In addition, social work has a profession-based system of accreditation (Palomba and Banta 2001) that covers baccaluareate (BSW) and graduate (MSW) programs, each evaluated on its own when a school has both. Social work is accredited by the

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Council on Social Work Education’s Commission on Accreditation (http:// www.cswe.org/CSWE/accreditation/). This system is now designed to rest on students’ achievement of nine core competencies in generalist social work practice and whatever additional competencies the program defines as educational goals for students at both the foundation and specialization levels. The accreditation system is based on peer review by members of CSWE’s Commission on Accreditation of a structured self-report that each program submits periodically, sometimes supplemented by a campus visit for further assessment.1 The self-study preceding a program’s self-report to the commission is an occasion for an internal reexamination of educational goals, educational methods, curriculum content, and the assessment of students and graduates. Because accreditation by the profession is linked to the program’s reputation and graduates’ ability to qualify for public credentialing (state licensing or certification) and hence to the recruitment of applicants, programs and schools invest a great deal of energy in preparing for their periodic reviews. Recent changes in social work accreditation policies and practices have been designed to give educational programs greater latitude in defining their own missions and program emphases, with their outcomes evaluated with respect to the missions and goals they define for themselves, as long as their missions and activities fall within the recognized scope of social work. Social work programs can find the accreditation process burdensome (Garcia and Floyd 2002), but graduating from an accredited BSW or MSW program is required for state licensure. Current accreditation standards and other information on accreditation in social work education are available at the CSWE website (http://www.cswe.org/CSWE/accreditation/). The overall outcomes of program reviews include successful candidacy for accreditation of a BSW or MSW program, initial accreditation, reaffirmation of accreditation for a specific time period, or some less successful outcome such as probationary status, and are published on the CSWE website. Programs are now also required to provide self-study findings on students’ learning outcomes on the program’s website and to update them every two years. Starting with the accreditation standards published in 2015, the assessment of student learning outcomes must be made by relevant professionals (faculty and field instructors) rather than through self-assessment. The explicit curriculum refers to the content of courses, standards of performance in the field-internship setting, and other course or program requirements. With respect to the explicit curriculum, there must be assessment of nine

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core competencies and other learning goals articulated by the program. In addition, the learning goals of required courses and of field internships must be analyzed to show where students have been taught these competencies. Students are then rated by faculty on how well each has done in demonstrating each competency, and the results are averaged for each program. In addition, CSWE requires programs, departments, and schools of social work to post the data on students’ achievement of competency. However, Sellers and Neff (2019) found that many social work programs did not do so. They also comment on the lost opportunity to learn from one another about how to overcome deficits in a particular competency and what is working well in areas of strength. CSWE requires assessment of the implicit curriculum as well. The implicit curriculum includes many aspects of the educational context, such as diversity, equity and inclusion, adequate resources (including an acceptable student/faculty ratio), and administrative autonomy. In contrast to the evaluation of a program’s students in terms of the competencies they have demonstrated, assessing the implicit curriculum involves students’ rating various aspects of the program. Therefore, it is discussed in the chapter on assessing teachers.

STANDARDIZED TESTS Some people in higher education advocate using standardized instruments to assess educational experiences and outcomes. They suggest standardized instruments in part to take advantage of the work of people experienced in and knowledgeable about measurement and instrument construction and in part because they provide a common metric for comparing institutions and programs as well as for giving programs information about areas of strength and weakness. When discipline-specific accreditation requires outcome assessment, as it does in social work (Baskind, Shank, and Ferraro 2001), it encourages the development of assessment methods and tools, both those specific to a program and standardized ones that many programs might employ. However, the recent trend is for social work programs to drop standardized tests as part of an application because they are culturally biased and may work against BIPOC applicants. Some social work educators have developed a standardized approach to assess baccalaureate social work education programs: the Baccalaureate Educational Assessment Package (BEAP; see Buchan et al. 2004, 2007). The

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system has six elements or instruments: an entrance survey and a pretest of knowledge of social work values, both of which should be administered when a student declares a social work major; an exit survey and a social work values posttest given to students at graduation; and an alumni/alumnae survey and an employer survey that alumni/ae administer to their employers. Each participating BSW program administers the survey instruments to its students and graduates; the surveys are scored and the findings (by program, with overall data for comparison) are reported by a national center. In 2001, about 30 percent of BSW programs in the United States were using one or more parts of this system (Buchan et al. 2004, 246). Buchan and colleagues reported on the development and first years of use of the BEAP measurement package. The content of survey items then covered most areas of accreditation-mandated program objectives at the baccalaureate level except for critical thinking (2004, 247). While the system contains many of the characteristics considered desirable for educational assessment, including acceptable psychometric properties (249–250), it lacks others, such as the ability to tailor the instruments to the specific program missions and the ability to capture directly (rather than by self-report) the practice skills of students or client outcomes; these are the outcomes most difficult to capture in any system. While the BEAP has the capacity to assess changes in students’ knowledge in one curriculum area—social work ethics and values—there have been problems with locating graduates at the planned two-year-postgraduation data-collection point. Despite these acknowledged shortcomings, the BEAP system is a commendable effort by the profession to develop and implement a standardized system of educational program assessment that can be used formatively to monitor and improve programs and summatively to report on program outcomes, such as graduates’ employment rates and employers’ satisfaction with them. Since then, the BEAP system has added measures that apply to graduate social work programs and conform to the assessment requirements of the 2015 EPAS (sweapinstruments.org). For both degree programs, the entrance, exit (implicit curriculum), and curriculum measures may be most relevant to EPAS-related assessment, although the MSW SWEAP instruments allow for assessment of both foundation and specialization curriculum content. The measures are now available in both paper and electronic formats. Finally, the stakeholders in educational assessment go beyond teachers and learners to include college and university administrators; funders of and donors to programs, colleges, and universities; the general public; internship

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sites and employers of graduates; the profession as a whole; and, especially, the people served by students and graduates (Gambrill 2002; Noble and Stretch 2002). While methods to include clients’ outcomes in what social work educators can realistically assess have not yet been developed, feedback on students—qualitative or quantitative, individual or collective— from such key informants as internship agency personnel and employers of graduates can be incorporated into program assessment systems, as the SWEAP system does with employers.

CLOSING THE LOOP Program evaluation, including the assessment methods just described, are only worthwhile if the findings are used to change and improve elements of the program that are less successful than others. This process means that assessment outcomes must be shared with relevant audiences, and deliberations on this information must then be used to affirm or alter a program’s goals and objectives, to refine the measurement methods used to assess student learning if needed, and especially to consider whether the program needs to be implemented differently, in either the classroom (courses or teaching methods) or the internship, to improve student learning outcomes. Of course, other changes are also possible, such as in admissions or graduation standards, requirements or prerequisites, the structure of study, gatekeeping practices, or student advising. While the feedback loop may be the most important practice in program evaluation, it is not always documented and not always carried out. Without it, however, the real goal of program assessment—improvement in student learning—will not be achieved.

ASSESSING INDIVIDUAL STUDENTS’ LEARNING The chapter so far has addressed evaluating student learning within degree-granting programs as a whole. The assessment of students’ learning and educational outcomes at an individual level is also central to accountability (Crisp and Lister 2002). Assessing student performance based on grades and grade-point average has always been part of gatekeeping in educational programs, but the usefulness of grades can be limited if additional comments on student work are not provided, and grade inflation is a widespread problem.

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Naturally, all evaluation and grading should be fair, transparent, and, to the extent possible, free of bias. However, instructors must be engaged in assessing for their own biases toward different kinds of students. Assessment of individual students is an exercise of power and privilege. When the instructor is white and the student is BIPOC, students may be concerned about racism in assessment, usually in the form of implicit bias. White instructors in particular need to do what they can to address it. Brown (1997) observed that assessing students has both developmental and judgmental aspects, affecting their right to continue their course of study. Therefore, assessment defines what students regard as important, how they spend their time, and how they come to see themselves as students and as graduates. Students take their cues from what is assessed rather than what teachers assert is important. Put rather starkly, if you want to change student learning then change the methods of assessment (1997, 7, italics in original). Assessment is a powerful but underutilized tool for both enhancing professional development and providing feedback to teachers, but course-based assessment is usually carried out by traditional methods (e.g., individually produced written papers and/or pencil-and-paper examinations) rather than through the hard work of thinking about what to assess, when to assess, and how best to do it. Methods of assessing student classroom work need more attention (Crisp and Lister 2000). Sellers and Neff (2019) describe both formative and summative assessment processes useful in social work education. They stress the importance of using both kinds of evaluation in a course, because formative assessment provides feedback to the instructor about what course content may need more attention. The instructor also learns about students who are having trouble with the content and may benefit from individual consultation. It is also possible to “think outside the box” when deciding what to do about summative evaluation, meaning the performance measures related to grading. Paper-and-pencil measures, such as survey instruments, are the most commonly used techniques in educational assessment because they are the easiest way to gather and analyze data from the largest number of people. The multiple-choice questions used in quizzes and examinations are well-known and widely used examples of paper-and-pencil assessment techniques. Especially in the classroom, short open-ended written statements from students about their learning can be a useful source of information about a class session or course. Statements can be collected in class on index cards, posted on an electronic course site, or emailed directly to the instructor. Students should be allowed to refuse to comment and should understand that their

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comments will not be used outside the immediate teaching context except in a formal, research-based evaluation of the course, if they have given formal permission to participate in such research. The classic work by Angelo and Cross (1993) on student assessment has recently been succeeded by that of Barkley and Major (2016). More than forty examples of assessment techniques are included; many are useful in the online classroom and the flipped classroom as well as in the traditional classroom (2016, 47, 49).

WHAT TO ASSESS The first step in assessing students’ and graduates’ learning is developing “statements of what graduates should know, be able to do, and value . . . often called ‘expected learning outcomes’ or ‘expected competencies’ ” (Palomba and Banta 2001, 13). These are often listed for graduates of the program as a whole and then broken down for program components, such as specific courses or the field internship. For the individual teacher, this means locating a course within the curriculum. What courses have students had (or are they concurrently taking), indicating what they may already know? What will come after, affecting what a course may be preparing them for? Since the purpose of teaching is student learning, Barkley and Major (2016) recommend what they call outcomes-centered course design. Course learning goals should be specific about what a student will know and know how to do upon completion of the course. A course syllabus provides a statement of learning goals for students, sometimes termed course objectives. These need to be clearly stated in action terms. Rather than say “knowledge about . . .” one might say “demonstrate knowledge about . . .”; Barkley and Major (2016, 19) provide a helpful list of these verbs broken down according to Bloom’s list of cognitive tasks. Assignments and class activities, graded or ungraded, should be linked directly to these learning goals, providing the opportunity for students to demonstrate what they know and can do. It can be helpful at the start of a course to explain why the objectives were chosen and how learning these things will help a student become a good practitioner. As noted in chapter 2, the best assignments make it possible to give individualized feedback to each student (and the instructor) about what the student has achieved and where improvement may be needed. Professional education in social work has long conceptualized three areas of learning: knowledge; skills; and the values, ethics, and norms of

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professional behavior. Assessing student knowledge often relies on traditional methods like examinations and oral or written papers and reports. Changes in levels of knowledge are usually measured only for a specific study of a new course or of a teaching method, often with the eventual publication of findings in mind. Some of my own past research with colleagues suggests that pre- and post-assessments of student learning can be valuable and that tools to assess broad areas of student knowledge about practice can be developed (Holden et al. 2002; Holden, Anastas, and Meenaghan 2003). Many social work educators have developed measures to assess specific areas of knowledge or for specific courses using pre/post assessment. Values and ethics can be assessed, as the SWEAP and licensing examinations do, in terms of knowledge about them. How well students have absorbed them and, especially, how well they can deal with ethical dilemmas in actual practice situations have not usually been assessed except through field instructors’ and faculty–field liaisons’ assessments of students based on their work in the internship. I know of no published studies of outcomes for teaching ethics in social work. Skills, or practice behaviors—the application of knowledge and ethics to complex and diverse cases—are also difficult to assess. Using Bloom’s taxonomy of knowledge, taking classroom knowledge and understanding into the field internship or practice setting and analyzing clients’ problems and needs, applying that knowledge to practice with real clients, and evaluating and perhaps reanalyzing the work with each case or in each session call for higher-order thinking skills (Anderson and Krathwohl 2001). Traditional ways of assessing practice knowledge, such as process recordings, often rely heavily on recall. For this reason, case-study methods—whether based on students’ own cases or cases supplied by the instructor—are widely used in teaching about practice. Field instructors and field-liaison faculty routinely render subjective and nonstandardized judgments of students’ skills, but these can offer useful feedback, especially about areas for student improvement. The use of simulated clients, as in the observed structured clinical evaluation (OSCE) method that has now made its way into social work education (Bogo et al. 20111, 2012 2013), is discussed at greater length later in the chapter. Each student is individually assessed by a trained observer on two different checklists, one based on the knowledge displayed about the problem being presented and the other on the way the student interacted with the client. Each scenario is time limited, and each student is usually presented with more than one situation. Sometimes OSCE assessments are

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summative, as when medical students or physicians undergoing relicensing in Canada must pass this kind of exam. They are also excellent for giving targeted formative feedback to students about what they did well on and what they could improve. OSCE examinations are now so common in other fields that there is a national organization of actors who perform the “patient” roles. However, the social work profession in the United States has not been willing to make the required investment in OSCE testing centers The biggest problems with using OSCEs are the expense (obtaining examination space, paying the actors, training the observers) and the effort needed to develop and implement the scenarios. Doing role plays in the classroom or in a practice lab has some similarities to an OSCE. However, its effectiveness rests on the scenarios developed, observers’ assessment skills, and the nature of the feedback provided to each student. While observing or video recording a student working with a client in the field-placement agency could also be effective, concern for client confidentiality usually rules this out.

WHO ASSESSES? Traditional models of educational assessment assume that the opinion that matters is what the teachers or field instructors (the experts) think of a student’s performance. After all, professors are responsible for designing the instructional program (the curriculum) to ensure that all students have the opportunity to learn everything essential to professional social work practice at the BSW or MSW level. They also have the legal authority and responsibility to ensure that students who complete the degree program can practice well. Since the implementation of EPAS 2015, assessments of student learning by classroom and field faculty, as opposed to through student self-rating, are now required in the accreditation process. In addition, each student must fulfill all curricular requirements (pass all courses and complete all required internship activities satisfactorily), as evaluated on an individual basis by their instructors. These aspects of assessment—further guided by external requirements, primarily the discipline’s accreditation standards—are part of any professional program’s gatekeeping responsibilities, later confirmed by state licensing and regulation. Grading alone or reporting a program’s pass rate, graduation rate, or attrition rate are now considered necessary but not sufficient to evaluate student learning. These are all forms of summative as

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opposed to fosrmative assessment. Assessment of learning through individual feedback, formative or summative, is what helps students learn.

STUDENTS Theories of adult learning stress the importance of student self-direction and the capacity for self-reflection (see chapter 2). CSWE’s accreditation standards (CSWE 2015) require one to be self-critical and to evaluate one’s own practice, meaning both processes and outcomes. To increase students’ capacity for self-reflection and self-assessment, also called reflective practice, engaging them in written reflection or journaling can be helpful. Although the familiar course questionnaires are used primarily to assess teaching (see chapter 6), they usually contain a few items requiring students to reflect on themselves, such as how much effort they put into the course and how much they initially wanted to enroll in the course. These items are most often used to place students’ collective evaluations of their courses in context, but they do offer a limited opportunity for self-observation. Some in social work education, myself included, have used a self-efficacy framework to develop students’ self-assessment questionnaires to measure before-and-after changes in self-perceptions of knowledge and skill (Holden, Anastas, and Meenaghan 2003, 2005; Holden et al. 2002). While self-efficacy measures are self-reports, a long research tradition based on Bandura’s work in cognitive psychology has documented a moderate correlation between self-efficacy measures and actual performance independently assessed. Holden and colleagues (1999, 2007, 2008) also used this technique to assess research learning specifically. One benefit of self-efficacy measurement techniques is that they can be anchored to universal criteria, such as the CSWE statements of foundational social work practice competencies (Holden, Anastas, and Meenaghan 2003, 2005),2 and to “local” or program-specific learning objectives. Holloway (n.d.) specifically mentioned the use of self-efficacy measurement techniques as promising and feasible for measuring educational outcomes. Many social work educators have used self-efficacy measures in evaluating student learning, and the number of articles about this in the social work education literature is too vast to cite. My studies with colleagues using self-efficacy-based self-assessment measures have been useful for examining pretest, then-test, and posttest changes and for determining the areas of students’ greatest confidence and change, as well as their areas of least confidence or in which

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they had changed the least from program entry to graduation. However, the current EPAS will not allow student self-report as an outcome measure. A common criticism of students’ self-assessments is that they can result in an underappraisal or overappraisal of achievements and capacities. In a complex small-scale study, Noble and Stretch (2002) examined the effects of GPA on undergraduate students’ appraisals of their knowledge of generalist practice. The study found that an assigned GPA had only a moderate relationship to students’ self-appraisals, which, they argued, was evidence of one harmful effect of grade inflation. Noble and Stretch were also able to draw interesting conclusions by comparing areas of self-assessment and finding, for example, that self-assessments of practice skill were less strongly affected by GPA than those in policy and research, which are more traditionally “academic.”

PEER ASSESSMENT Having students take on the hard work of evaluating one another, based in cooperative learning models, is often suggested as a way for students to develop self-assessment skills, to learn and internalize the standards by which their own work is being evaluated, and to prepare for working in teams and supervising others (Lemieux 2002). Making this activity reciprocal is necessary to prevent students from becoming too critical of one another. Accordingly, they might assess each other in pairs, each reading and commenting on the other’s paper. However, social work students are often hesitant to say anything negative about a fellow student’s work, and feedback that does not identify areas for improvement is not very useful for further learning. By contrast, in giving feedback on students’ papers, I sometimes have to make a conscious effort to give feedback on the strengths as well as the things to be corrected. However, if students are to be motivated to achieve, they need to feel that it is within their reach to get things right. Scaffolding learning consists of giving progressively complex assignments that build on one another, or assessing at first for the basics and then later addressing additional areas to work on. Peer assessment can be used as a form of feedback that does not count in the grade for the course but is designed to improve work in progress. It also is possible to offer the instructor’s feedback in addition to peers’ critiques, and sometimes students can even be evaluated by the instructor on their evaluation of a peer’s work.

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How peer-assessment techniques are used also depends on the course’s learning goals. For example, if one activity in a practice class is to present a case to develop skills in assessment, treatment planning, and the use of consultation, students could apply the same skills to others’ cases and learn how to give useful feedback to colleagues. However, a beginner in professional practice may simply not know how an interaction could have been done better, contributing to why their critiques may be limited. In trying to use peer assessment in social work courses, I have encountered resistance from students, which some have described as wanting to “get one’s money’s worth” for a course by getting feedback from the “true” expert, the instructor. Some of this resistance may also stem from the realization that it is hard work to develop insight into the quality of someone else’s work and to communicate that insight constructively, especially when there may be need for improvement. It may also reflect students’ belief that they can depend on teachers’ ethical commitment to fairness (see chapter 9) while they may not believe that they and their peers have the same commitment to each other. As noted, a common problem is that students are reluctant to mention any fault in a fellow student’s work to protect their supportive social relationships. However, since most MSW and some BSW graduates will supervise others, learning how to give positive and negative feedback constructively is a good skill to learn.

HOW TO ASSESS How best to assess students’ learning and practice skills depends on what you are measuring and what may be feasible to do. Both quantitative and qualitative data can be useful in educational assessment. Written assessments of learning are the most commonly used techniques. Drawn from educational practices that began in the early twentieth century, the multiple-choice questions used in quizzes and examinations are widely used examples of paper-and-pencil assessment techniques. These instruments are best for assessing recall and the application of knowledge, but what kinds of learning they assess depends on how they are constructed. For example, if the questions are about a case vignette, some questions may call for analysis as well. Written papers are another common way to evaluate and grade students’ learning. These can be research-based papers or essays on personal or professional experiences, case summaries, analyses of social policies or policy

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briefs, or even student journals. Sometimes a group of students working together on a project can write a report together, although group papers raise some special issues in student evaluation when they are used to grade individuals. Sometimes an instructor will ask students to evaluate each other, or individuals may work on distinct aspects of a project that can be evaluated separately. Because teamwork is such an essential skill in agency practice, having such assignments is often worthwhile despite the grading dilemmas they may raise (Gillespie 2012). One common problem in assigning and assessing students’ written work is the quality of students’ writing skills. Problems can include incomplete sentences, punctuation, spelling, poor word choice, and the organization of the content. Just as it is important to teaching, organizing the content of a paper into a logical flow of information is essential. Writing is a skill that professional social workers need to have, so if there are resources students can turn to for help in this area, encourage them to do so. Allowance must be made for students for whom English is not their first language; in my experience, their written expression will improve over time. Writing involves the clear expression of ideas, and when the writing is flawed, it can interfere with grasping a student’s ideas. Conversely, when a student’s writing is fluid and engaging, I can find myself reading through very quickly and only on a second reading considering if the content of the paper is as good as the writing itself. Especially in the classroom, short open-ended written statements from students about their learning can be a useful source of information about a class session or course. Questions such as “What did you learn today (or this term)?” can be posed. If students learned little, it may be that the course does not differ much from other, preceding or concurrent, courses. It is also valuable to know what parts of the course content “got through” better than others. Students can also make suggestions about how their learning could be enhanced by changing the timing of readings or in other ways. It is sometimes suggested that individual students write down something about their own learning styles. Often students have not given much thought to that question, but the assignment can be helpful to them in being more planful about how they study. Graded written assignments should reflect the course’s learning objectives. For example, if developing the habit of and capacity for self-reflection is a goal, keeping a journal or some other form of personal essay might be a useful assignment. Similarly, because writing case summaries or progress notes is often a part of professional practice, a practice course might require

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students to analyze a case, as long as the identity of those described in the case is well protected. It also can be useful to ask students to write memoranda and other forms of interprofessional communication, with feedback on how to make such documents more effective. Social work educators are concerned, as are those in other fields, about students’ writing skills. Campus-based centers are often available where students (and faculty) can go for help in improving their writing skills, although the services of these centers are sometimes overwhelmed. Some social work programs have therefore developed in-house mechanisms for students to obtain writing help. Problems in writing, however, are often hard to separate from problems of knowledge or thinking, making the boundary between the subject teacher’s and the writing teacher’s job sometimes difficult to determine. Oral performance, although not called by this name, is another method used in student assessment. Examples are class presentations and oral presentations of cases in either the classroom or the agency (field learning). Usually, this kind of work is judged on its content, but if a learning goal is to help students make effective presentations, it also is useful to evaluate oral presentations on clarity of speech, the use of visual or other aids for the audience, and other “performance” factors. As with written work, all the criteria on which students’ oral presentations will be evaluated should be made known to them in advance. The most common method used in social work education for examining practice learning outcomes is the field instructor’s periodic review of students’ performance in the field-education setting (Sellers and Neff 2019). However, this measure does not demonstrate reliability or validity (2019, 221) and can be a burdensome task for field instructors. BSW and MSW program directors also worry about the applicability of one standardized assessment measure across the wide variety of student placements. Since practice is a set of skills and behaviors, direct observation of students’ interactions with the people they are serving would seem the most logical way to evaluate their practice. Family therapy has long incorporated team observational methods into its training and practice, so social work students may encounter formative evaluation through observation in some of their field education—that is, situations in which they are given feedback from observers based on one-way mirror or video-recorded work. Role playing in the practice classroom is another way instructors and peers can observe and offer students feedback. Schools and departments of social work may have “labs” in which students can be observed in

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role-playing or other practice encounters. The immediacy of this feedback is particularly helpful. Despite the logical and intuitive appeal of these assessment methods, no published report that I know of examines what has been learned in this way regarding students’ strengths and weaknesses. Unlike grading and examination scores, which have been studied for their (limited) predictive validity for the workplace, we do not know how well student evaluations based on observation can predict on-the-job performance. Since the inception of social work education, a proxy method of observation—the process recording—has been widely used in the field internship (Hendricks, Finch, and Franks 2005; Neuman and Friedman 1997; Urdang 1979; Walsh 2002). As Hendricks, Finch, and Franks noted, the traditional verbatim record, written based on recall after the fact, lies on a continuum of session recording methods from a verbal summary given to a supervisor through audio or video recordings and even one-way mirror observation. Formats for process recording generally require describing verbatim the interaction and provide a space in which to record students’ comments on the interaction after the fact and a space for the instructor’s feedback. This technique for evaluating students’ practice skills is not only used by field instructors; faculty members who serve as student advisers or practice teachers may make use of them as well. While Mumm’s (2006) study suggests that process recordings are not so widely used in field education and are not viewed as very helpful by students, Knight (2000) found that it was how, rather than how often, process recordings were used that mattered. Some argue that process recordings are still used in social work education because they are inexpensive (although time-consuming to produce and assess), whereas others argue that they teach important skills of recall, writing, and self-reflection, despite their possible inaccuracies. It is also an unobtrusive measure, unlike audio and video recording, and better protects clients’ confidentiality. Some people recommend structuring the recording in various ways, to draw students’ attention to specific issues, such as affective versus cognitive responses to the interview content; to specific phases of the work; or to specific issues, such as clients’ strengths (Neuman and Friedman 1997; Walsh 2002). What students learn from process recordings depends greatly on the feedback they receive, which entails the field instructor’s analyzing the recording and considering when various issues should be raised with each student (Hendricks, Finch, and Franks 2005). Students make their best recordings and most productive reflection when they trust the student–teacher

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relationship and when the burden of doing them does not discourage their careful preparation. Perhaps for this reason, process recordings are generally used in formative rather than summative student evaluations, even though what students’ process evaluation show about the quality of their work with clients is part of what field instructors take into account when rating or grading their field performance overall. Finally, unlike case interactions or role playing used in the classroom, written process recordings are more permanent documents that can be revisited over time and compared with later recordings, when advances in skill are expected. However process recordings are used in student evaluation, the process is meant to instill in students the commitment to self-reflection in their practice. Evaluating students’ performance in actual cases has disadvantages. One is that the cases students encounter in the internship vary greatly in complexity and other characteristics. One solution has been to standardize the cases that students are presented with when assessing their skills. In the past, this effort has been aimed at developing written case studies that students are asked to analyze, but these then become paper-and-pencil exercises. As we know, a written case study is not likely to elicit the personal reaction in a professional that a video recording (or even a photographic image) does, and managing these reactions is an important part of professional practice in both assessment and intervention. All kinds of useful information, such as body language and other aspects of appearance, are lost in written process recordings. Video recordings of interviews with clients (normally without an image of the face) can be shown in the classroom or on the Web, and students can be asked for written assessments or written treatment plans. The student’s interaction—the ability to ask the right question to get the information needed in assessment, or skills in connecting affectively—cannot be assessed as reliably in this way as it can if a student takes the part of the practitioner in a simulated case scenario. The student’s body language and other ways of reacting to the client are lost as well. But the ability to analyze the practice behavior of others and to formulate approaches to assessment and intervention based on real cases can be examined in this way, as when students observe and comment on case interactions that they view in the classroom. The opportunity to observe different students or clinicians interacting with the same (or similar) clients can also suggest new or improved approaches to the students who view them. The most common obstacle to using real clients, however, is the legal and ethical need to ensure that consent is obtained and the client’s privacy is safeguarded in ways conforming to current HIPPA regulations.

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The literature on the use of simulated cases in social work practice classes, as both a teaching tool (formative) and a possible outcome measure of students’ practice skills, is growing (Badger and MacNeil 2002; Huttar and BrintzenhofeSzoc 2020; Kourgiantakis et al. 2020; Mooradian 2007, 2008; Petracchi 1999; Petrachi and Collins 2006); Roberson (2020) has posited a set of concepts that inform the use of simulation: holistic competence, the engagement of learners, and the importance of experiential learning, concepts familiar in social work education more generally. While this method builds on traditional in-class role playing, the use of standardized simulated cases is complicated. First, realistic scenarios (case situations) must be devised that include content on the assessment and treatment issues that students must show they can address but that are ambiguous enough to be challenging. The performers (often theater or acting students) also have to be able to improvise as they interact with the student interviewers. Feedback on students’ interactions with these “clients” must be then be provided. When assessing advanced graduate students’ family practice skills, Mooradian (2008) prepared scenarios involving marital conflict over sexual intimacy and conflict between adolescents and parents. Similarly, Peterson and associates (2014) used video recordings of students interacting with simulated clients to assess and improve students’ competency in dyadic clinical practice. After the event, talking with those taking the role of the therapist and/or with those simply observing these interactions is essential to maximizing students’ learning, to point out both what went well and where improvement is needed. Because of the expenses in time, labor, and dollars of assessing students in this way, most social work studies of using standardized cases have been of students observing and commenting on recordings of these interactions (Peterson et al. 2014). Students reportedly find the experience of role play with simulated clients—both being a simulated “treater” and observing simulated case interactions—realistic, “better than [traditional] role plays,” and an effective method of learning practice skills. Obviously, this method of assessment prevents the threats to privacy in recording interactions with real service users. Kourgiantakis and associates (2020) performed a scoping review of fifty-two publications addressing the use of simulations in social work education, including but not limited to OCSE. They found that simulated clients were more often used for teaching purposes than for assessment. They were used for generalist practice but more often for various forms of specialized practice. Huttar and BrintzenhofeSzoc (2020) limited their review to the

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use of simulation in virtual worlds, finding that students often requested more training in navigating the virtual-world software. It is likely that during the COVID-19 pandemic, social work programs more often used simulation and virtual environments to substitute for face-to-face opportunities to practice.

OBSERVED STRUCTURED CLINICAL OBSERVATION (OSCE) The assessment of practice skills remains a challenge for social work education and the profession as a whole. Because of the promise of using simulated cases, medicine and related fields such as nursing have raised the assessment of students’ skills in “patient” interactions to a very sophisticated level through the use of observed structured clinical evaluation (OSCE) methodology (Bogo et al. 2011; Bogo et al. 2012. This assessment of clinical skill is being used in formative (as a teaching tool) and summative (for passing a clinical course, being relicensed) student evaluation in these other fields, and there has been an extensive literature on its use since the 1970s. Bogo and colleagues at the Factor-Inwentash School of Social Work at the University of Toronto have adapted this observational technique, originally developed in medicine and other health professions, for social work. In the OSCE method, students interact with a trained actor who presents as a client and who is behaving based on a carefully constructed vignette. Students interact as a social worker, asking questions designed to identify the issue that brings the “client” to the social worker and relating to the actor/ client in a way that gets the client talking about the presenting problem. Normally, trained actors are used to play the role of the client. Two dimensions of the students’ interactions with the simulated client are assessed: the content of what was done (Was all the relevant information elicited? Was any assessment or treatment recommendation made correct/ defensible?) and the manner in which the interaction was conducted—body language, service user’s comfort level, and the like. One feature of the OSCE procedure that was apparently not included in the social work studies of using simulated cases published so far was the absence of feedback from the simulated service recipient—how it felt to be interviewed. Whatever the practice skill assessed, a valid OSCE procedure requires enough cases/scenarios and demographic variety to adequately sample the range of client situations and problem areas that the prospective practitioners are likely to encounter. For example, the race, ethnicity, and

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gender of the “cases” are usually varied. The amount of time interacting with each simulated patient can also vary, depending on the type of practice (e.g., shorter client encounters in emergency medicine, longer encounters in psychiatry). To illustrate the use of the OCSE method in an interdisciplinary setting, Baez (2005) reported on a federally funded interdisciplinary project (medicine, nursing, and social work) in which the OSCE was used both to evaluate students’ skills in screening for substance-abuse problems in a range of client situations and to give students individual feedback on how they could improve their work in this area. Social work students who participated in Baez’s project found the experience to be excellent for learning, despite the performance anxiety generated. Even though student actors (rather than professionals) were used as standardized clients in this project, the expense of developing scenarios and implementing the student assessments was such that it was possible to do only with grant support. Having observed this OSCE project in action, I was impressed with it for student assessments, and the extensive literature on the use of this methodology provides guidance for those who want to try it. The OSCE methodology has established its reliability and validity. Whether targeted at generic skills in assessment and intervention or at specialty practice areas, as in the substance-abuse area described by Baez (2005) or in the assessment of specific advanced or specialized practice skills, the profession must decide whether it can or should invest in developing this kind of technology in response to the need for greater accountability for its educational outcomes. In online social work education, simulated clients and virtual worlds can also be used to observe how students act with service users and other professionals (see chapter 7).

PORTFOLIOS Another innovative method to assess student learning is the portfolio—a collection of a student’s work that is also analyzed (self-reflection) for what it reveals about learning (Moran 1997, chap. 6). Students receive instructions on what they should put into or create for the portfolio. This content might include assignments completed for various courses or in their field internship, often from the beginning of their educational program through those completed later on, plus analysis and reflection on the changes in their skill level or complexity of understanding of an issue. Reports of portfolios used

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in last-term “integrative” courses or as required capstone projects (Schatz 2004; Spicuzza 2000) and in field education (Risler 1999; Schatz and Simon 1999) have been published. Fitch and colleagues (2008) discussed the use of e-portfolios, meaning the use of available software for developing and recording students’ portfolio materials. Whether or not the medium used is electronic, several elements of the process are necessary for its usefulness as a teaching and evaluative tool. One is that the portfolio requirement be introduced to students early in the educational process, for two reasons. The first is that students’ “products” from the beginning of the program are often compared with those produced later. The second is that thinking about learning outcomes at the outset often helps students clarify their learning goals and select or develop the best “end products” for inclusion in their portfolio. Any parameters for what students are required to include should be clear as well. The advantages of using portfolios for grading purposes are that students can choose which pieces of work to include and that the assessment does not depend on any single product. Sometimes a portfolio evaluation can include more than one person’s assessment (e.g., assessment by a committee), which, although time-consuming, can reduce the hazards of having only one grader/evaluator. Above all, portfolios ask students to reflect on their performance, describe their progress, and identify areas to work on in the future (McKeachie and Svinicki 2006). Portfolios are apparently not yet widely used in social work education, perhaps because they require considerable work on the part of the student as well as the faculty members who evaluate and provide feedback on them. This kind of assessment tool has advantages over the usual assessment work, such as grading students’ work for each course, as integration of areas of study is often emphasized in a portfolio. The practice shows great promise, especially because it usually requires students to self-reflect and incorporates the idea that whatever has been achieved, learning should continue.

GRADING Whatever the logic and methods guiding the assessment of students’ learning, the traditional method of feedback in the form of grading remains central to virtually all social work education, even if the grading system for the field internship and some or all courses is a pass/fail system. Grading is such a universal experience for students and teachers that even pass/fail systems

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are operationally defined using grades (e.g., a marginal pass is equivalent to a grade of C, and a P at the graduate level is equivalent to A or B). Grading separates the helping function of teaching, which is fairly comfortable and familiar to social workers who become academics, from the authority and power aspects of the teaching role. The responsibility of assigning grades is a common source of anxiety for beginning teachers, in part because they are more used to being graded and in part because they may have an intuitive or realistic sense of the broad social ramifications and hence the perils of making academic judgments (for a complex and convincing analysis of the social sorting functions of educational institutions and practices, see Bourdieu 1990, 1996; Costello 2005). Finally, as Hu (2005) demonstrated, problems in the grading system at U.S. colleges and universities are grade inflation and disparities in grading across different fields. Grades are designed to evaluate, communicate, and motivate honestly, but when the system is distorted, they are compromised. The research on grades, student characteristics, and grading practices over time is complicated. Sadly, however, there may now be an unspoken “disengagement contract” between teachers, who need to put more time and effort into scholarship than into student evaluations, and students, who need good grades to qualify for scholarship aid and graduate school but who are working and facing other pressures, making maximal academic effort difficult. Changes in the grading policies and practices of academic institutions are likely necessary to restore more integrity to the grading system. Most of the advice to individual teachers about assigning grades does not pertain to the grading system itself but is designed to make the “rules of the game” as transparent as possible to both students and teachers (see, e.g., Gibelman and Gelman 2001, McKeachie and Svinicki 2014; Nilson 2016). Aviles (2001) argued for “criterion-referenced” grading—that is, for explicit performance standards determined by the instructor that most students can achieve. Student handbooks should contain the program’s and/or the college’s or university’s definitions of each grade level (e.g., “A” indicating excellence and/or outstanding work), and these definitions should also be made available to all the evaluators (instructors) who will be assigning grades to students. One recommended practice in grading is to develop a rubric to guide the assignment of grades. One advantage is that students will know what they will be evaluated on when they begin their work and can address their efforts to the areas that will be taken into account in assigning the grade.

