Three Ways to Model Good Boundaries with Technology in Social Work Ed
The National Association of Social Workers’ (NASW) Standards for Technology in Social Work Practice (2017) offer a number of standards for social work educators and practitioners. One of these standards focuses on maintaining boundaries with our students. This is not a new ethical practice for social work educators; we have always worked to maintain boundaries with our students. Rather, the challenge has been navigating these boundaries in virtual spaces as technology has changed when and how we can communicate and engage with each other.
Not surprisingly, the tech standard from NASW focuses on the social work educator taking precautions. Managing risk is a good idea, and I would suggest that we also embrace the affordances that digital and social technologies can offer our students, our classrooms and our own professional development. The big question for most of us is how to do this in ways that are comfortable, manageable, and ethical. Over the past few years, many social work educators have contributed their knowledge and expertise to this blog about how they engage students around technology in their classrooms. In this post, I have pulled together some of their suggestions for how you can model good boundaries with technology in your teaching practice.
1. Encourage respectful use of devices in your classrooms
Dr. Stephanie Hamm observed that she did not think twice about students looking at paper copies of books and articles when teaching in the seated classroom. Then, she had one student fact check everything she said during one lecture by using their cell phone. After that, Stephanie decided to embrace mobile devices in her classroom so students could explore their own curiosity and contribute knowledge to the class session. She does this in two simple ways: 1) a clear statement about her expectations around using mobile devices in the classroom; and 2) asking various questions during a class session that require students to look up answers on their devices. For more details on the nuts and bolts of how Stephanie pulls this off in the classroom, please read her post from June 2019:
Your Devices are Welcome!: How to Handle Technology in the Social Work Classroom
2. Develop ground rules for all your discussion session
For me, this one is a no-brainer for any seated classroom. I frequently take students through an exercise where we develop guidelines for how to best interact in small group activities or during class discussions. Translating this to the online classroom required a little more thought, and my good colleague and social worker, Karen Zgoda, shared how she developed a set of ground rules for her online courses. You can read about her ground rules in the following post:
Social Work Educator Tips: Guidelines for Online Discussion Forums
3. Write your own professional social media policy
I am not referring to the policy that your institution might have, directing the faculty, staff and students on when it is okay to use social media, but one that you develop and follow as an individual practitioner, professional, and/or educator. The purpose of a social media policy is to inform students, colleagues and others about when, how and why you use social media in a professional capacity. For years, this policy was in my head and I would talk about it with people when the need arose. Then, Allison Curington, another good colleague and social work field educator, reached out to me about all the challenges they were having in field placements around the misuse of social media. As we talked, I realized I had been a bit haphazard in defining and sharing my own guidelines for using social media professionally. I immediately challenged both of us to write our own professional social media policies, and you can read our policies here:
Modeling Practice: Social Media Guidelines in Social Work Field Education
My Guidelines for using Digital and Social Tech in the Classroom and Beyond
Since then, Allison and I have gone on to help develop a toolkit for Social Work Field Educators that provides tools and resources to help social work students and field instructors assess, develop, and maintain an online identity for professional purposes. You can get your free copy here:
Second Edition of the Social Media Toolkit for Social Work Field Educators
One final resource that I will share is the crowd-sourced response that I worked on with Melanie Sage, Nancy J. Smyth and numerous other social work educators who were looking for more guidance to NASW’s Standards for Technology in Social Work Practice. The booklet focuses on the standards related to social work education and supervision. You can download a free here:
How do you model good boundaries around technology in your teaching practice? Please share your comments below.
References:
National Association of Social Workers. (2017a). NASW, ABSW, CSWE & CSWA Standards for Technology in Social Work Practice. Washington, DC: National Association of Social Workers. Retrieved from http://www.socialworkers.org/includes/newIncludes/homepage/PRA-BRO-33617.TechStandards_FINAL_POSTING.pdf
How to Cite this Blog Post:
Hitchcock, L.I. (2019, September 4). Three Ways to Model Good Boundaries with Technology in Social Work Ed (#SocWorkEd) [Blog Post]. Retrieved from: https://laureliversonhitchcock.org/2019/09/03/three-ways-to-model-good-boundaries-with-technology-in-social-work-ed/