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This practice may enhance the sense of fairness in grading. More important, by giving feedback on each component of the rubric, the information conveyed by the grade becomes more specific for each individual to guide the student’s learning and performance going forward (Adedoyin 2013). The specific requirements for an assignment or course learning goals can be part of the rubric. Each component of the rubric may be weighted differently; for a paper, parts of the required content are likely to be weighted more heavily than the required use of APA style. Critics of the use of rubrics say that the originality, elegance, creativity, or importance of a student’s work on an assignment or in a course overall are not likely to be captured by the concrete elements of a rubric. Said another way, competence may not be the same as excellence. Despite efforts to explicate the performance criteria used to assign a grade, grading contains some unavoidably subjective elements. However, part of the academic freedom of college and university teachers is their right to evaluate (grade) students as they see fit as long as they follow due process and are not biased. Although students are free to complain to an instructor about a grade or to ask that a grade be changed, teachers are free not to honor such requests. Departments, schools, and colleges or universities always have some way for students to make a formal complaint if they are alleging bias or some other problem in how a grade was given. Simply wishing for another opinion or outcome, however, is not sufficient cause for such a complaint to be heard. The review is about determining whether the process used to generate the final grade was fair, meaning that the teacher must apply the performance standards in the same way for every student. Each program or school must inform students about how low grades in a course might contribute to a formal review of a student’s status in the program. Typically, students must maintain an average of grades at least in the B range.

GATEKEEPING Social work programs have a responsibility to promote students’ learning and also to confer professional degrees only on those who can meet the academic and personal performance standards necessary for informed and ethical practice. While post-degree licensing procedures are designed to protect the public, graduation from a CSWE-accredited social work program is a

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precondition for obtaining a license in the United States. Gatekeeping therefore remains a core responsibility for programs. Programs usually have procedures for dismissing a student, providing a second-opinion process that goes beyond any single instructor’s judgment (Cowburn, Nelson, and Williams 2000). An instructor who is concerned about a student’s poor performance in the classroom or the field internship might not give the student a failing grade if it could lead to dismissal from a program. In actual practice, however, when a student is marginal or failing, usually no one instructor’s grade alone can result in dismissal from a program without a deliberative group process. Legally and in educational practice, professional programs have the right and the responsibility to judge students’ performance in areas including but not limited to traditional academics (Urwin, Van Soest, and Kretzschmar 2006). Lack of selectivity in admissions, other demands placed on faculty that make spending time on individual student performance issues undesirable, pressures on programs to maintain enrollments, and the grade inflation affecting academia overall have been some of the factors affecting assessment (Urwin, Van Soest, and Kretzschmar 2006). Even so, social work programs have the right to determine the suitability of those seeking a professional degree, especially because present and future clients’ rights and safety are implicated. One area that has created special dilemmas in gatekeeping involves students with mental health conditions (Holley et al. 2020; Mazza 2015a, 2015b). Often problems surface in the field setting, but they can also manifest in disruptive classroom behavior or excessive absences. Consumers can make special contributions to social work practice, and they can succeed in their education, so social work educators may be inclined to take a recovery-oriented stance to students with mental health challenges. On the other hand, social work educators have the duty to graduate only those students who can practice competently and safely. Support and feedback to allow students to improve their performance are essential, but part of the problem is that students are often unable to change based on feedback. Disability services can often be helpful in identifying accommodations that can help, but it is the student who must request those services. To avoid unnecessary problems, effective gatekeeping procedures must have a number of characteristics: explicitly stated criteria for students’ performance in the classroom and the field; a system for communicating information to students about deficiencies in their performance, with a chance

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to improve them (including rereview); students’ grievance procedures to correct for any prejudicial evaluation; and, at all steps in the process, due notice, written documentation of concerns and decisions, clear and direct communication with affected students, and safeguards for students’ privacy (Cole and Lewis 1993; Urwin, Van Soest, and Kretzschmar 2006). These procedures are designed to balance the promotion of student learning with professional safeguards, faculty autonomy in evaluative judgment, students’ rights, and individual faculty perceptions of students and situations with those of peers and others. A final key issue is administrative support for those faculty members and faculty groups who make the hard decisions about some students, including giving failing grades. This must be balanced, of course, with safeguarding students’ rights to due process. Admissions decisions and faculty judgments about students’ performance are imperfect, but there is no right to program admission or program completion; these are privileges that must be earned.

CONCLUSIONS Here are some general suggestions about evaluating student learning that are important to consider. Q

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Plan for student assessment as integral to course and curriculum development, sometimes called backward planning. While assessment activities play a role in judging the adequacy of students’ performance, students’ efforts should pay off in professional development as well. In other words, students should learn from completing the assignments. Students are also less frustrated by these demands (“requirements”) when the activities seem directly related to the course objectives and their professional practice. Fit student assessments to learning outcomes. Examinations can test for the recall and application of specific knowledge. Oral presentations and term papers can involve discovering, analyzing, and synthesizing new information. Journals and other methods can be used to encourage and evaluate the capacity for self-reflection. Role playing, case analyses, process recordings, and similar activities can be used not just for assessing practice skills but also for learning. Use student assessment in both formative and summative ways. If there are essential educational outcomes needed, use a formative assessment to give students a try at it and then provide feedback before a summative assess-

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ment is made. Try breaking down assignments, such as a major term paper, into its component parts, giving feedback on each section (formative) until the final (summative) assessment is made. I find that students appreciate this kind of assignment because they want to improve and perform well. Many assessment techniques can be used in formative and summative situations. Offer variety and options in assessment activities. Choices can maximize students’ opportunities to learn in different ways. They also allow the instructor to experiment over time with what seems to work best. Because students’ learning needs can differ dramatically, I include a one-line statement on my syllabi that anyone is free to propose a substitute final assignment, although I do not guarantee that I will accept it or make adjustments to it. This strategy has reduced frustration for students enrolled in a required course who already have significant background in the area, which can in turn translate into an easier time in the classroom. It also lets students apply what they have learned to an area of particular interest to them. Treat mistakes as teachable moments. One score or one grade does not say much about whether a student will become a successful social worker (Nilson 2016). Teachers should provide individualized feedback that increases student knowledge, allowing students to learn from constructive critical feedback.

Because of what we know about adult learning, social work education needs to develop and adopt new methods of providing feedback to students on what they are doing well and where they may need to improve. Although time-consuming, individualized feedback works best, but comments on both the achievements and the areas for improvement must be included. Many of the problems identified by Wodarski, Feit, and Green (1995) in their review of empirical research on the outcomes of social work education remain (Sellers and Neff 2019). Unless specific findings are published as research reports, information captured by individual programs about their educational outcomes and described in their self-reports for accreditation will not be available to other educators, and findings have not been examined collectively to see what, if anything, might be learned from them. In addition, promising practices for assessing students’ practice and other professional skills have been identified but are not yet in widespread use. As in most professions, better assessment of our learning outcomes will continue to be a challenge that we will have to strive to meet, individually and collectively.

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RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Area Concentration Achievement Test (ACAT) (Project for Area Concentration Achievement Testing, 1997) for social work majors. http://www.collegeoutcomes .com/ACATS/socwork.htm. Baccalaureate Educational Assessment Package (BEAP) homepage. http://beap .socwk.utah.edu/. Barkley, E. F, and Major, C H. (2016). Learning assessment techniques: A handbook for college faculty. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Sellers, W., and Neff, D. (2019). Assessment processes in social work education: A review of current methods. Journal of Teaching in Social Work 39(3): 212–225.

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work, both full-time and part-time, are usually hired because of what they know and know how to do. However, some are better than others at teaching about what they know. The most rigorous review of teaching comes at the times of hiring, reappointment, tenure, and promotion (see chapter 8). However, as with assessing student learning, the assessment of teaching can be both summative, as in hiring and reappointment decisions, and formative in nature. The focus of accreditation efforts has turned to “outputs” (student learning) rather than “inputs,” such as the quality of the teaching and other educational resources that support students’ learning. Nevertheless, the assessment of teaching remains an important factor in faculty tenure and promotion decisions as well as in more routine evaluation of the quality of their work, as in annual performance and merit reviews. The most common measure of faculty teaching is the essentially universal use of students’ course satisfaction questionnaires, whose results are also usually used in tenure and promotion decisions. Kealey (2010) notes that feedback of this kind is used mostly for administrative decision making rather than for the improvement of teaching. Teaching portfolios and peer observation in the classroom are two other measures used in tenure and promotion decisions. Whether or not a formal teaching portfolio is prepared, course and/or curriculum development work, efforts to refresh teaching, and how scholarship informs teaching also constitute information about teaching quality beyond students’ opinions. This chapter covers the ongoing formative assessment of teaching, how teaching is evaluated at times of hiring and reappointment decisions, the role of student satisfaction measures as a means of evaluating teaching, and how faculty members can document their teaching effectiveness by developing a teaching portfolio.

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The first thing you may note about this chapter is that it is much shorter than the one on assessing student learning. If students are learning what they need to know, this may be a reflection of effective teaching. However, the quality of teaching is assessed regularly and with consequence even if not much is written about it in the social work education literature. Other than in the context of field education, there does not seem to be any literature about evaluating the quality of student advisement, even though in many settings there have been changes in who does the advising. The emphasis in this chapter is on the teacher, with a short passage on the field instructor, and how well a teacher succeeds in conveying the subject matter to students. As discussed in chapter 5, the accreditation system is designed to measure student learning outcomes in the form of competencies at the level of the program, MSW or BSW, as a whole. The assumption about teaching is that if students are succeeding, the teaching must be good. However, the process of teaching can feel either productive and satisfying to students or painful and frustrating. Understanding the various ways that teaching can be evaluated is important to faculty development efforts and to individual instructors who want to renew and further develop their own skills. In the background, the educational setting can be one in which excellence in teaching is highly developed and colleagues routinely share in the development of curriculum and support each other in their teaching. The setting can also be one in which other faculty accomplishments are the most valued and teaching well is either taken for granted or not considered an important factor in faculty evaluation. Some colleges and universities describe themselves as teaching-oriented institutions; while course loads may be higher in these settings, teaching is the aspect of faculty work that is the most valued. In addition, the agencies where students receive their field instruction may invest a lot in student learning, or they may be so stressed by lack of funding or by overwhelming client need for their services that field instructors are more limited in the time and attention they can devote to their students. Teachers and field instructors generally want to do well by their students, so assessing how well teaching is going can lead to a more gratifying experience for both teachers and students.

THE IMPLICIT CURRICULUM Assessing learning outcomes in the accreditation process relates most directly to the explicit curriculum—the formal program requirements, both

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courses and the field internship. Most of what has been discussed about assessing individuals’ performance is based in the learning goals and competencies. The accreditation process also requires assessment of the implicit curriculum, sometimes called the hidden curriculum. While this is not an assessment of the performance of individual teachers, faculty members are major players influencing the climate of a program. The implicit curriculum refers to many aspects of the educational context, such as diversity, equity and inclusion, adequate resources (including an acceptable student/faculty ratio), and administrative autonomy. Opportunities must be provided for students to evaluate the implicit curriculum, rating aspects of their experiences in the program that may include the internship experience and field supervision; academic advisement and mentoring; perceptions of fairness in admissions and financial aid; and the climate of the program. For accreditation purposes, Grady, Powers, Despard, and Naylor (2011) have developed a standardized instrument to assess students’ experiences of the implicit curriculum. Many aspects of the implicit curriculum are included in this measure. Its psychometric properties have also been described (Grady, Swick, and Powers 2018). Bogo and Wayne (2013) describe the implicit curriculum as the “culture of human interchange,” because it is based in how people and systems within a program behave toward one another. Many aspects of the implicit curriculum are included in the ratings of student satisfaction with the program: admissions and financial aid; advisement, the field experience, diversity, equity and inclusion, the faculty in general, and perhaps the staff and administration as well. Faculty are not the only ones creating and enacting the program climate, but their interactions with students play a big role. Aside from being responsible for the atmosphere in the courses they teach, they may also serve in other important roles such as advisement or admissions screening. Collectively, faculty members design and deliver the curriculum, which students of color may or may not find inclusive of their concerns. Grady, Glass, Lechner, and Naylor (2020) conducted a qualitative study of MSW students’ opinions about what contributed to and detracted from their experience of the MSW program, both in the internship setting and in the classroom. Teachers’ knowledge, classroom discussions, and course assignments were described as positive; common complaints included a lack of adequate time with both field supervisors and academic advisers. As to diversity issues, classes and classroom experiences, good or bad, were most often mentioned. It should be clear from these findings that faculty have a large role to play in students’ experience of the implicit curriculum.

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As programs and campuses try to improve the experiences of diverse students, staff, and faculty, measures of campus climate have come into more widespread use. Some of these measures are proprietary—that is, copyrighted and then purchased for use. Others are homegrown and adapted to the special concerns of the programs and communities they serve. If a social work program is in a setting where campus climate measures are already in place, it can be efficient to use findings from that assessment as a measure of the implicit curriculum.

DEVELOPING A TEACHING PHILOSOPHY Everyone has a teaching philosophy, whether they are conscious of it or not. Articulating your beliefs about what constitutes good teaching and why you teach the way you do is a vital step in self-evaluation. It can help explain why you do what you do as a teacher. Most important, it guides your teaching practice. Owens, Miller, and Grise-Owens (2014; Grise-Owens, Miller, and Owens 2018) explain what goes into a statement of one’s teaching philosophy: Generally, such a statement includes at least four areas of focus: (a) conceptualization of how learning occurs, (b) conceptualization of an effective teaching and learning environment, (c) expectations of the student–teacher relationship, and (d) student assessment, and assessment of learning goals. (2014, 333)

For example, you may believe that adults learn best through active learning and through integrating what they already know into their current learning. This belief would lead you to design a learning environment and engage in teaching activities that promoted active learning. You may then think of your students as people with existing knowledge to share, rather than as “empty vessels” who get their learning from the teacher, leading to a particular kind of student-teacher relationship. These beliefs would also affect how you assess student learning. Owens and associates (2014) reported that others recommend statements about learning goals, teaching methods, the assessment of student learning, and the assessment of one’s teaching. They also recommend that reference be made to those theories of learning you ascribe to and the teaching methods that work well based on those theories. Drolet (2013) illustrates that teaching philosophies matter in field education as well.

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Articulation of a teaching philosophy must be followed by activating it and then evaluating how the approach is working out. Duron and Giardina (2018) found that instructors’ teaching philosophies and their conceptualizations of the role of the teacher influenced what and how they taught far more than any knowledge of social work accreditation requirements for what students should learn. Your teaching philosophy should be shared with students as the rationale for how you are approaching the class and with your colleagues at times of review. Teaching techniques and assessments of student learning compatible with your philosophy should be reflected in the climate of your classroom and in your teaching methods. One method of evaluating the effectiveness of your philosophy in action is to assemble a teaching portfolio (see below). In addition, sharing your teaching philosophy with students can serve as a method of accountability.

FORMATIVE FEEDBACK IN THE CLASSROOM A universally recognized “best practice” in teaching is checking in with students early and often when teaching a course. Student satisfaction questionnaires are a “crude” measure of teaching effectiveness (Kealey 2010, 71), so various kinds of formative assessment should be used to evaluate teaching, such as consultation with experts, classroom observation, and the development of teaching portfolios. The middle of the term or semester is the latest option for getting feedback from students on how the course is going. Only then is there time enough to make any alterations in teaching. Feedback can be sought through class discussion (“Let’s take a few minutes to hear any comments you may have on how the course is going so far”). It is useful to ask both what students like and what they don’t like or might like to see changed. This process can also be done using small groups of students (Kealey 2010). Students should also be encouraged to hand in written comments or submit them electronically, via email or the course website, as more honest comments, especially about dissatisfactions, may be obtained through private communications. If comments are elicited and submitted outside the class session, the teacher should bring these comments back to class anonymously so that students will know that they were “heard.” If requested changes cannot be made, students should know why. Students should be allowed to refuse to comment and should understand that their comments will not used outside the immediate teaching situation unless there is a formal, research-based evaluation of the course

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taking place and they have given formal permission to be included in such research. This formative feedback can permit useful midcourse corrections and can remedy problems in a specific course section to make the rest of the term or semester more productive. While the time taken for this evaluation process can be seen as reducing the time available to cover course content, the teacher’s willingness to consider the students’ views and suggestions for changes in how the course is being taught ensures that more will actually be learned. Examples of midcourse feedback that I have received have included comments about the timing and volume of readings assigned and suggestions about topics and subtopics to be covered or omitted. Affirmative feedback from students serves to reinforce and sustain instructor efforts in these areas. As Kealey notes, what is “critical is a spirit of partnership between students and instructor in which feedback is given constructively and acted upon deliberately” (2010, 72). When course assignments are due, it is also a good practice to elicit feedback from students on what they learned and what they found challenging. This kind of feedback has led me to improve the instructions given, to be more explicit about what aspects of the work will be formally evaluated, or to change the timing of when assignments are due. This feedback can only be implemented in future iterations of the course, but over time it leads to improvement in course design and implementation. This kind of check-in on the course and how it is taught should be scheduled to occur at least once by the middle of the term or semester. However, it can be helpful to check in with students on how the course is going earlier and more often than that. If nothing else, this activity demonstrates that an instructor is open to student input, which is often an item on student satisfaction surveys.

STUDENT SATISFACTION QUESTIONNAIRES Having students complete questionnaires describing their (dis)satisfaction with their courses and classroom instructors has become universal in higher education. Sometimes these instruments are adopted across campus, with the option to customize or add items in different departments or by individual instructors. Ratings from these instruments are widely used in social work for faculty and course development and also in tenure and promotion decisions (Jirovec, Ramanathan, and Alvarez 1998; Kealey 2010; Wolfer

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and Johnson 2003). Although instructors often regard the ratings from these instruments with suspicion, Pike’s (1998) study of a specific social work questionnaire found that it reliably identified the most capable teachers but not always the least capable ones. In Wolfer and Johnson’s study using the “overall” rating from the same social work instrument, however, they found so little variation in satisfaction (everyone was in the “A” range) that no correlates of students’ satisfaction were found other than the instructor’s gender (women were rated more highly). Overall, these instruments were found to consistently identify important aspects of what students and professionals viewed as important elements in effective instruction, such as treating students with respect, and were not much influenced by confounding factors, such as grades given, that often make low-rated instructors want to dismiss them. As in other fields, Jirovec, Ramanathan, and Alvarez (1998) found in a social work study that instructors’ abilities to organize course content effectively, provide prompt feedback and have clear grading policies, and develop rapport with students were strongly correlated with global ratings of teaching skills. Ratings differed by course content area but not in the direction expected, suggesting that skilled instructors can succeed when students are not initially eager to take the course (policy versus practice in the particular setting studied). Conversely, instructors teaching elective courses received higher ratings than those teaching required courses, so the study’s authors recommended that the ratings of tenure candidates who teach mainly required courses be tempered by this information. Giving individual instructors information about how their ratings compare with the averages for others teaching sections of the same course or courses in the same content area (e.g., research or practice, other electives) can help them place their ratings in context and may reduce the tendency to “explain away” low ratings. But Wolfer and Johnson (2003) rightly warned that “above or below average” scores may differ in decimal points to a degree that does not reflect anything but measurement error. In addition, even the best or most experienced teachers occasionally encounter a course section in which things do not go very well from the students’ point of view. What is important is not that one set of course ratings shows less than outstanding student satisfaction; it is how the instructor responds to them—defensively, by blaming students, courses, or colleagues (the others grade too leniently, the others pander to popularity, etc.), or constructively, by trying to learn from the experience. Finally, no one has yet found a good way to relate students’ satisfaction ratings to how much students have actually learned in

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a course, because we have no valid and feasible way to measure complex learning outcomes. Even though teachers often have the option of adding items to a standardized student satisfaction measure, few take the trouble to do so. If an individual instructor emphasizes particular teaching activities, however, documenting that these techniques were carried out and how students responded to them can be useful when one’s teaching is being evaluated for administrative purposes.

ALUMNI/AE A commonly used technique for assessing satisfaction with a BSW or MSW program is asking social work graduates to evaluate their experiences as students and to share their perceptions of the usefulness of their education based on their subsequent work experience, usually using alumni/ae surveys. While response rates to surveys of graduates can be low, even the self-reported employment rate of recent graduates and the nature of the professional (or other) work they are doing provide useful information. Some programs and schools have used focus groups of recent graduates and/or employers of recent graduates as sources of information on the strengths and weaknesses of the program and the areas of satisfaction and discontent expressed by graduates themselves. Whether students are in micro or macro practice, one area usually rated highly is field education. Alumni can offer useful feedback on the curriculum. For example, once they are employed and experience the accountability demands that service agencies face and new roles beyond providing services, they may wish they had had more preparation in program evaluation, assessing client outcomes, or supervision. Most MSW graduates find themselves supervising volunteers, paraprofessionals, students, and/or other social workers soon after graduation.

CLOSING THE LOOP As in any kind of program evaluation, including the assessment of teaching, the feedback provided is of little use unless the findings are used to make changes where needed. Changes in curriculum can occur for many reasons, including the nature of practice; the emergence of evidence-supported

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practices is an example of practice changes driving changes in what is taught. Teachers who get relatively low student satisfaction ratings in one or more areas can ignore or explain them away, or they can use the feedback to alter some of what they are doing in the classroom. Consulting with a course leader, sequence chair, or some other experienced teachers can be of great help. Without closing the loop, even the best methods for assessing teaching will be of little use.

THE TEACHING PORTFOLIO Teaching well requires a lot of work. Especially before hiring, tenure, or promotion decisions, teachers should document this work. The best way of doing this is through a teaching portfolio—a collection of documents and/or other materials illustrating the nature and quality of one’s teaching activities. Effort spent in research and writing is documented in publications, and effort spent working on the effectiveness of one’s teaching can be documented as well. Putting together a teaching portfolio, like other forms of professional assessment and self-assessment, can be a useful learning experience in itself, suggesting new ideas and new initiatives to make one’s teaching as effective and enjoyable as possible. Doctoral students beginning a teaching career and full-time teachers renewing their contracts or trying to obtain tenure or promotion are often urged to assemble a portfolio documenting their achievements in teaching. A teaching portfolio might contain a statement of teaching philosophy, with the rest of the materials supporting it. New or substantially revised course syllabi are often included; other useful documents are innovative assignments or classroom exercises. Certainly, innovative uses of technologies—online teaching practices, videos, Web links or resources, content summaries (e.g., PowerPoint slides and handouts)—belong in the collection. Students’ feedback in a variety of formats (students’ satisfaction rating summaries are only one possibility) are important. Like students’ portfolios, the effectiveness of a teaching portfolio for evaluating an instructor depends on how the portfolio is structured. Finally, an opening statement about the contents developed and assembled is essential. Even if a portfolio is not a part of the formal evaluation system, it can be useful for a job search or career advancement and for the self-reflection process that is part of best practice in teaching.

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A teaching portfolio often contains the following: A statement of teaching philosophy. Some institutions request or require such a statement when faculty members are hired or as part of peer review for tenure, promotion, and reappointment. Even if it is not required, this statement shows that you consider teaching to be a deliberate, professional, and self-reflective activity. Course syllabi and other materials. Anyone who has taught knows that designing courses requires not just knowledge of how to teach but also current and substantive knowledge of the course content. Assignments, reading lists, and any other documents, such as slides or handouts, can also be included. Materials in other media. Sometimes courses use other materials, like Web pages, video or audio recordings, or even experiences outside the classroom. Especially if these were developed by the instructor, descriptions of them should be included. Student feedback. Some kinds of evidence of effective teaching are obvious, like the students’ satisfaction ratings of courses. It is easiest to compile the numerical ratings on specific survey items, but qualitative comments are also useful as feedback and can document other aspects of one’s teaching. Student feedback may come in other forms as well, which should be included when available. Evidence of student learning. Sidell (2003) observed that when a portfolio is compiled to evaluate teaching, students’ learning is a major focus. For example, Sidell’s teaching portfolio included students’ weekly comments on what they had learned in each class and her reflections on them. Outside assessments of teaching. Outside evaluations or observations of teaching may be required for a tenure review or may be requested by the teacher. The results of any such evaluations should be included, along with an explanation of how the feedback has been used to further develop one’s skills. Sometimes model course syllabi or other materials are anthologized or requested by colleagues elsewhere, which should of course be mentioned. Teaching portfolios also include a self-reflective narrative that ties the work together, showing how problems were resolved and how materials and skills were advanced. For example, many social work programs and instructors are working to enhance diversity or antiracist content in courses. Changes in learning goals, assigned readings, or other aspects of a course— and perhaps in student feedback—can document progress being made in these areas and explained in the narrative.

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TENURE, PROMOTION, AND ANNUAL EVALUATION Evaluations of faculty teaching are always part of the application and review process for the granting of tenure and any evaluation that may come before it, such as a third-year review; for promotion on the tenure track to associate or full professor; and for the periodic renewal of contracts for full-time faculty not on the tenure track (see chapter 8). Although effective teaching is no longer as important as scholarly productivity in tenure and promotion decisions in some settings, even there teaching is generally the second most important factor considered. Sometimes excellence in teaching is described as a necessary but not a sufficient criterion for promotion and tenure. Therefore, your ability to document success in teaching is important to retaining or advancing in your job. For adjunct instructors, success in teaching is often the only criterion affecting reappointment. In “teaching” institutions, performance in teaching can be the most important part of the evaluation. The effectiveness of your teaching must be documented in the context of your teaching philosophy. When applying for renewal of a contract, at the one- or three-year point before tenure, or for promotion and tenure, you should describe your teaching philosophy, as well as your curriculum development and teaching achievements. As when assembling a teaching portfolio more generally, you should include such materials as classroom exercises developed, new courses designed and delivered and the syllabi describing them, and students’ comments on your teaching. Some standard measures, particularly students’ satisfaction questionnaire data, are always required. You can use the narrative accompanying these data to address any seeming shortcomings or special successes (i.e., ratings higher than usual for a specific course). In framing the information presented on teaching, remember that readers of the material for tenure and promotion (as opposed to annual or other reviews) may come both from within the discipline (department or school) and from outside it, so they may not be familiar with social work concepts or jargon. Relating your teaching goals and accomplishments to the imperatives of the social work profession can be useful. In most settings, direct observation of teaching is permitted or required only for a tenure decision. Candidates normally have some control over the situation, such as when (on what date, during which class session) a classroom visit is permitted, in part so that students can be alerted that a visitor will be present, because they also are being observed. It is usually nerve-racking to be observed, but a fair observer will be on the lookout for

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strengths, such as how engaged students seem to be during the observation period, as well as areas for improvement. These observations are typically done by faculty colleagues, meaning that they are or have been observed in a similar way themselves. Campus centers for teaching may provide such services at an instructor’s request as part of their professional development.

ASSESSING THE QUALITY OF FIELD INSTRUCTION Assessing students and teachers in social work education is not confined to the classroom. The field practicum, now termed the “signature pedagogy” in social work (CSWE 2015), has students interact with actual service users in real-world service-delivery settings where they are instructed, or coached, individually and perhaps also in groups, in effective and ethical practice. The term field instruction reflects a transition from what used to be an apprenticeship model of agency internships to an explicitly educational framework for understanding both students’ and field instructors’ activities (Bogo 2005). As Bogo and McKnight (2005) noted, field instruction is often still called “supervision,” but what is known about effective supervision for students must be considered separately because the supervisor’s responsibility to the agency and to effective and ethical service to clients must be balanced with an educational responsibility to students’ learning (Bogo 2005). The effectiveness of and students’ satisfaction with their field liaisons or academic advisers are areas needing new scholarship, because there is essentially no empirical literature in these areas and because the field-liaison role is increasingly being relegated to part-time faculty (Wayne, Bogo, and Raskin 2006). Finally, although agency context matters, how contextual factors influence teaching activities in the field has not yet been studied (Bogo 2005). Coohey and Landsman have developed a scale to be used by undergraduate and graduate social work students to measure field-instructor behaviors: the Field Instructor Supervision Scale (FISS). It has two subscales measuring task support and developmental support, “one related to helping students learn how to complete tasks and one related to providing students with emotional and expressive support” (2020, 276). Several methods of establishing construct validity were used in the development of the scale. Factor analysis confirmed that the two dimensions of supervision were described by two separate sets of items on the measure. Many programs have their own measures of student satisfaction with supervision and the field learning

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experience, but there may be benefits in using a tool with proven psychometric properties based on prior use. While this scale does not measure students’ practice competencies, which must be assessed in other ways, it can be useful in assessing a program’s implicit curriculum—that is, students’ experiences with a range of program resources and activities.

OTHER RESOURCES FOR IMPROVING TEACHING Many campuses have teaching resource centers for teaching assistants and other faculty members. Many offer one-time or ongoing seminars and workshops, and some have a library of publications and other resources on teaching such as videos. Some also offer individual coaching that may include classroom observation and feedback. For performance issues in teaching, using these on-campus resources to improve on one’s teaching is generally welcomed, and those colleagues I know who have used such resources have found them to be helpful. Annual conferences for social work educators held by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) and Baccalaureate Program Directors (BPD) provide preconference sessions on teaching techniques and on teaching in specific curricular areas, as well as sessions throughout the regular program on how and what to teach. These discipline-specific meetings can also be helpful as venues in which one’s own teaching techniques and curriculum innovations can be disseminated to others. There are also specialized conferences, such as the Social Work Distance Education Conference (Worden School of Social Service, Our Lady of the Lake University) and the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSoTL; https//issotl.com). Transforming one’s investments in teaching excellence into the scholarship of teaching and learning can be a way to manage the tensions between teaching and scholarly productivity.

CONCLUSION The assessment of teaching depends on one’s beliefs about learning and one’s philosophy of teaching (Anderson and Speck 1998). How multidimensional (knowledge, values, and/or skills) should assessments of teaching be? These are key questions to be asked in student assessments, but they are also relevant to the assessment of teaching. However, unlike in other areas of

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higher education, most teachers of social work bring to their classroom skills in relating constructively to people of varying backgrounds, the ability to handle group dynamics, and the motivation to be helpful to their students. The quality of classroom instruction in social work education programs is therefore generally (but, of course, not universally) high. Even so, continuous reflection on and evaluation of teaching activities and student learning are still required. The following are specific suggestions for assessment: Q

Q

Q

Q

Be intentional about your teaching. All teachers have beliefs about how students learn best and therefore what teaching methods will be most successful. It is helpful to make these beliefs explicit in a statement of teaching philosophy, whether or not the hiring or review process mandates it. I sometimes share with students in an ongoing way how my thinking about teaching and learning has influenced my activities or my assessment of them. Don’t rely solely on the institution’s standard mechanisms for feedback on your teaching. The information from ratings and comments on the standardized end-of-quarter or end-of-semester questionnaires should not be dismissed. Take advantage of mechanisms that permit instructors to customize the questions asked so your ideas about student learning and effective teaching will be reflected in student ratings. Do not make this measure of effective teaching the only one you use. It is never a good idea to wait until the end of a course to ask your students for feedback. Eliciting formative feedback shows that you care about how students are doing and can also suggest ways to improve the course for the students you have now, not just those who will take the class in future. Knowing what students like will reinforce your efforts to keep on doing it. Many suggest checking in with students early and often. Fellow instructors might enjoy an invitation to discuss teaching and curriculum development, so it may be helpful to reach out to others, and not just when problems arise, to tap into or share “practice wisdom.”

Finally, there are often excellent resources on campus, as in centers to support excellence in teaching, which may offer general and even individual assistance to improve your teaching effectiveness. Like all forms of social work practice, good teaching requires self-reflection and attention to the how, not just the what. Investing in your teaching practice provides professional renewal, results in better student learning, and is rewarded by enhanced satisfaction with your work.

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RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Bogo, M. (2005). Field instruction in social work: A review of the research literature. Clinical Supervisor 24(1/2): 163–193. Grise-Owens, E., Miller, J. J, and Owens, L. W. (2018). Activating a teaching-learning philosophy: A practical guide for educators. Alexandria, Va.: CSWE Press. Spooren, P., Brocfkx, B., and Mortelmans, D. (2013). On the validity of student evaluation of teaching: The state of the art. Review of Educational Research 83(4): 598–642.

7 ONLINE TEACHING AND LEARNING

have been writing about teaching and learning online since the early 2000s. The use of social media and other online resources have also been addressed. Teaching online—both in specific courses and in degree-granting programs as a whole—has increased rapidly since the 2010s. Some colleges, universities, and social work programs have been early adopters of online teaching, while others have not. CSWE data suggest that most online programs (BSW and MSW) are designed as hybrids—that is, with some face-to-face contact required as part of completing the course of study, although the amount of in-person contact may be minimal (CSWE 2020). The COVID-19 epidemic of 2020 pushed many of us, myself included, further into the online learning space. The use of distance learning or online learning in social work education had already been increasing dramatically over the preceding ten years. Many social work educators specialize in this method of teaching, but I am not one of them. This chapter provides a summary of research on the effectiveness of online teaching and learning; suggests some pros and cons of this form of education as described in the social work education literature; and offers ways to make online learning as inclusive and effective as possible. It will not cover any specific platforms used in online teaching or specific course management systems (digital platforms for in-person and online teaching) because the information would be outdated as soon as it was written. Rather, the focus will be on the principles that guide effective online teaching and learning. My own history in this area may reflect the experience of many. My university (and hence my school) was a late adopter of online learning and, as of this writing, still does not have universitywide 24/7 technical assistance available, which will no doubt have changed during the COVID SOCIAL WORK EDUCATORS

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pandemic. Earlier, however, to help form my own opinion about online learning, I enrolled in a global continuing education course in philosophy of mind available through the continuing education arm of Oxford University. It was an asynchronous course, meaning that participants were not on the class site simultaneously, and the hundreds of us enrolled were divided into sections, each with its own tutor who read and graded assignments and responded to forum postings by section members, who also interacted with each other in the same way. Some taped lectures by experts on various topics were provided, but the main structure of the course mirrored what one would find in a traditional face-to-face (F2F) class. There were weekly readings from the course textbook, with postings to be made in reaction to them, and a midterm and final paper assignment. As a student, I found it critical not to get behind in the readings and assignments because the content was cumulative—from early to contemporary thinking. Although I am a fast reader, the course required four hours or more of reading per week, not counting other work. However, all students had the flexibility to do the work at the time that was most convenient to them. This course had the benefits and shortcomings typical of many asynchronous online classes. I was able to access experts in philosophy from Oxford University because their lectures were available as part of the course resources. The price seemed right—high enough to enhance commitment but not so high as to bar most people from access. The section tutor was excellent in responding to postings and questions in a timely way, although not instantly. Based on my questions and interests, he recommended resources for me that went far beyond the course itself and that have become foundational material for me in work I have done subsequently. On the other hand, based on what I observed from student postings, by the end of the twelve weeks, only a handful of the twenty-five or so who had begun in our section remained active. Attrition is a common problem with massive open online courses (MOOCs) and other types of online courses. Required BSW or MSW courses taken remotely are not likely to have this problem, but the level of student engagement in online courses often lessens over time. This chapter begins with a description of the extent to which distance learning is used in social work education as well as a presentation of the pros and cons heard in the field. The rest of the chapter is organized by topics already covered in previous chapters: the context of teaching and learning in social work, adult learning, teaching modes, diversity and inclusion, and the evaluation both of student learning and of teaching. Each of these topics will be discussed only in terms of how they may affect teaching and

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learning online. Ethical issues that are particular to online education will also be considered. Whole books have been written about online education and distance learning in social work (Abels 2005; Hitchcock, Sage, and Smyth 2019) as well as in higher education more generally. This chapter should be considered an introduction to and overview of the topic. As the use of online learning continues to grow, social work education journals should be consulted for an expanding discussion of what works best and of the reservations some have about this trend. Various forms of social media (Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.) are also being used in social work courses, but in the interest of brevity this chapter will not cover them, although Hitchcock, Sage, and Smyth (2019) do. Finally, the growth of online social work education comes at a time when online social work practice is expanding as well. Mental health practice using telehealth became almost universal during the height of the COVID-19 epidemic, when mental health needs were high and physical isolation was used to reduce the possibility of transmitting the virus. Online social work practice will not be covered here, but the guidelines for it developed by the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and some other social work groups (NASW et al. 2017) should be consulted along with Code of Ethics revisions that address these issues (NASW 2021). Another sign of the growth of online education in social work is that the 2017 standards devotes a whole section to online social work education and supervision.

THE FRAMEWORK The biggest change to the framework presented in chapter 1 is the addition of another “player” in social work education: the provider of the platform used to educate remotely. As with course-management systems, some of these platforms are homegrown, but more often there is a contract with an outside provider that owns the software underlying instruction. It is the BSW or MSW program or the college or university that enters into such contracts. These providers may be nonprofit or for-profit vendors like Zoom (and there are other providers). I will be mainly discussing Zoom because it has been so widely used during the pandemic and because it is the provider I have most experience with in my professional and personal life. Instructors are glad to receive access to software from the school rather than having to find a provider on their own. However, there are default

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practices embedded in all platforms, which may or may not be known to users. For example, as of this writing, Zoom has improved on many security problems, but sometimes things like the recording of class sessions are there by default. Both students and instructors are made aware that recording is happening and then consent to it or not. Hence two levels of permission are needed: that of the instructor and that of the student. Even if a Zoom default of recording class sessions is not in place, it is an example of why an instructor (and the social work program) must know about any educational platform and what it does and does not have embedded in its use. It is the educational setting that makes choices about the educational platforms that shape the teaching/learning process for better (reliability, desired options) or for worse (such as possible threats to privacy). As to recording class sessions, it should be noted that this practice can be an excellent feature for accommodating specific students facing medical or other temporary challenges to participating in synchronous class session when permission is given by all. Course-management systems are the digital shells that colleges and universities provide to support all courses. For the instructor, they provide a class roster and tools for recording grades. It is also the site where instructors post the class syllabus and any other written documents needed, such as details about course assignments, as well as links to documents (readings) and videos. Messages (emails) can be sent to the class or to individual students. The sites usually provide a “forum” function for students to post information and opinions and react to what others have posted; the instructor may or may not be part of the discussion as well. These functions can also be used for in-person classes, but they are especially useful for online courses.

THE EXTENT OF ONLINE TEACHING IN SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION The use of online education in social work has been growing exponentially, especially in MSW and DSW programs, and will likely continue to grow both in social work and in higher education generally. One of the main purposes of online education is to increase the number of students who have access to a BSW or MSW program. This can be especially important in rural or other sparsely populated areas where travel to a traditional campus makes brick-and-mortar enrollment impossible. Some students who are not in that situation may have work and family obligations that make attending

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classes face-to-face (F2F) at traditional times challenging and therefore opt for classes or programs that are online and perhaps asynchronous—meaning that, like the philosophy class I took, the teacher and the students are not online at the same time. In 2019 it was reported that about 6 percent of CSWE-accredited BSW programs were offered wholly online and another 39 percent offered one or more courses online (CSWE 2020). For online courses (not degree programs), a course may be offered in only one format, or the same course may be offered either online or F2F. Most online courses were hybrid (a mixture of in-person and remote instruction), and most were delivered asynchronously. Despite the increase in online instruction, many (38 percent) of the F2F BSW programs reported that they were not then considering offering online instruction at all. The extent of online education was even greater in MSW programs. About 23 percent of MSW programs reported that they offered an MSW program that was wholly online, and another 42 percent said that they offered at least some courses online. Only 21 percent of MSW programs reported that they were not considering online programming; the rest were considering or planning to do so soon. These were pre-COVID data so the extent of online offerings is no doubt greater since then. In DSW programs, all (42 percent) or part (33 percent) of the program was offered online. In stark contrast, very few PhD programs were offered wholly (3 percent) or partly (12.5 percent) online, and the vast majority (81 percent) of PhD programs were not considering going online. About twothirds of DSW programs were entirely online. One reason so few PhD programs are offered online is the concern with socializing PhD students into the role of scholar, whereas DSW programs are more focused on providing access to doctoral education for employed social workers who are or will become professional leaders. The focus of this chapter, however, will be on BSW and MSW teaching online. The CSWE report provides no information about how field internships in MSW and BSW programs were being handled remotely. Hitchcock, Sage, and Smyth (2019, chap. 7) describe field education online as “high touch pedagogy.” They define this term as “emotionally connected work,” meaning that field advisers should use all available means—websites, email, Zoom, or other virtual meeting tools—to maintain a high level of contact with students and field instructors. This advice is similar to what online instructors are told to do to maximize student engagement. When distance learning is involved, meaning that field internships occur across state lines, it is important to clarify what the legal regulations may be in different jurisdictions.

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Well before the pandemic, online offerings in continuing education (CE) were increasing rapidly. Continuing-education credits are required for state licensing, and offerings of webinars and asynchronous continuing-education courses are proliferating. As with credit-bearing courses offered by social work programs, online CE courses offer working professionals increased access to opportunities to earn the credits they need for licensure. Some professional journals provide CE credits for reading and discussing a published article. For participants to receive CE credits, the content of each course has to receive state board approval. However, overall learning outcomes from CE courses have not been examined except by self-report on the required evaluation of individual courses. Therefore, there have been few if any reports on whether online CE courses offer the same benefits as F2F ones.

WHAT PROPONENTS HAVE TO SAY The first and most common argument for online education is that it increases access to social work education. Online courses and programs provide access for students from rural or other remote areas, international students, students from outside the areas a program’s F2F students usually come from, military personnel and their spouses, and others for whom getting to F2F on the traditional schedule is a challenge (see below; Moore et al. 2015). This increased access can also result in a more diverse student body, as when programs are offered to indigenous groups. Another common rationale for online education is that the use of telemedicine is becoming more common in social work. As more professional social workers engage in long-distance practice, guidelines for using Webbased technology have been developed (NASW et al. 2017). It is thought that social work graduates who have participated in online learning will likely feel better equipped to use these practice platforms in their work. There are many subtle aspects of conveying a comfortable and professional presence online, and experience in online courses likely enhances these skills. It is also possible to offer online lectures by international and national leaders in the topics of the course, increasing access to top experts or the most successful teachers within a program. I have used public-access YouTube videos of short lectures by authors of key readings, livening up the class session. Students have sometimes gone on to find more YouTube examples

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of these experts to share with the class. When seeking outside experts to speak in the course, it is important to be mindful of intellectual-property issues as well as the use of class recordings; seek written permission for recording, and describe the limits on the use of the expert’s material. Even if enrolled students are not at a physical distance from the bricksand-mortar institution, they may prefer to do their schoolwork on a nontraditional schedule. This may be especially true for students who are working and/or have family responsibilities in addition to their studies. Some teachers also prefer to teach online, especially when courses are asynchronous, in order to have some flexibility as to when they do their work. Proponents also note that younger students are very used to being online as students, especially because of COVID-19, and are also online for many other reasons. Older students likely need time to learn about and adjust to this mode of learning, but having adequate technical supports available 24/7 can make the adjustment manageable. Communication online has its own special qualities, and tech-savvy people will have useful experience in this area. Online teaching can lead to the use of promising innovations in instruction. These include the flipped classroom and the use of simulated clients, discussed below. These techniques can be used in F2F teaching as well but may be especially useful in the online environment. If instructors limit the sage-on-the-stage approach to teaching, it is said that effective online instruction can nurture independent learning and peer learning opportunities (Kurzman 2013). Offering online courses and programs has been seen as a way to increase enrollments and hence earn additional income to sustain a program. The for-profit vendors of online course systems say that they will not realize profits for a while because of the initial expenses of developing courses and educating faculty in their use. However, student enrollments and often tuition payments increase when online courses or all-online programs are offered (Moore et al. 2015). Before the pandemic, many online social work courses were hybrid, meaning that parts of the course were offered online and other parts were conducted F2F. This kind of course design reduces access for those for whom long travel to take part in the F2F component is too costly or difficult, but it seeks to take advantage of the “best of both worlds.” Social work faculty can have the advantage of getting to know students the more traditional way (F2F), which may also strengthen student-teacher relationships, and the advantages of online learning are also part of the package.

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Developing an online program or even a set of courses requires commitment to a long-term effort to ensure the quality of what is offered and the success of the online offerings (Moore et al. 2015). For one thing, there has to be faculty buy-in, not just from those who have an interest in or plan to be part of online teaching but also from those who do not. Those in charge of overall curriculum design for a program (BSW or MSW) or for specific parts of the curriculum will have to accept the online offerings as part of these designs. Continuous monitoring of how things are going is also required.

WHAT SKEPTICS HAVE TO SAY The most frequent concern of the critics of online education is that it is not as effective as traditional learning in the classroom. The short answer, to be discussed further in the section on learning outcomes, is that studies to date suggest that online courses can produce learning outcomes as good as those of F2F courses, although they have not been seen as being better. A wellknown example is a small but well-designed study of MSW students at the University of Kentucky: one group completed the degree in their distance education program and another did so by the traditional pathway. The study found no difference in GPA or in the students’ attainment of the 10 EPAS core competencies (Cummings, Chafer, and Cockerham 2015). When outcomes for more students in this program were later broken down further by program pathway, the majority of outcomes were equivalent for online and traditional students, with a few exceptions: advanced-standing students in the traditional pathway had higher GPAs and were more satisfied with their instructors, and extended-study online students were rated more highly in field competencies, but these students had likely had more practice experience before entering the program (Cummings et al. 2015). This kind of finding—overall comparability in outcomes and a few differences, usually favoring F2F students—is typical in studies of this kind. With findings like this, proponents see the glass as half full when the program outcomes are comparable, and skeptics see the glass as half empty because online education does not outperform the traditional format. A common observation from faculty is that the workload is heavier when teaching online, especially in the asynchronous environment (Major 2015). This differential is usually invisible to others. For example, if one is giving a short talk on a specific topic that is being recorded for later use by students,

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one has to get it right in all respects. When giving the same short talk in an F2F environment, one can clarify and correct as one goes along by reading student expressions or answering student questions. In addition, because the asynchronous course is available to the students 24/7, students may expect that instructor is available to them by email or in a forum 24/7 as well. Faculty members should consider setting appropriate limits on their availability, and instructor priorities can help with boundaries for both faculty and students. For example, instead of having F2F office hours, instructors can designate specific times when they will be online and available to students. Although this is changing, most social work faculty members have begun their teaching careers in the F2F learning environment. They have experienced how being F2F contributes to getting to know the students as beginning professionals and how student-teacher relationships can be built in that environment, both inside and outside the classroom. Body language and some facial expressions, such as the direction of a student’s gaze, may be more readily evident in person. Social work practice has both a knowledge and an emotional component, and its practice is embedded in the practitioner-client relationship. Being in the same room as the student can provide a great deal of information about how the student presents (think body odor, for example). This concern is connected to socializing students into the profession. Some think these problems may be most troublesome when teaching about clinical social work practice (Spitz 2019), but others do not (Cummings et al. 2013). Requiring students to use live pictures of themselves during classroom sessions may help with the relationship problem, although distractions can occur this way. On Zoom, the platform I am familiar with, I find it difficult to speak directly into the camera—which results in the image of me that students see and gives them the sense that I am speaking directly to them—and to scan students’ faces at the same time (not to mention glancing at notes). In the traditional classroom, I can speak while looking anywhere. In at least one study, students in BSW online courses felt less satisfied than those in F2F courses with the degree to which they could get to know their instructors (McAllister 2013). They were also less satisfied with the degree to which they could get to know fellow students. This has implications for developing ongoing mentoring relationships with faculty and for peer-to-peer learning and support, including from affinity groups such as those for BIPOC students. Again, there was no difference in student performance (grades), but online students gave lower overall satisfaction ratings to their courses than did those in the F2F versions of the same courses.

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If online courses are increasing enrollments, this growth is not usually accompanied by a proportional growth in faculty size, thereby reducing the student/faculty ratio. Rather, the program is likely to rely on adjunct faculty to accommodate more course sections. The use of adjunct faculty is increasing in higher education and in social work education, which has its benefits and drawbacks (Klein, Weissman, and Smith 1996; Pearlman 2013). Higher enrollment also means more work for all of the supporting administrative functions, such as admissions, financial aid, registration, and field placement. While some vendors are willing to take over such functions, programs may be unwilling to lose control in these areas, preferring that their own departments take care of these functions as they always have. Often programs do not provide their faculty members with adequate training or technical support for them to make the most of their online teaching opportunities or for their students to learn without encountering unnecessary frustrations. Colleges, universities, departments, or schools need to provide 24/7 access to technical support and assistance, which not all can do. Adequate training can also reduce the time spent developing and implementing an online course. The attrition rate in online courses is higher than in others. While social work students in required classes online may stick it out, even they may drop the course and have to enroll and pay for it again in a different quarter or semester. Dropping out of a course may result in a sense of failure that is not due to aptitude or ability. Many say that special efforts aimed at maintaining student engagement may be needed in the online environment. One reason for attrition that also interferes with learning is what is called Zoom fatigue. Cognitive science tells us that in human interactions we unconsciously rely on all kinds of verbal and nonverbal cues to understand each other and to gauge the affect accompanying what is being said. This makes interactions that occur remotely more tiring. Just the fact that one’s gaze is steadily in one place—on the screen—is unnatural. Some ethical concerns have been raised about online social work education (Reamer 2015). Privacy concerns have only rarely been addressed in the social work education literature (for exceptions, see Hitchcock et al. 2019; Reamer 2015). Formal registration is needed to access an online course, and in the face-to-face classroom others’ access to the class is controlled by the professor. Student sharing of discussions outside of class may or may not be prohibited. However, candor in discussion and self-disclosure are generally enhanced if it is.

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Some people have expressed concern about performance standards for online programs differing from those for traditional ones, making the evaluation of students’ work difficult (Reamer 2015). Others have found that student performance is equivalent (see, for example, McAllister 2013). Some styles of learning may be better accommodated through in-person instruction than online. There is also concern that plagiarism and other forms of cheating may be easier in the online environment (Reamer 2015), a concern that was echoed by a group of BSW online students (McAllister 2013). Faculty members may also have concerns about having their teaching performance evaluated through recordings of their online teaching in contrast to when in-person observations are made for administrative purposes; in these circumstances, teachers have the right to have input into when such observations are made. It is true that unauthorized recordings can conceivably be made in the F2F situation, even though teacher authorization and student consent are normally required; however, it is a special risk when the medium is already digital. HIPAA (the laws governing the privacy of health information) and FERPA (the laws governing the privacy of student information) must always be considered. Some of the potential benefits of online education can be enhanced with careful course and program design (Hitchcock et al. 2019); some of its drawbacks can be mitigated in the same way. Whatever the pros and cons, online education in social work is here to stay. The rest of the chapter is devoted to what research has shown so far about how to promote learning and to teach effectively online.

BLENDED LEARNING Some social work educators have suggested that blended learning or hybrid courses may offer the best of both worlds (Ayala 2009). Face-to-face interactions, often at the start and end of a course, provide the immediacy of student-to-student and faculty-to-student(s) presence and the fuller interpersonal communication that being in a classroom together provides. In other, often asynchronous, class sessions, students and instructors can benefit from the advantages of online learning, which include the up-tothe-minute information that can be identified from trusted sources on the Web. While hybrid courses do require some ability to attend classes at the bricks-and-mortar program site, they can lessen the hardships that in-person attendance may require from those studying at a distance.

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One situation I have encountered that has not worked well is having one or more students attend class by video connection while the others are present in the classroom (F2F). I have had to rearrange classroom seating to allow for the online student to see me and the other students and for them to see the remote participant. It is hard to maintain the engagement of a student online while the conversation in the classroom proceeds among those physically present, and it is hard for the online student to participate fully in discussions by seeming to interrupt, in part because there is no body language that as easily conveys the wish to speak when students are physically together. While these arrangements can make F2F courses more available, my experience suggests that courses go better when all students and the instructor are F2F, online, or in a hybrid course.

OUTCOMES Findings about the effectiveness of online or distance education in social work have indicated support for the “no difference” hypothesis common in higher education: equivalent student outcomes for online, hybrid, and traditional courses and programs. Quinn, Fitch, and Youn (2011) suggest that more informative outcome evaluations will require considering multiple factors: characteristics of the students, such as learning style; characteristics of the context, such as where students are when they engage in online instruction (at home or in another context); the nature of the course content (some are more skeptical about teaching practice compared to other curriculum content online); and the nature of the educational outcomes for each course or program. How hospitable the online environment is to students from marginalized groups also needs examination (Jacobsen 2019; Reyes and Segal 2019). Although Quinn and associates argue that relevant characteristics of the teachers are captured in these four dimensions for students, instructor factors such as the level of prior training and experience in online teaching also seem relevant. Such multivariate evaluations of online education in social work are not currently the norm. One concern of those who are skeptical of online learning is that performance standards may not be the same as in F2F courses. To the extent that online programs are implemented with a goal of increasing enrollment, faculty rather than platform vendors should be the ones evaluating students’ applications to maintain equivalent admissions requirements. For MSW programs with extensive online programming, there is often a director of

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the online program separate from the one who oversees the F2F program. This is a useful strategy for developing and delivering online instruction because a great deal of energy and specialized knowledge are needed to implement online courses. However, this arrangement can result in considerable “drift” in admissions standards, the assessment of student learning, and other elements of the program. Those who graduate from an online MSW program will receive the same degree as those studying in the traditional manner and should have knowledge, values, and skills that are also equal (Cummings et al. 2015). At this writing, there are not yet any data about how those graduating from all-online degree programs fare in the job market, but as social work services are increasingly offered online, some employers may see experience in the online environment as an asset while other employers may prefer those who have been educated in the traditional F2F environment.

LEARNING ONLINE All levels of thinking and learning can take place online or with other uses of technology in the classroom. Bloom’s taxonomy of types of thinking (see chapter 2) has been adapted to digital learning, along with specific examples for social work education (Hitchcock et al. 2019, 121–127). Remembering and understanding can be enhanced when students actively search out information online. Analyzing and evaluating can take place in postings, comments in forums, and activities in small groups or “breakout rooms,” as well as in more traditional assignments. Creating can take place in additional modalities such as developing informational websites, creating videos, and participating in social media. Just as in traditional courses and programs, assignments and activities in hybrid and online programs and courses should be designed to assess skills in all of these areas, and online learning can offer more options for activities involving them. Major (2015, 47, 49) gives useful overviews of classic and constructivist views of learning. She suggests that faculty members who teach online often shift from more classical or unexamined views of student learning to more flexibility in teaching, acknowledgment of multiple kinds of learning and learning styles, and a greater use of informal ways of learning. Similar shifts can improve classroom teaching as well, but they are essential to success in helping students learn online. When moving to online instruction, Major also suggests a self-assessment of one’s (often implicit) views of learning

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and then making a commitment to a theory of learning, which is part of a teaching philosophy, to guide how to design and deliver a course. Cognitive science has shown that even motivated people cannot retain full attention to a lecture or video for more than about fifteen minutes. When you add in the burden of “Zoom fatigue,” or the need to work harder to fully understand the content and the affect of others, a logical conclusion is that bundles of content should be limited to no more than twenty minutes, with different activities interspersed between them. For example, one could give a short lecture or watch a short video but then change to a different mode of interaction with the material, such as discussion in the whole group or in smaller groups (called breakout rooms on Zoom). There could even be just a pause to have students write down questions or comments about the content, to be submitted through the platform or by email. In the traditional classroom, lectures might be paused for “buzz groups” or some other form of question-and-answer time, which is designed to address the attention problem. However, the need to do so is more acute in the online classroom. Hitchcock, Sage, and Smyth (2019) devote a whole chapter to pedagogical, really andragogical, approaches to using technology in social work education. It emphasizes student motivation and student engagement, as these can be harder to maintain in online classes and programs than in traditional in-person classes. Online learning often involves more active learning, and students need to be prepared for this in their orientation to the program or course. Providing choices in assignments and other activities, creating a learning environment where it is safe to make mistakes, offering students lots of feedback in various forms, and connecting what they are learning and doing to practice will all enhance motivation. Student engagement. Without the physical presence and stimulation of others through face-to-face interaction, students may have to work harder to remain as engaged as possible with the class. Those who already enjoy being on the Web will have less of a struggle than others, except that they may be less tolerant of technical problems and glitches. During the COVID-19 shutdown, many more people have been using Web-based communication systems, including platforms like Zoom. Conversely, the pleasures of faceto-face interactions have been greatly missed, leading to a preference for resuming them. One suggestion to maximize student engagement has been to limit session times to sixty to ninety minutes. State regulations for granting credit hours per course may make that difficult, but students may prefer multiple shorter online classes than fewer longer ones.

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Another important way to enhance student engagement is to design the experience to create social well as educational spaces for students. Methods to do this include having students learn from each other, as in group projects and small-group discussions online. Encourage students to network beyond the classroom. Be individually supportive when students encounter challenges in their studies and personal situations. Mechanisms such as virtual office hours or scheduled times that the instructor will be available to individual students support student engagement are an additional way that instructors can demonstrate their social presence. Retention. It has long been known that that retention is a problem in online education. Dropping out of a course before its completion can be considered the opposite of student engagement. However, it turns out that some of the reasons that students may drop out of an online course are the very ones that led them to enroll in the first place (Detres et al. 2020). Balancing child care and onsite study is often challenging; however, study at home can also be challenging, as when toddlers or pets interrupt a course session. Similarly, students may choose online learning in order to balance work, family, and school, but the change of method of instruction may not be enough to make course completion possible. Lack of satisfactory communication with course instructors, including lack of timely feedback on their work, has been a common complaint among students who do not complete their courses. In the end, some dropout online students simply conclude that they prefer the traditional face-to-face classroom learning environment. Many best practices in online education are designed to prevent student dropout, but it remains a problem.

TEACHING ONLINE The first social work standard related to online education states that those teaching online “shall develop competence in the ethical use of the technology” (NASW et al. 2017, 45). Teachers must seek out training in the technology and in how best to present oneself online in order to engage students in productive learning. This knowledge is increasing exponentially in social work education, so those teaching online also have an obligation to stay current in its use. The development of a quality online course is very time-consuming, but the COVID-19 pandemic pushed many, like me, into online teaching without prior preparation, and additional training has occurred after the fact. Ongoing learning about teaching effectively online is needed.

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Because there are well-documented limits to students’ attention in the online environment, teachers can be relieved of the obligation to perform as the “sage on the stage” and concentrate instead on building a variety of activities into each class. This is especially vital in asynchronous courses because the teacher is not present to the students in real time. Video clips of short lectures prepared for the class or videos found on the Web, such as TED Talks, can be used instead. Planning activities for each class session becomes even more important when teaching online. However, when being the “guide on the side” online, some things, like recognizing and acknowledging who wants to speak next, may require the use of platform technology, such as a symbol for a student’s raised hand, rather than responding only to “natural” visual cues, which are more limited online. The same precautions about ensuring that all students who wish to can express their views and not letting one or a few students dominate the conversation need to be taken online as they would be in the F2F classroom. Darby and Lang (2019) take the principles first articulated by Lang (2016) as “small teaching” and show how they can be applied in the online classroom. “Small teaching” refers to how small changes in instructors’ behaviors can yield better student learning and more satisfactions for teachers. To enhance student learning, they recommend “backward design”—that is, making students aware of the final learning goals and designing courses so that students begin working on them from the very start of the class. Other suggestions are to develop a series of activities that scaffold student learning and build up content gradually in manageable chunks. Nothing motivates student learning more than frequent, constructive, and encouraging feedback from an instructor. As mentioned earlier in the book, continuing to invest in learning new teaching skills, including those related to online teaching and learning, builds renewal and satisfaction into one’s teaching. All teaching is somewhat performative, but teaching online often brings visual performance explicitly into play. Whenever the instructor is visible, synchronously or asynchronously, care should be taken with one’s physical presentation. For example, it can help to sit forward in the chair and lean into the camera; my daughter stands up during her online classes as she would do in the physical classroom. Care should also be taken with the background presented, whether real or artificial. Measures to minimize distractions on camera should be used by both students and instructors. To enhance online learning, it is important that the instructor become a social presence in the online environment (Bentley, Secret, and Cummings 2015). Some cues of social presence include affective responses, interactive

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communication, and comments that support the coherence of the group, as in using words like we and us. Course design can support this by including a welcome message from the instructor. In addition, an instructor can share professional experiences with the class when relevant to course content. Many techniques can be used to enhance each student’s social presence. For example, in asynchronous environments, students can be encouraged to post photos of themselves as part of their email address. Designing the course to include small-group activities and exchanges, as well as activities that require individual students to seek out information and then share it with others, requires them to be present to others in the class. These activities also enhance student engagement with the course. As in any kind of course, there are likely to be 10 to 20 percent of students in an online course who do not seem engaged. When teaching in person, it can be easier to find a way to speak with each of them to find out what is getting in the way of their work in the course and to find out what other resources might help them do better. However in the online environment, instructors should reach out by email to each such student individually and in a nonjudgmental way to see what may be going on in the course or in their lives that is making it hard to fully engage. This example of being present to students who may be struggling is based in the knowledge that online engagement can be hard for some students and support may be needed. It is also based in the findings of many studies of online learning showing that instructor contact and availability enhance student satisfaction with an online class or program.

SPECIAL TEACHING TECHNIQUES Simulations have been mentioned in the chapter on assessing student outcomes, but they bear discussion here as well because, excepting in OSCEs, it is often digital technologies that make them possible. Some have also used Second Life techniques, designing virtual worlds in which students’ personas, perhaps as avatars, explore and react to environments and situations created for their learning (Reinsmith-Jones et al. 2015). Hutter and Brintzenhofeszok (2020) conducted a systematic review of articles on using simulation and virtual reality in social work education published through 2016. The studies used simulations and virtual reality to teach about direct practice more often than macro practice, but some studies on the latter do exist. The articles mentioned the advantage of having students interact

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with simulated service users in a virtual environment where it is safe to make mistakes and where the whole interaction, not just process recordings of it, is available to view. The articles also noted that simulations can help students learn the importance of understanding human diversity, discriminatory agency practices, and other oppression issues and practice how to respond to them. The majority of articles reviewed mentioned positive learning outcomes; for example, one described using self-reflection papers in which students commented on how their mistakes could have affected clients in negative ways. Simulations and virtual-world techniques can also be used as virtual field placements when being physically present at an agency is not possible. However, it would take considerable time and effort to script the richness of the internship experience that students have on-site when interacting with clients, supervisors, and other staff. Flipped classrooms. While educators have been talking about the “flipped classroom” as a way of enhancing student learning for some time, the topic is not frequently addressed in the social work education literature. The basic idea is that activities that might traditionally take place in the classroom take place between class sessions. Classroom time is then used for the application of what has been earned. A course design using the flipped-classroom idea may have the readings and video lectures online, with the application of what has been learned occurring during the time scheduled for the class session. Flipped classes are usually hybrid courses, using courseware and other internet resources between classes and holding class sessions in person, but the idea can be used in wholly online classes as well. Asynchronous online courses can also use the flipped-classroom design by devoting the scheduled times when all are online together (synchronous) for the discussion and application of knowledge gained asynchronously. In a social work example, writing about a pre-COVID-19 flipped course on advanced clinical practice, Counselman-Carpenter (2019) used readings, lectures, and videos as assignments to be completed between class sessions and then used scheduled in-person class time for students to practice what they had learned in the school’s interview laboratory. In undergraduate courses, Sage and Sele (2015) used weekly reflective journaling on readings done outside of class that were turned in before class to enhance students’ preparation for class, which made for a richer discussion during class sessions. The students’ submissions on what they got out of the readings also gave the instructors feedback about what might have been missed and might therefore be reinforced during class.

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DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION ONLINE Online teaching and learning require attention to diversity, equity, and inclusion just as traditional courses do. It is a given that extra efforts to support student motivation, engagement, and success are needed. To support inclusion, online courses must offer curriculum that includes BIPOC scholarship and addresses issues relevant to the history and current situations of marginalized groups just as in traditional courses. Students online may find it more difficult at first to form peer relationships; in traditionally white institutions (TWIs), students of color may feel this even more acutely, especially because they may well have learned from prior experience that it can be challenging to do so. Female, gender-nonconforming, and disabled students may also bring histories of marginalization and discomfort to the online classroom. For a variety of reasons, then, it is important to create opportunities for student interactions both educational and social. All online courses must be designed from the outset to maximize access for students who may have a disability. As in the F2F classroom, online courses must pay attention to diversity and difference in both the explicit and the implicit curriculum. Using the framework of cultural humility, Jacobsen (2019) notes that the explicit curriculum must provide representations of diversity as well as classroom interactions. In asynchronous courses, while not online 24/7, instructors must be sure to monitor class discussions, especially on diversity issues, regularly. With respect to the implicit curriculum, many aspects of who the instructor is may be more easily visible F2F, so locating oneself on dimensions of oppression and privilege (acknowledging one’s own positionality) is even more necessary when teaching online. Extracurricular activities, meaning social events that occur outside the classroom, can help a group of diverse students get more comfortable with relating to one another. Having breakout-room discussions involving diverse students or having students meet in affinity groups can ease the way to discussing content related to diversity. Unfortunately, not being face to face can lead some students in the online classroom to express negative attitudes or to commit microaggressions more easily. Some trace this back to the online culture of attack, and indeed it is easier for people to say something hurtful from cyberspace than when they are face to face. However, it is not only students who may be involved in microaggressions; faculty members may commit them as well.

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When microaggressions occur, it is not just the victim who is involved; the perpetrator and bystanders are affected as well and should be included in responses to such incidents (Thurber and DiAngelo 2018). The online instructor has the same obligation as others to identify and address microaggressions as well as possible in the moment. As Nakaoka and Oertiz (2018) note, critical race theory holds that it is not if but when race-based microaggressions will occur. In discussing an incident that occurred in an online class, they invoke principles of transformational learning to emphasize creating dialogue, promoting rational and constructive discussion, and encouraging the examination of worldviews, including the positionality from which one teaches and learns. In the situation they encountered, one student and then other students made some racist remarks in the chat section of the course, which was not being monitored by the instructor, who was concentrating on the content on the screen. Other students began objecting to these remarks. The course’s teaching assistant brought what was happening to the attention of the instructor, who interrupted the dialogue, saying it would be addressed in the next class. Many steps were taken to prepare for the next class, and the article describes the many subsequent activities involving all students in order to interrupt such racist conduct and to build a more positive culture within the class. Although writing about incidents that occurred during face-to-face diversity-training sessions, Thurber and DiAngelo (2018) point out that an instructor can and will likely at some point be a perpetrator, a bystander, or a victim of microaggressions, which is also true in online education. Online instructors need to be as adept at managing difficult conversations as those who teach face-to-face. As discussed in chapter 4, working with students to set ground rules for in-class communications of all kinds can help minimize some of these problems and also provide procedures to fall back on when a hurtful interaction occurs (Thurber and DiAngelo 2018). One aspect of equity is that such ground rules often address is that no one should dominate class discussions and all students have a right and responsibility to be heard. A statement like this is meant to raise the awareness of students who tend to dominate classroom conversation and to encourage those who may initially feel uncomfortable speaking to do so. Ground rules also require that students (and faculty members) address one another civilly, especially when the speakers’ views differ. Strategies like this can reduce the number of painful incidents, even if they cannot eliminate them entirely.

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EVALUATING ONLINE LEARNING The possible ways of assessing student learning online are many, and not all of them will be discussed here. Online or hybrid programs and classes may have the same kinds of assignments as F2F, such as written papers, that can be assessed in the usual ways, as through grading. However, some forms of student assessment may be particularly well suited to the online learning environment. Hitchcock, Sage, and Smyth (2019) include as appendix 1 a list of student assignments that use technology, the content areas and CSWE competencies that can be assessed by each, and the time students and faculty generally need to complete them. These can be used for both formative and summative evaluation of student learning. One technique for the formative evaluation of student learning that can be used effectively in the online teaching environment is the one-minute paper (OMP; Campbell, Abel, and Lucio 2019). The OMP, done at the end of each class session, asks students to name one to three things they learned in that class, something they liked about the class, and perhaps any suggestions for improvement. While the first question is always used to reinforce the day’s learning, other questions might be substituted, such as listing any remaining questions on the day’s topic(s) or areas that could use further explication, although the majority of the questions should lean toward the positive. In any form—written on a piece of paper or online—the OMPs provide valuable feedback to the instructor on both the content and the process of the class. In the online environment, however, the activity can be enhanced by requiring students to post these OMPs to a forum or chat function in the learning or course platform. Students can then engage with each other’s submissions and learn from those as well (Campbell et al. 2019). Perhaps the most authoritative book on assessing student learning is Barkley and Major (2016), which offers a list of assessment techniques useful in the online environment (32) and in the flipped classroom (34). However, remember that traditional tools like papers, tests, and quizzes can also be required in an online course.

EVALUATING ONLINE TEACHING Some methods for evaluating online teaching are the same as for performance in the traditional classroom, such the use of student satisfaction

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questionnaires. When teaching online and when developing innovations in the use of technology in the classroom, it is especially important to customize the evaluation form to get student feedback specific to these aspects of the program or the course. This feedback can also be obtained through separate questionnaires created for the purpose; published studies of online educational outcomes generally include such course-specific measures. Most program administrations appreciate the contributions teachers working online make to the accessibility and flexibility of their educational offerings, so it is likely worthwhile to document these for the periodic evaluation of teaching that goes into merit reviews as well as tenure and promotion decisions. Peer support and consultation with experts are also useful sources of feedback. One public source of feedback can be found in the scholarship of teaching and learning. Publishable studies of one’s online courses and innovations in online teaching make the work one has done available to social work educators more broadly. The peer review that goes into publishing such studies ensures that the work and the study make a contribution to knowledge in social work education. While it is demanding to evaluate one’s teaching in this way, doing so uses the efforts put into teaching effectively online to meet one’s obligation to publish, which can otherwise conflict.

ETHICS IN ONLINE EDUCATION One ethical imperative for those teaching online that has already been mentioned is to get the training needed in online education in general and in the technology that will be used for any specific course. Experience enables instructors to learn about what works best for them and for their students—to refine their “use of self” in the online context. However, there are other ethical issues that can arise in unique ways when teaching online. Access. One reason that online learning has been growing in recent decades is the desire to enhance student access to higher education, including social work education. However, there are things on the student end that may limit their access to online education: a lack of adequate computer equipment; a lack of access to reliable high-speed internet; long distances among students that may involve different time zones; or a lack of means and ability to travel for the on-site components of a hybrid course. Thus, even though a course is offered online, there may be limits to access that have to be addressed.

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The Americans with Disabilities Act requires that students with disabilities also have access to this form of education. Instructors need to consider how the technology of an online course will work for those students. For example, deaf and hard-of-hearing students can complete the readings, but they can only see and not hear a video-recorded lecture without special arrangements, such as captioning, and they often find it difficult to participate in fast-moving class discussions. Those who are Deaf will want signing (ASL interpretation) during synchronous class sessions or during student discussions. Communication access real-time translation (CART) services, if available, require that the student watch two screens: one for the course and another showing the simultaneous transcription, a double burden that makes participation in class discussions difficult. Blind students may need special arrangements to have readings available in audio format, and they will only be able to hear, not see, the instructor and fellow students, which may also inhibit participation in discussions and other interactions. Students with movement problems may require adaptive equipment on their computers in order to participate. A disabilities center can often provide the necessary assistance to students, but designing online learning experiences that promote universal access is the best path for all (Major 2015). General measures to enhance student engagement often help disabled students as well. Privacy. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) makes all forms of student information—enrollment status, grades, and anything else related to their education—private. Even members of the immediate family may not receive any information about a student without the student’s formal consent. Recording of class sessions and activities should be done only with explicit permission of all class members. Anything a student does or says in an online course can be accessible to hackers or other unauthorized users of the course site, presenting a greater level of privacy risk than is ordinarily encountered in the traditional classroom. Assigned self-reflections, including those on diversity issues, may be points of vulnerability. Not only must access to an online course be limited to those formally enrolled, but students should not have access to one another’s work. As usual, it is also essential that instructors not share information about a student with any other student. Only students can decide to share information about themselves. Students may not share information about a case in a public setting where they can be overheard, and faculty members should not discuss individual students where they could be overheard. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) can come into play when cases or case records are used in practice classes or

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elsewhere. As part of their initial orientation to social work education, all students should be informed about the need for “patient” privacy and the maintenance of client confidentiality outside of the internship, including on social media and other internet sites. However, in courses where client information may be shared, cautions about the privacy of clients’ medical information should be repeated at the start. While this is also true in the traditional classroom, it is easier to control boundaries in that setting than online.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY As in all courses, there are copyright laws that must be followed, although rules for online courses can be more flexible than for traditional ones. In order to promote the use of technology in education, in 2002 Congress passed the Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization (TEACH) Act, which loosens rules for copyright clearance in the online environment (Major 2015). This can only be done at accredited college and universities, in online environments, when access to the materials is limited to enrolled students, when further dissemination of the materials is limited, and when all are informed about copyright laws. However, copyright issues must be considered for guest speakers, and guest speakers must always be asked if they give permission for their remarks to be recorded. Only recording will make the material available in an asynchronous mode, but guest speakers in particular may want to protect the material that they may use in more than one setting. As for other materials used in a course, much useful material is made available to all, such as on YouTube and in TED Talks, on government websites, and by many advocacy and educational organizations, but access to copyrighted material such as e-books on other websites may be more limited or available only for a fee. It takes considerable intellectual effort and creativity to create an online course or program. Major (2015) therefore asserts that it could be a copyrighted form of intellectual property. This suggests that newly developed online techniques, lessons, and courses should be treated similarly to other copyrighted works, such as journal articles, in annual, tenure, promotion, and reappointment reviews. These are undoubtedly evidence of excellence in teaching. While credit is often given in these circumstances, colleges and universities claim course and curriculum designs as their intellectual property under the “work for hire” rule. However, when the work done on

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online course design and development involves effort spent outside of regular working hours, this becomes a gray area that has yet to be fully addressed (Major 2015). Students retain copyright to their course-related creations, but few choose to file for copyright unless they plan to continue to use this material in the future. As mentioned previously, the issues of intellectual property and copyright need to be addressed with guest speakers. Do they want or require formal ownership of a presentation made in the class? A major consideration in copyright law is who will benefit financially from intellectual property. Outside speakers may be willing to speak to students pro bono, but they might charge for a similar presentation in other settings. Therefore, they may not want what they say in class to be recorded, which should be clarified in advance. Students should also be reminded that they are not free to distribute such video and audio content further. Instructors should take advantage of any features of the courseware or class platform that can block further distribution of any of the course content.

ETHICAL ISSUES INVOLVING STUDENTS Online courses should require students to meet the same performance standards as in more traditional forms of study, and students must also adhere to standards of academic ethics online. Although there are no hard data on this in social work education, there is some concern that some forms of plagiarism and cheating may be happening more often in the online environment. Students may copy information from other websites or purchase papers written by others. Plagiarism can be controlled by using software that detects it, such as Turnitin, and this should be made available to all students and instructors. Students can then use it for their papers or other writings before they turn them in, which some instructors or programs require all students to do. Another technique to prevent plagiarism is to require a formal attestation of originality with each piece of work submitted. While people can make false statements in their affirmations, having to submit such a statement usually sensitizes students to issues relating to plagiarism in a way that likely prevents such problems. When students are participating in courses online, there may be others in the environment who can see or hear what is going on. Students must be encouraged to use a private space during any synchronous class sessions, but this may not be possible when they live in crowded conditions or must

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use public spaces for access to high-speed internet. Using headphones or earbuds prevents others from overhearing what is said in class except for anything said by the student. It also does not inflict the “noise” of the class on others. While students may not care about having their own remarks heard by others, they should be reminded that the privacy of their fellow students is also at stake.

CONCLUSION Even without the COVID-19 pandemic, online education in social work and other fields will continue to grow. Many best practices to enhance student learning and teaching effectiveness are applicable in the online environment as well, but certain teaching techniques and kinds of learning may be of special importance in the online educational environment. Q

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Decisions about offering online BSW and MSW courses and programs should be made with faculty input, and ideally with formal faculty approval, as would be the case with other curriculum changes. Having faculty buy-in is essential when programs and courses are being offered online. Use online courses for what you think they do best. With experience, you may find that they are useful in more situations than you initially thought, but you need to be comfortable with what you are teaching in the online space to make the most of the online environment in that course. Make sure that students know what will be expected of them in the hybrid, synchronous, or asynchronous environment, including that class activities and assignments may differ from what they have experienced in the past. Take the extensive amount of time that is needed to develop any course for delivery online. Many instructors, myself included, made an abrupt change to online teaching to keep students and faculty safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. I therefore did not have time to prepare for teaching course content in the online environment, which made the online version of the course less effective than it might have been. Be prepared to address student retention by being a frequent presence to students—to the group, as through virtual office hours, and to individuals via email. Access to faculty is a source of satisfaction to students, who express dissatisfaction when it is absent. This includes providing timely and constructive feedback on student work. Emphasize to students that they must be present to you and to their classmates in order to succeed.

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Make learning active. This is a good practice for all teaching but is even more essential when online students may zone out online or succumb to “Zoom fatigue.” When a program is being delivered synchronously, make sure the schedule does not require too many sequential hours on screen. Build social time into the online experience in synchronous, asynchronous, and hybrid courses. For students, connecting with faculty and colleagues is one of the taken-for-granted rewards of traditional classroom learning. Meeting new students at the start of a traditional course and getting to know them better over time is one of my pleasures in teaching, and students appreciate learning from their peers as well. Be aware of the special ethical issues that can arise online both for student and faculty.

My current opinion is that both the proponents and the opponents of online teaching and learning in social work have their points. The advantages of online learning can be enhanced and potential problems in online learning reduced by using best practices specific to this medium for teaching and learning. Resources that provide guidance for teaching and learning online are increasing even in social work education, and making use of them will bring you greater pleasure and satisfaction as you do your online work.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Hitchcock, L. I., Sage, M., and Smyth, N. J. (2019). Teaching social work with digital technology. Alexandria, Va.: CSWE Press. Johnson, A. (2013). Excellent online teaching: Effective strategies for a successful semester online. https://excellentonlineteaching.com.

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on what they teach, not where they teach. One point that I have emphasized throughout this book is that all formal teaching and learning are greatly, although often implicitly, affected by their social and organizational contexts. This chapter puts the educational context—the department or school, the college or university—in the foreground (figure 1.1). It also places classroom teaching in the context of the full range of faculty roles and responsibilities, including those job requirements that can enhance or detract from excellence in teaching. According to CSWE’s most recent annual report (2020), in 2019 there were 5,616 full-time faculty (73 percent female) and 7,837 part-time faculty (68 percent female) employed in accredited social work education programs in the United States. Even partial data show that some groups of faculty of color are underrepresented: among full-time faculty, 61 percent identified as white and 18 percent as African American or Black but ony 6.8 percent as Asian, and 6.8 percent as Hispanic/Latinx. About 7 percent of the faculty members were described as being in “clinical” (non-tenure-eligible) positions, although given trends in higher education in general, this number is likely to increase. As the social work professoriate is aging, which is true in academia overall, many expect that retirements will increase the number faculty positions opening up in the coming years. The academic workplace is an industry like any other, with cultures, norms, and performance standards, both written and unwritten. Like many other employment sectors in the twenty-first century, higher education is undergoing rapid change. Major trends in the academic workplace include the growth in online or distance learning (see chapter 7), pressures on faculty members for increased productivity and accountability, changing TEACHERS USUALLY FOCUS

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demographics in students and faculty, and changes in faculty appointments (Finkelstein, Seal, and Schuster 1998; Schuster 1999). More full-time faculty jobs are not tenure eligible—contingent faculty positions that offer contracts instead—and there is ever greater reliance on part-time or adjunct faculty (Clark et al. 2011; Pearlman 2013). The academy is also a place where functional and dysfunctional traditions endure, such as white supremacist culture at PWIs. Social work is a profession, and being a professor is a profession as well. Often the characteristics and functions of the two professions complement each other in their ideals of service to others, competence, ethical conduct, and commitment to the work. The missions of the two professions also differ, however, sometimes in ways that produce strains. For example, both professions enjoy a degree of power and autonomy in their work based on credentials, but full-time academic work and social work practice require different credentials and qualifications (Zastrow and Bremner 2004). Besides looking at being a professor of social work, this chapter is meant to be a short survival guide for those seeking a full-time academic job in an accredited social work program in the United States, for those who may be changing jobs, and for those beginning work in these programs. Although the use of adjunct faculty is growing in social work as it is in other fields (Clark et al. 2011; McMurtry and McClelland 1997; Pearlman 2013), and although many doctoral graduates in social work teach part-time (Whitaker, Weismiller, and Clark 2006), this chapter focuses on full-time academic work. It examines what academic jobs are meant to be—their ideals—as well as what they currently are, and it also seeks to (re)inspire and inform our choices for our careers. Although these are pre-pandemic data, in 2018, 49 percent of accredited programs were searching for new full-time faculty members for 2019 (CSWE 2019). Another 25 percent said they needed new full-time faculty members but could not search for them, most often because of budget constraints. Quite a few programs reported that the salaries they could offer put a constraint on their ability to attract applicants. In sum, even if slowed by the pandemic (hiring freezes, for example), there are full-time faculty jobs available in social work, although their numbers may be diminishing compared with the number of people graduating from doctoral programs each year (Lightfoot and Zheng 2021). The chapter begins with what we know about the context of social work education and then addresses the nature of faculty work in more detail.

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TYPES OF ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONS The United States has about 2,800 four-year colleges and universities. As of 2017, there were 514 accredited baccalaureate programs and 251 accredited MSW programs, with more in candidacy status (applying to be accredited for the first time; CSWE 2020). However, the total number of colleges and universities with accredited social work programs is less than the BSW and MSW totals because quite a few colleges and universities have both an MSW and a BSW program. The colleges and universities with social work programs have different missions and cultures and emphasize different kinds of scholarship, teaching, and research. For example, most are public institutions; some are private, nonprofit organizations of higher education; some are affiliated with a specific religion; and some online degree programs are private, for-profit enterprises. Although the Carnegie Foundation’s system formally recognizes only tribal institutions as a separate type, the mission of some institutions is to educate historically disadvantaged subgroups of the population, such as undergraduate programs that serve women, historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), or Hispanics. The Carnegie Foundation devised a system of classification for colleges and universities based on the goals and standards appropriate for its type (a summary can be found in Levine 2007, 10). I discuss only those Carnegie categories containing accredited social work programs. For example, I do not discuss two-year colleges, from which students may transfer into undergraduate social work programs, even though a doctoral graduate in social work might choose to teach in a two-year college. One major classification is doctorate-granting institutions: (1) RU/VH, research universities with very high research activity; (2) RU/H, research universities with high research activity; and (3) DRU, doctoral research universities. All these institutions award more than twenty doctoral degrees each year. The level of research activity (high or very high) is determined by the amount of external funding received. The earlier Carnegie category “Research 1” remains in common usage and is generally the same as the RU/VH, the largest subtype in this category. The next group is master’s colleges and universities, with three subgroups based on enrollment. Then come baccalaureate colleges. Baccalaureate institutions may award up to twenty doctoral degrees per year and can also award associate degrees. Baccalaureate institutions are now granting more

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graduate degrees. Many institutions have changed their names from college to universityby meeting state-based standards for doing so. The trend in social work education has been toward offering both BSW and MSW programs—that is, accredited programs offering both the baccalaureate and the MSW. These are no longer called joint degree programs because each program must apply for and meet relevant accreditation standards separately. Although BSW-only departments and programs remain, many BSW programs have added the MSW option. These Carnegie types describe the kinds of degrees typically awarded and the amount of externally funded research they have. Institutional priorities vary among these types, affecting faculty and student life. Most social work programs offering research doctoral degrees are (D)RUs (95 percent), and the vast majority of these are actually HRUs. A majority (76 percent) of MSW programs are in R1, R2, or R3 programs; about half (49 percent) of BSW programs are in them as well. For faculty jobs in social work, the most salient distinction is between HRU institutions and all others. Even though all institutions insist that excellence in teaching is a priority, the greater emphasis on research productivity in (D)RUs drives faculty priorities and teaching requirements. Social work programs housed in those universities are likely to have better infrastructure for faculty research. The Carnegie classifications affect who the programs want to hire and the kinds of faculty appointments offered.

FACULTY WORK Faculty workload is usually described as the number of classes each faculty member is required to teach each semester or quarter, but much faculty work is not captured in the formal assignment of specific courses to be taught. Teaching is only one part of the traditional triad of research, teaching, and service used to describe the domains of faculty work. A study done some years ago found that, by self-report, teaching accounted for about 50 percent of professors’ work, for senior and new faculty members alike, whereas research averaged from 20 to 30 percent (recently hired faculty do more), and service averaged about 5 percent for all (Finkelstein, Seal, and Schuster 1998, 66). In social work, the proportion of research work has likely increased, especially in research university settings. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) described faculty work beyond classroom teaching and research as “student-centered,”

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“disciplinary—or professional-centered,” and “community-centered” (AAUP 2015). The first category refers to individual assistance to students in their research, learning, or career advancement; alumni relations; and curriculum and course development. The second is institution-based (i.e., faculty selection, promotion and tenure reviews, and other departmental and universitywide committee work) and “outside” activities, such as reviewing and other editorial work for scholarly journals, conference presentations, and involvement with professional associations. The third covers such activities as serving on agency boards and pro bono consulting for local, state, and national governments and community and business groups. Another role, administration, is often not discussed or is defined as a form of institutional service or “discipline-centered work.” National data on faculty work collected in the 1990s suggested that faculty spend about 12 percent of their time in administration, although they would have preferred less (Finkelstein, Seal, and Schuster 1998, 66). Academic administration, like enrollment management, is increasingly being defined as a specialty of its own, a job for those who have never been in traditional academic positions, who have earned degrees in academic management, or who have different skills. Even though academic administration can enhance or detract from teaching and learning, we talk about it here only to the extent that institutional service often involves participation in faculty governance and departmental administration. The description of the Carnegie types of institutions of higher education shows that research, teaching, and service are emphasized differently in different settings. In HRUs, research productivity and grant getting are what matters most. What counts, or should count, as research or scholarship differs as well. As discussed in the section on tenure, both the number of publications and the quality of the journals the work appears in, often measured by impact factor, matter most. In other kinds of settings, the teaching load may be heavier but there can be more balance among research, teaching, and service in what programs are seeking in new faculty and in how faculty are evaluated for tenure and promotion.

SCHOLARSHIP Teaching means leading others into scholarship; it also requires one’s own scholarship to do it well. When discussing scholarship, the order of the items and the choice of words (“research” in the previous paragraph, “scholarship” here) are significant. Scholarship is a broader term that embraces

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theoretical work and other nonempirical writings; research means scholarship that is based in empirical studies. Colleges and universities promise not just to teach but to teach the most up-to-date and trustworthy content. Indeed, the generation of new knowledge and new ideas is a goal of university life, and the evaluation of faculty job performance is often most heavily weighted toward research and scholarship. Scholarship enriches and renews teaching and curriculum development, but the amount of time in a week, a semester, or a year is finite, and most faculty members believe that investing time in research, especially externally funded research, is more likely to pay off in promotion, tenure, and merit pay than is investing time in teaching. As a result, many people criticize U.S. universities for shortchanging teaching, especially undergraduate teaching (Boyer 1990; Boyer Commission 1998). The Boyer report on undergraduate teaching recommends not only preparing doctoral students as apprentice teachers but also engaging undergraduate students in more active and inquiry-based forms of learning in a strong community context (see chapter 2). In the 1990s, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching tried to resolve this tension by examining the nature of scholarship and arguing for a broader definition. Their definition was designed to encompass more of the kinds of work that faculty in different disciplines and in different kinds of colleges and universities do. The result, the widely cited Boyer report of 1990, lists four kinds of valuable scholarly work. This conceptualization has great promise both for maintaining the value of research, as traditionally defined in scientific and social science fields, and for recognizing accomplishments and intellectual work that might be more characteristic of faculty members in the arts or in the professions, including work done in mediums beyond the classical published writings. Because the report is often cited inaccurately, I quote from the original, which is well worth reading, not just for this discussion but also for the national faculty survey findings on which it is based. The scholarship of discovery is the term for what is normally called research—that is, the generation of new knowledge and ideas through independent empirical inquiry. It embodies a central ideal of the academy: the commitment to knowledge for its own sake, to freedom of inquiry and to following, in a disciplined fashion, an investigation wherever it may lead. . . . The intellectual excitement fueled by this quest enlivens faculty and invigorates higher learning institutions, . . . and in our complicated, vulnerable world, the discovery of new knowledge is critical. (Boyer 1990, 17–18)

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Research doctoral programs in social work typically emphasize preparing their students for this form of scholarship (Golde and Walker 2006). As Richardson (2006) said about doctorates in education, a profession also needs a scholarship of the enterprise—that is, a study of its practice(s) and service-delivery systems. Such work, considered the scholarship of application, may be accorded less prestige than “basic” research endeavors. The scholarship of integration means giving meaning to isolated facts and developing knowledge that may cross disciplines and bring information from one field productively into the work of another. Much has been said about the interdisciplinary perspective needed to address many contemporary issues and problems, but traditional disciplinary structures and credentialing systems often remain firmly in place, making such appealing and limited ventures as joint appointments potentially hazardous to incumbents. By nature, social work is a profession that combines knowledge from sociology, psychology, and many other fields with its own body of knowledge, which has sometimes been viewed as a weakness rather than as a strength. Boyer describes this kind of scholarship as being directed to the possibility of “interpret[ing] what’s been discovered in ways that provide a larger, more comprehensive understanding,” which in turn requires synthesis and “critical analysis and interpretation” directed to questions of what these discoveries may mean (1990, 19). The scholarship of application addresses “how knowledge can be responsibly applied to consequential problems” faced by individuals and institutions as well as how “social problems themselves define an agenda for scholarly investigation” (Boyer 1990, 21, italics in original). This type of scholarship seems typical of much social work research and scholarship, especially research on practice. Some forms of professional and community service might actually be this form of scholarship, as when best practices are disseminated and their implementation is evaluated. Boyer also pointed out that such activities can lead to new knowledge and/or the identification of new problems needing scholarly attention. Such service activities not only are good professional citizenship, but they also are “tied directly to one’s special field of knowledge” (Boyer 1990, 22). Finally, Boyer’s report talks about a scholarship of teaching: Teaching both educates and entices future scholars. . . . Teaching begins with what the teacher knows. Those who teach must, above all, be well informed, and steeped in the knowledge of their fields [and] widely read and intellectually engaged . . . teaching, at its best, means not only transmitting

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knowledge, but transforming and extending it as well. (1990, 23–24, italics in original)

This form of scholarship is often called the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). Some people have used this formulation to advocate for paying more attention and giving more respect to scholarly work that examines and evaluates teaching practices and educational outcomes, but the legitimacy and importance of this form of work may be questioned when one’s expertise is not education as a discipline. The Boyer report considers all four forms of scholarship to be necessary for good teaching and for colleges’ and universities’ fulfillment of their missions. It is unclear, however, whether this widely read and well-regarded report has had much real impact, especially in research and doctoral institutions, because the scholarship of discovery remains the most highly rewarded. Social work is a profession, meaning that its practice—the application of concepts to interventions in the real world—is a focus of its research, although much less is published in this area than is needed. It is likely that reward systems are driving faculty efforts elsewhere, especially in research-oriented institutions. Nonetheless, this typology of scholarship can help faculty members choose scholarly projects based on how they may be viewed. It also helps convey the value of scholarly work, especially if it is not in the category of the scholarship of discovery using a framework familiar to those in higher education.

TEACHING Teaching may seem the easiest part of a faculty member’s job to define, and in some ways that is true. Each academic department usually requires faculty members to teach a certain number of classes per quarter or semester. In terms of workload, teaching several sections of the same course may be easier than teaching different courses. Some departments provide teaching assistants; others do not. Sometimes different arrangements are made for new faculty and/or at points in the pre-tenure process. Accordingly, job applicants should ask about variations in the numbers of courses taught and how workload credits are decided. Job applicants who plan on getting research grants that will “buy out” some of their teaching requirements should ask how this is handled in a program, but few schools or departments are enthusiastic about applicants who seem to want to teach the minimum.

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Constructing or teaching a new course may or may not receive additional workload credit. Ever more programs or courses are offered online, and developing and teaching online courses is viewed as requiring more time and effort than traditional courses do. Especially when it comes to transforming a course to make it work well in a hybrid or online format or to developing new online courses, additional workload credit may be warranted. Besides teaching a certain number of classes or course sections, teachers often advise individual students. In professional programs like social work that include internship and/or service learning, someone must take responsibility for both field instruction (usually agency employees in social work) and liaison or field advising. This responsibility may be shared by all fulltime faculty, delegated to specialized faculty in the field department, carried by adjunct (part-time) faculty, or some combination of these. Also, if the institution has a doctoral program, it is important to know how service on doctoral examinations or dissertation committees and how the advising and mentoring of doctoral students are figured into faculty workloads; practices seem to vary widely in this area. Sometimes no workload credit is given for this work because mentoring a doctoral student may include having them assist in faculty research and publication. Mentoring and role modeling may be at least as important to faculty work as classroom instruction, but it is difficult to assess unless questions about this are included in the student satisfaction measures discussed in chapter 6. Finally, the extent to which one’s teaching is scholarly, as Boyer (1990) suggests it should be, is difficult to evaluate. Assigning new and up-to-date readings in a course may be evidence of this, as may student satisfaction ratings suggesting that a teacher knows much about the subject matter and conveys intellectual excitement. Quantifying the effort to keep abreast of the field and make knowledge exciting and relevant to students is difficult.

SERVICE Based on the kinds of work that faculty and students in their practicum training do, college and university administrators often hail schools and departments of social work as contributing to their overall service mission. This emphasis on service activities, however, may be declining as standards for scholarly productivity for tenure and promotion are rising. Service may be defined as service to the department or school (e.g., committee work,

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curriculum-development activities) or to the college or university, and some service is generally the norm for all. Junior faculty members (pre-tenure) may be informally encouraged to limit their service work until they have earned tenure in order to protect the time needed for writing. Service activities may consist of engagement with social service agencies or organizations through, for example, pro bono consultation, board service, or other kinds of uncompensated work. Service may be in local and national professional or scholarly organizations, such as reviewing articles for journals, which is regarded as recognition of one’s areas of professional and scholarly expertise. But because service activities are often “counted” and valued differently, you should find out how they are defined and evaluated in your institution. For example, service may be valued only if it leads to related scholarship or is connected to students’ service-learning activities.

ADMINISTRATION

Some academic positions are purely administrative. Some may be held by people who also have professorial appointments, tenured or contract based, but some are not. Since academic administration has become a specialty in itself, a full discussion of it is beyond the scope of this book, but you can find an excellent, brief overview of typical university governance structures in Eckel and King (2003). Full-time faculty members may assume administrative responsibilities, sometimes on a rotating basis, such as chairing a curriculum area or directing a program or subprogram (e.g., part-time study, satellite campus). If the work is something like chairing a faculty committee, it is counted as service to the institution. Sometimes it is compensated, especially if work is required outside the normal academic calendar. At other times, especially if the faculty is small, it is expected of everyone and/or is rotated among the group. Again, how expectations and practices in these areas are handled is a topic that should be discussed when considering a job as well as among faculty in the program.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Professional growth and development is an area that includes attending conferences and other meetings to keep abreast of developments in one’s

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areas of teaching and research, attending specialized workshops on writing grant proposals and research methodologies, and traveling for research (and obtaining funding for it). It can also mean attending faculty-development activities on campus, including services from campus-based centers on teaching. In social work, national conferences often include preconference institutes for teaching, research methods, and/or research funding development. Those who receive external funding for their research often attend specialty conferences for grantees and others that provide similar opportunities to learn about new research findings and develop research skills. In addition, a program may offer opportunities to enhance faculty knowledge in specific areas, such as learning to teach online or learning how to better handle issues of race and racism in the curriculum and in the classroom. Colleges, schools, and departments vary greatly in what is available on campus and in what they provide in financial and logistical support and in release time for these activities. Because of changes in academic work, including the increasing number of nontenurable full-time appointments, Gappa, Austin, and Trice (2005) argue for a different, values-based framework for thinking about faculty work. They cite five “essential elements” important to all faculty: Q Q

Q

Q Q

employment equity, including open and transparent employment policies; academic freedom in research and scholarship, in the classroom and as a citizen; balance and flexibility in work arrangements and career development over time; opportunities for professional growth; and opportunities for involvement in the institution and the community.

The last point would include the ability to participate in faculty governance. These faculty benefits and entitlements provide another tool for assessing specific academic employment opportunities and for thinking about faculty rights and obligations in a full-time faculty job you may already have.

RESEARCH ON FACULTY JOBS IN SOCIAL WORK

In the 1990s, several national studies examined faculty work in general and in social work in particular. The findings of the social work studies were similar to what studies in other fields showed: an aging professoriate; increasing

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demands on faculty for scholarly productivity, especially in institutions offering doctoral degrees (Anastas 2006; Green 1998, 2008; Hull 1991; Sansone, Bedics, and Rappe 2000; Wergen 1994); and the increasing use of adjunct, nontenured, full-time faculty in departments and schools of social work (McMurtry and McClelland 1997). CSWE (2020) has reported that 12 percent of PhD courses, 33 percent of BSW courses, 45 percent of MSW courses, and 56 percent of DSW courses are taught by part-time faculty members. Except in research doctoral programs, enrollments have been growing more quickly than the number of full-time faculty jobs, tenure-eligible or not. The methods programs use to recruit adjunct faculty are quite variable and is briefly discussed later.

QUALIFYING FOR A FULL-TIME, TENURE-ELIGIBLE JOB

For a long time, there has been a shortage of doctoral graduates available for full-time faculty jobs, especially those who hold both a doctoral and a professional, usually an MSW, degree (Anastas 2006, 2007; Feldman 1999; Johnson and Munch 2010; Lightfoot, Franklin and Bertran 2021; Zastrow and Bremner 2004). CSWE (2020) reported that about half (49 percent) of responding programs were conducting a search for new faculty in the 2019 academic year, and another 25 percent wanted to recruit new faculty members but did not have institutional permission to do so, usually because of budget constraints. This problem is expected to continue since, as in other fields, the social work professoriate is aging, meaning that faculty retirements are expected. My own study of job ads for one year (Anastas 2006) looked more specifically at what competencies and areas of expertise schools and departments of social work were seeking when hiring new full-time faculty for entry-level positions. My findings showed that information about faculty vacancies and the competencies sought in applicants must be considered according to the type of institution in which programs are located and the level of social work education, graduate or undergraduate, being offered. Like Feld (1988), my study’s findings were based on the highest social work degree offered by the program: baccalaureate, master’s, or doctorate. Barsky, Green, and Ayayo (2014) did not analyze their responses in this way. Because I designed my study to examine opportunities for doctoral program graduates, I focused on job ads for positions at the assistant professor level or for those whose the rank was “open,” meaning that it could be filled

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by a beginner at the rank of assistant professor or higher (Anastas 2006). Most of the jobs advertised in the year studied were for institutions with BSW (82 percent) and MSW programs (88 percent). Almost half the jobs (45 percent) were in doctoral-level institutions (RU or DU in the Carnegie system of the time). Only about a third of the advertised jobs were in settings with a social work doctoral program. Thus, many of the schools/departments in which faculty jobs were available were unlike the institutions in which social work doctoral students earned their degrees. As Zastrow and Bremner (2005) predicted, almost all the job ads mentioned that the MSW degree was required or preferred (93 percent combined), and a majority of ads also wanted some amount of post-MSW practice experience (71 percent); the same was true of the job ads studied by Barsky, Green, and Ayayo (2014). The areas of expertise most often sought were practice and diversity and/or cultural competence. Teaching experience (58 percent) and research or scholarship (50 percent) were usually necessary, although the latter was more likely to be mentioned in ads for schools with doctoral programs. The responsibilities most often listed were MSW teaching (50 percent of ads) and BSW teaching (53 percent), although scholarly productivity was commonly sought too (44 percent of ads), usually in ads for schools with doctoral programs in social work. Barsky and associates (2014) found that the areas of expertise most often sought were generalist practice (66 percent), likely reflecting the large number of programs with BSW programs; research and evaluation (56 percent); policy (44 percent); community and macro practice (44 percent); field practice experience (41 percent); and human diversity (41 percent). The areas of expertise most often lacking in applicants were teaching (40 percent) and advanced clinical practice (22 percent). Lightfoot and Zheng (2021) found that the majority of positions available required an MSW degree (80 percent) and post-MSW practice experience (79 percent). Barsky and associates identified the top four qualifications sought by programs when hiring: interpersonal skills, having refereed publications, filling a diversity need, and demonstrating support for social work ethics, each mentioned by about 70 percent of survey respondents. These data suggest that preparation for and experience in teaching in the MSW and BSW programs are likely to be necessary for obtaining a faculty job. Especially for those wanting to teach in a research institution, research and publication or presentation experience is now generally required. Most current doctoral students have an MSW degree and some post-MSW experience (Anastas 2007, 2012; Anastas and Park 2019). Candidates without these qualifications may have fewer opportunities, although they may be

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better compensated if they are hired (Sakamoto et al. 2008). In addition, with the growth of online education in social work, some schools are now seeking applicants with experience in online teaching. Only military and paramilitary (e.g., law enforcement) jobs emphasize rank more than academia does. The faculty pecking order and tenure-track versus contract (not tenure-eligible) positions have their own language, which generally seems self-explanatory to those in the system but may be unintelligible to outsiders. The tenure system is explained in box 8.1 (AAUP 2015). Job ads always specify the rank of the position being offered. More full-time faculty jobs have been available in social work each year than there are graduates from social work doctoral programs to fill them (Anastas 2006, 2007, 2012; Zastrow and Bremner 2004), although this may be changing (Lightfoot and Zheng 2021). An unknown number of people with an MSW degree obtain their doctoral education in another, related field (e.g., sociology, public policy, developmental psychology), and they are eligible for these positions as well. Many social work doctoral graduates already are employed when they graduate or may not be seeking a job in the academic sector. In addition, this job market is national, and not all doctoral graduates are able to relocate for postdoctoral employment (Anastas 2007, 2012; Anastas and Park 2019; Barsky, Green, and Ayayo 2014). Therefore, some localities and types of institutions may have few full-time academic jobs available, and these programs can be in the enviable position of receiving many applications for each opening. Meanwhile, the number of students in research-oriented doctoral programs is not growing, and it is not yet known how well DSW (practice doctorate) graduates will fare in the academic marketplace. Recent data described what one cohort of doctoral graduates (PhD and DSW) in the 2017–18 academic year encountered in finding an academic job (Lightfoot and Zheng 2021). Fewer of those who were applying for jobs at research universities had success in landing a tenure-track faculty position, but those applying for jobs at teaching-oriented colleges and universities fared better because there were more of these positions available. Most social work doctoral programs are found in research universities, so it is not surprising that graduates would then seek out jobs with the kind of research infrastructure that they have experienced. In sum, there was a mismatch between the kinds of positions available and the kinds of positions doctoral graduates wanted, and it may be that we are now producing an oversupply of doctoral graduates that is likely to continue as the number of DSW graduates grows, a problem common in other disciplines.

BOX 8.1 DECODING FACULTY RANKS AND TITLES

The traditional system of faculty titles and rank is tied to the granting of tenure, although the proportion of tenured faculty is declining. While the qualifications for faculty rank and the titles used vary by institution, you should know the general language of faculty rank in the tenure and nontenure systems. In the tradition of peer review and faculty self-governance, faculty rank is usually recommended and assigned, in accordance with the particular college’s or university’s policy, by a faculty committee—that is, by fellow faculty members in one’s own department or school, with subsequent endorsement by the college or university. Salaries are generally tied to rank or title. Assistant professor is the title most commonly given to beginning, full-time, tenure-eligible faculty. In tenure systems, this title is used for most or all faculty members who have not yet been granted tenure. In some institutions, especially if the candidate has not completed the doctoral degree, the lower rank and title of instructor is used, but often for only a limited time. Pre-tenure appointments are formally “probationary”—that is, not permanent, as they are for tenured faculty. Qualifications for promotion to the rank of associate professor are usually the same as those for tenure. Some institutions award this title before granting tenure, either for outstanding accomplishment or, more often, for someone who has joined a faculty after full-time faculty work elsewhere. The highest rank granted is simply professor, or sometimes full professor. Not all associate professors attain the rank of professor. Although “temporary” and “visiting” are not permanent titles, a temporary appointment can sometimes be converted to a continuing one. Similar ranks are used to describe non-tenure-eligible jobs (“clinical assistant professor,” for example). These titles may also reflect different roles and work assignments, such as “clinical [rank] professor” or “research [rank] professor.” Note that “clinical” may or may not have anything to do with clinical practice; it may simply indicate a contract (full-time, nontenured) rather than a tenured position. The term rank means that someone may be a clinical assistant professor or a clinical associate professor, for example, reflecting length of service and/or promotion based on accomplishments. Sometimes the term lecturer is used. A generic term for these various kinds of positions is contract faculty, indicating finite terms of guaranteed employment and recurrent periodic reviews. The rank of a clinical appointment may also be tied to the length of the contract offered. Sometimes these appointments are made administratively (as by a dean or director), but sometimes they too fall under faculty governance systems for hiring.

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FACULTY WORK IN SOCIAL WORK Social work falls into the broader category of professional education (in contrast to the “traditional” disciplines), which affects faculty work in a variety of ways. Social work is both a discipline—that is, a field of knowledge with its own content and typical modes of study—and a profession—that is, a field whose core is service and action, what Richardson would call an “enterprise” (Anastas and Kuerbis 2009; Richardson 2006). As Shulman observed, A professional is not someone for whom understanding is sufficient. Understanding is necessary, yes; but not sufficient. A professional has to be prepared to act, to perform, to practice, whether they have enough information or not . . . they [professionals] have to be certain kinds of human beings.” (2005, 3, italics in original)

This affects the curriculum in a variety of ways, such as the inclusion of a field internship, which necessitates the selection of field-learning sites and the supervision and evaluation of students’ practice. It also means the inclusion of professional values and ethics in what is taught and an obligation to evaluate students’ general suitability for practice as well as their intellectual achievement. It means that knowledge and understanding generally emphasize their value and application to practice. How does this affect faculty work? As noted, job applicants with a professional-practice degree and some practice experience are likely to be preferred because the accreditation system makes them eligible to teach required practice courses and to work in field learning. Lightfoot and Zheng (2021) found that MSW degrees and post-master’s practice experience were required for most of the faculty positions listed in the year that they studied. Such applicants are also more likely to be able to convey the practice relevance of what they teach, as in providing case examples to illustrate their points. In addition to deciding on the courses to be taught, every department or school of social work must decide how to handle students in field-learning sites and who will instruct and evaluate students’ learning in the field. Thus, advising students in social work may have both academic and field-oriented aspects, and many institutions expect full-time faculty members to be field liaisons or advisers in addition to their other responsibilities. Faculty members may want or be expected to maintain their social work practice or their ties with community agencies and organizations. Therefore, they may

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spend more time advising or on service-related activities than do their colleagues in other disciplines. Because of these differences (and other factors), since its migration from agencies to universities, social work education has been concerned about being “in” but not “of” the university (Austin 1997). Finally, the CSWE accreditation standards (2015) state that only faculty members with a professional social work degree (BSW or MSW, depending on the program) can head a fieldwork department or teach required practice courses, although teaching practice electives is permitted. Seaberg’s (1998) national survey of social work faculty provided the best data showing both how our work is like that in other parts of the university and how it differs. Studies suggest that all faculty work about fifty-five hours per week, spending a little more than half their time teaching. The average number of hours worked reported in Seaberg’s study was only fifty, which might be explained by the fact that some did professional but non-university-based work, such as social work practice. Tracking workload by the number of courses taught was the most common measurement, and this part of faculty work is the easiest to quantify. The typical teaching load in the Seaberg study was four courses per year. The respondents reported spending about eleven hours a week in the classroom, ten hours a week on class preparation, and additional time on grading students’ work and meeting with students outside class. Very few had teaching assistants, and most carried a heavy advising load (more than seventeen students each). Lack of faculty workload credit for thesis and dissertation advising was a common complaint. Seaberg’s findings about faculty scholarship over a period of two years showed great variability in publications and presentations. A number of study respondents recorded no specific scholarly activities, a finding not likely to be replicated today, thereby underestimating the averages for the active scholars, while others were quite productive. Overall, the respondents averaged about six conference presentations, three published articles, and one to two grant applications in two years. A less common activity was writing books and monographs. The respondents averaged about thirteen hours a week on scholarly activities, the area in which there was the most dissatisfaction with workload policies because they did not allow enough time for scholarly work. Other aspects of work studied were service, which took up more than one full workday per month, practice (six hours per week), and administration, which was another area of dissatisfaction with workload policies that did not give credit for this work or for travel time to teach at distant locations, which now would likely be handled with online teaching. In sum, respondents

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reported spending 42 percent of their time teaching, 29 percent in research and scholarship, 16 percent in service, and 13 percent in administration. The amount and kinds of work done by the sample varied considerably, but they were not linked simply to the size of the faculty. In other words, local workload norms and practices vary widely. Among faculty in social work, as in other fields, a number of studies have found that women on average tended to teach more courses, serve on more university committees, and publish fewer articles than their male colleagues, and faculty of color had more students overall than did their white colleagues (Barsky, Green, and Ayayo 2014; Sakamoto et al. 2006). In the Seaberg (1998) study, junior faculty were found to be spending more time teaching than senior faculty did, despite their need to prepare for their tenure review (Finkelstein, Seal, and Schuster 1998; Seaberg 1998). Compensation for social work faculty is also an issue. In the 1990s, Howe (2000) found that faculty salaries in social work were lower than for other fields at the same institutions, at both private and public colleges and universities. Social work salaries increased more slowly than did those for other disciplines during the decade, and fewer assistant professors were hired. Besides salary and benefits, it is important to consider the full range of workload issues outlined in this research when negotiating for a faculty position and, once hired, when negotiating annual workload and other assignments.

GETTING THE FACULTY JOB YOU WANT

Although many doctoral graduates are bound to a specific location (Anastas 2007, 2012), the job market for full-time teaching jobs in social work is national. In some areas of the country and at some types of schools, obtaining a full-time faculty job may be difficult. Because I cannot cover everything on this topic in this chapter, I recommend, for example, The Academic Job Search Handbook by Vick, Furlong, and Lurie (2016). In addition, the Chronicle of Higher Education (published weekly by the American Council on Education) often contains articles on searching for an academic job, many of them with helpful tips and reflections on the process. The following qualifications usually make it easier to obtain a full-time tenure-eligible job on a social work faculty: Q Q

Having an MSW Having post-MSW practice experience

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Having completed the doctoral degree Having some successful teaching experience, preferably in a school or department of social work Having a record of scholarship Having expertise in diversity, equity, inclusion, cultural competence and/or anti-racism. Having a well-defined area of expertise that fits well with the hiring program’s mission and needs Having a well-articulated teaching philosophy Having a five-year plan for future research and scholarship

It is important to understand why these qualifications are considered desirable as well as how to develop and articulate them. Much of what I describe here is based on many years of service on faculty search committees at different schools, on observing and advising doctoral students applying for faculty jobs, and on listening to doctoral program directors, deans, and others discuss how best to prepare doctoral students to search for a job in academia.

DEGREES AND OTHER QUALIFICATIONS

Having an MSW degree is desirable because it is the terminal practice degree for the profession. Candidates with an MSW degree presumably know and are committed to the ethics, values, and knowledge base of social work that will influence their teaching, whatever the specific curriculum content they teach. Moreover, in accordance with current accreditation standards, those who teach required practice courses and are involved with certain aspects of field instruction must have an MSW. Faculty members are increasingly expected to teach in a variety of traditional curricula—practice, HBSE, policy, and research—and faculty members with an MSW can cover practice courses as needed. A social work practice degree is also seen as desirable because it enables teachers to connect what they are teaching in other areas (e.g., research, policy, HBSE) to its relevance to practice. What about applicants who do not have an MSW degree or post-MSW practice experience? Without an MSW, an applicant is likely to find a job only in programs that are large enough to accommodate faculty with relevant specialized knowledge from other disciplines because they already have many faculty members with an MSW degree. However, these mediumsize and large programs have different philosophical beliefs about the

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desirability of recruiting such faculty members. Job seekers should check out this attitude in advance (if there is no one else on the faculty without an MSW, this may be a dead end). Some programs whose universities are working toward greater interdisciplinary collaboration are actively seeking faculty members who might hold joint appointments (with or without the MSW) and/or demonstrate expertise in another discipline, a more promising scenario. In addition, CSWE has a process for evaluating social work degrees earned in other countries for their equivalence to the MSW. It also has a process through which an individual can apply for a waiver of the MSW degree requirement if the person’s background is seen as equivalent, a certification that belongs to the individual, not just the position for which a waiver is needed. What about the BSW degree? While it turns out that quite a large proportion of doctoral students in social work have a BSW degree (25 percent; Anastas 2007), no data are available on how the BSW degree is viewed in hiring. The qualifications in job ads did not mention it (Anastas 2006), and many states do not recognize the BSW degree for licensing purposes. Therefore, it is unlikely that the BSW degree is a sought-after qualification, especially because BSW education is considered roughly equivalent to the first year of an MSW program, and many institutions with a BSW program add an MSW program. Those who enter their doctoral studies without post-MSW practice experience (usually a minimum of two years of agency practice is sought) may want to gain this experience while they are students. Of course, this experience can be gained after earning a doctorate, but the opportunity cost may be greater. Even though gaining this experience (often through part-time practice) during a doctoral program may delay obtaining the degree, doing so after being hired as a full-time faculty member will definitely take away from the time needed to develop a portfolio of teaching and scholarship for tenure and/or to carry out heavy job responsibilities. The mention of a completed doctoral degree addresses when during one’s doctoral studies to look for a job. (These comments apply primarily to doctoral students seeking their first full-time academic job after completing their doctorate.) Those enrolled in part-time or other doctoral programs while already employed full-time probably do not need to know how to get an academic job, since they may already have one. Some programs state that they will consider ABD (all but dissertation) applicants, although this is becoming less common. This normally means that applicants have

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defended their dissertation proposals and can offer a firm date to defend the dissertation itself. Some colleges and universities are restricted to offering appointments to such candidates only at a lower rank (i.e., instructor) and lower pay, or they have policies that do not permit hiring ABD candidates at all. But it is acceptable to begin looking for a job during the academic year in which the dissertation will be defended. Generally, a completed degree means that the degree requirements (dissertation defense and deposit) will have been fulfilled by the time the appointment begins; sometimes letters of initial appointment actually state that the appointment will take effect only when this has been done. While you may be tempted to think about applying for a full-time job while completing your dissertation, the time needed to complete the dissertation on the job will conflict with doing what may be necessary to obtain tenure (to keep the job), and adjusting to a new job is time-consuming in itself. Sometimes this arrangement works, but it is not ideal. Unfortunately, BIPOC doctoral students are sometimes recruited very aggressively and offered opportunities like this. In my opinion, they should be considered only when both the school and the university/college commit in writing that the tenure “clock” can be stopped until the degree has been completed. In contrast to taking a full-time faculty job ABD, if you can invest time in a postdoctoral fellowship, you will have a real advantage in getting a faculty job because your research career will have advanced. Another reason to be well along in your dissertation research when applying for a full-time job is that formally presenting your research is part of the on-campus “job talk” required of finalists for faculty positions. Although it is possible to talk about literature, theory, and research methodology without presenting actual findings, this kind of presentation is generally not compelling. Even though doctoral study is demanding, it is an excellent time for gaining experience in both teaching and research. Some doctoral students are funded through teaching assistantships, which can offer mentored experiences in teaching undergraduate or graduate social work students. Some doctoral programs offer courses in teaching, but not all of them do. Campuses may also have teaching centers that offer doctoral students, teaching assistants, and faculty at all levels individual and/or group-based instruction and coaching in how to teach. The national conferences held annually by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) and the Baccalaureate Program Directors (BPD) offer workshops on curriculum development and teaching. If full-time teaching is your goal, it is a good idea to take

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advantage of these opportunities. Some people recommend assembling a teaching portfolio containing documentation of your teaching development activities; teaching assignments, including syllabi and other course materials; and student evaluations (see chapter 6). The two drawbacks to teaching part-time while studying for your doctorate are that, first, many doctoral students fall in love with teaching and feel that they have already obtained the reward they were looking for; as a result, their motivation to complete the research requirements may wane. Second, social work programs are relying increasingly on adjunct teachers and advisers (CSWE 2020, McMurtry and McClelland 1997). Given the power differentials, doctoral students may find it hard to refuse such an offer. But carrying a heavy teaching load as an adjunct can delay obtaining your degree if it detracts from your dissertation work. Although I have no data to support this conclusion, I think that having taught some rather than many courses successfully is probably all that is needed in a job application. Having had some experience teaching means that the candidate has the basic skills to succeed in teaching (or field-liaison work), making him or her a “safer bet” as a beginner.

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

PhD programs offer many forms of research experience (beyond the dissertation), such as research internships, assistantships, and other part-time employment on research projects, as well as opportunities to present conference papers and publish with other students and/or faculty or on one’s own. Doctoral students report that access to these opportunities varies across and within doctoral programs (Anastas 2007, 2012). Although new social work faculty used to be hired based on the future promise or capacity for productivity in research and scholarship, many institutions hiring now are looking for previous accomplishments (Anastas 2006), although the emphasis on this varies across settings. Attending scholarly conferences while studying for your doctorate can be a good way of learning about current research in your area of interest and learning how to write a conference abstract and present your research results effectively. These may be social work conferences or those related to your areas of expertise, such as in aging, public health, palliative care, and many others. As in teaching, some national conferences and organizations offer methodological and other workshops to doctoral students. Attending these is also evidence of serious preparation to become a productive scholar after graduation.

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GLOBAL

Current CSWE accreditation standards (2015) require educating from a “global perspective,” and increasing numbers of universities and colleges are developing or expanding their global reach. Although not yet commonly mentioned in faculty job ads, international interests and involvement are advantages when applying for a faculty job in social work. Hence it is not just who you are but what you know and know how to do that matters. On the other hand, international candidates for faculty jobs can face barriers in the job market, especially if English is not their first language. Demonstrating competence in written and spoken English is essential. Even speaking fluent English but with an accent can be a negative because students often complain about this in their teacher evaluations. Why students are not asked to adapt as a manifestation of cultural competence is a mystery to me.

PART-TIME TEACHING

So far, the chapter has addressed those seeking full-time academic jobs. As we noted, however, social work programs are increasingly relying on parttime (adjunct) faculty, and some doctoral graduates (and others in social work) are choosing to make teaching one of their secondary career activities. To illustrate, in a national study, about 88 percent of licensed social workers with doctoral degrees were teaching (Whitaker, Weismiller, and Clark 2006), but only about a third of them listed an academic position as their primary employment. While overreliance on adjunct faculty may not be good for programs and students, teaching faculty who are actively engaged in practice, research, and administration in nonacademic, community-based settings bring valuable knowledge, skills, and perspectives to the classroom. Klein, Weisman, and Smith (1996) explored the use of adjunct faculty at some schools of social work. Deans and directors valued them for enriching the curriculum, especially with respect to contemporary practice. Adjuncts reported that being connected to the institution and to students were motivators for them. However, adjunct teachers were rated lower in their courses than full-time faculty. In addition, Pearlman (2013) writes that the extremely low pay, lack of benefits, and unsatisfactory working conditions

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(for example, having no office to meet with students) is morally wrong, given how much programs need them. In settings where adjunct faculty are unionized, conditions can be better. Hiring adjunct faculty is entirely different, as the process is local and sometimes informal. Even though the compensation is low, the satisfaction of teaching part-time is often great, especially when the adjunct faculty member is well connected to the full-time faculty and the curriculum of the program. Getting a job as an adjunct faculty member is usually a matter of networking at geographically convenient schools and programs, at a program from which you got one of your degrees, at a program specializing in an area of interest, and through full-time faculty, especially those chairing curriculum areas (e.g., practice, social policy) or directing programs. Finally, do not overlook the possibility of teaching in associate-degree programs, human-service programs, specialized programs in addictions or family services, or other relevant fields such as public health. Some students may have a major in human services and then use this degree go on to work toward a BSW. While these associate-degree-granting colleges may not be particularly oriented to social work, bringing social work expertise to other areas may help increase the field’s general reputation.

HOW FULL-TIME FACULTY ARE HIRED The details of the hiring process (and of all faculty governance rules) vary, but it is a long-accepted faculty right and responsibility to participate in deciding who is hired to join the group as a full-time colleague. The administration in the department or school, as well as at the college or university level, is also involved. Thus, there are actually two “audiences” to address in your search, and while they often agree on what they are looking for in a new faculty member, they may emphasize different things and approach job candidates differently. Lightfoot, Franklin and Baltran (2021) give an excellent overview of how doctoral students can best prepare for finding a fulltime academic job in social work since the processes vary across disciplines. Most often a search committee, made up in whole or in part of faculty members, initially screens the applicants. This committee is the first audience that will see the applicants’ materials. They compare the applicants’ qualifications with the posted job requirements and desired characteristics in new faculty. The administration, however, is often the key actor at the

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final stages of the hiring process when salary, benefits, work assignments, and professional-development resources are discussed.

FINDING JOB OPENINGS

The two main sources of information about available faculty jobs are published advertisements and networking, including at national professional conferences. The affirmative action policies of most institutions require that faculty job openings be advertised regionally or nationally and in organizations and communities that can reach audiences of traditionally underrepresented groups. Annual conferences like those held by CSWE and the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) offer specific information about available jobs to members and attendees, and the job openings listed there may not yet have been published elsewhere. At the time of this writing, the most comprehensive listing of available academic jobs in social work is that available all year to members of CSWE. However, newsletters of professional organizations and affinity groups of traditionally underrepresented academics and doctoral students or other specialty organizations, are additional useful sources of information about available faculty jobs.

FRAMING YOUR EXPERTISE AND PROFESSIONAL GOALS

Increasingly, ads for faculty jobs identify particular areas of expertise that the program is looking for. Note, however, whether these are expressed as preferences or hard-and-fast requirements. In any case, articulating what you have to offer as a new faculty member requires both knowing yourself and understanding how others will see you and your résumé. Although their knowledge of your doctoral program may be dated, search committee members will know something about you based on where you have studied at both the MSW and doctoral levels. Everything you do during the search process—the letters you write, the telephone calls you make, the emails you send, the reference letters you request, and your behavior during interviews and social events surrounding an interview—is information about you that will be used to evaluate your job application. Each of these activities gives you an opportunity to shape the message you want to convey to a prospective employer. All colleges and universities are looking for teaching

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skills, and programs look to hire new faculty who have the ability to shape and improve curriculum, who demonstrate scholarly productivity, and who express a willingness to engage constructively in academic life.

THE LETTER OF APPLICATION

The first information that a prospective employer has about you is your letter of application and the attached materials, usually a curriculum vitae (CV), sometimes a writing sample, and sometimes a list of people who have agreed to provide references for you. The people named as references are not likely to be contacted unless you make the long list or short list of candidates of interest. Most applicants know that they should carefully produce and update their CV for the application and be truthful in all respects. Cover letter. Some applicants do not seem to realize that a perfunctory or generic cover letter may be viewed unfavorably and is certainly an opportunity lost. When applying to several places, you may use a similar cover letter, containing content that summarizes your experience and mentions things not in your CV, such as your approach to teaching, your goals for the future, and how they build on your past experiences and achievements. However, at the least, the letter’s first and last paragraphs should be shaped to each particular school or department you are applying to, showing how you meet its specific needs as outlined in its advertisement or job description and how you might be a good fit in that environment. You need to convey your interest in that job, not just any job. Addressing your suitability for this particular job may take some homework on your part, such as visiting the school’s website and learning more about the school, its curriculum, and its faculty, as well as finding out more through networking. The first step for the search committee is to review all the applications and decide on those candidates they want to talk with further. Some candidates are rejected right away as not demonstrating the basic qualifications for the job or as having a poor fit with the school’s requirements. Normally, all members of a department’s or school’s faculty have some say in faculty hiring, so search committee members will also be thinking about whether or not an applicant will be supported by faculty members in the final interview stage. Therefore, if you have the basic qualifications for the job and are rejected at this early stage, do not view it as a judgment of your value because it may be only an assessment of fit with that particular group at that particular time.

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Academic job searches are generally very slow, and managing one’s anxiety during the application process can be difficult. It is fine to show interest in a particular position by making judicious follow-up contacts, but collegial and committee processes take time. Being seen as too pushy or as a “pest” is not good, since your ability to be a colleague who will be easy to live with if hired is also being assessed. References. Sometimes applicants are asked to submit letters of reference with their initial application, but more often, what programs initially want is a list of names and contact information for those people who will provide a reference for you. Of course, you will have obtained permission from these people to give their names to the committee. If your application advances beyond the preliminary stage, your references will be contacted by telephone so you can be discussed and specific questions can be asked and answered off the record. A written recommendation is often needed only if and when the application advances to the finalist stage or a job is being offered. As with your cover letter, letters of recommendation are most persuasive when they are specific to a particular job and are not entirely generic. Therefore, be sure to give each person who will serve as a reference enough information to support your application. This information should include copies of materials you are sending to each school (CV and cover letter) so the recommendation can emphasize some of the points you are trying to make about yourself. Also provide information about each position you are seeking, such as a copy of the job ad and position description. This information will enable those recommending you to speak about how you might fit in well and contribute in each position.

THE FIRST-ROUND INTERVIEW

These comments on the job interview process are written about how things were done pre-COVID-19. Colleges and universities will have their own policies for reducing COVID-19 risks, and it may be that conducting searches more remotely may continue if they have proven to be effective. When a search committee has identified the top applicants for the position they seek to fill, the next step is usually a preliminary or first-round interview (the long list). This can take place in a variety of forms—on the telephone, on-site (if the applicant is local), or at a professional conference. In social work education, the most common sites for these first-round

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interviews are the annual SSWR and CSWE meetings. For the search committee, the main purpose of the first interview is to learn more about the candidate: his or her research interests, teaching experiences and ideas, community involvement, and the like. All job-search handbooks and even university career centers have information about the kinds of questions that are likely to be asked. Lightfoot and associates (2021) provide a list of questions a job candidate might be asked in the job interview process (p. 160). The first question is commonly “Why are you interested in this job with us?” Too often, job seekers are well prepared to talk about themselves but not as well prepared to talk about the hiring institution. Your answer to this question should be about both you and the institution interviewing you. While many questions can be anticipated, some cannot, but you must show that you know about and are interested in those you might be working with in the future. You will, of course, learn more about them as you go through the search process, which will ultimately help you decide whether or not a particular job appeals to you. Even though these first interviews are usually short, you should be prepared with some questions of your own, for not having any may be taken as a sign of disinterest on your part. You want to demonstrate that you are taking this job possibility seriously by asking about the job and the place where it is located. Finally, a preliminary interview may be an occasion to offer the search committee other materials to support your application, such as a writing sample (if it has not already been requested), teaching evaluations, or teaching materials you may have developed (such as a syllabus or a creative student assignment). Based on these preliminary interviews, the two to three strongest candidates for each position are typically invited to campus for a final interview. But the preliminary interview process may be an occasion for you to decide that some job possibilities that you thought were promising will not actually work out well for you. Recognizing this early on can be a gift to yourself and to those searching, and the best outcome for all may be for you to withdraw your application at this stage.

THE ON-CAMPUS INTERVIEW

The on-campus interview process for finalists (the short list) goes well beyond a simple interview. At best, it should be an occasion both for the hiring school to get to know you better and for you to get a better sense of the hiring department, school, and university, as well as the community in which it is located and where you will be living if hired.

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The job talk. The on-campus interview is usually made up of a formal presentation to faculty (and perhaps others, such as students, alumni representatives, and/or community members). This presentation is most often about your research, typically your dissertation research. In addition to the content of the presentation—that is, the soundness of the research and the relevance of its findings to the profession—two other things are being assessed: your command of the material and whether you convey it in a lively and interesting manner. The methods and content of the research are seen as bearing on your potential as a scholar, and your delivery is seen as relevant to your potential as a teacher. You should therefore rehearse this presentation, time it carefully, and seek feedback on it from others before the interview. One important tip is to leave time for questions and comments from the audience. Being able to speak about your work spontaneously is a good way to show your command of the content, and faculty members enjoy having a chance to speak and ask questions themselves. Everyone knows, however, that giving a job talk is stressful and may reduce your ability to recall everything relevant. So if there is a question that you cannot answer on the spot, just say so and promise to provide the answer later (an excellent technique for the classroom as well). Finally, you will learn something about your future colleagues from how they treat you in their questions—as a colleague whose work they are curious about or as a quasi-student whom they just want to trip up. The job talk is not the only important part of the campus visit, but it is hard work to overcome a boring or disorganized presentation, and some work ahead of time can ensure greater success. Finally, make sure that any needed equipment (as for a PowerPoint or video presentation or cables to connect your computer) is available, but also be prepared with backup material, because even well-prepared technology can fail. Another variety of job talk that is less often used is preparing and presenting some material that you could use in actual classroom teaching. All the preceding points about how best to prepare for a presentation of one’s research apply to this kind of performance as well. When invited to a campus for an interview, be sure to ask about what kind of presentation is expected and prepare accordingly. Meeting the faculty. Another feature of the campus visit is meeting, usually both formally and informally, with the dean or director of the program and with various members of the faculty. In fact, the campus visit usually includes a full day of appointments with individuals and groups,

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and candidates should be given this schedule in detail beforehand in order to be able to prepare. Much of the conversation in these meetings, formal and informal, will be about your teaching and research interests, because both you and the faculty members taking part in the meetings are trying to determine whether there is likely to be a good fit between you and the job. You should be prepared to answer several common questions: about your plans for future research and scholarship, the areas in which you would like to teach and/or develop curriculum, your teaching philosophy and/or style, how you handle difficult conversations in the classroom, and how you generally relate to students. People will especially want to know why you want to come to their school in particular. There may be other questions specific to the setting or the job; in fact, you will likely be repeating answers you have already given to the search committee. In preparing for a campus visit, it is legitimate to ask what questions the committee thinks you are likely to be asked. Being invited to a campus visit means that you (and the others at this stage) are qualified for the job; the rest is fit and chemistry on both sides. Therefore, these events usually include social interactions, over lunch and/ or dinner, at receptions that may include students, and the like. Do not forget that these are interviews as well, and your interpersonal skills as well as what you say are being carefully observed. To make the best impression during these conversations, it is important to have done some homework before the event, learning a bit about the work of the faculty members you will be meeting and, most important, knowing something about the curriculum and the school’s mission and students. Not only will this show your motivation to be hired; it will also allow you to ask intelligent questions and to talk about your qualifications and future plans in ways that illustrate what you could contribute to that specific institution. Not only will people expect questions; they will also expect you to lay out, politely but candidly, what you want in a faculty job. If relocation will be needed, they will expect and be ready to answer questions about housing, the community, schooling for children (if relevant), and other factors that might affect your willingness to move and/or to live there. Overall, the general advice to “be yourself,” meaning your best professional self, in any interview situation is always best. You need to know whether or not the school you are visiting will, in fact, be a congenial environment for you. In most faculty governance systems, members of the faculty (not just the search committee) vote to approve appointing a new faculty member. Faculty search committee members, who are now invested in those they have

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chosen to make a campus visit, often serve as hosts and even coaches during the visit. Since these are people you have already met in the first round of interviews, their familiar faces can be quite reassuring during the visit. Meeting the dean or director. A key part of the on-campus visit is, of course, the meeting with the dean or director, with whom you will talk about your teaching and research interests, as you have done with the faculty. For most institutions, it usually is only here that such matters as rank, salary, expenses, and other terms and conditions (e.g., timing, benefits) of a possible appointment are discussed. While these often are negotiated after an appointment has been offered, the parameters of what may be possible are usually set forth at this stage. During this meeting, you will, of course, be aware that this person will be your “boss,” at least for a time (successful faculty appointments generally outlast those of any dean/director), so both you and the dean/director will be considering whether you can work well together.

TOUGH TOPICS AND SITUATIONS This brief overview of the search process has not addressed such topics as being asked inappropriate and illegal questions, including those about age, marital/partner status, pregnancy (of women), children (also usually of women), and a range of other personal matters, including a partner’s employment issues if relocation is required. When and how to disclose an LGBT identity and/or find out about the availability of domestic-partner benefits should be weighed carefully. You should also consider when and how to discuss a disability that will require accommodation on the job, especially if the disability is visible or known, meaning that it will be on people’s minds early in the process. Finally, although this does not happen often in social work, you may encounter “stress interview” techniques at any stage of the interview process, which can be unnerving. Any handbook on job searching covers ways to handle each of these as deftly as possible (Vick, Furlong, and Lurie 2016). Rehearse in advance phrases you can use to evade answering such personal questions until you get an offer of employment. Applicants of color should also avoid being pigeonholed into diversity-related matters only. Do not be surprised if you do not hear from the program for a long time after an on-campus interview has taken place. You may have been the first of several to be interviewed, so others have to be evaluated before a decision is reached. Then, after all interviews have been completed, the process of faculty evaluation of all finalists and the recommendation to the dean or

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director has to take place. A first-place candidate may not accept the job offer, which will have been negotiated over time, but you may be the next one to be seriously considered. Note that rejection letters are often not sent out until the position has been filled. It may well happen that you receive a job offer elsewhere during this waiting period; if so, let the program know immediately, along with the deadline given you to respond to the other offer. This information often speeds up an offer if one may be forthcoming.

THE OFFER As Golde observed, “Searching for a job (and the waiting game that follows) is unlikely to leave you feeling empowered and confident. But once an offer has been made, the power balance shifts in your favor” (1999, 45). Decisions made at this crucial time can affect compensation and working conditions for years to come. Women, including women of color, have been found to be less likely to negotiate job offers, and no one is likely to get everything you may hope for. But you can expect that some terms of the job offer can be altered, within the time limits, resource constraints, and norms of constructive professional relationships. For example, it is unlikely that the first offer on salary is the best that can be managed. Prestige, not money, may be regarded as the most important currency in academic job searching and hiring (Youn 2005), which can work in your favor if you have graduated from a highly ranked program, especially if you are thinking about accepting a job in an institution that has less national prestige.

RANK AND TERMS OF APPOINTMENT The rank of the appointment is usually listed in the job advertisement, but sometimes this is flexible. Rank is tied both to compensation and to the terms of employment (length of initial contract and timing of performance reviews, tenure status, timing of review for tenure and/or promotion, etc.). In addition to talking about initial rank, therefore, you should become familiar with the school’s or university’s tenure and promotion systems, and it is fine to request and review the relevant written policies. Don’t be afraid to ask about expectations for achieving tenure and about how recent applicants for tenure have fared; everyone will expect and be prepared to answer this question, although their answers are often guarded and complex. Finally, clarify the length of an annual appointment. The norm for tenure-track

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positions is nine or ten months (although salaries are paid out on a twelvemonth basis). Finally, you should make sure of the starting date, which can be negotiable if needed. Salary and benefits. Salary is tied to rank, but there are usually ranges within each rank, making the salary negotiable to some extent. Sometimes it is possible to supplement your base salary through such activities as intersession or summer teaching. Employment benefits (health insurance, retirement fund, etc.) are determined at the college or university level and are often good. Benefits, like the levels of compensation for a specific rank, vary, including the time until enrollment and vesting in pension systems, how soon health insurance benefits will take effect, and the share of the costs that the faculty member contributes. Housing or help in locating it, help with moving costs, and other benefits may be available as well but may not be offered unless the applicant asks for them. If you are fortunate to have more than one offer, consider benefits as well as salary in choosing between jobs. Teaching load. Make clear what your practice experience, research, academic background, and interests best prepare you to teach. Find out about the curriculum at the school or department you are interested in, and think about where you might best fit in. Do not assume that you can develop and deliver a specialized elective course in a specific area of your expertise. Although this is sometimes possible, especially if a school wants to develop a course in an area that is not well represented by its full-time faculty, it is usually staffing for core curriculum content (basic and advanced courses in practice, policy, research, and human behavior theory) that is most needed. Supports for success. Once on the job, managing time in the face of competing demands is often the biggest problem for a new faculty member (Golde 1999), so you may want to consider specific work assignments and available resources to help with your work. What courses will you be expected to teach, and how many are to be taught each quarter or semester? In addition to classroom teaching, will you be advising students? Where will you teach and/or advise students—on or off campus, face-to-face or online? Will you be protected from undue committee work? Are teaching or research assistants available who could be enlisted to help you in your work? What about teaching support, technological support, and/or research development resources in the school or on campus? What about office space and equipment? You should also try to assess the likelihood of keeping the job over the long run, especially if the appointment offers the possibility of tenure.

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Some institutions have specific protections to help new faculty get adjusted, such as a reduced teaching load in the first semester or year, release time at key points in the tenure-preparation process, and mentoring from senior faculty members. Some institutions offer specific orientation for new faculty—at the school or university/college level—which can be helpful not just for performing the job but also for getting to know one’s colleagues in social work and beyond. This discussion is suggestive but not exhaustive of the issues that may be discussed when negotiating a job offer. Mentors and search-committee members may be helpful guides to what may be possible. Finally, if you are in the enviable position of having more than one job offer, you should compare them according to the suggestions here rather than decide on the basis of just one factor, such as initial salary. As important as it is to be smart about the economics of a job offer, intangibles, especially a sense of “goodness of fit” with the institution and future colleagues—and even with the community in which the school or department is located—matter as well. Whatever the prestige of the place, can you feel at home, and do you think you can do good work there? Since so much time and energy are invested in the job search—by the hiring institution as well as by the job applicant—everyone wants the process to succeed and the new faculty member to thrive.

BEING THE DIVERSITY HIRE

Because of the changing demographics of the U.S. population and the current shortages of social work professionals of color to serve them, many social work programs are seeking new faculty members of color. Being able to serve diverse clients and communities, to teach content relevant to practice with historically underserved groups, and to shape both research methods and findings to the needs of oppressed and underserved groups is essential to social work education today. Everyone who teaches at a school of social work, not just BIPOC faculty members, is required to incorporate this content into his or her teaching. In addition, health disparities are central to much of NIHfunded research, and social workers are often involved in studies in this area. Although written from the limited perspective of a white woman, this section is written based on both research and observations made over the years. The phrase “being the diversity hire,” coined by Hughes, Horner and Velez Ortiz (2012), connotes that applicants of color may feel that they are

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sought after for a faculty position only for their race or ethnicity. Especially for jobs located in PWIs, climates within social work programs and in colleges may mean that faculty of color can be marginalized (Hurtado 2019; Huggins-Hoyt 2018). Job applicants of color should find ways to assess the climate during the campus visit and by networking in affinity groups of faculty members. It may be useful to meet with faculty and students of color before accepting a job offer. It is also important to consider the community in which the program is located to assess the level of comfort there as well. When the time comes to talk about teaching assignments, in the long run it is not likely to be good for one’s career to teach only “diversity” content. Programs are usually eager to have BIPOC faculty help design and teach in diversity courses, but it is important to establish that you are as useful and capable as other faculty members in teaching in other core areas of the curriculum, such as practice, HBSE, policy, and/or research. Think about the number of other BIPOC faculty members and students of color within the program; being the only or one of the few faculty members of color has its own challenges. Hazards for faculty of color. Chapter 4 has described some of the problems that BIPOC faculty often face in their work. Some are reviewed here in case some of them can be prevented in negotiating a job offer. In addition to avoiding being channeled into diversity-only work, make clear that you will not serve on a large number of committees as the diversity representative on each. Ask about who else in the system provides advice and support to students of color. It is especially important to ask how BIPOC faculty members have fared in the tenure system, because retention of BIPOC faculty has been a problem in many places. What happens in the recruitment process cannot prevent problems like this, but, at the least, questions about these issues alert the program’s administration that you are aware of the well-documented problems that often exist in these areas.

KEEPING THE JOB THE TENURE SYSTEM

In most social work education institutions, faculty jobs are tenure track, although nontenure appointments may be available as well. This chapter does not go into detail about tenure systems; the AAUP publishes guidelines that most colleges and universities use in developing their own governance systems and tenure standards (AAUP 2015). For example, the standards for

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obtaining tenure are usually the same as those for being promoted to the rank of associate professor, although in some systems promotion may be possible before tenure is granted. The rigor of these systems—that is, the interpretation of the requirements for tenure and/or a promotion in rank— varies across colleges, universities, and social work programs. One thing that makes negotiating a faculty job different from other kinds of jobs is that tenure is an “up or out” system. Therefore, even if your performance on the job is satisfactory in those first six years, the job is probationary with respect to permanent employment. If you are not granted tenure within a specific time period (usually six years), all that is usually possible is a final one-year appointment while seeking a job elsewhere. While periodic post-tenure reviews are becoming more common, they usually are meant to determine merit-based levels of compensation; a tenured appointment can be terminated only for cause or in cases of financial exigency. Given the system’s “up or out” nature, you may want to ask about flexibility in the timeline, or the “tenure clock,” such as the ability to take time “off the clock” for specific family needs. Those who have had previous full-time faculty service may want to ask about the possibility of being considered for tenure and/or promotion early—that is, before five or six years. If a faculty job is offered, you will be expected to ask about the possibility of securing tenure before deciding about the offer. You should, of course, read the rules—for the department and the college or university—and ask how the rules are interpreted: How much weight is given to scholarship, teaching, and service? How is excellence in teaching and scholarship judged? What has happened in recent years to those from the department who were considered for tenure? These issues are often discussed throughout the search, but the questions often become more pointed once an offer has been made; in addition, questions about any supports available—tangible and intangible—to help new faculty get tenure can be part of the negotiation of the appointment. At this point, though, the conversation is taking place with the dean or director, and their views are crucial since they administer the system.

MENTORING

Those who enter the job market with a mentor already in place, from graduate school or elsewhere, have a valuable guide to seeking a job and

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negotiating job offers. In any case, however, one may want to ask about mentoring resources available to new faculty. Some schools and departments of social work actually assign someone from the faculty to serve as a mentor to each new faculty member (Wilson, Valentine, and Pereira 2002). Dixon-Reeves (2003, 16) described the functions of a mentor as including being a peer counselor, adviser, role model, sponsor, and coach. Some new faculty members report having several mentors (Dixon-Reeves 2003; Wilson, Valentine, and Pereira 2002), using different people for assistance with different aspects of their career development. The emphasis in mentoring relationships for new faculty is most often on research, publication, and getting tenure (Wilson, Valentine, and Pereira 2002, 325). Much time is also spent becoming familiar with the institution and its resources, teaching issues, and general support and encouragement. Not all mentoring relationships succeed, for a number of reasons, and new faculty often seek out a variety of people, including peer groups of other junior faculty, for valuable support and advice. In particular, new faculty members from traditionally underrepresented or oppressed groups may find it helpful to connect with a mentor who has coped with similar issues (Dixon-Reeves 2003; Wilson, Valentine, and Pereira 2002).

CONTRACT FACULTY JOBS

The focus of this discussion on getting (and keeping) a faculty job has been on tenure-track positions. However, as noted, social work is increasingly relying on non-tenure-track, full-time faculty positions (Baldwin and Chronister 2001; Clark et al. 2011; CSWE 2020; Gappa 1996; Gappa, Austin, and Trice 2005). These contract positions are often research or teaching specific, with some administrative responsibilities, or are completely administrative—that is, without an associated professorial title and teaching load. These kinds of positions may be excellent for someone who loves the educational enterprise and has teaching, administrative, and/or managerial skill and experience but who is not interested in research and scholarship at the level that a tenure-track faculty position would require. Although the number of institutions that do not grant tenure at all has not increased (Gappa, Austin, and Trice 2005, 35), the number of full-time, non-tenure-track positions in social work has increased (CSWE 2020). However, these two groups may have status and role differences. The use of full-time, non-tenure-track positions has also been seen as a way to decrease the use of part-time or adjunct

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faculty, which is thought to benefit both the teachers in these positions and the students who study with them. CSWE data suggest that the numbers of both contract faculty and adjunct faculty have been increasing (see chapter 3). Based on a national study, Baldwin and Chronister divided full-time, non-tenure-track faculty positions into teaching, research, administrative, and “other”; some of these positions required a doctoral degree, though others did not (2001, 98). Roles and job satisfaction varied among these groups, but self-reported job satisfaction among contract faculty was comparable to that of tenured colleagues and higher than that of those on the tenure track. Women and people of color are often overrepresented among contract faculty (Barsky, Green, and Ayayo 2014; Sakamoto et al. 2008), which is troubling because of the common “second-class” status of many of these faculty members in their institutions. The employment practices affecting contract positions vary (Baldwin and Chronister 2001). For example, in some places they are always technically one-year appointments, while in others they may be for longer terms (e.g., three, five, or seven years). Although saving money is often a reason for colleges and universities to employ contract faculty, the compensation may be comparable (2001, 50). How fully contract faculty members can participate in faculty governance regarding future appointments, curriculum, and other academic matters also varies. But these jobs can actually be quite stable and rewarding if you are prepared to be a “second-class” citizen, at least with respect to traditional faculty rank, and if they allow you to do what you like best (e.g., teaching, research, or administration). The benefit, of course, is sidestepping the sometimes extreme stress and anxiety of achieving tenure that new faculty in traditional roles often face. Social work education urgently needs to examine the work and work lives of this growing segment of our academic workforce.

CONCLUSION One goal of this chapter has been to demystify the nature of faculty work, because much of it is invisible. A few keys points to remember when thinking about the realities of faculty work, especially for those beginning their academic careers, are the following. Faculty work is multifaceted, which is both a great virtue and a big problem. The advantage comes, of course, from the variety, autonomy, and self-determination that this affords. The obvious disadvantage is that the

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work is essentially limitless, which means that setting priorities is a constant challenge. To the extent possible, choose a job that will allow you to do the kind of work that you are best at and that you love the most. For some, this may mean a contract or adjunct position or an administrative job (e.g., director of field education) rather than a tenure-track or tenured job. Once you have a job, you must balance different work commitments and demands, and your choices will vary in different settings and at different stages in your career. The colleges and universities in which a social work department, school, or program is located have very different missions, which in turn drive faculty hiring and promotion requirements. Every program expects a faculty member to achieve in the areas of scholarship, teaching, and service, but the emphasis on each, as well as the amount of teaching, advising, and publishing that is normative, may vary. Their resources and infrastructure to help obtain external funding for research also vary. Although higher rankings and prestige may be associated more with research-intensive settings than with others, think about what faculty activities are the most rewarding for you when deciding where you want to work. A goodness of fit between what you want and what the hiring organization needs is what is most important for you both. It is easy to see teaching and scholarship as opposing demands, but they are “inextricably linked” (Boyer Commission 1998). Currency and renewal in your teaching requires keeping up with scholarship in the relevant fields. In addition, research and scholarship enrich all aspects of your teaching. Despite the tensions in balancing a workload, the ideal of scholarly teaching—of students learning from those at the cutting edge of knowledge development—remains precious and worthwhile. In sum, the very best teachers are accomplished scholars as well. Faculty work is complex and multifaceted but also satisfying and rewarding. In return for great autonomy and self-direction, the time demands often seem unlimited, especially in the pre-tenure period but also for those who remain most productive as scholars and teachers. The settings for teaching jobs also differ, and these differences affect getting a faculty job, keeping a faculty job, and other aspects of ongoing faculty work. As with all employment situations, the challenge is to find the best match between a teacher’s skills, interests, and personal needs and a specific job. This match is unlikely to be perfect in all respects, but knowledge of the academic workplace coupled with self-knowledge and a thoughtful approach to choosing employment opportunities to explore will help ensure success in getting

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and keeping an academic job. Despite the demands of faculty work, it is a privilege to teach and, through teaching, scholarship, and service, to shape the future of the profession.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Boyer, E. L. (1990). Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Chronicle of Higher Education. Published by the American Council on Education, a weekly newspaper covering higher education. Lightfoot, E., Franklin, C., and Beltran, R. (2021). Journal of Social Work Education, 57(1), 153–164. Vick, J. M., Furlong, J. S., and Lurie, R. (2016). The academic job search handbook. 5th ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

9 ETHICAL ISSUES IN TEACHING

mistakes. Whether by error or design, when human actions harm or can harm others, ethics are involved. In the teaching context, “others” must be defined broadly to include students, colleagues, employing institutions, and public trust in the academic enterprise itself. Many aspects of figure 1.1 are involved in academic ethics: students, teachers, subject matter, the school or department, the college or university, the social work profession, and society, through defending the integrity of the academic enterprise as a whole. To write about ethical matters may seem bold, since it may imply some special ability in this area, which I emphatically do not have. But including this chapter represents a hope that all of us can advance in our ethical awareness and conduct by continuing our self-reflection, much as we do in regard to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Like social work itself, teaching can be considered a calling, meaning a commitment to serve and a set of standards of conduct. Social workers who are educators are familiar with and strive to adhere to the profession’s ethical standards, which for social work education programs in the United States is the National Association of Social Workers’ (NASW) Code of Ethics (2021). With some notable exceptions, however (Cole and Lewis 1993; Collins and Amodeo 2005; Congress 1992, 1996; Strom-Gottfried 2000b; Strom-Gottfried and D’Aprix 2006), little of what has been written about ethics violation in the profession addresses teaching situations or academic issues. Ethical issues in research, rather than general academic ones, are more often discussed (Braxton and Bayer 1999; in social work, see, e.g., Anastas 2020, CSWE 2007a). Cheating and other forms of academic dishonesty remain widespread on U.S. campuses, and the student manuals of departments and schools of social work typically state that students must adhere to the standards of academic conduct of the host college or university. Nonetheless, plagiarism

HUMAN BEINGS MAKE

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and other forms of cheating, which are included in the NASW code but are understandably not its focus, are common problems. If one searches the term academic dishonesty, only books and articles addressing students’ dishonesty come up, even though cases of faculty members fabricating or altering data and of plagiarism in other fields surface from time to time in the press. And though rarely reported, some social work faculty members engage in questionable practices toward students, ranging from having sexual relationships with them to publishing material based on their work without crediting it (Anastas 2007, 2012; Gibelman and Gelman 1999; Strom-Gottfried 2000, Strom-Gottfried and D’Aprix 2006). Schools and departments of social work are employment settings, and some issues of academic ethics involve administrative issues and fairness (or the lack thereof) in employment practices, such as equity in pay, retention, promotion, work assignments, and working conditions (for a discussion of gender equity issues for faculty in social work, see, e.g., Sakamoto et al. 2008; Tower et al. 2019). As important as these topics are, especially because contextual factors are crucial to promoting academic integrity among students and faculty members, this chapter looks only at those ethical issues involving students and faculty (not administrative) conduct. By describing possible ethical problems in the social work academy, this chapter is designed both to make readers aware of the issues and to suggest principles and practices that can improve students’ education. The chapter provides an overview of ethical issues that can arise in classroom teaching involving the conduct of both students and faculty. The goal is to make teachers aware of these problems and to help them resolve them fairly, which is especially important because teachers are role models and agents of socialization for their students. This chapter is not about teaching courses in ethics nor about research ethics (responsible conduct of research, or RCR; see Anastas 2020), although some of the ethical dilemmas discussed with respect to faculty and students pertain to the ethics of scholarship, as in authorship issues or plagiarism. Instead, the focus is on how the norms of the profession and the academy must come together to shape the education and evaluation of our students, our conduct toward each other, and our responsibilities to the academic enterprise.

TEACHERS’ ACADEMIC INTEGRITY One core value mentioned in the Code of Ethics is integrity. Not all teachers manage to approach their work with integrity all of the time. Braxton

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and Bayer (1999) describe four types of “professorial impropriety”: (a) scholarly or research misconduct, such as plagiarism or the falsification of data; (b) teaching misconduct, such as failing to meet classes or ridiculing students publicly; (c) service misconduct, such as failing to meet committee and other professional obligations; and (d) employee misconduct, such as the misuse of funds and other resources or unacceptable behavior toward students, staff, or colleagues. In reality, then, academic ethics apply to many different aspects of faculty work. Among licensed social work practitioners, there have been fewer formal complaints made to licensing boards as compared to other mental health professions. Similarly, we assume that professorial ethical misconduct is not common in the social work professoriate (Strom-Gottfried 2000b), although we have no hard data on this. Unfortunately, Braxton and Bayer (1999) found that professorial misconduct in other disciplines is “not as rare” as might be hoped or assumed, suggesting that a discussion of professorial ethics might be necessary. The most widely known statement of ethics for academics is that of the American Association of University Professors (2015). These ethical standards consist of “thou shalt” statements regarding fulfilling one’s academic duty and serving the best interests of students while also serving the profession and the field. They also include statements of “thou shalt not” for avoiding some of the ethical pitfalls and temptations common in scholarship and teaching. Teachers must both model and inculcate professional and academic norms and standards and respond to violations of academic and/or professional integrity (Simon et al. 2003). Teachers may face ethical issues when deciding on course content, evaluating and assessing students’ performance, and managing the classroom (MacFarlane 2004). Ethical issues also may arise in what are characterized as dual relationships (Congress 1996), and both parties in these relationships (e.g., teachers and students) may encounter problems because of the power differential involved. Box 9.1 describes the scope of the issues involved in academic integrity. In addition, like students, faculty members are required to adhere to the norms of academic conduct of the colleges and universities that employ them. Federal law protecting student privacy and confidentiality (FERPA) also affects faculty members’ day-to-day work. Adherence to general employment law and provisions for confidentiality in peer review processes are necessary for safeguarding faculty colleagues and other employees. It is also necessary to uphold other virtues, such as fair-mindedness and the avoidance of personal biases, especially when it comes to the peer review

BOX 9.1 ISSUES IN ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

1. Professors, guided by a deep conviction of the worth and dignity of the advancement of knowledge, recognize the special responsibilities placed upon them. Their primary responsibility to their subject is to seek and to state the truth as they see it. To this end professors devote their energies to developing and improving their scholarly competence. They accept the obligation to exercise critical self-discipline and judgment in using, extending, and transmitting knowledge. They practice intellectual honesty. Although professors may follow subsidiary interests, these interests must never seriously hamper or compromise their freedom of inquiry. 2. As teachers, professors encourage the free pursuit of learning in their students. They hold before them the best scholarly and ethical standards of their discipline. Professors demonstrate respect for students as individuals and adhere to their proper roles as intellectual guides and counselors. Professors make every reasonable effort to foster honest academic conduct and to ensure that their evaluations of students reflect each student’s true merit. They respect the confidential nature of the relationship between professor and student. They avoid any exploitation, harassment, or discriminatory treatment of students. They acknowledge significant academic or scholarly assistance from them. They protect their academic freedom. 3. As colleagues, professors have obligations that derive from common membership in the community of scholars. Professors do not discriminate against or harass colleagues. They respect and defend the free inquiry of associates. In the exchange of criticism and ideas professors show due respect for the opinions of others. Professors acknowledge academic debt and strive to be objective in their professional judgment of colleagues. Professors accept their share of faculty responsibilities for the governance of their institution. 4. As members of an academic institution, professors seek above all to be effective teachers and scholars. Although professors observe the stated regulations of the institution, provided the regulations do not contravene academic freedom, they maintain their right to criticize and seek revision. Professors give due regard to their paramount responsibilities within their institution in determining the amount and character of work done outside it. When considering the interruption or termination of their service, professors recognize the effect of their decision upon the program of the institution and give due notice of their intentions. 5. As members of their community, professors have the rights and obligations of other citizens. Professors measure the urgency of these obligations in the light of their responsibilities to their subject, to their students, to their profession, and to their institution. When they speak or act as private persons, they avoid creating the impression of speaking or acting for their college or university. As citizens engaged in a profession that depends upon freedom for its health and integrity, professors have a particular obligation to promote conditions of free inquiry and to further public understanding of academic freedom. —AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS 2015

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process or evaluating students’ performance. Little social work–specific guidance is available to faculty members for ethical dilemmas regarding student, faculty, or administrative conduct, but the general standards are comprehensive. All colleges and universities have faculty and student handbooks and other written policies concerning sexual harassment and discrimination that all members of the community—faculty, staff, and students—must follow. Faculty members are also responsible for informing students about the protections they enjoy under these policies as well as the procedures they may use to ensure that those who have been victimized have ways of seeking redress from discriminatory practices. Canada’s Society for Teaching and Learning in higher education publishes a guideline called Ethical Principles in University Teaching (1996). It is an aspirational document that is based in nine principles: Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q

content competence, pedagogical competence, dealing with sensitive topics, student development, dual relationships with students, confidentiality, respect for colleagues, valid assessment of students, and respect for the institution.

Similarly, Svinicki and McKeachie (2014) emphasize encouraging the free pursuit of learning, demonstrating respect for students, respecting confidentiality, modeling the best ethical standards, evaluating students fairly, and, of course, avoiding exploitation, harassment, and discrimination.

SOCIAL WORK STANDARDS Most social work faculty members already adhere to the ethics and values of the social work profession and carry them over to their teaching and training roles. However, although the NASW Code of Ethics (2018) mostly addresses ethics in practice, it does include content related to teaching, supervision, and scholarship (2018, see box 9.2) The Code also mentions educators in its section on “Social Workers’ Responsibility to Colleagues,”

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BOX 9.2 EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Code of Ethics sec. 3.02 (a) Social workers who function as educators, field instructors for students, or trainers should provide instruction only within their areas of knowledge and competence and should provide instruction based on the most current information and knowledge available in the profession. (b) Social workers who function as educators or field instructors for students should evaluate students’ performance in a manner that is fair and should provide instruction based on the most current information and knowledge available in the profession . . . (c) Social workers who function as educators or field instructors for students should not engage in any dual or multiple relationships with students in which there is a risk of exploitation or potential harm to the student. Social work educators and field instructors are responsible for setting clear, appropriate, and culturally sensitive boundaries . . .

where it addresses sexual relationships with students or trainees as well as sexual harassment (sections 2.06 and 2.07), both of which are clearly identified as unethical. Section 3.02, “Education and Training,” mentions providing instruction only in one’s area of expertise and remaining current in that knowledge, which is included in standards of academic ethics. It also calls for evaluating students fairly and prohibits educators from engaging in multiple or dual relationships, including those that might occur online. Section 3.9 of the Code addresses commitments to employers; clause (e) states: “Social workers should act to prevent and eliminate discrimination in the employing organization’s work assignments and its employment policies.” The same usage occurs in section 4.02: Social workers should not practice, condone, facilitate, or collaborate with any form of discrimination on the base is of race, ethnicity, national origin, color, sex, sexual orientation or expression, age, marital status, political belief, religion, immigration status, or mental or physical ability. (NASW 2018, n.p.)

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Section 4, on Social Workers’ Ethical Responsibilities as Professionals, also includes content relevant to academic ethics in Section 4.08: “(a) social workers should take responsibility and credit, including authorship credit, only for work they have actually performed” . . . and “(b) social workers should honestly acknowledge the work of and the contributions made by others.” Plagiarism results if actions do not conform to these standards. Section 5 speaks to the responsibility to contribute to the knowledge base of social work and outlines basic research ethics. Thus, while there is not a separate statement on academic ethics, most aspects are covered in different parts of the Code. College and university professors enjoy much more autonomy in their work than others, including those in other forms of professional practice, so adhering to strong professional norms is even more important to their work (Braxton and Bayer 1999, 2004). Expanding on the idea of service, Stefkovich (2006) proposed an ethical framework for educators based on an ethic of justice, an ethic of care, and an ethic of critique. Promoting social justice is, of course, a key value of the social work profession, and the various conceptualizations of social justice can be part of the content taught in social work programs. In educational decision making, following Rawls (1999), Stefkovich argued for an ethic of social justice that calls for equal access to tangible and intangible goods but offers greater access to those who are socially disadvantaged. An ethic of care and compassion places the best interests of the student and/or the educational community at the center of all ethical decision making. Finally, rooted in critical theory, an “ethic of critique seeks to challenge the status quo and give voice to marginalized sectors of society” (Stefkovich 2006, 11). As in all ethical issues, educators must continually self-examine in order to negotiate the dilemmas they encounter. Stefkovich also implied that students’ best interests are served when individual, collective, institutional, and professional needs are balanced.

THE ETHICS OF SCHOLARSHIP Faculty members must incorporate the institutional, professional, and general norms of scholarship in all that they do. For example, they should appropriately cite others’ work in course materials; present a complete, current, and balanced point of view on the subjects they teach, whatever their own interests and convictions are; and respect differing points of view that colleagues, students, or other scholars may express. It is fine to have a

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viewpoint of one’s own on a topic, especially if one is transparent about it, as long as one also provides information about other points of view. Authorship. Sometimes ethical problems arise when students produce materials, either for classroom assignments or as research assistants, that professors use in their own published work. When faculty members do research and publish together, issues of authorship can arise. Currently, social work has no specific guidelines for authorship issues, and the kinds of contributions to a written work that merit authorship credit is debated even among social work educators (Apgar and Congress 2005; Gibelman and Gelman 1999). Many social work researchers, especially when they are students, seem to have had adverse experiences with authorship (Netting and Nichols-Casebolt 1997). Social workers’ beliefs about the weight given to certain tasks when determining what merits authorship credit—such as data analysis, which is often assigned to student research assistants (Apgar and Congress 2005)—differ from those in other fields. In sum, student–faculty collaborations in research and publication have both risks and benefits (Barretta-Herman and Garrett 2000). Washburn drafted a “model policy” for determining authorship. Although it is aimed at enhancing university–agency collaborations, it has some helpful suggestions, such as differentiating “carrying out data analyses specified by the supervisor” (2008, 57) from the more general task of “selecting, preparing, directing, running, and interpreting statistical analyses” (nothing is said about qualitative data analyses), with the latter, but not the former, meriting authorship credit. This recommendation follows the general principle that “to be considered for authorship, a contribution must be creative and intellectual, be necessary for the project to be completed, and require a comprehensive understanding of the overall project.” In addition, “all authors must be involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content. Authors must also have final approval of the version to be published” (2008, 56). Stated in reverse, should a problem be discovered in any part of a manuscript, all those listed as authors are considered responsible for the violation, whether or not they worked on the specific section in question. All of the listed authors must be ready to take responsibility for the entire product. Because the APA Style Manual is generally used in social work publications, its guidelines on authorship (2020, 24–25) are a useful resource. For a teacher using a student’s work in a publication, then, giving credit for work actually performed and offering an opportunity to help with the research and/or publication process must be balanced against assigning only

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appropriate responsibility. As is always noted when authorship is discussed, negotiating authorship at the outset of a project is the best protection against later conflict. The order of authorship should also be explicitly determined. Authorship issues may need to be revisited during a project based on how the work actually proceeds.

ETHICS IN THE CLASSROOM Braxton and Bayer’s (1999) national survey of faculty misconduct in undergraduate teaching covered course design and content, the first day of class, behavior in class, interactions with students in and out of class, examinations and grading, and relationships with colleagues. Most of these areas of potential problems directly involved the classroom. Their analysis divides ethical concerns into those of greater and lesser severity: (1) inviolable norms or proscribed behaviors, including moral turpitude, condescending negativism, inattentive planning and noncommunication of course details, particularistic grading, personal disregard of students’ needs, and uncooperative cynicism; and (2) admonitory norms pertaining to negligence in advising, an authoritarian classroom, inadequate communication, inadequate course design, instructional narrowness, avoidance of inconvenience, insufficient syllabi, teaching secrecy, and disparagement of colleagues. While many of these seem to reflect teaching quality in that they reflect a lack of responsibility in meeting students’ learning needs, they also have an ethical dimension, as the case examples in Braxton and Bayer’s book illustrate. Social work educators should also consider each of these dimensions in relation to field advising and other internship-related responsibilities. Course content. Ethics are relevant to how teachers deal with the content of their courses, the first being intellectual honesty in representing up-to-date knowledge and varying points of view on the subject matter. Remaining up to date requires constant review and renewal of course materials. Having a point of view or theoretical position is fine, and stating it may help students detect any bias in what you are presenting. But students’ academic freedom entitles them to know about and express differing perspectives, and learning to articulate these within the norms of intellectual discourse is important to their thinking and learning skills (see chapter 2). Designing a course also has pragmatic considerations. Because the teacher’s primary responsibility is to the students’ overall educational success,

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the content of a course, especially if it is required, must build logically on any prerequisites and prepare students for subsequent courses. It must also relate sensibly (without excessive overlap of content) to concurrent courses. Social work educators should also consider course content with respect to its relevance to the field internship. A teacher’s intellectual passions and interests must be balanced by students’ learning needs and the structure of the curriculum as a whole. Teaching methods. As noted in chapter 2, most teachers tend to teach in the ways that they were taught or that they most enjoyed as students. Nonetheless, teachers have a responsibility to learn about and use a variety of instructional methodologies to ensure that their teaching is as effective as possible for all students and to accommodate the full range of students’ learning styles. This also means that teachers may need to incorporate new technologies into their work in the classroom because of what students currently find most engaging and what they may have come to expect based on recent experience (see chapter 6). When working on course content, the best interests of students require that teachers constantly consider how as well as what they teach. Classroom management. In an intellectually lively classroom, conflict among points of view is inevitable. In addition, social work degree programs involve “sensitive topics,” such as policy and politics, diversity and the “isms,” trauma and its treatment, child abuse, sexuality, and others too numerous to list. As part of their professional development, students are encouraged to examine their opinions on these issues and often to reflect on and share personal and professional experiences. Students depend on their teachers to protect these discussions in the classroom. One of the best ways to do this is to set ground rules for students’ conduct at the beginning of each course. Distractions from the classroom learning environment, such as habitual lateness, side conversations with friends, and texting, phoning, or electronic messaging during class sessions, hamper everyone’s learning (for more on managing the classroom, see chapter 3). Assessment and evaluation of students. One of the academic tasks that faculty generally do not enjoy is the summative evaluation of students’ work, deciding who will pass a course and who will not (see chapter 6). Faculty members must be fair and unbiased in how they judge student work. Ensuring that the “assessment of students is valid, open, fair, and congruent with course objectives” (Murray et al. 1996) is easier said than done. In addition, failure in a course can trigger gatekeeping issues, such as whether or not the student can remain in the program (see below). Chapter 5 discussed

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the importance of assessing educational outcomes for individual students and educational programs as a whole, as well as ways to assess teachers’ performance. Besides substantive and technical aspects, these assessments also have ethical aspects. Many of the ethical issues discussed in the organizational statements about teaching pertain to the need to be respectful of each student’s dignity and worth—that is, not to be insulting or demeaning when providing feedback. Teachers may be more eager to please students than to do the hard work of evaluating their performance honestly when problems are evident. For example, it takes much more time and energy to read and comment on a weak than a strong term paper. Teachers who “go easy” on students, individually or collectively, are not helping students learn, and they are not fulfilling their responsibility to maintain the integrity of the course and curriculum content. Teaching is not a popularity contest; those instructors seen as encouraging positive student course evaluations are resented by their colleagues and undermine the efforts of the group as a whole to provide a consistently excellent education. Dual relationships obviously interfere with student evaluations, at the extreme leading to quid pro quo situations. They also taint the perception of the evaluation. The harm of these situations extends beyond the parties directly involved. Students are motivated to do their best work when they perceive the academic system as fair. Thus, honesty in student evaluation, including constructive criticism designed to improve students’ work, enhances the learning of everyone, not just the individual student involved. MacFarlane (2004) devotes a chapter to dilemmas that can arise in student assessments—for example, evaluating the work of groups of students, perhaps including students’ complaints about the quality of work or lack of effort of fellow group members. Keeping logs of the group’s work or separating elements of a final report are techniques that can be used to gather “artifacts” of the group’s product or processes in order to identify each participant’s work. Most teachers who use groups in learning know that teamwork is common in the workplace, and therefore group members should also be expected to resolve these issues among themselves. Other problems are a student’s offering an instructor a gift, which can involve cultural issues, or a student’s requesting an extension to a deadline. In both situations, instructors can be helped by referring to agreed-on rules, practices, or guidelines for a program or department.

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AN ETHICAL DILEMMA IN STUDENT EVALUATION

Some years ago, I consulted with colleagues about a student whose work on a final paper in one of my MSW social policy classes merited a failing grade (F). Despite passing work on previous smaller assignments, the weighting system of the assignments meant that she would fail the class. The student was close to graduation. The question was whether to assign the course grade based on the paper submitted or to offer the student the opportunity to rewrite and resubmit it. As McKeachie and Svinicki (2014) observed, if a student were offering money to change a bad exam grade, the choice would be clear, but if the student is asking for the chance to retake the exam or rewrite the paper and thus demonstrate the competencies required, what is the ethics of granting such a request? If the student were allowed to rewrite and resubmit the paper, should all class members have the option to do so, if only to improve their grade? Would it make a difference to know that this was the second time the student was taking the course, having already failed it once before? Would it make a difference if the class in question were a practice class rather than one in social policy? Would it make a difference if this were a student from a historically underrepresented group? During my consultations about this situation, someone pointed out that the student had done well in her field internship—that is, with clients. How is this relevant to evaluating her in the social policy class? Although I remain conflicted about what I did, I allowed the student to rewrite and resubmit the final paper. It earned a C, which was just good enough via the announced point system to earn a B– (passing) grade for the course. Having chosen this option, was I able to evaluate the resubmitted paper fairly? If I am prepared to do this for one student who does not do well on an assignment (without a policy to guide the program as a whole), am I obligated to make this opportunity available to everyone in the class in the future? What would you have done? Since then, in each class I now discuss the option of offering a second chance to a student not receiving a passing grade on an assignment (retake the test, rewrite the paper). I also make it clear that I will not allow do-overs just to improve a grade that was passing, such getting an A in place of a B. In this way I am transparent about what may happen, and I actually ask for students’ assent to this practice. In every case, students have accepted and approved this policy, and I have felt better by addressing any perceived

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unfairness in grading. It should also be noted that fundamentally, this dilemma is also about how central “academic” performance is, or should be, to deciding who should graduate from social work programs.

ETHICS OUTSIDE OF THE CLASSROOM Responsibilities to students do not end at the classroom door. Professors must be available to students in other ways, and most colleges and universities reflect this by requiring teachers to schedule office hours to meet with students on person, by telephone, by email, or using electronic course software. When an instructor will and will not be available to students outside class should be made clear at the outset. Dual relationships may be formed when engaging in nonteaching relationships with students. Accordingly, it may be best not to form a teaching relationship with a family member, close friend, client/patient, or business associate. Even when teachers work hard to maintain objectivity in dual relationships, they often appear to involve favoritism. The Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) (1996) statement about dual relationships also recommends not “introducing a course requirement that students participate in a political movement advocated by the instructor.” A dual relationship in social work that is not generally addressed in higher education is becoming a service provider to a student or a student’s family member, or becoming the teacher (or field instructor) of someone (or a family member of someone) who is or has been a service user. Some people who receive services from a social worker are then inspired to become social workers themselves and may even ask their social worker to write a letter of recommendation for admission or for advice about obtaining a job. Whatever the implications of this situation for the therapeutic relationship, firm boundaries must be maintained around the educational relationship—that is, no dual relationships. In large educational systems, a therapist and ex-patient may be able to avoid any educational contact with each other, but in small systems and communities, this may not be possible. In states that require postgraduate supervision for advanced levels of licensure, MSW graduates themselves are paying for supervision to fulfill the needed hours and may get this supervision from a former instructor. Policies should be in place spelling out what is appropriate and ethical when teachers and students or former students form such relationships.

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RELATIONSHIP WITH COLLEAGUES AND THE INSTITUTION Ethical responsibilities to colleagues. The AAUP and STLHE ethical statements and NASW’s Code of Ethics address conduct toward colleagues, such as being respectful of and cooperative with colleagues and settling differences and raising concerns privately (box 9.2). The statements about sexual relationships and harassment in the NASW’s Code are likely to be more restrictive than college or university policies. As in the practice situation, measures for dealing with impairment, incompetence, or unethical behavior in a colleague are generally not well developed in academia. The NASW Code of Ethics is clear about the obligations social workers have to one another. These include treating colleagues with respect and avoiding expressing “unwarranted” criticism about them to students and others (sec. 2.01). While the Code raises cautions about sexual relationships with colleagues, it is clear that “social workers who function as supervisors or educators should not engage in sexual activities or contact with supervisees, students, trainees, or other colleagues over whom they exercise professional authority” (sec. 2.7). Sexual harassment is also forbidden. Other issues addressed in this section of the Code include what to do when a colleague has an impairment or is acting unethically, issues that will not be taken up here but that deserve more attention in academia as well as in practice. Evaluating colleagues. Peer review is a well-established practice in academia, especially for the promotion and/or retention of full-time teachers, which usually means tenure. The NASW Code of Ethics states, “Social workers who have responsibility for evaluating the performance of others should fulfill such responsibility in a fair and considerate manner and on the basis of clearly stated criteria.” Nonetheless, stories abound, both in academia generally and in social work education, about the political and interpersonal horrors that have occurred in peer evaluation. MacFarlane (2004) discusses common problems in evaluating teachers and teaching and in managing a faculty group. Is a teacher’s popularity among students equal to teaching excellence? How is a department’s desire to standardize and improve the work of the group balanced with a teacher’s right and responsibility to innovate and bring his or her expertise to teaching? These and many other subtle but important dilemmas have ethical as well as substantive dimensions that need to be addressed. Ethics and the employer. A social work academic’s employer is both the social work program or department and the college or university in which it

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is housed. Departments, schools, and colleges of social work have differing relationships to the larger systems they inhabit and are rarely described as the core or central units of these systems. They are often challenged to demonstrate the “value added” that they provide aside from tuition revenues. This relative marginalization can lead social work educators to take a defensive or critical stance toward the colleges and universities that employ them. The ethical duty to improve employing organizations can lead to criticism, but its purpose should be to support and improve their educational services and advance their mission, which includes advancing knowledge and service to the community. Being a social worker teaching in a program of higher education is just one of many examples of social workers in a “host setting” with an employer that is the college or university. Section 3.09 of the NASW Code of Ethics describes the ethical commitments that should be made to employers. These responsibilities include being a good steward of the program’s resources, working to improve the employer’s policies and procedures, and “acting to prevent and eliminate” discrimination. At times, the social work point of view may conflict with the university’s priorities and practices. The NASW’s code recommends that social work ethics and values prevail, but the AAUP statement on ethics favors the defense of academic freedom and the unfettered pursuit of knowledge. As the AAUP statement notes, professors are obligated to balance “their responsibilities to their subject, to their students, to their profession, and to their institution.” Perhaps social work education could benefit from more exploration and discussion of situations in which these commitments—to the goals and standards of the academy and to those of the profession—conflict and how such conflicts are best resolved. Finally, social work educators must be honest employees, honoring contracts and commitments, pitching in on collective duties like committee service, and generally being “good citizens.” Since full-time academic employment generally has flexible hours, as the AAUP policy statement points out, professors must be judicious about their other commitments (e.g., outside employment) and should honor institutional policies on these matters.

CONFLICTING ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL NORMS Social work education has been accused of being ideologically rather than intellectually driven. When educating our students about policy practice

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and advocacy, are we requiring that they adhere to specific political positions rather than educating them about the profession’s values and teaching them how to practice when personal and professional beliefs conflict? The tenure system was designed specifically to protect freedom of speech so that governments, social norms, or our own academic administrations cannot constrain our thinking and scholarship. As citizens of the academy, our students enjoy the same freedoms, even though as graduate professionals they must also be able to practice in accordance the profession’s values and ethics. In an infamous example, a student at a school of social work successfully grieved an assignment in a course designed to teach advocacy skills, which was writing a letter to legislators in support of gay marriage. Because the student’s religious and personal values conflicted with support of samesex marriage, she did not complete the assignment and received a failing grade. The lawsuit received national attention, and the student passed the course. If the goal was to teach advocacy skills, the student could have been assigned to advocate for an issue where social work values and her own were compatible. Or she could have been assigned to write about what she planned to do when the issue of same-sex marriage came up in her practice. Even though the social work profession has certain ethical standards and policy positions, as all disciplines and professions do, students have their own academic freedom and must be free to express their personal values and/or politics in the academic setting, as long as they do so civilly. It is also vital that students be taught what to do when professional and personal values conflict.

STUDENTS AND ACADEMIC INTEGRITY All social work students, like faculty members, are required to adhere to the norms of academic conduct as well as those of the profession. Since there have been no published studies of cheating and other forms of academic dishonesty in social work education, most social work academics do not think cheating is widespread among social work students or among the students they have taught. Overall, however, studies consistently find high rates of self-reported cheating on exams, homework, and written assignments by college students in the United States: up to 95 percent “ever,” about 30 percent in any one semester, and 70 percent on average (Vandehey, Diekoff, and LaBeff 2007; Vowell and Chen 2004; Whitley 1998).

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Although rates of cheating vary by discipline or major, we do not have any specific data on the rates of graduate or undergraduate social work students’ cheating (Collins and Amodeo 2005; Marson and Finn 2006; Saunders 1993), although some studies have found cheating among undergraduate psychology and sociology students (Vandehey, Diekoff, and LaBeff 2007). The rate is also unacceptably high among graduate students (73 percent in one study when naming specific dishonest behaviors), especially when the students are enrolled in master’s degree programs that are terminal for the field (90 percent) rather than a step to the doctoral degree (Wajda-Johnston et al. 2001). Students who admit to cheating understand that the behaviors named in these surveys are dishonest and believe that their professors think so too (Wajda-Johnston et al. 2001). Many studies, however, have found that students who are aware that their programs have policies addressing academic dishonesty, especially honor codes that are taken seriously on their campuses, cheat less often than others (Wajda-Johnston et al. 2001; Whitley 1998). Even if we assume that rates of student academic dishonesty in social work may be lower than in some other, more highly competitive fields like business, it is hard to argue that social work students would be so different from others, such as psychology students, or that the problem is not fairly widespread, especially since many believe that internet access has made some forms of cheating easier, such as the purchase of term papers and access to material to incorporate into written work without attribution (Groark, Oblinger, and Choa 2001). Researchers studying student cheating more generally have explored both psychological and sociological explanations for this behavior. Undergraduate students who admit to cheating are typically younger, more immature, more involved in “partying,” less able academically, more anxious about their ability to perform well, lacking in study skills, and lower in industriousness than noncheaters are (Whitley 1998). They also are more likely to have cheated previously (at a lower level of education). Students who cheat often rationalize this behavior by insisting that “everyone is doing it” (Kisamore, Stone, and Jawahar 2007; McCabe, Treviño, and Butterfield 2001; Vowell and Chen 2004) while distancing themselves from the behavior, stating that others are more likely to cheat than they or their friends are (McCabe, Treviño, and Butterfield 2001). The more that their friends are known or thought to cheat, the more likely students are to regard cheating favorably and to cheat themselves (Vowell and Chen 2004; Whitley1998).

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Situational factors are at least as powerful as personal ones in influencing student cheating. Working students may cheat more often than others (Vowell and Chen 2004), a situation faced by more and more graduate and undergraduate social work students. As noted previously, the mere presence of a well-publicized academic honor code that is taken seriously on campus lowers the likelihood of cheating (Engler, Landau, and Epstein 2008). Examination conditions, such as spacing between seats, affect the amount of cheating on tests (Whitley 1998). High academic workloads also contribute to cheating, but so does the perception of the likelihood of detection and punishment, which brings our discussion back to how professors should handle standards of academic ethics.

ETHICS OF SCHOLARSHIP: PLAGIARISM The data on student academic dishonesty suggest that the most common form of student violation of the ethics of scholarship is plagiarism, which is also true in the online environment (Hitchcock, Sage, and Smyth 2019). The section on teachers’ ethics of scholarship describes student plagiarism and how to minimize it. It also talks about authorship issues that can arise when students and faculty do research and publish together. With the globalization of social work education has come an increase in the number of international students, and educational methods and what is considered permissible in the use of others’ work in a term paper may differ (Shafaei et al. 2015). Students who are more acculturated in the host country are more likely to adopt its academic norms and practices. Feeling insecure about writing in a new language can also contribute to using the words of others with or without attribution. Most important, it cannot be assumed that international students have been taught about plagiarism in their previous education. The first step, then, should be educating students about Western academic norms and finding them help with writing issues, rather than a disciplinary one.

ETHICS IN ONLINE EDUCATION

Social work education courses and programs are now often delivered online, and student ethical problems are more likely to occur in that setting than in the traditional one (Hitchcock, Sage, and Smyth 2019). There are two

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general approaches to online and other cheating on tests and papers: prevention and enforcement. It is also important to know about methods of detecting plagiarism and how to handle it when problems are detected. Reamer (2013) speaks of the inability to proctor any online test because a student could be sending private emails or texting others for answers. Having students learn about ethical issues that can arise in the online teaching and learning environment is also relevant to students’ future practice (Joiner 2019); students whose instructors talked more often about ethical issues in their courses have benefited from this. As early as 1999, social work educators were warning about how access to the World Wide Web made cheating, especially plagiarism, easier. At that time, the main concern was the access to “paper mills” (papers written for hire) and sources of materials to plagiarize. While additional problems have emerged since then, these classic concerns remain. Problems with ensuring privacy and confidentiality have also been noted (Hitchcock, Sage, and Smyth 2019; Joiner 2019; Reamer 2013). These may be of greatest concern when integrating social media platforms into assignments, as course-management systems, unlike many other communication applications, are usually password protected and secure. However, both FERPA and HIPPA violations can occur; for example, FERPA regards even email communications between faculty and individual students as falling under students’ privacy rights (Hitchcock, Sage, and Smyth 2019). In addition, accessibility for all, including those with disabilities, must be built into every course design. Microaggressions may be more likely to occur in the online classroom environment than in the face-to-face classroom. These problems may arise because attack behaviors in social media have become so common and because it is easier to insult someone at a distance than face to face (Ortega, Andruczyk, and Marquart 2018). Instructors working online must be prepared to have difficult conversations when they occur. New methods of detecting plagiarism. Just as access to the internet may make some forms of cheating by students easier, the internet can also make detecting some forms of cheating easier. Instructors may suspect plagiarism when parts of the same term paper, or one written submission compared to another, seem to differ in the quality of the writing. Often a first step in checking for plagiarism is to enter short portions of the work in question into Google, Yahoo, or another search engine. If seemingly duplicate material is identified, a more extensive effort is needed. Proprietary Web-based plagiarism-detection programs now are available; perhaps the best known, though not the only ones, are turnitin.com®

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and plagiarism.org®. The latter offers students and teachers free access to information about plagiarism, and the former can be used to check documents for instances of plagiarism, although its use requires an individual or institutional subscription. In order for teachers to use plagiarism-detection software, students must submit their work in specific electronic formats; these texts can then be uploaded and scanned for the inclusion of known works by others. A few social work programs now require that students submit all written work for screening in this way, usually based on college or university policy. Other programs make the use of such plagiarism-detection software on a case-by-case basis. Whether to purchase and use plagiarism-detection technology is a program- or campus-specific decision. Another technique being used in some settings is the attestation. In my institution, the course-management system has a feature that can require students to make a formal statement that the work they are submitting is their own. Some instructors craft such a statement that students must sign when taking a test or submitting written work. This requirement is easier to implement when a whole department or school adopts the practice.

NONACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL ETHICAL ISSUES Nonacademic behavioral problems among social work students are activities that violate professional ethics and norms in ways that are not directly related to examinations, homework, or written classroom assignments. These are often, but not always, activities that take place in the field internship or involve students’ conduct with service users or colleagues. For example, Finn and Marson (1998) reported an incident in which a student requested (and was granted) a specific field-internship placement that she later asked to have changed. It turned out that the reason she had asked for the placement was to obtain a copy of the mental health treatment records of a friend’s husband for use in a divorce proceeding. Dual relationships with clients (or supervisors), other boundary violations, and assaultive or harassing behavior on campus and elsewhere have also been reported and discussed anecdotally. Unsatisfactory experiences in addressing these kinds of problems have led social work programs to try to improve their ways of resolving them (see, e.g., Urwin, Van Soest, and Kretzschmar 2006). Studies suggest that our educational programs may have little positive effect on our students’ professed values, as least as traditionally

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measured, which is indeed a humbling finding (Baretti 2004). Students’ ethical (or unethical) conduct can be found in the classroom, in on-campus behavior, and in the field.

GATEKEEPING Admissions. Gatekeeping issues start with the admissions process, and one crude measure for ensuring that those who enter social work programs will be able to function ethically and within the law is to talk to applicants (Urwin, Van Soest, and Kretzschmar 2006). However, this kind of screening is very time-consuming and is likely not done in large programs. Some programs interview when there are questions about the applicant. If applicants are at a distance or are international students, a screening interview would have to be done by telephone or on the internet. But with the increasing number of social work programs and a rather stable national applicant pool there is concern that students who are academically or ethically “unsuitable” for the field may be gaining entry to social work programs. No admissions screening process is perfect, and schools of social work vary greatly in how selective they are, with many admitting most of those who apply (Kirk, Kil, and Corcoran 2009). Social work programs also have to deal with decisions about whether to allow a student to continue in the program to which he or she has been admitted. In addition, at the baccalaureate level, students may choose, rather than be admitted to, the social work major, thus being covered by only the general undergraduate and not the profession-specific admissions process. This may explain why there may be a second, specific screening for admission to the field internship or the social work major and why more has been published about gatekeeping for BSW programs than for MSW programs—that is, about deciding to dismiss a student from a program. Admission to professional education is not a right, and it is legitimate to use more than prior grades to assess students’ professional skills and values. Reporting unethical conduct. Because social work programs are preparing professional practitioners, students should be evaluated for their conduct in the classroom, in the field internship, and anywhere on campus. Often it is in the field that students’ ethical behavior, especially involving service users, becomes a problem. Koerin and Miller (1995) found that MSW programs needed explicit policies about terminating students for nonacademic reasons in addition to informal “counseling out” procedures; that university

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policies needed to cover issues such as plagiarism, cheating, and sexual or racial harassment; and that educational review procedures needed to cover the problem because nonacademic issues were often related to poor academic performance. However, every program must have procedures that include due process when a student may be at risk of being terminated from the program, whether for academic, ethical, or behavioral reasons. When confronted with specific instances of questionable student behavior, social work educators are often torn between considering a student’s “ability . . . to change and grow” and their responsibilities to current and future service users (Koerin and Miller 1995, 260). These tensions can be especially pronounced when a student’s problems include substance use/ abuse and/or mental illness (see, e.g., GlenMaye and Bolin 2007), especially when he or she has not disclosed a disability and has not requested reasonable accommodation for it (see chapter 4). Gatekeeping issues involving unsuitable behavior are found in BSW, MSW, and doctoral students, so policies and due process procedures should apply at all levels. Faculty members are as reluctant to confront students’ nonacademic problems as they are with regard to academic behavioral or ethical issues. Having well-articulated and well-accepted written policies and procedures in place is necessary to deter students’ infractions, to clarify for students the performance standards against which they will be judged, and to support faculty in upholding these policies. If a student is terminated from a program, other students may become concerned and seek information about the situation. Obviously, as in employment-related matters and in accordance with FERPA, no information can be provided to them. For the same reason, faulty accounts of events cannot be corrected. Students, of course, are free to share whatever information they want.

OTHER ETHICAL ISSUES The confidentiality of student information is legally safeguarded under FERPA and the ADA, even if it pertains to a disability or reasonable accommodation for one. These laws limit programs from discussing a student’s academic or other performance issues with those in the field, especially if a disability or accommodation is involved. Only the student can choose whether or not to share this information. Sometimes the issue is other sensitive information, such as matters of personal history, that might affect a

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student’s ability to practice effectively. This situation is often frustrating to both program-based faculty (especially field-department personnel) and field instructors (Duncan-Daston and Culver 2005). The best option is to urge all students to talk openly with faculty and field instructors about their learning needs and limitations, engaging in what should be a lifelong professional process of self-evaluation and growth. Those students who are unable to judge themselves accurately or are not willing to talk openly about themselves are the most likely to have problems behaving professionally. Students also need help from both program and agency staff in protecting the confidentiality of those whom they serve in the agency. When case materials are used in classroom assignments, protections like disguise should be used. The NASW Code of Ethics (2018) statement on confidentiality is very helpful, and the ability to practice in compliance with it is often stated by programs as a requirement for a passing grade in the field. The issue of dual relationships between students and service users is another area in which students may have difficulty with professional conduct in the field. A survey of MSW students about sexual contact with clients suggests that students’ attitudes may be more permissive than we would like (Berkman et al. 2000), especially when former clients are involved. Findings also suggested that students would like more classroom discussion of sexual ethics and handling sexual feelings toward service users. A student unhappy with a field-internship assignment may simply stop going to the site rather than wait for the fieldwork department to agree to and find a new placement. Does this amount to abandoning the client? Students’ completion of agency paperwork or other documentation for the field instructor, such as process recordings, may be a problem. Should the consequences be the same as those for an agency staff member or a student who does not turn in required written assignments, or should it be treated as a more minor infraction? These and other situations can be interpreted as ethical violations with serious consequences or as signs of immaturity and the need for professional growth. Faculty members regularly struggle with complex judgments about such situations, sometimes in the face of subtle or notso-subtle administrative concerns about enrollments. Other factors that may affect such judgments are relationships with valued field-education sites and long-standing professional relationships with agency-based and other colleagues, which students generally believe outweigh their needs in the eyes of faculty. Courage is needed to face the problems of taking professional ethics seriously.

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CONCLUSION MacFarlane (2004) defines the “virtues for university teaching,” which apply equally to relationships with students and with colleagues, individually and collectively (the department and the institution). These are respectfulness; sensitivity to others (students or colleagues); pride in one’s work; courage both to innovate and to confront difficult situations with students and colleagues; fairness; openness to peers’ and students’ feedback and to self-examination; restraint with respect to the primacy of one’s own ideas and in one’s emotional reactions on the job; and collegiality in relating to one’s students and one’s colleagues. Upholding academic ethics is doing a good deed for colleagues, students, and the integrity of the profession. The following are suggestions for social work educators for strengthening student and faculty academic ethics: Q

Q

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Learn more about academic ethics, knowing that some of the best resources are generic to the academy rather than social work specific. Reviewing the AAUP’s and STLHE’s standards may be useful for bringing out the best in us as teachers. Faculty ethics are based on both institutional and discipline-specific standards. In social work, the NASW’s Code of Ethics (2018) is widely invoked, but its content on the ethics of teaching is limited, especially in regard to the “shoulds,” as opposed to the “should nots.” As our social work ethics reminds us, some kinds of ethical violations are more likely when there are power differentials between people: teachers and students, senior and junior faculty, and administrative leaders with respect to all others. Since we know that not all people are comfortable or fare well in our academic communities (Costello 2005), academic relationships that span racial, ethnic, gender, class, and other social differences must be observed especially carefully because of the power differentials often inherent in them. In addition, accessibility for all, including those with disabilities, must be built into all online classrooms. Individual instructors, social work programs, and the colleges and universities that house them all play a role in addressing students’ academic ethics. It is difficult for instructors to take action on ethical violations without the collaboration and support of their colleagues and administration. Conversely, institutional policies are effective only if instructors have the tools and the will to take action when a violation is suspected. Policies concerning

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academic ethics and the consequences of violating ethical standards (e.g., cheating, plagiarism) must be drawn up and promulgated. Students must also be educated about them in the classroom, just as they are about ethical issues in client services. When violations occur, the standards must be enforced through procedures that include due process for students, instructors, and any other party involved. Honor codes have been shown to strengthen students’ adherence to academic ethics, but we have no data on how many social work programs have them. These codes exemplify instructor-department-institution collaboration in addressing ethical violations by students. Most important, they have the additional advantage of enlisting students in safeguarding the program’s ethical standards. If no such code is in place, one should be developed and implemented. Use plagiarism-detection systems, and invite or require students to do so as well. Some faculty members use them to review their own papers before submitting them for publication, because paraphrasing a well-known work can easily cross the boundary into quoting. Even submitting written attestations of students’ adherence to academic ethics can help.

The table of contents of Kennedy’s excellent book on the research university, Academic Duty (1997), reminds us of all the obligations that we in the academic community undertake in return for the academic freedoms we enjoy and for the many ways society supports the work of colleges and universities, materially and morally. These include the duty to prepare, to teach, to mentor, to serve the university, to discover, to publish, to tell the truth, to “reach beyond the walls,” and to change. Managing complex and multifaceted workloads, teachers may put more or less of their energies into performing different aspects of these duties at any one time and over time, but they are all important. In addition, we as social work educators may face dilemmas related to field learning and students’ conduct with service users in settings in which we do not exercise as much control as in the classroom. Academic norms for teaching conduct vary substantially across disciplines. In social work, problems in students’ professional conduct may be fairly widespread (Braxton and Bayer 1999). Our educational practice would no doubt be helped by a more detailed exploration of these problems and a better articulation of principles to guide our work. Working to support and enhance norms of ethical behavior for the professoriate may be one of the most powerful tools we have for improving student behavior as well.

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The discussion of academic ethics is often uncomfortable. However, in this era of considerable cheating in colleges and universities, enhanced by access to online materials, it is important to address violations of academic ethics when they occur. Only when we study academic integrity or the lack of it in social work education will we be able to face and address such problems effectively.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

American Association of University Professors. Statement of professional ethics. https://www.aup.org/report/statement-professional-ethics. Murray, H., Gillese, E., Lennon, M., Mercer, P., and Robinson, M. (1996). Ethical principles for college and university teaching. New Directions for Teaching & Learning 1996(66): 57–63.

10 CONCLUSIONS

previously described my positionality in this book, I cannot put forth a set of conclusions without doing so again. I am a white, lesbian woman whose life has benefited in countless ways from white privilege and by living in a white supremacist society. My growing edge is working on being antiracist more of the time. I assume that my perspectives on all of the topics covered here are not the same as for BIPOC faculty, but I hope readers will have patience with me about the blind spots that no doubt occur. Social work education is a growing field (CSWE 2020). The number of colleges and universities in the United States, after decades of growth, is now on the decline. State and federal funding for education is shrinking as one effect of neoliberalism. However, social work continues to be considered a growth profession, even though there are now competing professions in all domains of practice. Sustaining excellence in social work education is necessary for the survival and prestige of the profession. Good teaching that promotes student learning makes a vital contribution to effective, ethical, and humane help for people who need social work services. Social work education is in many ways a calling. Social workers who become teachers bring both their interpersonal skills and their passion for their subject matter to their educational work. Once people get involved in teaching, most find that they like it. Overall, although the quality of teaching in social work programs is high, reflecting on one’s practice is as useful for educators as it is for practitioners. This book is intended to assist in that process, and it has also identified areas—old and new—that require our attention now and in the years to come. ALTHOUGH I HAVE

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STRUCTURAL RACISM AND OTHER OPPRESSIONS Racism is now understood to be a cornerstone of Western cultures in forms both structural and personal. Because of the history of the United States, racism is reflected in our laws, economy, policies, and institutional and interpersonal practices (Kendi 2017, 2019). Cultural competence and now cultural humility are the constructs most often used in social work education when teaching students about diversity, equity, and inclusion. However, recent scholarship in social work education suggests that frameworks like critical race theory have more to offer because they address structural change as well as interpersonal problems. Social work programs are working to address the white supremacist basis of curriculum and institutional life. However, as one doctoral student in my survey said, “Doctoral education is firmly embedded in an inherently patriarchal, capitalist, racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. system that continues to create barriers and difficulties for those who do not wish to simply reify current hegemonic discourses and practices” (Anastas 2012, p. 112). I wonder how many students in our BSW and MSW programs might make a similar observation. Microaggressions are now widely understood to occur with regularity, especially by whites and even if unconsciously directed at colleagues and students of color. Sue (2010) reminds us that microaggressions also occur on the basis of gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, culture, national origin (including toward international students), disability, and religion. All of these occur the world of practice as well as in academia. Campus climate is now being assessed for a number of things that support student learning, with attention to the experiences of students of color and those from other often marginalized groups. Such assessments are important, including assessment of the implicit curriculum. Programs are then obligated to take action to address any problems found. Because of accreditation standards for both the explicit and implicit curriculum and both classroom and field education, and because of the profession’s commitment to social justice, social work may be slightly ahead of other fields and disciplines in dealing with diversity and oppression issues in its curriculum. However, we have not been successful enough in recruiting diverse students and faculty. In many areas, these efforts still lag behind the changing demographics of U.S. society. We must also stay up to date

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regarding the scholarship and new conceptual frameworks being developed in gender, cultural, and indigenous studies. The historical and present contexts of BIPOC in the United States must be part of course content appropriate to the subject matter of the course. Doing so will enhance the sense of inclusion for BIPOC students and faculty. Addressing racism, explicit or subtle, requires introspection by faculty members as well as students. There is now much material available to aid a white instructor in learning more about racism in the United States (Kendi 2018, 2019; DiAngelo 2018; Asaad 2020) and about the manifestations, often unconscious, of racism by white faculty. Working on this project of becoming antiracist in one’s teaching often benefits from having a group of colleagues working on the issues together.

GOING ONLINE The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the trend to online teaching and learning in higher education in general and social work education in particular, and most predict that the use of online technology will continue to increase long after the initial crisis is over. In writing chapter 7, I was acutely aware that because I am not a user of social media, there are many innovative practices using them that I have not explored. As we know, the numbers and kinds of social media and their specific uses are ever-changing, and new technologies that can enhance teaching and learning are emerging for both commercial and noncommercial use. Many of these media platforms, however, have no guarantee of privacy, and ethical issues related to online learning and practice need continuing attention. Research findings show that there is likely no difference between the classroom and online environments in students’ learning outcomes as they are normally measured, although there is some suggestion that hybrid courses may produce the best outcomes. However, faculty remain divided on the topic. Some enjoy online teaching and are eager to add such courses or supplement traditional ones; others do not find the medium comfortable, especially in the area of forming relationships with students that enhance their learning. Everyone agrees that online teaching is more work than teaching in the traditional classroom, but there does not seem to be any common remedy for that. Perhaps the area of greatest concern is with virtual field placements. Not only is the field internship the signature pedagogy of the profession, but

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we also know that MSW social workers emerge from their degree programs having had more hands-on training than those in human services or with master’s degrees in counseling. These kinds of degrees are competitors in the social services world, and if only for that reason, the profession must ensure that our students continue to have quality professional education in the field context. Online education is not going away, so we must continue to evaluate its outcomes and identify the best uses of the medium. Program-based training in online teaching will likely become essential for almost all social work educators.

GOING GLOBAL Among the many areas of teaching and learning that will continue to require our collective attention is one not addressed in this book: bringing a global and international focus to our work. Even after September 11, 2001, enrollments of international students at U.S. colleges and universities have increased, remaining low in some social work programs but growing in others. National economies are now more interdependent than ever, which affects the resources available to fund health and social care, as well as social work education and the health and social welfare systems in which social workers will practice. Except for the time at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, rapid international travel has sped the dissemination of ideas. Migration, voluntary and involuntary, brings international issues into the United States, and policies affecting immigration and services to immigrants, documented and undocumented, remain a hotly contested and political issue. Service to immigrants and their families goes back to the beginnings of the social work profession in the United States, in both the settlement house tradition and friendly visiting (Sherraden et al. 2015). How will social work education respond to these and other forms of globalization? One doctoral student in my study of doctoral students suggested that doctoral programs “open the curriculum to non-Western epistemologies [and] international experiences” (Anastas 2012, p.113). Another said “Much of the literature coming out of the United States is extremely limited in scope . . . with respect to a serious lack of acknowledging the work that goes on outside of the United States . . . a very narrow and parochial perspective [on] the world” (Anastas 2007, unpaginated). To what extent might these observations apply to what we offer in BSW and MSW education in social work? International experiences for both

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students and teachers are becoming more common before, during, or after enrollment in our programs, so how might our curricula, student support, and/or teaching methods need to change? In many places where students study overseas, whites are not in the majority, and white students should be encouraged to reflect on what being white is like in these circumstances. There are likely things that BIPOC students should consider as well, including how their particular racial and ethnic identities will be viewed in other cultures and societies. Social work educators who have been involved in international practice and in arranging for U.S. social work students to study overseas have much to say about the benefits and pitfalls of these programs. Most of all, everyone should consider what other cultures and societies can teach us about more humane social arrangements and social work education.

THE COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY Public and private U.S. colleges and universities are evolving, especially in their economic structures, which in turn affects faculty employment and work, not always in ways that enhance academic freedom or teaching quality. I have written both the first and the current edition of this book at a time of serious economic downturns. Economic hard times affect both private and public institutions of higher education, but in somewhat different ways. Some people are critical of the corporate model adopted by many university economic and governance systems (Aronowitz 2000). Colleges and universities are likely to continue to increase their use of lower-paid contingent workers or cut supportive services for students. As a society, just as in our financing of health care, we have not yet acknowledged that most other developed economies provide much greater access to (often tuition-free) higher education, although examination-based entrance requirements are often a part of the system. The professoriate in general has been criticized for not resisting or at least questioning these institutional arrangements. How will the social work professoriate, whose students are often from less wealthy and privileged sectors of society, deal with these issues? Is accommodation or resistance the better strategy? As an occupational group, do we have the organizational structures needed to consider and answer these questions? Recently, even in social work, the framework of neoliberalism has been used to analyze and criticize higher education in general and social work education in particular.

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While those who teach in social policy may be more aware than others of how neoliberalism explains much of what has gone on in higher education policy in recent decades, there has not yet been a sustained discussion of its effects on social work education. Reyes and Segal (2019) discuss it in their analysis of online education in social work. Social work education is a form of occupational training, meaning that it fits well with the increasing emphasis in higher education on preparing people for the world of work. The international dominance of neoliberalism as an economic and political ideology has tended to commodify and monetize higher education. Pulfrey and Butera define capitalist neoliberalism as embracing core values of “self-interest, the desire for goods to consume and individual competition” (2015, 2154). Individuals are seen as valuable to society to the extent that they participate in the capitalist economy and can provide for themselves, and many practice goals are meant to create economically productive people. Related beliefs are that social services perform best when privatized and that the ongoing use of government and other social programs is to be avoided. For many reasons, then, we need to think critically about how politics and the economy are affecting us in social work education (Heron 2019). We should also consider the effects of neoliberalism on the goals we have set for the people we serve (Atterbury 2019). Social work has accredited programs of social work education, including those offered wholly online, in a wide variety of institutions, from small liberal arts colleges with local or regional student bodies to top-ranked research-extensive universities with national and international student bodies. A social work department may be a star department on a smaller campus or a small and relatively devalued unit on a very large campus. A social work faculty may consist of only a few full-time employees who also teach courses in other departments or a much larger group that may be self-contained or interdisciplinary. The conditions of faculty work, including such basics as course load and faculty performance standards, differ in these different settings and circumstances. The rewards and frustrations of faculty life differ as well. Embracing and valuing this variation among programs remains a challenge.

NEW ROUTE TO A DOCTORAL DEGREE Since earning a doctoral degree is often how people enter full-time jobs in social work education, it is worth noting that a new kind of doctoral

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program has emerged: the doctorate in social work (DSW), reinvented starting in 2009. These programs are termed “practice doctorates,” designed to develop leaders in practice and practitioner scholars. Enrollments in these new programs have grown steadily over recent years; at this writing, the annual number of DSW graduates is almost as large as those enrolled in research doctorates (CSWE 2020). While the initial expectation was that the DSW degree would not prepare full-time faculty members because of the relative lack of research or dissertation requirements, it is now known that a significant number of DSW graduates want and get full-time teaching jobs. In data from an unpublished study (Anastas and Park 2019), just over half of the students surveyed had a full-time faculty job as their primary goal. The idea that DSW graduates were fully competent for clinical or contract faculty roles was assumed, but many now seek tenure-track positions as well. However, unlike PhD students, very few DSW students (approximately 20 percent) named doing research as an important career goal. It remains to be seen what roles DSW graduates will hold in social work education in the future.

THE SCHOLARSHIP OF TEACHING AND LEARNING Boyer (1990) made a brave and much-praised attempt to elevate the scholarship of teaching and learning to equality with the classic idea of the scholarship of discovery. Traditional university reward systems, including promotion and tenure, nonetheless continue to give greatest value to the scholarship of discovery, and many social work programs do so as well in order to improve the standing of the discipline or the department on campus, especially in research universities. How can social work improve its scholarship of teaching and learning? New developments in this area might benefit non-tenure-track faculty, whose numbers continue to increase. Our profession is not alone in having to grapple with this problem and should take note of developments in other practice-oriented academic fields. For example, medicine and dentistry have an electronic gateway to peer-reviewed syllabi and other teaching tools. Such a system is designed to document and legitimate the course-related intellectual work when preparing for tenure and promotion. The Council on Social Work Education’s (CSWE) practice of publishing compendia of peer-reviewed syllabi is an effort along these lines but may need to be updated. If social work education is to have a vibrant scholarship of teaching and learning, it

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will need funding. But in an era when obtaining funding for research has become increasingly important to tenure and promotion, faculty priorities may be different. Finally, useful data are probably buried in various studies conducted by accredited departments, schools, and colleges of social work as part of their self-study (re)affirming their disciplinary accreditation. All self-study documents and self-evaluations are now treated as confidential data, so they cannot be mined for information that might help the enterprise as a whole. Hence the findings in these self-studies have not been adequately analyzed and explored with respect to students and their learning or teachers and their teaching. Summary reports on students’ educational outcomes must now be posted on a program’s website, but no context is given, meaning it is difficult to know what produced them.

ASSESSING LEARNING AND TEACHING To assess learning on the individual level, it seems that social work relies mostly on traditional products such as examinations, written papers, and class presentations. Techniques like the OSCE are being tried because they assess how students interact and practice with simulated clients. I personally believe that it is a very useful evaluation of student practice, but to do it correctly is very expensive, and few programs have made the necessary investment. The ethical dilemma here seems to be about whether more thorough and systematic assessment of students’ performance in a simulated on-the-job situation is worth the investment. It is interesting that so little research has gone into assessing teaching, although the quality of teaching is assumed to be part of what produces good learning outcomes in students. Traditional student surveys of satisfaction with a course and its instructor remain the dominant method. Nevertheless, evaluating a faculty member’s teaching is ubiquitous in hiring, annual performance reviews, contract renewal, and decisions about promotion and tenure. Observation of a teacher in the classroom by peers is common when considering promotion and tenure, but it is not done everywhere. Documents describing curriculum development, such new course syllabi, can provide additional information about staying current in the field, but it cannot show how the course was enacted. Those who value teaching excellence, in themselves and in their colleagues, might do well to encourage new and better ways of assessing teaching.

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It remains true that many research-oriented doctoral degree programs (those awarding a PhD) do not offer any instruction on how to teach, even though their students are often asked to teach courses as teaching assistants or adjunct faculty members. Sometimes students in programs without such courses have formed peer groups to learn more about the craft (Bailey, Bogossian, and Akesson 2016). Opinions are still mixed when it comes to maintaining a focus exclusively on research or whether to prepare PhD graduates for both aspects of the job. DSW programs may offer courses on teaching, because many of their graduates will teach on a full-time or adjunct basis.

OTHER KNOWLEDGE NEEDS In a period of evidence-based practice, how will our profession develop and disseminate knowledge? Much (but not all) social work research and scholarship takes place in the academy. Social workers are often involved in a scholarship of application, moving toward “engagement” and asking, in Boyer’s words, “How can knowledge responsibly be applied to consequential problems? How can it be helpful to individuals as well as institutions? . . . Can social problems themselves define an agenda for scholarly investigation?” (1990, 21, italics in original). Reviews of the social work literature suggest that research on practice processes and outcomes is only a small fraction of what is published. The field of social work could benefit from having knowledge brokers to evaluate and disseminate emerging knowledge from social work and related fields (Hall 2008). Most practitioners must concentrate on assessing each client’s situation, preferences, and choices rather than evaluating the research itself. Resources like the Cochran Collaboration (www.cochrane .org) and Campbell Collaboration (www.campbellcollaboration.org) must be made more widely known and affordable to students, educators, and practitioners. Additional information services, like Gary Holden’s Information for Practice (IP) (www.nyu.edu/socialwork/ip/), need to be developed, supported, and made available to teachers, learners, and graduate practitioners. At the very least, faculty and students must know about and take advantage of other online clearinghouses run by government agencies, such as the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA), and by other professional organizations. The widening use of electronic technologies to enhance curricular content and the learning environment is one example of how instruction affects

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what is possible in teaching and learning. An issue less obvious to outsiders and newcomers to academia is the current emphasis on accountability and assessment. Some of this emphasis no doubt reflects conservative suspicions about higher education in general and is similar to the emphasis on testing in such federal legislation as the No Child Left Behind efforts of the second Bush administration. Colleges’ and universities’ competition for resources, both public and private, their marketing, the competition among units and departments on campuses, and the shift in accreditation standards toward outcomes at all levels suggest that this emphasis is likely here to stay. Classroom assessment techniques are designed to provide formative feedback to instructors that can help improve a specific course or class experience. Except for the effort to implement these processes, their usefulness is clear. But determining how well we achieve the educational outcome we want—expert social work practitioners—is difficult. Many kinds of approximations are being tried, which is good. So far, though, the profession and its educational institutions have not been willing to undertake the conceptually demanding and costly development of better and more comprehensive methods for assessing practice skills in the way that the medical and other professions have done. This may hurt the field in the long run. All these issues—higher education in the United States and its global aspirations, the changing nature of faculty work, the evolution of social work knowledge, the emphasis on educational outcomes, and the continuing change in social work practice sites, roles, and methods, coupled with the increasing racial, ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity of the U.S. population—draw attention to the teacher-in-situation framework shown in chapter 1. How we understand social agencies (internship or practice settings), educational institutions, and the social work profession affects how we teach, although these contextual influences have not often been explored. The second half of the twentieth century produced much knowledge about learning as a lifelong, developmental process, and standards for professional education now emphasize teaching our students thinking skills, specifically critical thinking, along with discipline-specific content. Adult learners often enjoy learning by doing. As a practice profession, social work education can provide many opportunities for active learning in the classroom as well as in the field internship. Critical thinking about practice remains a necessary skill for social work students and graduate professionals alike. Social work education has always emphasized self-knowledge and self-reflection as necessary for practice. Social work educators have considered

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Kolb’s learning theory, which includes the idea of “reflection on action,” with respect to field learning in particular. There are, of course, many other frameworks for understanding adult learners’ development that can be used more systematically to inform teaching, analyze student–teacher interactions, or assess learning outcomes. We also need to act on all the research showing that high expectations bring out the best in students, especially when coupled with support and in an environment characterized by diversity, equity, and inclusion. Reynolds’s (1942/1985) profession-specific framework describing a practitioner’s stages of development still influences thinking in field education, and Bandura’s (1997) construct of self-efficacy can also be used to examine students’ self-assessed progress in learning. Schön’s (1983, 1987) framework could help us examine the heuristics characteristic of practice expertise— that is, the ways we all simplify problems in order to make quick decisions (Kahneman, 2011). Theories of adult learning help teachers go outside their own preferred styles and techniques of learning in order to engage a greater variety of students. Using a variety of teaching techniques, at the group (classroom) and individual (advising, supervising) levels, is the best way to ensure that learning is taking place and that students who learn in a variety of ways can engage with the material. Learning extends to peer interaction as well as instructor– student interchange, which is also good preparation for the group and team interactions common in and important to health and social services. Some now emphasize learning to work within interdisciplinary teams and contexts as an important skill for today’s complex service environments. Social work education, with its signature pedagogy of field-internship learning, has been a leader in higher education in learning through doing and in coaching by the field instructor and field liaison. Most social work programs work hard to help students integrate classroom and field learning, but tensions between them remain. Both curricular development and decisions about faculty qualifications and deployment will affect this balance in the future. Graduate social work education in the United States does not use inquiry methods of teaching as much as do, for example, social work programs in the European Union, where a thesis is generally required for the master’s degree. How might the wider engagement of social work students in research and scholarship affect their development as professional experts and lifelong learners? Finally, social work has always stressed ethical standards for professional practice, but it has not as often discussed academic ethics in the field.

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Useful documents in both Canada and the United States discuss the ethics that must guide scholarship and teaching for students and for faculty. The CSWE developed a set of ethical principles for research (CSWE 2007) and the NASW Code of Ethics (2018) refers specifically to research and teaching, but no social work education organization has yet drawn up a profession-specific academic code or endorsed an existing one. I believe that social work education, especially its students, would benefit from developing and adopting our own code of ethics for teachers and students.

LEARNING TO TEACH Beginning a career as a social work educator, sometimes during doctoral studies, is intellectually, professionally, and personally challenging (McGranahan 2008; Sussman, Stoddart, and Gorman 2004). Doctoral students are often moving from a practice to a research role (Mendenhall 2007) as well. When offered a teaching-assistant position, for either financial aid or professional development, it can be difficult for a doctoral student to manage simultaneously the dual identities of teacher and student in addition to the dual relationships with the faculty member the student is assisting. If doctoral students are employed as adjunct teachers, they become both employees and tuition-paying students. As both teachers and scholars, they are learning to be comfortable using authority. Doctoral programs currently incorporate various kinds of teaching experiences and so must address these potential conflicts, both in the doctoral program and in its policies for the educational programs in which doctoral students teach. These are some of the “new” problems arising from the profession’s efforts to better prepare future faculty. Most social work faculty members have not had formal training in how to teach effectively (Varghese 2020). Usually, they are hired for their expertise in a subject area; full-time faculty also have to demonstrate their ability to do research and produce scholarship. The importance of having a background in practice is waning (Johnson and Munch 2010). Increasingly, it is contract and adjunct faculty members who carry the practice teaching load. Experience or training in teaching is welcome but often not required. The need for training in teaching grows ever more important when it comes to teaching online, which adds learning about the platforms and media that can be used and special techniques that are useful in the online teaching/ learning environment.

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CONCLUSION Despite the many challenges to and in social work education, my career as a social work educator has been immensely rewarding. I have found social work students at all levels—baccalaureate, master’s, and doctoral—to be dedicated to helping others in need, interested in social justice and social change, and ethical in all that they do. But they sometimes lack confidence in their academic abilities in research. Students generally appreciate a teacher’s confidence in their ability to achieve while holding them to firm performance standards. I have also been rewarded by my intellectual engagement with my subject matter. How many jobs pay a person to learn continuously, which is necessary for keeping course and curriculum content current and fresh? Every time I read students’ papers, I learn from them. The first great pleasure of my academic career has been helping students learn and grow professionally; the second is my engagement with ideas—old and new, others’ and my own. Some people would no doubt reverse the order of these two rewards, which probably does not matter if both are significant. To use Bertha Reynolds’s still useful terminology, becoming a social work educator, as in the rest of academia, used to be a matter of sink or swim. Now much more is available in the literature on social work and higher education, in campus-based teaching centers, and in social work doctoral programs to help the new or renewing teacher. There is much to admire in the current state of teaching in social work, but also much we could improve on, individually and collectively. If this book helps others in this process, I will have achieved my goal.

NOTES

2. How Adults Think and Learn

1. Bogo and colleagues (2011, 2012, 2014) would argue for observed structured clinical evaluation (OSCE) or other simulated client techniques for assessing how well students can apply their knowledge in practice. This method of assessment of student learning will be taken up in chapter 5.

4. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Classroom

1. Percentages do not add to 100 percent as some small groups, such as “other,” are not included. 2. Genetically, we know there is no difference among the races (in the U.S. context, whites, Blacks, Native Americans/Alaskan Natives, Asians, and their subgroups) or among ethnic and linguistic groups. However, perceived racial (and ethnic) differences remain highly socially salient, so the term continues in use. 3. These percentages do not add to 100 percent because those who did not give answers and those who identified as being from more than one race are not included. 4. The terminology here is inconsistent but reflects the data sources from which the information was originally drawn. 5. It should be noted that the United States has not signed any of the UN declarations of rights developed since the original Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

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5. Assessing Learning

1. This section does not address the particular accreditation processes that apply to programs wishing to be recognized and accredited for the first time. 2. As noted earlier, until EPAS 2015 was implemented, the use of self-assessment measures for accreditation purposes was permitted.

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INDEX

Page numbers in italics are for figures, tables, or text boxes. AAUP. See American Association of University Professors Abel, E. M., 171 Abels, P., 153 Abrams, L. S., 89 academia, social work: ethics and, 254–255; stereotypes in, 98; student enrollment in, 1 Academic Duty (Kennedy), 242 academic institutions, types of, 180–181 academic integrity, 221; students and, 233–235; teachers and, 219–222, 221 Academic Job Search Handbook, The (Vick, Furlong, and Lurie), 195 accommodation, 19 accountability, 106; assessment and, 109; grades and, 114 accreditation, 258n1; assessment and, 110–112; diversity and, 69–71; educational standards for, 69–71; globalization and, 200; social work programs and, 3, 4 accreditation standards, 70; CSWE, 17, 69–71, 80, 84–85, 110–111; EPAS, 17, 83, 111, 116–118, 257n2 ADA. See Americans with Disabilities Act Adedoyin, C. A., 131 adjunct faculty, 199–201

administration jobs, 187 admissions, 238 adult: development of, 10–16; learning process of, 28–29; normative disequilibrium in, 13; psychological identity and, 12–13; stages of, 12–13 African Americans, 65, 71, 78–79, 83, 98, 176. See also Black, indigenous, and other people of color aging, 64, 67, 176, 186–187; of gays and lesbians, 68 Akesson, B., 252 alumni, 143 Alvarez, A. R., 141–142 American Association of University Professors (AAUP): academic integrity and, 221; ethics and, 220, 231–232, 241; faculty work and, 182–183 American Psychiatric Association, 69 American Psychological Association (APA), 69, 131, 225 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): confidentiality and, 239–240; disability and, 69, 74–75, 81–82, 239–240; institution rules of, 74–75; online education and, 173; passage of, 81 Amodeo, M., 218, 234

286

INDEX

analysis, 18 Anastas, J., 95, 117, 119, 218, 219 Anastas, J. W., 102, 219; doctoral students studies by, 245–247; job studies by, 79, 189–191, 193, 195, 197, 199, 250 Anderson, L. W., 117 Anderson, R. S., 148 Andrews, J., 101 Andrucyk, M., 236 Angelo, T. A., 116 antioppressive ideas, 90 anxiety, 18 APA. See American Psychological Association Apgar, D. H., 225 application, 18, 203–204 Aronowitz, S., 248 Asian Americans, 65, 71 assessment: accountability and, 109; classroom, 253; feedback loop and, 114, 140–141, 143–144; field-internship and, 125; self-, 19–20, 119–120, 258n2; skills and, 117; social work education and, 251–252; students and, 114–116, 119–120, 128–129, 227–228; during teaching courses, 56–57. See also learning assessment; teaching assessment assimilative learners, 19 assistant professor, 192 attention: lecture and, 38–39; online education and, 164 Atterbury, K., 249 attestation, 237 Austin, A. E., 188, 214 Austin, D. M., 194 authority: BIPOC and, 35; teachers and, 35 authorship, 225–226 aversive racism, 93 Avery, A., 68 Aviles, C. B., 130 Ayala, J. S., 161 Ayayo, M., 189–191, 195, 215

Baccalaureate Educational Assessment Package (BEAP), 112–113 Baccalaureate Program Directors (BPD), 148, 198 backward planning, 57 Badger, L. W., 126 Baez, A., 128 Baikie, G, 107 Bailey, S. N., 252 Bain, K., 98, 99 Baird, S. L., 18 Baldwin, R. G., 214–215 Bandura, A., 119, 254 Banner, J. M., 35 Banta, T. W., 106, 110, 116 Baretti, M., 238 Barkley, E. F., 28, 116, 171 Barnes, D. R., 43–45 Baroudi, L., 102 Barretta-Herman, A., 225 Barsky, A., 79, 189–191, 195, 215 Bartlett, A., 68 Baskin, C., 107–108 Baskind, F. R., 106, 112 Bayer, A. E., 218, 220, 226, 242 BEAP. See Baccalaureate Educational Assessment Package Bedics, B. C., 188–189 Belenky, M. F., 14–15, 16, 23, 101 Beltran, R., 189, 201 Benishek, L., 68, 73 Bentley, K. J., 166 Berkman, C. S., 240 Black, indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC): authority of, 35; course content for, 62–63; curriculum and, 80–81; diversity challenges for, 97–100; faculty as, 7, 79; higher education enrollment by, 72; hiring hazards for, 212; inclusion and, 62, 244, 246; self-authorship of, 15; students, 45, 62, 72, 79–80, 82 Bleiweis, R., 65 blended learning, 161–162

INDEX

Bligh, D. A., 37–38 Bloom, B. S., 18–19, 30, 33–34, 34, 116–117, 163 Bogo, M., 26–28, 117, 127, 138, 147, 257n1 Bogossian, A., 252 Boisen. L. A., 67, 72, 93 Bolin, B., 76, 81–82, 103, 239 Bonilla-Silva, I., 90 Boyer, E., 33, 36, 183–186, 250, 252 Boyer report, 183–185 BPD. See Baccalaureate Program Directors Braxton, J. M., 218, 219–220, 224, 226, 242 Bremner, J., 179, 189, 190, 191 BrintzenhofeSzoc, K., 126–127, 167 Brookfield, S. D., 22, 34, 43, 46 Brown, A. H., 79 Brown, C. M., 99 Brown, D., 99 Brown, G., 115 Brownlee, K., 73–74 Buchan, V., 112–113 Butera, F., 249 Butterfield, K. D., 234 buzz groups, 40, 164 Byers, D. S., 80, 93, 96, 102 Cain, M. W., 76, 81 Cain, R., 102 Campbell, C., 107 Campbell, M., 171 Campbell Collaboration, 252 campus climate, 83, 137, 243 Cannon, H. C., 35 Carnegie Foundation, 180, 181, 182, 183 CART. See communication access realtime translation CDC. See Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CE. See continuing education Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 66

287

Cervero, R. M., 79 Chan, W. C., 11 characteristics, student, 26–27, 27 Charles, M., 22 cheating, 218–219, 233–237 Chen, J., 233, 234–235 Chiarelli-Helminiak, C., 84 Choa, M., 234 Christensen, C., 52 Chronicle of Higher Education (American Council on Education), 195 Chronister, J. L., 214–215 civil rights, 85–86 Clance, P. R., 99 Clark, E., 179, 200 Clark, H. G., 179, 214 classroom: assessment in, 253; discussions in, 41–42, 43–47; ethics and, 226–228, 230; feedback in, 140–141; flipped, 168; management of, 227; microaggressions and, 96 Cluse-Tolar, T., 73 coaching: courses and, 49–51; as mentor, 50–51; role model, 51 Cochran Collaboration, 252 cognition: Bloom taxonomy and, 18–19, 34; lecture and, 38 cognitive science, 164 Cohen, M. W., 54, 57, 58 Cole, B. S., 76, 81, 133, 218 colleague: academic integrity with, 221; ethics and, 231–232, 241 Collins, K., 126 Collins, M. E., 218, 234 Collins, S. M., 102 Comerford, S. A., 97 Commission on Accreditation, 17, 111 communication access real-time translation (CART), 173 competence: CSWE standards of, 42, 54–55; cultural, 87–89, 94–95; elements of, 17; EPAS defining, 17, 42, 158, 258n2; meta-, 26–28

288

INDEX

comprehension, 18 conferences, 148 confidentiality: ADA and, 239–240; ethics and, 239–240 Congress, E., 218, 220, 225 Congress, U.S., 65 Conron, K. J., 65 consciousness: double, 87; raising of, 16; self, 23–24 continuing education (CE), 156 contract jobs, 214–215 convergent learners, 19 conversion therapy, 68–69 Coohey, C., 147 Corcoran, K., 107, 238 Cornacchia, C., 107–108 Costello, C. Y., 130, 241 Council on Social Work Education (CSWE): academia report by, 1; accreditation standards of, 17, 69–71, 80, 84, 110–111, 258n1; competence standards of, 42, 54–55; conference by, 148; discrimination against women and, 80, 84; diversity and, 69–71; faculty data of, 78; globalization and, 200; pedagogy termed by, 147; research codes for, 254–255; student mandate by, 11 Counselman-Carpenter, E. A., 168 course content, 226 course design, 53, 114, 155, 165, 166, 172–173 courses, teaching: assessment during, 56–57; BIPOC input for, 62–63; coach for, 49–51; content selection in, 56–57; contextual influences in, 36–37; curriculum and, 54; design of, 31, 53–54; discussions during, 41–47; F2F and, 155–163, 169–171; faculty/student availability in, 58–59; feedback during, 56; goals of, 54–55; groups and, 51–53; hybrid type, 157, 161–162; inquiry and, 48–49; journaling during, 47–48; lecturing during, 37–41; materials for, 57–58;

modes of teaching/learning in, 33–34, 34, 59–60; philosophy for, 34–36; planning and, 53–54; students and, 32–33, 48–49, 53–54; syllabus for, 53, 55, 57; teamwork in, 51–53; technology use in, 58–59; tips for, 59–61 cover letter, 203–204 COVID-19, 155, 164; institutions and, 204; online teaching and, 127, 151, 165, 176, 246; students and, 157; therapy during, 153 Cowburn, M., 107, 132 Cramer, E. P., 81, 85 Cranton, P., 21–22 Cree, V. E., 101 Crenshaw, K., 94 Crisp, B. R., 114–115 Crisp, C., 68 critical consciousness, 16 critical disability theory, 89–90 critical race theory (CRT), 89 critical thinking: education and, 22–23; inquiry and, 48–49; students and, 42 Cross, K. P., 116 CRT. See critical race theory Csiernik, R., 55 CSWE. See Council on Social Work Education cultural competence: CRT and, 89; cultural humility contrasted with, 89, 104, 245; dual forms of, 87–88; ICT and, 93–94; learning, 87, 94–95; as service delivery goal, 87; as sought after skill, 190 cultural humility, 88–89, 94, 104, 167, 243 cultural sensitivity, 88 culture, education and, 36–37 Culver, S., 240 Cummings, C. R., 158, 163, 166 Cummings, S. M., 159 curriculum: assessment and, 137–139; BIPOC and, 79–80; course context in, 54; education mission in, 3;

INDEX

faculty and, 138; implicit, 112, 137– 139; licensing and, 110; relevancy of, 4 curriculum, social work, 3; of antioppressive practices, 90; BIPOC students invisible in, 79–81; disability and, 81, 86, 102–103; diversity causes in, 95; explicit, 62, 70; faculty scholarship and, 37; gender in, 100–102; globalization content of, 6; horizontal and vertical integration of, 54; implicit, 62, 69, 70, 83; LGBTQ+ issues in, 85–86; Native American people and issues in, 98; parts and whole of, 60; relevance of, 4; sexual orientation in, 100–102; tensions over, 4, 5 curriculum vitae (CV), 203, 204 Daloz. L. A. P., 23 Danforth, L., 90 Daniel, C., 88 Dannenfelser, P. L., 68, 73 D’Aprix, A., 218–219 Darby, F., 166 Davis, J. R., 2, 19, 22, 31, 38, 42–43, 49, 51 Dawes, R. M., 106 Day, P., 20–21 Deal, K. H., 25 dean, 208 degrees, qualifications and, 196–199 DEI. See diversity, equity and inclusion DeLange, J., 100–101 design, course, 31, 53–54 Despard, M., 138 Detres, M., 165 DeVries, K. M., 94 DiAngelo, R., 72, 93, 96, 170, 246 Diekoff, G. M., 233–234 differently abled, technology for, 173 disabilities: accessibility for students with, 86; ADA advocacy for, 69, 74–75, 81–82, 239–240; critical disability theory for, 89–90; diversity

289

and, 81–82, 86, 102–105; education and, 102–103; institutions and, 74–75; students and, 74–76, 81–82; U.S. population, 66 discussions: classroom and, 41–42, 43–47; courses and, 41–47; experience and, 41–42; ground rules for, 43; groups and, 45; leader of, 45; problems during, 46–47; questions and, 43–44; students and, 44–45 distance education, 148, 158, 162 divergent thinkers, 19 diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), 62, 64, 104–105; academic jobs and, 211–212; accreditation standards and, 69–71; addressing, 95–96; BIPOC and, 97–100; CSWE and, 69–71; disabilities and, 81–82, 86, 102–105; EPAS and, 84; faculty and, 78–79, 211–212; gender and, 72–74, 80, 100–102; impact of, 63; institutions and, 84–85; intersectionality and, 94; LGBTQ+ people and, 85–86; microaggressions and, 91–92; philosophy and, 35–36; race/ ethnicity and, 79–80, 257nn2–3; self-reflection and, 99; sexual orientation and, 80–82, 85–86, 87, 101–102; social work and, 66–69; social work profession and, 67; students and, 6, 71–76, 81–82, 94–95; theory of, 86–92; Universal Declaration of Human Rights and, 257n5; U.S. population, 257n1; U.S. population and, 64–66; white privilege and, 92–94; women and, 97–100 Dixon-Reeves, R., 214 doctorate in social work (DSW): educator in, 255; online education and, 155; research and, 199; route to, 249–250; teaching part-time during, 199 Dore, M. M., 101 double consciousness, 87

290

INDEX

Draughn, T., 81, 85 Drolet, J., 139 DSW. See doctorate in social work dualism, 14 Duncan-Daston, R., 240 Dupré, M., 82, 90, 103 Duron. J. F., 140 East, J. F., 17 Eckel. P. D., 187 education: banking model in, 16; culture and, 36–37; diversity impact in, 63; empty vessel model in, 14, 30, 139; field-education and, 5–6, 123, 147–148, 254; gender and, 100–102; institutions and, 248–249; lecture and, 37–41; professional goals of, 42; scholarship and, 250–251; teaching methods for, 227 education, social work: accreditation standards and, 69–71; assessment and, 251–252; content forming, 33; context influences in, 36–37; context settings of, 2, 7–8; critical thinking in, 22–23; curriculum and, 3; disability and, 102–103; educator and, 253–254; faculty and, 178, 193– 217, 255; globalization and, 4, 5–6, 247–248; growth of, 244; intellectual excitement in, 32–33; issues in, 253; Kolb model in, 20–21; learning and, 33–34, 34, 116–117; LGBTQ+ and, 101–102; literature in, 3; philosophy of, 34–36; professional practices in, 4; research for, 252; service provider in, 230; teachers in, 6–7; teaching and, 5, 33–34, 34, 200–201; technology use in, 6, 7. See also online education Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS): accreditation standards, 17, 83, 111, 116–118, 257n2; assessment and, 113, 118; competence and, 17, 42, 158, 258n2; diversity and, 70, 84

education-in-environment perspective, 2, 2, 11, 32 educator: career as, 8; doctoral studies and, 255; fulfillment as, 256 Elkins, B., 81, 85 emotions, 17–18 employer, 231–232 Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), 86 empty vessel model: learning and, 14; teaching and, 14, 30, 139 ENDA. See Employment NonDiscrimination Act Engler, J. N., 235 English as a second language (ESL), 78 EPAS. See Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards Epstein, M., 235 equity. See diversity, equity and inclusion Erikson, Erik, 12–13 ESL. See English as a second language Ethical Principles in University Teaching, 222 ethics: AAUP and, 220, 231–232, 241; academia and, 254–255; cheating and, 218–219, 233–237; classroom and, 226–228, 230; colleague responsibility, 231–232, 241; confidentiality and, 239–240; conflicting values in, 232–233; employer and, 231–232; fieldinternship and, 240; gatekeeping and, 238–239; NASW code for, 218–219, 222–224, 223, 231–232, 240, 241; nonacademic, 237–238; online education and, 160, 172–174, 175–176, 235–237; plagiarism and, 235–237; professional impropriety and, 220; research codes for, 254–255; scholarship and, 224–226; sexual orientation, 240; students and, 175–176, 229–230; teaching and, 218–219; tips for, 241–243

INDEX

ethnicity, race and, 79–80 evaluation, 18; annual, 146–147; of colleagues, 231; online, 171–172; students and, 171, 229–230 Ewing, K. M., 99 experience: concrete, 21; reflection on, 41–42; research and, 199; teaching and, 30–31 expertise, framing, 202–203 face-to-face (F2F), 12, 152; courses and, 155–163, 169–171; technology and, 58 faculty: academic jobs for, 181–182, 212–215; adjunct, 199–201; BIPOC as, 7, 79; challenges of BIPOC students and, 97–100; courses and, 58–59; curriculum and, 138; diversity and, 78–79, 211–212; education and, 178, 193–217, 255; F2F interaction and, 159; LGBTQ+ as, 85; social work programs and, 193–195; teaching experience of, 30–31; training, lack of, 30–31 faculty-field liaison, 117, 254; quality of, 147; responsibility for, 186, 193 faculty hiring, 201; diversity and, 211–212; expertise and, 202–203; interview and, 204–208; job openings, 202; letter of application for, 203–204; meetings and, 206–208; terms of appointment and, 209–211 faculty titles, 192 faculty work, 181, 217; AAUP description of, 182–183; administration in, 187; contractual, 214–215; data on, 178–179, 182, 194–195; degrees and, 196–199; globalization and, 200; job retention and, 212–215; multifaceted, 215–216; offer for, 209; part-time, 200–201; professional development, 187–188; qualifications for, 189–192, 195–199; research and, 188–189, 199; social work and, 193–195; teaching and, 185–186; wages and, 195, 209; women and, 195

291

Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), 161, 220, 236, 239 Farber, N., 12, 25–26 Faul, A. C., 87 Faul, C., 84, 87 feedback loop: assessment and, 114, 140–141, 143–144; classroom and, 140–141; courses and, 56; lecture and, 40 Feit, M. D., 106, 134 Feld, S., 189 Feldman, K. A., 36–37 Feldman, R. A., 189 FERPA. See Family Education Rights and Privacy Act Ferraro, E. K., 106, 112 field-education, 5–6, 123, 147–148, 254 Field Instructor Supervision Scale (FISS), 147–148 field-internship: assessment and, 125; ethics and, 240 Finkelstein, M. J., 178–179, 181–182, 195 Finn, J., 234, 237 first generation students, 82–84 “fishbowl” technique, in classroom discussion, 46 Fisher-Borne, M., 88 FISS. See Field Instructor Supervision Scale Fitch, D., 129, 162 flipped classrooms, 168 Floyd, C. E., 111 Fortune, A. E., 107 Franklin, C., 189, 201 Freire, P., 16, 22 Friedman, B. D., 33, 43, 124 fund raising, 244 Furlong, J. S., 195, 208 Gair, S., 84 Gambrill, E., 22, 42, 114 Gappa, J. M., 188, 214 Garcia, B., 95–96, 97 Garcia, J., 111

292

INDEX

Garland, E. L., 107 Garran, A. M., 87, 96, 97 Garrett, K. J., 225 gatekeeping: assessment and, 131–133; ethics and, 238–239; students and, 131–133 “gay lifestyle,” 81–82 Gelman, S. R., 130, 219, 225 gender: CSWE accreditation standards and, 84–85; diversity and, 72–74, 80, 84–85, 100–102; social work profession and, 67–68; U.S. population, 65 gender expression, sexual orientation and, 52, 65, 68–69, 73–74, 81, 101–102, 104 gender identity, 68, 80–81 Giardina, T. D., 140 Gibbs, L., 42 Gibelman, M., 130, 219, 225 Gillespie, J., 122 Gilligan, C., 14 Glass, V. R., 138 GlenMaye, L., 107 GlenMaye, L. F., 76, 81, 103, 239 globalization: accreditation and, 200; CSWE and, 200; education and, 4, 5–6, 247–248; faculty work and, 200 Goldberg, S. K., 65 Golde, C. M., 184, 209, 210 Gordon, M., 81–82 Gorman, E., 8, 255 grade point average (GPA), 120, 158 grades: accountability and, 114; assessment and, 129–131; GPA and, 120, 158; students and, 129–131; written assignments and, 122–123 Grady, M. D., 84, 138 Graham, M. A., 55 Green, D., 189–191, 195, 215 Green, R. G., 189 Green, R. K., 106, 134 Grise-Owens, E., 33, 34, 139 Groark, M., 234

Grunert, J., 55 “guide on the side,” teacher as, 30; online, 168 Hall, J. C., 252 Haskins, M., 84 HBCU. See historically black colleges and universities health disparities, 91–92, 209 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), 125, 161, 173–174, 236 Hendricks, C. O., 72, 95 Heron, B. A., 249 Hesselbrock, M., 1 Hickerson, J., 68 higher education: BIPOC enrollment in, 72; lecture and, 37; neoliberalism and, 248–249; STLHE for, 230–231; teaching in, 1 Hillock, S., 107 HIPAA. See Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act historically black colleges and universities (HBCU), 3, 180 Hitchcock, L. I., 153, 155, 160, 161, 163, 164, 171, 235–236 Hodge, D. M., 84 Holden, G., 95, 117, 119, 252 Holley, L. C., 15, 85, 97, 100, 132 Holloway, S., 119 honor codes, 242 Hooks, B., 16 Horner, P. S., 211–212 Howard, M. O., 107 Howe, R. D., 195 Hoyt, C., 67, 90 Hsu, H. T., 90 Hu, C., 130 Huber, R., 87 Huggins-Hoyt, K. Y., 212 Hughes, A. K., 211–212 Hull, G. H., 189 Hunter, S., 68

INDEX

Hurtado, A., 89, 96, 212 Huttar, C. M., 126–127, 167 hybrid course, 157, 161–162 ICT. See intergroup contact theory “illusion of inclusion,” 64 Imes, S., 99 immigrants: learning by, 14; “undocumented,” 66, 77, 82, 245; U.S. population and, 65–66 immigrant students, 76–78 implicit bias, 93 imposter phenomenon, 98–99, 99, 100 inclusion. See diversity, equity and inclusion Information for Practice, 252 institutions: academic jobs and, 180–181; ADA disability rules for, 74–75; cheating in, 218–219, 233–235; context influences of, 36–37; COVID-19 risks in, 204; disability and, 74–75; diversity and, 84–85; education and, 248–249; future of, 248–249; race and, 83–84; service in, 186–192; TWI and, 169 intellectual property: online education and, 174–175; TEACH and, 174 intergroup contact theory (ICT), 93–94 International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSoTL), 148 international students, 76–78, 235, 238, 247 intersectionality, 69–70, 94 interviews: faculty and, 204–208; first-round, 204–205; on-campus, 205–208 ISSoTL. See International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Jacobsen, J., 162, 169 James-Myers, L., 99 Jani, J., 89

293

Jawahar, I. M., 234 Jayasingham, D., 92, 97 Jenkins, D., 68 Jirovec, R. L., 141–142 job market, academic, 178–179; administration as, 187; diversity and, 211–212; faculty as, 181–182, 202, 212–215; institutions for, 180–181; interviews for, 204–208; offer and, 209; professional development as, 187–188; qualifying for, 189–192; research on, 188–189; scholarship and, 182–185; search difficulties for, 208–209; service as, 186–187; teaching as, 185–186; terms of appointment, 209–211. See also faculty hiring; faculty work job retention: contract jobs and, 214–215; faculty and, 212–215; mentoring and, 213–214; tenure and, 212–213 job talk, 198, 206 Johnson, M. M., 141–142 Johnson, Y. M., 8, 189, 255 Johnson-Bailey, J., 79 Johnston, L., 68 Joiner, A. M., 236 journal: course learning and, 47–48; students keeping, 47–48 June, A. W., 79, 100 Kahneman, D., 254 Kealey, E., 136, 140, 141 Kendi, I. X., 89, 90, 245, 246 Kennedy, D., 50, 242 Khang, H. K., 96, 97 Kil, H. J., 107, 238 King, J. E., 187 King, M., 68 Kirk, S. A., 107, 238 Kisamore, J. L., 234 Klein, W. C., 160, 200 Knight, C., 124 Knoke, D., 15

294

INDEX

knowledge, 18; dissemination of, 252; subjective, 15 Koerin, B., 107, 238, 239 Kohli, H. K., 87 Kolb, A. Y., 19–21 Kolb, D. A., 19–21 Kourgiantakis, T., 126 Krathwohl, D. R., 117 Kretzschmar, J. A., 132, 133, 237–238 Kruzich, J., 20 Kurzman, P. A., 157 LaBeff, E. E., 233–234 Lam, C. M., 11 Landau, J. D., 235 Landsman, M. J., 147 Lang, J. M., 31, 38, 59, 166 Lazzari, M. M., 101 learning: active, 59–60; adult and, 28–29; broadening of, 20; education and, 33–34, 34, 116–117; empty vessel model of, 14; experiential, 19; goals of, 33–34, 34; immigrants and, 14; lecture and, 37–41; memory and, 38; neuroscience and, 21; online education and, 163–165, 171; online evaluation, 171; scaffolding of, 31; social work theory of, 23–26; students and, 5–6, 23–25, 28–29, 114– 116, 128–129; styles of, 19–21; syllabus and, 55; teachers and, 21; teaching and, 7, 28–29, 255; transformational, 21–23; women and, 14–15 learning assessment, 106; accreditation and, 110–112; administration of, 118– 119; audiences for, 109; classroom and, 253; content of, 116–118; courses and, 56–57; education and, 251–252; EPAS and, 113, 118; feedback loop for, 114; gatekeeping and, 131–133; grades for, 129–131; OSCE and, 117– 118, 127–128, 251; peer and, 120–121; portfolio and, 128–129; procedure for, 121–127; professional practice

and, 109–110; self, 19–20, 119–120; self-reflection and, 119; students and, 114–116; SWEAP tests and, 113, 114, 117; techniques for, 115–116; tests for, 112–114; tips for, 133–134; types of, 108; warning for, 107–108; written form of, 121–123 Lechner, E., 138 lecture: ABC’s of, 37–38; attention and, 38–39; buzz groups during, 40, 164; cognitive psychology and, 38; delivering of, 38–39; education and, 37–41; feedback during, 40; framework for, 38; higher education and, 37; interest during, 40; learning by, 37–41; note taking during, 39; question during, 40; teachers and, 37–41; visual aids for, 39; written out, 39 LeDoux, C., 7 Lemieux, C. M., 120 lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+), 3; attitude towards, 73–74; challenges of, 85–86; civil rights and, 85–86; diversity and, 80–81, 85–86, 101–102; education and, 101–102; faculty as, 85; microaggressions and, 102; race and, 65; religion and, 87; U.S. population, 65 letter of application, 203–204 Levine, A., 180 Levinson, D. L., 12–14 Lewis, R. G., 133, 218 LGBTQ+. See lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer licensing: curriculum and, 110; social work and, 109–110 Lige, Q. M., 99 Lightfoot, E., 179, 189, 190, 191, 193, 201, 205 Limb, G. E., 98 Lister, P. G., 114–115 Lovaas, K. E., 102

INDEX

Lowman, J., 32, 43 Lucio, R., 171 Lurie, R., 195, 208 MacFarlane, B., 220, 228, 231, 241 Mackelprang, R., 101–102 MacNeil, G., 126 Magolda, Baxter, 15–16 Major, C. H., 28, 116, 158, 163–164, 171, 173–175 Malik, A. S., 37–39 Malik, R. H., 37–39 Marquant, M., 236 Marson, S. M., 234, 237 Martin, J., 102 Martin, S. L., 88 Martinez, E., 92 Maypole, D. E., 20–21 Mazza, E. T., 76, 81, 103, 132 McAllister, C., 159, 161 McCabe, D. L., 234 McCarty, D., 3 McClelland, R. W., 179, 189, 199 McGranahan, E, 8, 255 McIntosh, P., 88, 92 McKeachie, W. J., 38, 40, 43, 46, 48, 53, 54, 55, 56, 129, 130, 222, 229 McKnight, K., 147 McMurtry, S. L., 179, 189, 199 McPhail, B. A., 101 “meaning perspectives,” 22 Meenaghan, T., 94, 117, 119 memory, 38 Mendenhall, A. N., 8, 255 Mentkowski, M, 12 mentoring: academic jobs and, 213–214; coach as, 50–51 Merdinger, J. C., 15 Messinger, L., 81 meta-competencies, 26–28 methods, of teaching, 227 Mezirow, J., 22–23 microaggressions: classification of, 91; classroom and, 96; diversity and,

295

91–92; LGBTQ+ and, 102; NAME model for, 96; occurrence of, 245; online education and, 169–170, 236 microinvalidation, 91 Miller, J., 107, 238, 239 Miller, J. B., 14 Miller, J. J., 33–34, 139 Millis, B. J., 54, 57, 58 Mishna, F., 26 modes, teaching, 33–34, 34 Moio, J. A., 89 Mooradian, J. K., 126 Moore, S. E., 156–158 Moran, J. J., 128 Morris, T. H., 21 Morrow, D. F., 80, 102 multiculturalism, 88 Mumm, A. M., 124 Munch, S., 8, 189, 255 Murray, H., 227 Nakaoka, S., 170 NAME. See notice, acknowledging, make and enlist National Association of Social Worker (NASW): code of ethics and, 218–219, 222–224, 223, 231–232, 240, 241; practice standards by, 66–67, 68, 87; research codes by, 254–255; social work and, 67, 153; therapy viewpoints of, 69 Naylor, S. M., 138 Neff, D., 112, 115, 123, 134 Nelson, P., 107, 132 neoliberalism: fund raising and, 244; higher education and, 248–249 Netting, E., 225 Neugarten, B. L., 13 Neuman, B. L., 124 neuroscience, 21 Newman, B. S., 68, 73 Nichols-Casebolt, A., 225 Nilson, L., 31, 43, 51–52, 130, 134 Nilson, L. B., 28, 34, 38, 40

296

INDEX

Noble, J. H., 110, 113–114, 120 normative disequilibrium, 13 note-taking, 39 notice, acknowledging, make and enlist (NAME), 96 Oakes, M., 107 Oblinger, D., 234 O’Brien, J. G., 54, 57, 58 observed structured clinical observation (OSCE): assessment and, 117–118, 127–128, 251; students and, 127–128 on-campus interview, 205–208 one-minute paper (OMP), 171 online education, 152; access to, 172–173; ADA and, 173; attention and, 164; attrition rate in, 160; CE and, 156; cheating in, 235–237; course-management systems and, 154; COVID-19 and, 127, 151, 165, 176, 246; DSW and, 155; ethics and, 160, 172–174, 175–176, 235–237; evaluation in, 171–172; extent of, 154–156; F2F compared to, 155–163, 169–171; framework for, 153–154; growth of, 154–155, 160, 246; hybrid courses in, 157, 161–162; intellectual property and, 174–175; microaggressions and, 169–170, 236; outcomes of, 162–163; proponents of, 156–158; retention and, 165; skeptics of, 158–161; students and, 164–165; tips for, 176–177; virtual placements and, 247–248; Zoom use in, 153–154, 159, 160, 164 online learning, 163–165, 171 online teaching, 165–170, 171–172 Opie, A., 51 oral presentations, 123 Organista, K. C., 98 Ortega, A., 236 Ortiz, L., 89, 170 OSCE. See observed structured clinical observation

outcomes, 162–163 Owens, L. W., 33–34, 139 Palomba, C. A., 106, 110, 116 Pardeck, J. T., 75, 102, 107 Parkman, A., 99, 100 Parnell, S., 101 part-time teaching, 200–201 Paulsen, M. B., 36–37 Pearlman, C. A., 160, 179, 200 peer assessment, 120–121 Pereira, A., 214 perspective: changing, 21–23; education-in-environment perspective as, 2, 2, 11, 32 Petchers, M. K., 80, 84, 100 Peteet, B. J., 99 Peterson, N. A., 84, 126 Petracchi, H., 126 Petty, R. E., 98 Phillips, R., 101 philosophy: assessment and, 139–140; diversity and, 35–36; education and, 34–36; statement of, 139; teaching and, 34–36, 139–140 Pike, C. K., 142 Pitner, R. O., 16, 90 plagiarism, 242; ethics and, 235–237; scholarship and, 235–237; software for, 175, 237 Pogson, P., 12–13, 22, 30 population, U.S.: disability and, 66; diversity in, 64–66, 257n1; gender and, 65; immigrants and, 65–66; LGBTQ+ and, 65; race and, 64–65, 257n1 portfolio: assessment and, 128–129, 144–145; student use of, 128–129; teacher use of, 144–145 Potter, C. C., 17 Powers, J., 138 practitioner, social work, 26 predominantly white institutions (PWIs), 64, 71

INDEX

Preskill, S., 43, 46 privacy: FERPA and, 161, 220, 236, 239; HIPAA and, 125, 161, 173–174, 236 process recordings, 124–125 Prock, K. A., 85 profession, social work, 66–69; educational goals of, 42; education setting and, 4; ethics and, 237–238; field learning in, 5–6; gender and, 67–68; NASW practice standards in, 66–67; Schön theory in, 26; sexual orientation in, 68–69; social needs in, 4; workforce diversity in, 67 professional development, 187–188 professor, 192 promotion, 146–147 proponents, 156–158 psychiatry: American Psychiatric Association and, 69; student problems and, 76 psychology: adult identity and, 12–13; APA and, 69, 131, 225 Pulfrey, C., 249 PWIs. See predominantly white institutions qualifications, for promotion, 192 questionnaires, 141–143 questions: discussions and, 43–44; lectures and, 40 Quinn, A., 162 Quinn, P., 102 race, 257nn2–3; CRT, 89; ethnicity and, 71–76, 79–80; institutions and, 83–84; LGBTQ+ and, 65; U.S. population and, 64–65, 257n1 racism, 90–92; aversive, 93; microaggressions in, 91–92, 96, 102, 169–170, 245; structural, 90, 245; white privilege and, 92–94 Ramanathan, C. S., 141–142 Ramsey, E., 99 Rappe, P. T., 188–189

297

Raschick, M., 20–21 Raske, M., 101 Raskin, M., 147 Rawls, J., 224 Reamer, F. G., 160–161, 236 references, 204 Reinsmith-Jones, K., 167 Reitmeier, M. C., 12, 25–26 religion, 87 reorientation therapy, 68–69 reporting, unethical conduct, 238–239 research: academic jobs and, 188–189; doctoral program and, 199; education and, 252; ethical code for, 254–255; experience and, 199; faculty and, 188–189, 199; inquiry and, 49; NASW and, 254–255; teaching and, 37 retention: job and, 212–215; online education and, 165 Reyes, M., 162, 249 Reynolds, Bertha, 3, 4, 8, 10, 23–25, 30, 95, 254, 256 Richardson, T. Q., 99 Richardson, V., 184, 193 Risler, E. A., 128–129 Roberson, C. J., 126 Roberts, T. L., 64, 79 Rodenborg, N. A., 67, 72 role model, 51 Roy, R., 81, 85 Royce, D., 34, 36, 52, 53 rubric, 130–131 Russell, R. K., 99 Saad, 91 Saari, C., 23–25 Sage, M., 153, 155, 164, 168, 171, 235–236 “sage on the stage,” lecture model, 30 “sage on the stage,” teacher as, 30 Sakamoto, I, 7, 15, 16, 78, 191, 195, 215, 219 Sakamoto, I., 80, 84, 90 salary and benefits, 210

298

INDEX

SAMHSA. See Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Sansone, F. A., 188–189 satisfaction questionnaires, 141–143 Saunders, E. J., 234 Saunders, J. A., 84 Schatz, M. C. S., 128–129 scholarship: academic jobs and, 182–185; authorship and, 225–226; education and, 250–251; ethics and, 224–226; plagiarism and, 235–237 scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), 31, 33, 184–185 Schön, D. A., 26, 254 Schroeder, M., 68–69 Schuster, J. H., 178–179, 181–182, 195 Seaberg, J. R., 194–195 Seal, R. K., 178–179, 181–182, 195 Sears, J. T., 85 Secret, M. C., 166 Segal, E., 162, 249 Sele, P., 168 self, acute consciousness of, 95 self-assessment, 19–20, 119–120, 258n2 self-authorship: BIPOC and, 15; elements of, 15–16 self-disclosure, 63 self-efficacy, 119 self-reflection, 97; assessment and, 119; diversity and, 99; teaching and, 60 Sellers, W., 112, 115, 123, 134 SenGupta, G., 91 September 11, 2001, 77, 245 service: academic jobs and, 186–187; institutional, 186–192; provider, 230 Sewall, K. M., 17 sexual orientation: diversity and, 80–81, 85–86, 87, 101–102; ethics and, 240; gender expression and, 52, 65, 68–69, 73–74, 81, 101–102, 104; social work education and, 101–102; in social work profession, 68–69; U.S. population, 65. See also lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer

Shafaei, A., 235 Shank, B. W., 106, 112 Sheppard, M., 22 Sherraden, M., 247 Shidlo, A., 68 Shulman, L. S., 193 Sidell, N. L., 145 “signature pedagogy,” 5, 36, 149, 248– 249, 256 Simon, C. A., 220 simulation technique, 126–127, 167–168 skeptics, 158–161 skills, assessing, 117 Smith, G., 68 Smith, L. A., 64, 79 Smith, T. E., 160, 200 Smyth, N. J., 153, 155, 164, 171, 235–236 social justice, 16 social work. See academia, social work; education, social work; profession, social work; specific topics Social Work Distance Education Conference, 148 Social Work Education Assessment Project (SWEAP), 113, 114, 117 Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR), 202, 204–205 Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE), 230–231 software, 175, 237 SoTL. See scholarship of teaching and learning Speck, B. W., 148 Spicuzza, F. J., 128–129 Spitz, J., 159 SSWR. See Society for Social Work and Research Staats, C., 72, 93 Starks, S. H., 100 Steele, C. M., 98 Stefkovich, J. A., 224 Steiner, S., 15, 52–53, 97 stereotypes, 98 STLHE. See Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

INDEX

Stoddart, K., 8, 255 Stone, T. H., 234 “stress interview,” 210 Stretch, J. J., 110, 113–114, 120 Strom-Gottfried, K., 218–219, 220 students: academia and, 1; academic integrity and, 233–235; alumni and, 143; anxiety of, 18; assessment and, 114–116, 119–120, 128–129, 227–228; BIPOC and, 45; challenges of BIPOC faculty and, 97–100; characteristics of, 26–27, 27; cheating by, 233–235; courses and, 32–33, 48–49, 53–54, 58–59; COVID-19 altering of, 157; critical thinking of, 42; cultural competence in, 94–95; disability and, 74–76, 81–82; discussions and, 44–45; diversity and, 6, 81–82, 94–95; emotion of, 17–18; enrollment and, 1; ESL and, 78; ethics and, 175–176, 229–230; evaluation and, 171, 229–230; field learning and, 5–6; first generation, 82–84; gatekeeping and, 131–133; grading of, 129–131; immigrants as, 76–78; individuals as, 10–12, 11, 49–51; interaction with, 11–12; international, 76–78; journal keeping by, 47–48; judgment in, 17; learning and, 5–6, 23–25, 28–29, 114–116, 128–129; materials for, 58; meta-competencies in, 26–28; nontraditional, 6, 10; note-taking by, 39; online engagement by, 164–165; OSCE and, 127–128; portfolio use by, 128–129; presentations and, 48–49; problems with, 46–47; psychiatry and, 76; questionnaires for, 141–143; race and ethnicity in diversity of, 71–76; respect for, 44–45; self-assessment and, 119–120; stages of learning in, 23–25; teaching modalities for, 5 subjective knowing, 15

299

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), 252 Sue, D. W., 245 supports for success, 210 Sussman, T., 8, 255 Svinicki, M., 48, 53, 54, 129, 130, 222, 229 SWEAP. See Social Work Education Assessment Project Swick, D. C., 138 syllabus: courses and, 53, 55, 57; learning goals in, 55, 116; mutual obligations in, 58 synthesis, 18 taxonomy, 18–19, 34 TEACH. See Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization Act teachers: academic integrity of, 219–222, 221; authority of, 35; conferences for, 148; education and, 6–7; educationin-environment perspective and, 31, 32; learning styles of, 21; lecture and, 37–41; philosophy of, 34–36; portfolio use by, 144–145; rapport with, 32, 32–33; ratings of, 142; relationship with, 31 teaching. See courses, teaching; specific topics teaching assessment, 136; alumni and, 143; curriculum and, 137–139; feedback and, 140–141, 143–144; field instruction and, 147–148; philosophy for, 139–140; portfolio and, 144–145; questionnaires for, 141–143; resources for, 148; tenure and, 146–147; tips for, 148–149 teaching load, 210 teamwork, 51–53 technology: courses using, 58–59; education and, 6, 7; F2F and, 58 Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization Act (TEACH), 174 telemedicine, 156

300

INDEX

Tennant, M., 12–13, 22, 30 tenure: assessment and, 146–147; decoding of, 192; job retention and, 212–213; qualifications and, 189–192 terms of appointment: academic jobs and, 209–211; faculty and, 209–211; success support in, 210–211; teaching load in, 210; wages in, 210 theory: critical disability theory, 89–90; CRT, 89; diversity and, 86–92; ICT as, 93; Schön theory, 26; social work theory, 23–26 therapy: conversion, 68–69; COVID-19 and, 153; NASW and, 69; reorientation, 68–69 Thomas, S. B., 81–82 Thurber, A., 96, 170 To, S. M., 11 Tower, L. E., 7, 78, 84, 219 Towle, C., 25 traditionally white institutions (TWI), 169 training: in teaching, 30–31; for using online materials, 162, 164, 167–168 transformative learning, 21–23, 168 Treviño, L. K., 234 Trotman, F. K., 99 TWI. See traditionally white institutions UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, 90, 257n5 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 257n5 Urdang, E., 124 Urwin, C. A., 132, 133, 237–238 Vakalahi, H. F. O., 100 Valentine, D., 214 Vandehey, M. A., 233–234 Van Soest, D., 20, 80, 95, 97, 132–133, 237–238 Van Voorhis, R., 102 Varghese, R., 30–31, 255 Vasquez, M., 84

Vélez Ortiz, D., 211–212 Vick, J. M., 195, 208 visual aids, 39 Vowell, P. R., 233, 234–235 wages: faculty work and, 195, 209; terms of appointment and, 210; women and, 65 Wagner, M., 102 Wajda-Johnston, V. A., 234 Walsh, T. C., 124 Washburn, J. J., 225 Wayne, J., 138, 147 wealth gap, 65 Weaver, H. N., 98 Weisman, D., 160, 200 Weismiller, T., 179, 200 Wergen, J., 188–189 Werkmeister Rozas, L. M., 7 Werman, A., 96 Wheeler, S. C., 98 Whitaker, T., 179, 200 white privilege, 92–94 white supremacist, 88 white supremacy, 92 Whitley, B. E., 233–235 Williams, J., 132 Wilson, P. P., 214 Winston, P. H., 52 Wodarski, J. S., 106, 134 Wolfer, T. A., 141–142 women: Congress and, 65; CSWE accreditation standards for, 80, 84–85; diversity challenges for, 97–100; faculty work and, 195; learning by, 14–15; wages and, 65 Youn, E., 162 Youn, T. I. K., 209 Young, D. S., 85, 100 Zastrow, C., 179, 189, 190, 191 Zheng, M., 179, 190, 191, 193 Zhou, Y. R., 15 Zoom, 153–154, 159, 160, 164